Page 28 of My Cosplay Escape
I feel my face turn the same color as Stu’s famous cherry filling. I swing my legs over and land in the alley with a thud. “Hi,” I say, straightening.
Stu says nothing but has dropped the bag beside him. He’s not going anywhere.
I try to tug my whip out of the tree. It doesn’t budge, but a shower of eucalyptus leaves do.
Stu keeps watching. He pulls a cigar out of the front pocket of his shirt.
“Probably the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen in your alley, right?” I say, brushing the stray leaves off of me.
Stu considers. “No.”
I try awkwardly one last time for my whip, but the tree has eaten it. Instead, I grab the bag of trash from Stu and quickly toss it in his bin. “Don’t tell anyone?”
I don’t wait for him to answer but tear down the alley. Running in heels would be satisfying if Stu wasn’t watching.
Stacey is a saint. She’s left the emergency exit door to the alley unlocked as promised. I heave it open and collide with Adam. “Goldfish,” I yelp.
“You’re late,” he says, peeling me off him. “I wanted to show you the room before we got started.”
“I—” My eyes lock onto him. When you’ve met someone only once, you forget pieces of what they look like. I remember how delicious Adam looked at Comic-Con, but I thought that was because he looked so normal in an ocean of bizarre, loud, and (at times) obnoxious. Adam looked familiar in a sea of bewildering. Now, in a completely ordinary stairwell, surrounded by nothing but faded taupe paint and fluorescent lights, I am immobilized by the many details I missed. Like how quietly blue his eyes are. How they carry an intensity and energy to them that is hypnotizing, even if the color is subdued. How his hair is a darker shade than I remember and falls across his forehead in a way that could haunt me if I don’t actively remind myself of my rules and no-speed-bumps plan. Even so, I want to hold his face still and look for faded freckles. I want to press my cheek against his jaw and imprint his stubble on my skin as I inhale.
“No speed bumps.”
His eyes narrow. “You okay? You’re not backing out, are you?” Something flashes in those stormy blue eyes. What is it? Fear?
“And miss seeing you panic every weekend when I’m a few minutes late?” Holy fudge. What did I just say? I start up the stairs. “You coming?”
He brushes past me. “This way.”
He pushes open a door on the second floor. “Welcome to Superhero Escapes.”
I step into what looks like the back room of a comic book store.
“What’s with all this stuff?” I ask.
“People’ll buy it. So I stock it. Back this way.”
I follow Adam behind the counter to the computer. He taps it awake. “We’ve got a party of six in the Mystery at Osric Manor Room. Four cameras in each corner of the room to monitor the progress. Audio feed is here.” He toggles the digital control on the screen.
I watch as the people on the screen tap walls and scramble around, looking at things.
“Essentially, there are five puzzles in this first room. Weight-loaded lock. Heat gun. Water reveal. Hidden key. And sequential-word riddle.”
“Nightbat was a detective before he was a superhero,” I say.
“Exactly.” Adam smiles. “They solve these puzzles, the door opens to the second room, which has five additional puzzles. Ten puzzles total. We figure five minutes per each puzzle and ten minutes to celebrate.”
“So what do I do?” Goldfish, I sound confident. But it’s one little computer and walls of puzzles. Why would I be worried?
“On this one? Nothing. You haven’t been trained. But when you are, you hang out in the control room with a feed like this, monitoring the audio and making sure that the team is on the right track. You’ll hand out clues as needed.”
Stacey, in all her Fem Fantastic cosplay glory, appears. “We’ve got quite the queue outside.”
Adam’s eyes sparkle. “Right, Let’s get our Catstrike set in Malum Escape and get this party started.”
I follow Adam down the corridor. A dull thudding vibrates the walls. “This is all above the bar?” I ask.
“The bar, the restaurant, and two dispensaries. I convinced the owners that renting their upstairs real estate to me was a better investment than using it for storage.” Adam opens a small door, and I am staring at a jail cell with padded walls. “Escape from Malum Asylum is more quintessential haunted house than escape room. We’ve got live actors in each room. The escapees will enter your cell through this door.” He taps on a panel of the padded wall, and it swings open before he pushes it shut. “You say your line, hit the strobes with this remote, and get out of their way. They fumble around in the semidarkness, looking for this button that unlocks the small cell door.” He gestures to a switch under the cot.
