Chapter 37
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
I stand against the wall, watching him walk away. My heart aches. My eyes blur. And then the worst happens, as it so often does when my emotions run high.
The red haze rises, clouding my vision. The door cracks open. And the undertow comes, pulling me onward.
Not now, I beg, though I have no idea to whom. Please, not now.
I can’t have a premonition here, in front of my boss and the people I work with. I can’t look odd or pass out or mumble about the inexplicable. I have to do something. But what?
Help, I think again. And then I hear it: Cooper’s voice, clear and calm in my head.
Breathe, Rune, he says. Like before, remember? Take a deep breath in…count to four…hold it…then out for eight…
I have no idea if he’s real or an invention of my desperate subconscious. And at this moment, I don’t care. All I know is that he helped me once before. He can help me again.
I do as he says, obeying as he stops counting and simply breathes, letting me listen to him, guiding me. Until, the same way it happened before, the haze retreats. The door closes. And somehow, miraculously, the premonition is…gone.
Holy shit.
Thank you, I think in Cooper’s direction, but there’s no response. He’s vanished, if he was ever there at all.
Trembling, I straighten and assess the room. No one’s staring at me. They’re standing around in small groups, chatting—all except Donovan, who’s peering down at his phone, probably wishing it would open up like a portal to another world and spirit him away. Rosa is busy recycling Profile Bingo pages. From what I can tell, less than a minute has passed.
I press a hand to my chest, feeling my racing heart slow. I don’t know what just happened, whether it was wishful thinking or coincidence or a figment of my imagination. Or something else entirely—if Cooper somehow found a way inside my mind. If that’s the case, he and I will have to have some serious words. In this very moment, though, I’m grateful.
Premonition or not, I don’t want to stay here. All I want is to run out of the lodge. To pack my stuff, jump in my car, and drive home. Either that, or to throw my arms around Donovan and beg him to believe me. But none of those are viable options, so I wipe the tears from my face before anyone can see, pour myself a cup of bad coffee from the carafe at the back of the room, and take a seat next to Georgia at one of the round tables.
She eyes me suspiciously, then hands me a napkin. “Have you been crying, Rune? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, willing it to be true. The weakness that usually accompanies one of my premonitions is nowhere to be found. Aside from my Donovan-induced misery, I feel…normal. And there’s nothing to do about my broken heart but deal with it.
“Sure you are.” She wraps an arm around my shoulders. “I watched you talking to Donovan, right before he marched off. And I saw those Facebook posts, you know.”
Oh, no. “Which Facebook posts, exactly?”
Georgia squeezes me tighter. “All of them, honey.”
I. Want. To. Die.
“What did he say to you?” she asks, brows lowering. “Do I need to have a word?”
At the thought of short, plump Georgia confronting a glowering Donovan Frost, I almost giggle. But then reality sets in. “Oh, no. Please, don’t say anything. It’s just a misunderstanding.” Of epic proportions. Never to be resolved.
“If you say so,” Georgia says doubtfully, squeezing me one last time and then letting me go. She shoots Donovan an exceedingly dirty look, which he doesn’t see because he’s still staring down at his phone.
Georgia can’t be a terrible human being, affiliated with murderous Blood Witches. Can she? She’s always been so kind to me. But the more of this world I see, the more I realize that nothing is what it seems.
At the front of the room, Rosa clears her throat. “If I can have everyone’s attention, please!”
It takes a couple tries to get the room to quiet down, but Rosa doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe she’s happy that Profile Bingo generated such camaraderie. Or maybe she’s just impervious to irritation. I should take lessons from her.
“Our next activity will be an escape room!” she announces, rubbing her hands together. “We’re going to divide you randomly into pairs, and you’ll have to solve a series of puzzles in order to find your way out.”
Georgia lets out a happy eep. She and her family adore escape rooms. For years, she’s been telling me about how everywhere they travel, they try a different one. Next to me, she bounces in her chair.
