Neela lifted her head from her knees. “You’re forgetting that one of us is still a killer.”
Kevin opened his mouth to respond, then snapped it shut. Neela had a point. One of them had bludgeoned B.J. and poisoned Shaun. Hell, maybe one of them had even been responsible for Arlo’s death somehow. Except we were all down in the Cavethedral then….
Persey sucked in a sharp, gasping breath as she pictured the moment of Arlo’s death. “Oh my God!”
“What?” Neela said. “What’s wrong?”
Images came flashing into Persey’s brain at a rapid clip. Wes wandering back to the iMac after sulking in the back of the Boyz Distrikt loft. Wes slapping Shaun on the shoulder in the Cavethedral, a moment that Persey had registered because it was so out of character. The fact that Wes was the only one upstairs with Arlo when she died.
“Wes.”
“Still dead,” Riot said. Then added with a glance at Mackenzie: “No special effects there.”
But that wasn’t what Persey meant. “When we were in Boyz Distrikt, gathered around the TV while Kevin played Mortal Kombat, Wes got pissed and left the group. He stayed in the back corner until we were all fixated on the iMac.”
Neela sucked in a breath. “He wasn’t with us when B.J. was killed.”
“Exactly!” Persey said. “And Arlo…Wes was the only one left upstairs with her. If he intentionally moved while she was sliding down the pole, it would have caused the trapdoor to snap shut—”
“Snapping her,” Kevin said, completing the thought. “Holy shit, you’re right. His timing would have to be perfect, but it’s doable.”
“And then, down in the Cavethedral, I remember Wes slapping Shaun on the back. It felt so weird at the time that it stuck in my memory.”
“You think that’s when he poisoned Shaun-bot?” Kevin asked.
Yes. “It’s possible.”
“But why would Wes be killing us off?” Riot shook his head, limp Mohawk waving like palm fronds in the desert wind. “He’s clearly not out to get revenge for the Brownes’ deaths since he’s the one who started this mess in the first place.”
“He was also desperate for money,” Neela said. “Was he not?”
Persey was so glad someone else had picked up on Wes’s motivation. “Yes!”
“Maybe Leah offered Wes cash to do some of the dirty work for her.”
“Then killed him off?” Mackenzie sounded skeptical. “How could she be sure Wes would die back there?”
“Perse,” Kevin said, touching her arm. “Did you see anything suspicious?”
Persey shook her head slowly. “Sorry.”
“It might have been an accident,” Riot added. “And if so, that means—”
Neela jumped to her feet, energized. “That means maybe we’ll be okay! If Wes was the murderer, we might make it out of here!”
Persey watched the glimmer of hope ripple through the group. They stood straighter, raised their heads, moved with more energy. The mood was infectious: perhaps they were all going to survive after all?
“Okay, kids,” Kevin said, clapping his hands like a motivational speaker. “If we’re going to see the light of day, we’d better get cracking at this…” He turned, taking in their new challenge. “This classroom?”
Persey examined the room for the first time, and she had to agree with Kevin’s assessment. This room had been dressed to look like a schoolroom.
Wooden chairs with attached desktops stood in pristinely aligned rows, all facing away from them. An open wardrobe was tucked into one corner, filled with winter coats and lunch bags as if the students who had piled into school that day were outside at recess. Inspirational posters with slogans like “Dare to Dream! Work to Achieve!” and “Play Nice, Work Hard, Stay Kind” in rainbow-colored fonts were plastered on the walls beside cubby storage bins overflowing with school supplies.
The door that must have been the exit stood adjacent to a map of the world, near the corner of the room, and it was the only item in the entire space that seemed out of place and wrong. Instead of a wooden classroom door with a window and a simple doorknob, it was a steel security door with five different numbered touch pads lined up down its center.
Lastly, beside the door and taking up the rest of the front wall of the classroom, was a classic dark green chalkboard, filled with numbers and letters in crisp white chalk.
Persey inwardly groaned. A math problem? She hoped (prayed) that she wouldn’t be forced to solve for x here because if so, they were all screwed.
