keep from blinding herself. The pain that shot through her eyes from front to back momentarily wiped away the image of Wes’s impaled body. But as she dropped the goggles to the ground from her trembling hand, Wes’s death and all the emotions that came with it flooded through her—the horror, the fear, and the guilt.
“I…I don’t know what happened,” Persey began. Even though no one had asked, she felt the need to explain. “He was trying to get the goggles from me and I told him to get down and then…then…I don’t know. I guess he fell?”
“It’s not your fault,” Kevin said.
“Isn’t it?” B.J., Arlo, Shaun—those deaths might not have directly been her fault, but Wes? That one was on her. She’d been in charge, she’d been the leader, and yes, he’d attacked her, but she’d let him die.
The cost of this stupid competition was getting steeper every moment.
Total (hopeless) silence had fallen among the Escape-Capades All-Star competitors. No one commented on the iron maiden. No one pointed fingers or took jabs at one another. Neela crouched on the floor, back against the wall, head in her hands. Riot kept obsessively running his hand over the top of his flat hair, Mohawk long collapsed, and Kevin paced back and forth, head bowed in thought. Even Mackenzie had forgotten her relentless pursuit of Kevin: she stood with her back to them, arms wrapped around her waist as if giving herself a hug.
Wes hadn’t exactly been universally (at all) liked, but his was the first death that had occurred since they all realized their connections to Escape-Capades, the first death since they understood that they were being hunted. Persey knew what they were all thinking: If we couldn’t prevent his death when we knew it was coming, what chance do any of us have?
I wish I knew.
Kevin was the first to break the silence, his voice so jarring, Persey actually jumped.
“We have to assume that one of us is meant to die in each room.”
“If that’s supposed to make us feel better,” Riot said, “I think you’re doing it wrong.”
“No one’s after you,” Mackenzie said, back still to them. Persey couldn’t see the look on her face, but the bitterness in her voice said it all. “You have no connection to this awful place.”
“I’m a witness,” Kevin said. “Persey and me both. I doubt we’re supposed to get out of here alive. So if we all work together, maybe we can—”
“Work together?” Mackenzie spun around, index finger pointed at Persey. “This is her fault. She was supposed to be leading us through that challenge, and now Wes is dead. I’m not working with her at all.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Persey said, fighting back her very real sense of guilt over Wes’s death.
“It’s not your fault,” Kevin said.
Isn’t it?
Kevin inhaled deeply. “We can’t all turn on each other, okay?”
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