Chapter 8 Adi
Adi
Backstage, Adi watched Sierra wrench off her lab coat and shove it into an intern’s arms. The intern stammered that they were supposed to keep the coats on but was answered with a lewd gesture.
Adi couldn’t process it. Sierra Angelos was on his team.
She was in her signature dark clothes, tattoos wending up her pale arms and under the sleeves of her tight tee, hair cinched in a high ponytail. Same old vengeful, villainous Sierra from season four.
She spotted Adi staring at her. “What’re you slack-jawing at?” Adi couldn’t help himself. He laughed.
Sierra stomped forward. In her boots, she was almost his height. “You think this is funny?”
Adi tried to suppress his grin. There was seriously something wrong with him. It was bad enough to make a hobby of riling up his mother, but at least she wouldn’t leave him dead in a prop coffin. Hollywood didn’t look kindly on people who murdered family members.
Usually.
“Kudos to the producers,” he said. “Bringing you back was a genius move.”
Sierra gave Adi the once-over. “Let’s not give them too much credit. Just do as I say, and maybe this time everyone will make it through the season alive.”
The air between them frosted over, but Adi held her gaze. “I want to win as much as you.”
When Sierra lifted her eyebrow, her barbell piercing glinted in the light. “Then we won’t have a problem, will we?”
“Right, contestants, this way,” said one of the older crew members, pushing Adi’s backpack into his arms. The tension snapped.
They were herded into the corridor. Adi was certain he couldn’t be the only one harboring a morbid curiosity at being in the presence of a real-life killer.
That must’ve been why the therapist asked how he felt about Alicia’s death—she’d wanted to know if he’d be put off his game with Sierra Angelos as a teammate.
Well. He wasn’t going to let this distract him.
Now that the initial shock had worn off, he was going to treat her like anyone else.
Whatever beef Sierra had with her sister had nothing to do with him, and the shrink would’ve had to clear her before she came on the show.
Besides, she was a damn good puzzle solver. Maybe she’d even be an asset.
As for the others . . .
Beck had kept his cool through the round and been the first one to figure out the Game Master’s clue.
But Carter had been anxious from the start.
Adi eyed her now. Unlike the rest of them, who had been given black pants and sneakers, she was wearing shiny white boots and a skirt so short it barely peeked out beneath the green lab coat.
As Adi watched, she removed her thick-framed eyeglasses and tucked them into a pocket.
He rolled his eyes. They were on a puzzle-solving show, and still he was surrounded by frauds.
They were led into a greenroom, which looked like it had been decorated by a middle-aged hack trying to imitate a teenager’s natural habitat.
There was a dusty foosball table and a TV hooked up to a bunch of video game consoles.
Beanbag chairs in primary colors were scattered around a geometric carpet, and a huge mirror hung on the wall, framed by Edison lightbulbs.
A buffet table held coffee and tea, a dispenser filled with ice water, trays of sad-looking sandwiches, and bags of generic potato chips.
The other contestants were eating and mingling, but a hush fell when Adi’s team entered.
“Shiiiiit,” said a bulky guy with a sports jacket and spiky brown hair. He—along with everyone else—was staring at Sierra Angelos.
Sierra’s cool gaze swept over the room, meeting the stares. After a painfully awkward silence, she dipped into an elaborate, flourishing bow that culminated in a raised middle finger before walking out again.
The jock barked a laugh. “Class act there. And do my eyes deceive me?” He strutted over and took Carter’s shoulders in his meaty hands, eyeing her up and down. Her body stiffened. “You are a spitting image of that sexy cartoon character on the Domain. Don’t tell me. Kick It Carter?”
“Uh—yeah,” said Carter, laughing uncomfortably. “That’s me.”
He released her in exchange for a fist bump. “Jarius Baisley-Selkirk. Massive fan. Has this been a wild day or what?”
“Wild,” Carter agreed, though her voice barely reached normal decibels. “Are we the last ones to run the room?”
“Looks like. Guess they wanted to save the big reveal until the end.”
Adi examined Carter more closely, and suddenly it clicked.
He didn’t do social media. Being online, publicly posing and peacocking, was as superficial as Hollywood.
But he’d watched every episode of The Escape Game to study for this, as well as some videos on a fan website.
He’d seen Kick It Carter’s stuff, but he’d never seen the girl behind the videos before, only her avatar, who was as sharply polished as his mom’s lacquered fingernails.
Yuck.
