Persey tried to picture the periodic table of elements with its distinctive rainbow-hued squares and U shape. She’d stared at that table for hours, trying to memorize the letters and numbers in each square before her chemistry final last year. Which she (barely) passed. Oxygen was one of the basic elements. Lighter. Near the top. What was that saying her chemistry teacher had drilled into them to help the class remember the order?
Henry Helps Little Betty Brown Crack Nuts On Friday Nights.
Her inner eight-year-old always snickered when she got to “crack nuts,” but the potentially dirty mnemonic had done its job. O for oxygen, which was eighth in line, so that meant an atomic weight of eight.
Persey’s hand hovered over the keypad. Eight seemed too easy. Too simple. This was the All-Stars for Chrissakes. The rest of the competitors wouldn’t need a stupid mnemonic device to remember what order the elements were in. They probably could recite every number in each of those little periodic squares as easily as Persey could say the alphabet. No, there had to be something else.
“Nine minutes.” The sickly-sweet female voice filled the room. As in Office Drones, there were speakers somewhere in her tiny prison, but Persey didn’t have time to search for them. Don’t let the clock get to zero. Part of Leah’s instructions. Persey had to figure this out in nine minutes or less.
Okay, the design had to be the first clue. It was an ATM machine, and the keypad was where you’d enter your PIN. Your four-digit PIN. Great! So she needed four numbers.
Next, her eyes drifted up to the O2 bar. What did that mean? Oxygen. But two atoms of oxygen. Right, so that would be twice the weight, or sixteen.
Still, Persey hesitated. She only had two digits. 0-0-1-6? That seemed stupid. But it wasn’t as if she had any other options. Besides, maybe typing in the wrong answer would give her a clue about the right one? It was worth a try.
Persey quickly typed in the digits.
A short buzzer blared through the speakers, indicating that Persey’s answer was incorrect. On the screen, the O2 bar shortened a notch.
What did that mean?
Think, Persey.
The words continued to scroll across the screen, catching Persey’s eye. The Bank of Persephone. That had to be a clue. The bank was her. The PIN to withdraw funds had to be related, in some way, to her. But how?
Persey’s face felt damp with perspiration. Was the temperature in the room rising?
Okay, ignore the temperature. The most logical four-digit code she could think of was her birthday—two-digit month, two-digit day. Feeling that this was too simple but unable to come up with an alternative, she typed in the numbers.
BZZZZZ.
Once again, the O2 bar shortened.
Damn it. Last four digits of her social security number?
BZZZZZ.
The O2 indicator was at the halfway point now, and Persey definitely felt as if the room was hotter. Her back and chest were damp as she peeled off her denim jacket, letting it drop to the floor beside her, and her breaths were getting shallower by the second. The air was heavy and hot, forcing her lungs to work overtime, and she felt dizzy. Like she wanted to lie down on the floor. Just for a minute (forever).
That’s when it hit her: the O2 bar? It indicated the oxygen level in the room. Every time she inputted the wrong answer, the game cut off some of her breathable air.
It had taken three missteps to get to the halfway point. What would happen when the bar dropped to zero?
Persey wasn’t sure she wanted to know. This was just a game, right? No one is supposed to get hurt.
She wasn’t going to think about that. The faux danger was just a distraction, something to prevent her from figuring out this puzzle. She needed to focus.
“Seven minutes.”
Seven? Where had eight gone? Crap, she was losing track of time already. There had to be a clue she was missing. Somehow. Her initial feeling that the competition began the moment she stepped off the plane came back to her, and as the beads of sweat on her forehead began to trickle down her face, she attempted to remember every detail from the moment she saw Greg at the bottom of the escalator until the lights came on in her closet-like ATM room. Had Greg said anything? Or Leah?
This is a test of your aptitude. Some of your strengths are tactile, others scholastic, but whatever your talent, I wish you good luck.
Leah’s last words before they all entered Office Drones. It had felt weird at the time, and the words “test,” “aptitude,” and “scholastic” jumped out at her. Were they the key to the solution?
Test. Aptitude. Scholastic.
Scholastic. Aptitude. Test.
Persey’s eyes grew wide. How could they even have that information? Was the key to getting out of that suffocation closet her freaking SAT score?
A new panic washed over her. Unlike the rest of the contestants, who probably had their super-high SAT scores proudly tattooed on their bodies somewhere, Persey had taken the test under duress—a devil’s bargain—and had hardly registered what her crappy score had been, she cared so little about it. Had she even broken four digits? Yes, she vaguely recalled that it was one thousand and something…. Her dad had repeated her score over and over, not out of pride but because he couldn’t believe how low it was.
What had he said? That a fourth grader could have managed that score just by filling out the name and address portions correctly.
Persey had wanted to tell him that he should sit through an SAT exam and see how well he did, but instead she’d just stared at the pattern on the marble countertop, the little gray smudges and squiggles arranging themselves into familiar shapes. An eagle in flight. Bunny slippers. A space shuttle.
Not the quartz, Persey. What was the score her dad kept repeating?
