Page 25 of Rat Race

Make a show of it.

There was a small latch on the side that I opened, revealing a sliding puzzle underneath the hinged lid of the table.

My watch and Ella’s blared to life, the screens lightin’ crimson as our startled eyes met each other.

“Timer,” Ella supplied, lookin’ uneasily around at the pipes. “Could be gas, or water, or… or?—”

“Ella, focus,” I told her softly. Then, raisin’ my voice a bit to the speaker box, I added, “Don’t suppose you got some advice?”

“Above my pay grade,” the masculine voice called.

Lord have mercy.

I turned back to the table, studyin’ the pieces and tryin’ to make sense of what the image could be. Waves of brightly colored somethin’. Red and white stripes. Mechanical parts that looked like they could be…

I didn’t know.

Familiar and foreign all at the same time.

Fuck me, I was no good at shit like this.

“It’s a postcard,” Ella said, her eyes movin’ over the table like lightnin’. “At least… I think so. See this here? It’s the stamp, right?”

“I—” I started, tracking her finger to the image of the flag, the white scalloped edges around it.

Okay, yeah… It was a postcard, maybe… But, of what?

I looked over the colors and shapes again, pickin’ out pieces of letters, the machinery starting to look more n’ more like… rides.

She placed her hand on one of the pieces closest to the empty space, sliding it to the left.

A trickle of water had begun to drip from overhead, steadily increasing with every movement of the blocks.

“I don’t see how this will tell us what rope to pick,” she said, frowning as she continued to work the puzzle.

“Well,” snarked the voice over the intercom. “If you’d listened first, I might’ve explained that getting the riddles right would drop the incorrect options. Make it easier.”

“Woulda,” I repeated with a little chuckle. “Sorry. Ella here has a fuckin’ bee in her bonnet.”

There was no reply from above, but Ella muttered under her breath. “I just want out of here.”

Kill her,Pa’s voice commanded.She’s already slowed you down.

I pushed the thought away, watchin’ as she slid the pieces around the table quickly, the picture of the Devil’s Playground theme park slowly startin’ to take form as she worked through the puzzle.

Feelin’ a bit like a bump on a log, I hunted around for somethin’ to say. Finally settlin’ on, “So if you aren’t a Legacy, why enter?”

“Why does anyone enter?” Ella hedged, her movements becoming rougher, shoulders high and tight.

Okay, touchy subject.

“Money, usually,” I conceded, lookin’ down at a tickle on my arm to find a cockroach crawlin’ up from my hand. I brushed the bug away with a frown, lookin’ up from the puzzle for the first time in several minutes and blinking in surprise.

Hundreds of the bugs—big enough that they’d need to get on their knees to fuck a chicken—covered the room from floor to ceiling, pourin’ from the pipes overhead. Gross, but not exactly a cause for concern.

Ella didn’t agree, her bloodcurdling scream bouncing off the walls as she climbed onto the table, shakin’ one of the bugs out of her hair. Not that it did her any fuckin’ good. The big bastards were everywhere, their hideous little bodies racing for the corridor we’d entered through where they appeared to congregate, crawling up the clear gap as easily as if it were a flat surface.

Fuck.

---