Page 18 of A Sea of Secrets
No answer. Just a cold, dead silence, interrupted only by solid steel bars that slid across the doorway.
I turned to Lou, Kendra, and Dick, spying another six Potentials left stranded in the middle of the foyer with us.
“We’re on our own. We’re trapped,” the girl with brown hair and eyes said solemnly. A haunted look ghosted across her face, and she sank to her knees. Tears filled her eyes, and a sob wracked her spine as she began crying, the picture of defeat.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Lou said, kneeling before her. “We’ll be okay.”
Kendra and I joined, each putting an awkward hand on the girl’s shoulders. “We’re all going to make it,” I said, nodding my head in encouragement. But it was a promise I knew I couldn’t keep.
OneminuteIwascomforting Sobbing Sally, the next I was weightless in the air as a trapdoor opened beneath our feet. A chorus of screams echoed mine as we plummeted into darkness. Then our asses hit something and were suddenly burning on a metal slide down into unknown depths.
When the slide finally reached its end, we were deposited into a small, square room, lined with knick-knacks and various paraphernalia over the walls. It looked much like a study, with bookshelves, maps, portraits, and flickering candles that gave the room a dark and moody ambience. The scent of musty old pages filled my nose and the air was damp. Goosebumps lined my skin, and I shivered, wrapping my jacket tighter about my waist.
“There’s no door,” Kendra said as she dusted herself off and climbed to her feet. She helped Lou up, then held out a hand to me.
“Or windows,” I said. “But look up.”
A barred ceiling separated this room from the one directly above. The obnoxiously rude problem being that the small grate connecting the two was held shut by a padlock sealing away any hope of a quick escape.
Lou shoved her hands into the pockets of her pink jacket. “We could move the bookshelves to climb up to it?”
“Unless we find a key, we’re not going anywhere,” I pointed out. “Let’s have a look. There’s gotta be something hidden in here somewhere.”
“This is so fun,” Lou squealed as she began rifling through papers and books. “It’s like one of those games people play where they have to solve the clues to get out. What are they called…”
“Escape rooms,” a guy offered as he searched. “To progress you have to solve riddles and find keys to unlock more clues to continue.”
“Only, in this one, our lives are at stake if we don’t get out.” I sighed. “Wonder what kinda death trap they have waiting for us.”
Kendra snorted as she looked around the room. “Maybe they’ll just keep us in here forever, doomed to watch the next batch of Potentials like these old geezers.” She pointed to the various stills of headshots staring at us from gilded frames around the room.
“Wait. Aren’t they previous monarchs?” I asked. “I recognise a few. There’s Augustus Jennings, the mad king who murdered each of his wives, and there’s Julia Renera—she was notorious for being a stabby bitch when someone pissed her off.”
The stern-faced woman in that picture seemed to look down her pointed nose at us in glee as if foreseeing our doom. I made a point of ignoring the way her dark brown eyes seemed to follow me in whichever direction I went.
There were more familiar faces, ranging from old and decrepit to the young and beautiful, cut down before they could shape a nation. The realisation made my stomach do an uncomfortable flip. Even the most powerful Terrulian was never safe. It was bloody brutal out there.
“You’re right,” the brown-haired girl piped up. She wiped a hand across her snotty nose. “These are all past kings and queens. Do you suppose that’s the theme of the room? There must be something in here to begin the hunt.”
“Check behind the frames. Start with the order they ruled,” another guy urged everyone. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Everyone got to work, their faces set with determination. I wasn’t the only one keen to keep moving. As harmless as this room seemed to be, the bars above only served to remind us that we were in a cage.
“Here,” Lou said, carefully peeling a scrap of paper from the backing of a frame. We all scrambled to her, peering over her shoulder. “It’s a list, though I have no idea what it means.”
“Names of past rulers. But they’re not in order,” a girl with cropped blond hair said. She glanced up at me with shockingly blue eyes. “You were right.”
“What do you suppose the symbols mean?” Dick chimed in.
I shook my head. “Not sure. I—”
Something groaned, followed by a steadyclunk, clunk, clunkthat thudded through the wall before another groan sounded at our feet.
As one, we all looked down, watching as the grate spat out a trickle of water. “Not good,” Dick said. The water increased, the grate now overflowing. “Not good at all.”
“Um, Kendra?” Lou said softly. “Would now be a good time to tell you I can’t swim?”