Numbers swirled before her eyes, mocking her, as her oxygen-deprived brain desperately tried to remember. She leaned against the wall to keep her body steady and upright—all she wanted to do was lie down and take a nap instead of being forced to recall unpleasant events from her past.
One thousand and…sixty? No, that wasn’t right. One thousand and eighty?
One thousand and eighty? Are you kidding me? Did you manage to misspell your name on the test?
There was only one way to find out.
With a trembling hand, Persey managed to type in 1-0-8-0 Enter.
Instead of the dreaded buzz, the ATM swung away from her into the next room.
PERSEY STARED AT THE NEON-PINK FLYER FOR A FULL TWO minutes, fluttering in the hot afternoon breeze of the West Valley quad. As she read the text for the fortieth time, the tingles of excitement at the tips of her fingers were tempered somewhat by the gurgling of anxiety deep in the pit of her stomach.
He’ll never let you.
Why her father cared what she did was a mystery. When he wasn’t obsessed with work, practically living at the office for large stretches of time as they developed some new project, he was wholly focused on her brother. Ever the dutiful son, he checked in from Columbia weekly, sharing anecdotes from the dorms and character sketches of new friends, all of which allowed their dad to live vicariously.
Persey had only picked up snippets of those video calls, unintentionally eavesdropped as she was going to and from the kitchen. She’d been half-afraid her dad would insist that Persey be present at the weekly calls—an audience for the greatness of her older brother—but her dad had spared her that torture. But not out of mercy. He just wanted his son all to himself.
Though Persey had been exempted from those calls, she certainly hadn’t been able to fly under her dad’s radar in any other facet of her life. He was still fuming at her expulsion from the Allen Academy a year earlier, and his silent treatment had morphed into a nightly teardown session over dinner, where no matter what topic of conversation began the evening, it always dissolved into a litany of Persey’s faults.
UNLV made the Final Four? Persey wouldn’t know—she can’t count that high.
The latest electorat
e manipulation scandal? Don’t use any big words—Persey won’t be able to follow.
Unemployment rates up in the metro area? Persey will be joining them as soon as she graduates.
It was like a game her father played with himself, attempting to make even the most banal bit of information, like the weather report, into a dig at his daughter. Only eighty-five tomorrow? Still higher than Persey’s IQ!
Most (all) of the time, Persey just grinned and bore it. There wasn’t really a point in fighting back. Her dad’s tactics were childish, and there was no arguing with children. They just doubled down. So she kept her mouth shut, eyes glued to her dinner plate, wondering if her mother would ever (never) sober up long enough to realize that her husband was an emotionally abusive dickwad.
And even though Persey knew her father was just trying to punish her for some imaginary crime, the constant barrage wore on her, until she’d begun to contemplate skipping dinner altogether just to avoid the deluge of insults. Going to bed hungry might have been worth it.
But this flyer, this garishly colored piece of paper taped up to the door of the school theater, it was a lifeline.
THEATER DEPARTMENT NEEDS:
STAGE CREW
ORGANIZE PROPS, MOVE SETS, ETC.
MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR EVENING AND WEEKEND REHEARSALS AND PERFORMANCES
SEE MR. BECK IF INTERESTED
Evenings and weekends? That was exactly when Persey didn’t want to be home. But was there any chance in hell her dad would let her do it?
This was an extracurricular activity, a thing much coveted by students targeting college, as she’d learned from listening to her brother and his friends. They’d been obsessed with appearing “well-rounded” on applications. Maybe she could spin it that way? Her dad was constantly pestering her about college—perhaps he’d see it as Persey finally “getting serious” about her future?
Persey snapped a picture of the flyer with her phone and hurried off to fourth period, the hint of an elusive smile cracking the corners of her mouth.
It was worth a shot.
Persey was almost halfway through the nightly forty-five-minute dinner with her parents and she still hadn’t brought up her stage crew plan. It should have been a simple conversation starter, as easy as So I think I’m going to work on the spring musical at school, but nothing was ever easy with her dad. He’d spent most of the meal on his tablet in a furious back-and-forth with the tech department at the office over some glitches in the new product.
Which, of course, meant her dad was in a fouler mood than usual.
He’d been grumbling to himself for the better part of twenty minutes while typing so vehemently that Persey thought he might crack the glass on his device. Every third word was a poorly muffled curse, and every few moments, he’d glance up at the chandelier, thinking about his response, before diving back in.
Twice he’d laid the tablet aside, heaving something between a sigh and a growl, and leaned back in his chair, daring his wife or his daughter to ask what was wrong. But neither took the bait. Persey’s mom, who usually placated her husband by facilitating his airing of grievances, had retreated into a second bottle of chardonnay, and since Persey hadn’t initiated conversation around the dinner table in years, the oppressive silence remained.
Persey had been going back and forth in her mind about shelving the idea. Was it worth bringing up, worth opening herself up to her dad’s ridicule? Persey wasn’t sure. Weirdly, it was the tension at the table that kept her from abandoning her plans altogether. She couldn’t live like this indefinitely.
So when her mom broke the silence with a muffled sneeze, Persey pounced on the opportunity.