“This is such a meaningful activity,” Rosa goes on. “It forces you to work together one on one rather than in the larger groups we’ve been putting you in this morning. You’ll have to really trust each other to succeed, which is what this retreat is all about, right? After you all escape, we’ll have a special surprise for you in the main lodge.”
I’ve never done an escape room. But how hard can it be? All I have to do is get through the next couple of hours or however long it takes, and then I’ll be free to snoop around as much as I want. Sure, the people I’ve just met seem nice enough now, with their hold my beer and their John Travolta kisses, but it’s not like they’re going to expose their dark sides during team-building exercises. At night, though, especially with a few drinks in them, who knows what they might let slip?
“We’ve got everyone’s names on pieces of paper in here.” Ethan holds up a mason jar. “Rosa will pull them out two at a time. She and I will be participating, too. Remember,” he looks between us, grinning, “you get what you get, and you don’t get upset!”
Ugh. Why do I have the distinct feeling that that comment might be meant for me and a certain infuriated data engineer?
Before our most recent argument, I wouldn’t have been that unnerved about being paired with Donovan. Sure, it would’ve been challenging to negotiate, but I wanted time alone with him anyhow, to clear the air about what happened with Cooper. And since he’s been avoiding me like the plague, having him as a captive audience would’ve been the perfect time for us to talk. But now, when he’s made it clear that nothing I say will make any difference to him—when he’s so enraged that he’s taken to communicating with me through Profile Bingo—the thought of being trapped with him in a scenario where we need to collaborate to escape makes my stomach roil.
Well, there are twelve people here, Rosa and Ethan included. Math isn’t my strong suit, but even I can tell the odds are against me being paired with Donovan. That won’t happen, I tell myself. Maybe I’ll even get lucky, and be matched up with the mysterious Dr. Evil. That would certainly take the guesswork out of things.
I’ve talked myself halfway into believing this will happen when Rosa pulls the first slip from the jar. “Georgia,” she announces happily, then pulls out another one. “And Ellen. Fantastic! The two of you, go stand by each other, please.” She gestures to the wall of windows.
Looking elated, Georgia bounces across the room, Ellen following in her wake, as Rosa pulls two more slips out of the jar. “Ethan and Doug! Excellent, excellent.”
Two pairs down. Four to go.
“Who’s next?” Rosa rummages in the jar, her shiny, pink nails glinting through the glass. She grasps a piece of paper, pulls it out, and holds it up to the light. “Jill! Great, great. Now, let’s see…”
She delves into the jar again, and I hold my breath, hoping the slip she pulls out next will have my name scrawled on it. Jill doesn’t seem like a super-villain, true, but you never know. Maybe beneath her addiction to Red Vines and Shrek lurks the heart of a murderer. I don’t know what it says about me that I’d rather be stuck in an escape room with a killer—or even, someone killer-adjacent—than with the man whose bones I’d like to jump, but there you have it.
But no. “Rosa!” our fearless leader announces gleefully. “That’s me. Of course I can’t go stand by the windows, since I’ve got a job to do here, but Jill, I’ll be with you just as soon as I finish up. I’m so excited!”
Dutifully, Jill trots over to stand next to the other chosen ones. That leaves six of us standing, Hunger Games-style, waiting for our fate to be pronounced.
Rosa unfolds the next piece of paper. “Catelyn,” she says. “And Jack!”
Crap, crap, and double crap. I watch Ms. I Design My Own Board Games happily cross to the windows, joined by Mr. My Guilty Pleasure Is Mallomars, and feel my heart sink into my toes. Because there’s just four of us left, and the odds are definitely not in my favor.
I bite my lip as she pulls another slip from the jar. “Gia. Very nice. And…let’s see…”
Please say Donovan, I chant to myself. Please, please, please say Donovan. I steal a glimpse at his face, but it’s stony, expressionless.
Rosa sticks her hand back into the jar, digging around on the bottom. With just three slips of paper left, they keep skating away from her fingers. My heart pounds as she finally snags one and pulls it free. Donovan Donovan Donovan echoes like a drumbeat in my head as she unfolds it and holds it up to the light.
“And…Thatcher!” she says.
I am so screwed.