“Recess,” Riot said. “Now I get it. This looks like a fourth-grade classroom when all the kids are outside.”
Kevin walked up to one of the desks and ran his finger over the back of the wooden chair. “It’s like actually the polar opposite of what I thought we’d find. Like if you looked up ‘polar opposite’ in an encyclopedia, there would be side-by-side photos of the Pointy Floor of Death and this.”
Riot approached the door, examining its five different combination locks. “Looks like a classic escape room scenario. Find the clues to open the lock. Should be pretty basic.”
“Nothing about this place has been basic,” Mackenzie said, then added, “except her,” with a nod toward Persey. Because even facing death, Mackenzie was unable to finish a sentence without getting a dig in. You’re making it kinda hard for me to care whether you live or die.
Neela edged her way toward the chalkboard, slow and cautious, as if afraid the floor might fall out from under her at any moment. Which, in fairness, was an absolute possibility. But despite the danger, Neela was drawn to the mathematics like a moth to the flame. “If three-x minus y equals twelve,” she read from the chalkboard, “what is the value of eight to the x power over two to the y power?”
“The answer,” Kevin said quickly, “is I don’t fucking know.”
Neela glanced back over her shoulder and grinned at him. “Anyone mind if I try my hand at this?”
Thank God Neela was a math fiend. “Go for it,” Persey said. “We’ll look for any other—”
Before she could finish the sentence, a rumble rolled through the room. By now, Persey knew what that feeling meant: somewhere nearby, a motor had roared to life. “Watch out!” she cried, stepping away from the wall.
They all froze, spinning from corner to corner, waiting for one side of the classroom to sprout spikes and begin marching toward them.
Nothing moved.
“Huh,” Kevin said, staring at the back wall. “Maybe the mechanism broke?”
“I can still feel the floor rumbling,” Persey said. Which meant something was happening behind the scenes.
A low hiss whistled above the hum of the faraway motor, followed by another and another. Four small white clouds erupted from the floor, billowing up from unseen spouts.
“They’re going to gas us!” Mackenzie cried. She pulled the neckline of her off-the-shoulder shirt up over her nose and mouth, muffling her voice. “It’s poison or something.”
Riot stepped closer to one of the clouds, which was thickening with every passing second, appearing significantly more opaque as it grew. He sniffed, then stumbled back, his body racked by a fit of coughing.
“See?” Mackenzie climbed on top of a desk, trying to stay above the white clouds.
“Not. Poison,” Riot sputtered. Then he flipped the collar of his shirt up and held it over his face, just as Mackenzie had done. “Chalk dust.”
Neela stared at the advancing cloud. “Standard classroom chalk is made from calcium carbonate, which is considered nontoxic, though prolonged exposure to the dust has proven to be a mild irritant and may complicate previously existing respiratory conditions.”
“So it won’t kill us,” Kevin said.
Nonlethal chalk dust seemed like a wasted opportunity to knock off another competitor. So far, every detail of the rooms had been meticulously planned: the designer had been one step ahead of them at all times. So why this innocuous school supply? What did it signify? Or what was
it meant to hide?
“Look through the desks,” Persey cried as she raced to join Neela at the chalkboard. “See if you can find any other clues before we’re blinded by this stuff.”
Kevin set on the nearest desk while Riot headed to the exit door. Persey could just make out his figure through the thick cloud of dust as he examined the touch pads affixed to the door.
But while they were both working to find the solution, Mackenzie stood firmly on her perch, shirt still clutched around her mouth. “I’m not going anywhere until that door is open.”
As much as Persey wanted to table-flip the desk with Mackenzie still on it, she didn’t have time. Neela was transfixed by the chalk, probably trying to work out the mystery of its purpose when she needed to be working on a different problem altogether.
Persey grabbed Neela by both shoulders, physically turning her back to the math equation. “How fast can you solve for x?”
Neela blinked rapidly, refocusing as she scanned the chalkboard. “Um, a minute or two? But I have no idea what those are.” She pointed to the numbered chalk dots that were scattered seemingly at random to the right of the equation.