“Bless you,” she said, then quickly followed with “And I’m going to join the stage crew for the spring musical at school. You know, for an extracurricular.”
The words came pouring out so quickly, Persey wasn’t even sure if her dad had heard them all. He sat there, tablet still in hand, staring at the blue-lit screen. His face was immovable, and the only proof that Persey had spoken the words at all came from her mom, who almost spit a mouthful of wine across the tablecloth, followed by a sputtering cough as she tried to swallow her gulp.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Should Persey say it again? Maybe he was lost in work thoughts? She was about to repeat herself when her dad spoke.
“Why?”
So I can stay as far away from you as possible. “I thought it would look good on my college applications,” she lied.
That elicited a dry laugh from her dad. “There won’t be any college applications with your grades. Besides, you haven’t even taken the SATs yet.”
Persey grimaced. Nothing intimidated her more than the thought of three straight hours of standardized tests. The PSAT last year had been torture, and so far, despite his pestering, Persey had refused to sign up for the real thing.
“And why should I allow you more time away from studying?” he continued. “So your grades can get worse?”
This wasn’t going the way she’d hoped. “But I—”
“Give me one good reason.” He laced his fingers together in front of him, the company CEO confronting a troublesome employee. “One good reason why I should let you. Just one. Can you do it?”
Persey’s mind raced. He was laying a trap: no matter what excuse she gave, he’d have a comeback ready, a biting criticism. She looked to her mom for support, but she was at least three glasses into bottle number two, which meant her mom’s mind was dulled into nothingness. Persey wanted to cry—from anger, frustration, resentment. She couldn’t take two more years of this strain. She wouldn’t turn eighteen until after graduation, so there was no escape from her father before then. This plan to join the stage crew had offered her a glimmer of hope, a crutch that could help her get through the next two-plus years, but it was on the verge of defeat. She didn’t know what she could offer up that would convince her dad to…
The answer came to her in a flash, a gift from her subconscious, and she smiled, despite knowing that it would piss off her dad.
“If you let me do stage crew, I’ll take the SAT.”
It was replacing one evil with another, but even though test taking was an anxiety-inducing clusterfuck, it was better than the extended pain of endless hours in this house. It was worth the gamble.
Her dad’s hard stare faltered for just a moment, and Persey held her breath. Would he go for it? Had she won?
“Fine,” he said. “But if you score under one thousand, the deal is off.”
Persey had no idea whether or not she could actually break one thousand on that test, but as she bused her plate to the sink, she couldn’t help feeling as if she’d finally won a battle.
PERSEY STUMBLED THROUGH THE OPENING AND GULPED down a cool breath of fresh, fully oxygenated air. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, panting. That oxygen thing—had it been an illusion? Were her elevated heart rate, sweaty face, and shortness of breath merely results of the power of suggestion?
No way. She’d felt the heavy air, the burn of her lungs as breathing became more and more difficult. The oxygen deprivation had been real.
But was it meant to scare us or to kill us?
The answer might be scarier than the question. She stood up, worried that this test was some kind of preview for what the rest of the day had in store, and looked around. She was in a large, airy room with hardwood floors and a lofty ceiling. Brightly painted walls—one electric blue, one pumpkin orange, one a neon shade of plum—were dotted with open shelves displaying a variety of framed records, and spaced on the wall she’d come through were posters of musicians and their songs, all of whom Persey kinda sorta recognized. She stepped back, taking them all in. The cartoon world of Green Day’s “Basket Case.” A dapper trio called Bell Biv DeVoe posed on a graffiti-covered concrete wall to promote their song “Poison.” A movie poster from something called The Bodyguard featuring the Whitney Houston song “I Will Always Love You.” Radiohead’s “Creep,” “Sabotage�
�� by the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out,” and “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls, which took Persey back to the early days of her childhood when she (secretly) wanted to be Sporty Spice.
Which probably said more about her personality than she’d ever be willing to admit.
In addition to the music-themed decor, sleek black-leather sofas were clustered together, facing an old-fashioned tube TV that had some kind of antiquated video game system hooked up to it. At the other end of the loft, three wide stairs led to a double door with impossibly shiny brass knobs, while an oversize desk stood facing the steps, supporting an iMac desktop with dual monitors with both a regular and piano keyboard attached. Massive speakers stood on elevated stands facing the desk, which, along with a huge mixing board and microphone, signaled that this might be some kind of musician’s studio.
Boyz Distrikt, if she recalled the whiteboard flowchart correctly, though she had no idea what the name meant. Probably set in the ’90s, judging by the choice of music posters, which made sense because the loft was hyper modern in an utterly dated kind of way—the ancient iMac, tube television, even the leather sofas screamed of a decade long past.
But more important than the dated decor and pop music references was the fact that Persey was totally and completely alone.
Did that mean she was the first one who had figured out the PIN? Seemed unlikely that Persey, who had only taken the SAT as a bargaining chip with her dad, would have been the first person out. Maybe this was still part of the Individual Challenge, and each of their ATM booths opened into a different room? That must have been expensive.
#NoEscape (Volume 3) (#MurderTrending) Page 9