the closest thing to a swear word Neela had used since they’d met. Desert surrounded them: yellowish-brown dirt and scrub brush as far as she could see, flanked by imposing mountains on all sides, and she was just about to ask Neela if she was feeling okay when she spotted a neon-green building sticking out against the monotonous rocky landscape.
“Is that it?”
Neela sucked in a breath as if she were looking at the most beautiful sight in the world. “Yes,” she said reverentially.
It was the first time she replied to anything with a single word.
THE PARKING LOT IN FRONT OF THE ESCAPE-CAPADES HQ WAS mostly empty when Greg pulled the Hummer around to the main entrance. Neela had gone quiet again—her two modes apparently being word vomit and total silence—as Greg unloaded their bags and ushered them into the green monstrosity through a set of double doors. The lobby, thankfully, was not such an eyesore: shiny white surfaces were accented with chrome-and-leather furniture, with mere pops of the signature green hue in picture frames and potted plants. Without a word, Greg escorted them through the empty lobby into a separate room, and Persey felt as if she’d been transported to another time and place.
Gone were the shiny tile floors, chrome-footed chairs, and light streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows. Gone were any hints of lime green. This room, which was so dark it took Persey a few moments for her eyes to adjust, was the polar opposite of the lobby, with brocade curtains obscuring the windows, wood paneling, and muted, artificial light filtered through vintage stained-glass lampshades.
At first, Persey thought her initial assumption—that the competition had already started somehow—seemed to bear out: this room looked so eerily similar to the Hidden Library that Persey did a double take. From the dark inlaid wood flooring, which stretched from wall to wall, to the bookcases that ringed the room, towering ten feet above her and requiring a ladder to access the upper shelves, this space could have been the model for the famously unbeatable escape room. Heavily polished mahogany furniture was scattered throughout the expansive space—desks and coffee tables, clusters of leather-backed chairs neatly arranged, and a long claw-foot sofa positioned in front of a brick fireplace.
The room felt simultaneously comfortable and staged, as if every element within was meant to evoke a certain mood or memory, and as Persey glanced around at the people who inhabited the space, she felt very much like she’d just seen the curtain go up on the opening scene of a play.
The “actors” were sprinkled around the lounge in little groupings: some clumped together like bits of dust under the sofa, attached by proximity but ignoring one another as much as was humanly possible, while others had intentionally self-segregated in lonely corners. Everyone was very busy with something or other. Their phones mostly. Just like Neela in the car ride over. One guy sporting a Mohawk with dyed-red tips perused the book shelves slowly, as if intently searching for a specific volume, and an Asian guy dozed on the tufted claw-foot sofa before the empty fireplace, long hair obscuring his face, while his Teva-clad feet were propped up on a coffee table.
Persey mentally catalogued all the details she could, convinced that she would need them later, and though each contestant took great pains to pretend like they weren’t paying attention, Persey noticed that everyone glanced up at Neela and her within seconds of their entrance. Even Sir-Sleeps-a-Lot, who wasn’t quite as out of it as he appeared.
The competition was sizing them up.
“Welcome!” Leah cried, crossing the room. Other than Greg, she was the only Escape-Capades employee Persey had seen since their arrival. “I hope your flights and transportation were adequate?”
Not pleasant, not comfortable, but adequate. Persey kind of liked her no-bullshit approach. “Yep.”
“I found the flight time passed quite pleasantly,” Neela said, readjusting her huge glasses. “Despite the lack of decent entertainment options. I don’t understand why the American air-travel industry can’t come up with a uniform means of—”
“Excellent,” Leah said, cutting her off. “May I take your bags?” Without waiting for an answer, she deftly caught the handle of Persey’s carry-on, then firmly slipped Neela’s backpack from her shoulders, sweeping both across the room to a closet. “You won’t be needing these for a bit.”
“Why not?” someone asked. Persey’s eyes shot toward a burgundy leather easy chair where a Black guy wearing a pin-striped short-sleeve shirt sat stiff and tight, knees pinned together, while he frantically