“Leave them to me.”
Neela nodded, then attacked the equation.
“Eight to the x over two to the y. Yes, definitely advanced exponent rules.” She muttered to herself as she started to work out the answer. “I’ll just rewrite this side of the equation, then substitute two to the three-x power for eight to the x…”
It was like number-and-letter salad to Persey, and while she marveled at Neela’s ability to see that jumble as a sentence to be diagrammed rather than a nonsensical collection of symbols, she didn’t have time to watch the magic unfold. The numbered dots presented another challenge. One they also needed to solve.
“It’s like a microcosm of Y2K over here,” Kevin said between coughs. His voice came from the back of the room, but the chalk was so thick, Persey couldn’t see him. “Lizzie McGuire notepad, tattoo choker necklace, Pokémon packs, Quidditch card game. Too bad Arlo isn’t here to nerdsplain how to play it.”
“Dude…” Riot said.
“What, too soon?”
“All your jokes are too soon,” Persey said, without pulling her eyes away from the chalkboard. She could still see it clearly, but even the few inches of space between her and it were now clouding over with whiteness.
“OW!” Riot yelped. Out of the corner of her eyes, Persey saw him jump away from the door. “That thing fucking electrocuted me.”
“The door?” Mackenzie asked.
“The lock.”
Persey joined him, peering closely at the line of number locks. “Which one?”
“Bottom.” Riot shoved his fingers in his mouth like a teething infant. “I barely even laid a finger on the number pad.”
A creaking hinge signaled that Kevin was searching another desk. “Any luck with those dots?”
“Then we just substitute twelve in there,” Neela continued. “So it’s two to the twelfth…”
“No idea.” Persey sighed, causing the chalk cloud to ripple before her, further jumbling the dots and digits. “These numbers are all over the place. Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine here. But another sequence starts at three hundred and two, or four thousand and ninety-six—”
“Four thousand and ninety-six,” Neela said at almost the exact same time.
Persey spun toward her. “Is that the answer?”
“Yep.”
“Can’t be a coincidence.” Riot was right beside Persey, though she hadn’t seen him approach. His fingers lightly grazed her hand, trailing down her thumb until he found the piece of chalk she held. “May I?”
“O-of course.” Why does he make me so nervous?
Riot smiled, soft and relaxed despite the danger they all faced, as he pressed the chalk to the dot labeled “4,096.” He drew a line from it to the next one in numerical order. “It’s like a giant connect the dots. Four thousand and ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, five thousand.”
The sequence ended there, with no 5,001, but the line Riot had drawn pointed directly at the second number lock from the top.
Persey waved her hand in front of her face, trying to drive away the thickening dust so she could see the door clearly. “That must be the one we’re supposed to use.”
“You think?” Mackenzie said. Her voice was close, and Persey realized that, despite her protests, she’d left her perch on the desk.
Neela hurried around them and stood in front of the door. “The code to open it must be four thousand and—”
“Don’t!” Persey cried, snatching Neela’s hand away just as she was about to punch in the first number. She thought of Riot’s minor electrocution when he started messing around with the number keys, and the consequences of wrong answers in the ATM booth. What if this was the same, except pressing the wrong code might lead to something bigger than just a tiny shock?
“You’re thinking it’s something else?” Neela asked, eyebrows knitted together.
I’m thinking you might get killed. “Yeah.”
“What else could it be?” Mackenzie asked, exasperated.
“Five thousand and one, for starters,” Riot said, tapping the final connected dot with the piece of chalk. “It’s next in the sequence.”
“Anything else?” Persey asked.
“The crap I found in those desks was all from the year 2000,” Kevin said. “Even the copyright on the Lizzie McGuire notepad.”
“Three options,” Neela said. “Which do we try?”
“I vote for the year!” Kevin said, raising his hand. “It seems like the most ‘escape room–y’ solution.”
Mackenzie stepped up to the pad. “Don’t listen to him. He’s not even supposed to be here. I vote for math girl’s solution.”
