Page 33 of My Cosplay Escape
“Myabuelitamade them for me. I told her I had to up my game following this badass.” She points at me with her thumb.
My lips curl into a smile. “They save the best for last.”
Vanessa preens.
Stacey checks her phone. “We’ve got another hour queued up for Malum, easy. Can you hang in there? Adam says we can pay double for every half hour we stay open past midnight.”
“Adam’s here?” I shouldn’t be excited by the idea, but I am.
Stacey shakes her head, and I deflate. “Phoned it in,” she explains.
Sweat slides down my back. I am desperate for a cool shower, but with classes starting next week, how can I say no to extra Lyft money? “I’ll stay.”
“I’ll rotate you out with Frankie for photos.”
“You do, and I won’t have it in me to get back in my cell,” I say.
“You sure?”
I hand back my empty water bottle. “Absolutely.”
By a little miracle, I make it through the next hour of escapes. Only twice do I have to slap some punk’s hand away before I say my line. “Nice work. But can you see in the dark?” rattles in my brain until it is etched onto my tongue. I’ll be saying it in my sleep, mumbling it in the shower. It’ll take an hour of rowing before I can exorcise it from my being.
I swear I could stand in the gym shower for hours. Forget the cold shower. My muscles are so sore, I’m ready to break into the locked closet where they keep the on-demand water heater and turn the temperature up to boiling. I slowly clomp my way toward the photo op. My boots feel like a million pounds of bad idea right now.
“Sarah!” someone hisses.
Adrenaline floods every inch of me. Did I slip out of character? Did my mask fall off? I run my gloved hand over my mask. It’s still there, gripping my cheekbones.
Adrian in theDaily Postpress badge snaps a picture. The bright flash makes my eyes water.
“It’s me! Gwen!”
I blink and turn around. Gwen is standing next to me in some sort of anime costume, complete with pastel wig. “Gwen? What are you doing here?”
She swings her white-blond-and-pink-striped curls behind her shoulders. “Some of the girls from the office wanted to try out an escape room.”
“Were you in Malum?” Had I really been so out of it that I’d missed Gwen and her two pastel-dressed anime colleagues? “Who are you supposed to be?”
“We’re ponies!”
I note the tails attached to their shorts and skirts. “Of course you are. If you want a picture, please make it quick.”
“Whoa. Calm down.” Gwen and the other ponies trot into frame. “Are you grouchy because Adam isn’t here?” Gwen whispers through her dazzling teeth.
How does she know Adam isn’t here? “Of course not.”
“Because you know if you are, that only proves my theory. That you’re doing this because—”
I cut her off with a hiss.
I may have mentioned to Gwen that seeing Adam, and especially seeing how his eyes linger on my shiny vinyl, is a perk, a modest perk, for all the trouble of climbing over the yoga wall twice a night.
“I’m grouchy because all the dressed-up dudes have been a little too comfortable draping their hands over me during the victory photos.”
Stacey appears. “Sorry to break up the fun, everyone. Catstrike has one more party to see through Malum.”
She drags me away, and I am practically dead weight. “You’re kidding.”