For a moment, Persey wondered if it was Mackenzie, not Wes, who was conspiring to kill them off. “That thing is rigged to deliver an electric shock when you touch it,” she said. “Riot only hit one number. What happens to the person who enters an incorrect code?”
Neela leaped away from the door. “Holy cow babies! I could have died.”
Persey was pretty sure that was the intention.
“Wrap some fabric around your hand,” Riot suggested, rolling his sleeve down so it covered his palm. “For protection.”
But Neela shook her head. “That’s a capacitive-sensing screen. Like a cell phone. It’ll only register if the electromagnetic field is interrupted by something conductive.”
“I’m telling you—the year 2000. I’ve got a good feeling.” Kevin turned Neela to face the door. “Try it.”
“I’ll do it.” The words flew out of Persey’s mouth before she even realized what she’d said. What are you doing?
“No!” Neela cried. “Kevin’s right. I…I should be the one to do it. I solved the equation.”
“Which means you’ve already done your part.”
Persey stared at the flat, illuminated number pad. The wrong combination was probably going to fry her like a hush puppy, so she needed to choose carefully.
Four thousand and ninety-six.
Five thousand and one.
Two thousand.
“Choose carefully,” Kevin said. “Please.”
Right. Carefully. Three options. But were those all the clues this room had to offer? Or…
Persey thought of the rooms they’d been in so far—the office, the loft, the collection, Cavethedral. Each had details that when combined together, revealed the exit. Those details had been chosen carefully. And yet here they were in this classroom that was slowly filling with a nontoxic, annoying-but-not-lethal substance. How could it not have a purpose?
“The chalk,” she said, unable to shake the feeling that it was the key to this mystery. “How could it translate into a number of some kind?”
Kevin snorted. “Maybe if we figured out how much all this chalk weighed.”
“Weight!” Neela cried. “You’re brillia
nt!”
Riot dropped his voice. “Said no one ever.”
“You think we can figure out how much all this powder weighs?” Kevin asked, rubbing his reddening eyes as the dust thickened around them.
“Nope!” Persey could barely see Neela’s face, but her voice sounded positively giddy. “Just one molecule.”
The ATM booth. Persey’s first instinct had been some sort of chemistry problem. Was that the answer now?
“Calcium carbonate,” Riot said. “That’s what, CaCO3?”
“Yes!” Neela said, her voice froggy from the chalk. “So the weight is easy to figure out. One calcium at forty point oh seven eight.” She took a quick breath, then broke into a fit of coughing as she sputtered out the rest of the formula. “One…carbon, which is twelve point oh one oh seven. Three oxygen at fifteen—” She sneezed, the chalk cloud billowing in front of her mouth. “Sorry. Fifteen point ninety-nine ninety-four.”
Persey waved her hands in front of her face, trying to clear the air. “Thank God you have a photographic memory, or we’d all be dead.”
“You’re welcome,” Neela said, still calculating in her brain. “Carry the one and…one hundred point eight six nine.”
This had to be the answer.
“Argh! That’s—” Mackenzie gagged on the thick dust. Even her coughs sounded exasperated. “That’s not four digits!”
“Who said it had to be four?” Persey asked.
“Fine. Then you try it.”
“Fine, I will.”
“Okay,” Kevin said on an exhale, as if giving permission. “Go for it.”
Without hesitating so she couldn’t change her mind, Persey typed in the first digit, letting the pad of her finger rest against the glass long enough to feel the electric shock, if it was going to come. But she didn’t feel a thing.
“It’s working!” Neela gasped.
Persey sure the hell hoped so. Hand trembling, she typed in the next five numbers as quickly and accurately as she could, then paused before entering the last one. If you’re wrong, this stupid door will be the last thing you ever see. Her eyes drifted toward Kevin. She couldn’t see his face through the haze, just the outline of his tall form and his small, almost-imperceptible nod of encouragement.
#NoEscape (Volume 3) (#MurderTrending) Page 25