Jarius clicked his tongue sympathetically. “Man, were the producers trying to screw you over? You know why they did it, too. The ads write themselves. ‘Come for the puzzles, stay for the psychopath.’ ” He slapped Carter on the back. “Let’s chat.”
The rest of the contestants returned to their conversations. Adi and Beck hung back. Adi knew what he was supposed to do. Play nice. Shake hands. Make small talk.
Instead, he headed to a table, digging a book from his backpack.
He was only a few pages in before he realized he wasn’t retaining anything.
There was too much buzzing in his brain.
Killers with tattoos on their arms. Shrinks asking about murders.
The abbreviations from the periodic table of elements.
Now, there was something that would keep him up at night.
Li Si O Ca Ne Ag Al
Alliances. Gallons. Calling. Closing. Lasagna.
“What are you reading?” said an attractive apple-shaped girl with a maroon hijab as she sat beside him.
“Playboy,” said Adi, because he was clearly holding a thriller.
“Funny. I’m Nadia.”
Adi let his book thud to the table. Not like he was concentrating, anyway. “Adi.”
“How’d you do in the snag round?” Nadia held out an open packet of salt-and-vinegar chips as an offering, which almost made up for the interruption.
“It was fine,” he said between crunches. “A cinch.”
“I didn’t like not knowing my team beforehand. What did you think when you saw Sierra Angelos?”
Adi shrugged. “That it was a practical joke.”
“I heard the producers mess with contestants, but this is next level. And to be with Carter Kelly, too! You’re on the team everyone’s going to be watching.”
Adi made a noncommittal noise. He only cared if one specific person watched.
Nadia jerked her chin toward Jarius. “And then we’ve got Jock Face over there. I’m pretty sure the producers cast him for entertainment value, because he couldn’t even figure out how to get hot water out of the dispenser.”
Adi helped himself to more of Nadia’s chips. “What’d you make of the element anagram?”
“The what?”
“In the room. The element numbers corresponded to our combination locks, but I never figured out what their abbreviations were supposed to spell.”
It was murder to admit, but he’d rather find out the answer from someone else than never know.
“They weren’t supposed to spell anything,” Nadia said. “We just needed the numbers.”
“You don’t think it was a snag we missed?”
“Naw. I thought the same thing at first.” She held up her phone. “I even checked an anagram solver when I got out. I know what you mean—it feels like they’re supposed to spell something. But I guess they were a red herring.”
The chair on the other side of Adi pulled out and Carter swooped into it. Her mouth was locked into a painful-looking grin as she whispered through her teeth, “Save. Me.”
Half a second later, four more people descended on their table— Jarius Paisley-Whatever, a ghost-pale girl with a bubblegum-pink pixie cut and dark sunglasses, another white kid who looked like a poster boy for Old Navy, and a Latina girl with enormous turquoise earrings who could have been a supermodel.
Jarius’s team, Adi guessed, judging from how they shared the same predatory grins.
“Kick It Carter,” said Jarius, “meet Delphi, Neil, and Gabriela. We’re still figuring out our team name, but we’re leaning toward Team Dread. You know, like we strike dread into the hearts of our competitors.”
Carter giggled uncomfortably and scooted her chair an inch closer to Adi’s. He wasn’t sure why. He’d assumed an influencer would be excited to be recognized.
“Yeah,” said Carter. “That’s a good name. I like it. We, um, haven’t had a chance to decide ours yet. In fact, Adi, maybe we should—”
“So, hey,” Neil interrupted. “Jarius said you’re some sort of math whiz?”
Adi could feel Carter tense beside him. “I . . . like math . . .”
“Me too,” said Neil. “So if a rectangle is altered by increasing its length by twenty-two percent and decreasing its width by sixteen percent, by what percentage has the total area of the rectangle been altered?”
Carter gaped at him. “What?”
“Dude,” said Adi, “you’re literally just throwing out random numbers.”
Jarius swooped across the table to grab Adi’s book. “What have we here? A nerd?”
“Are you kidding me? Have you seen where we are?” Adi said.
He was used to this—the macho guys, the high school taunts, the hatred of literacy. He just hadn’t expected it here.
He stood. “Keep the book. Maybe you’ll learn something. Thanks for the chat, Nadia. Carter, come on. Let’s go decide . . . team stuff.”
Carter bounded up beside him. “Yeah, um, nice to meet you all!”
“What a pack of hyenas,” Adi muttered as they passed the other tables of teams.
Beck intercepted them halfway to the door, a Pop-Tart in hand. “Great, I was coming to get you. Do you think we could talk? Somewhere less crowded?”
“Yes. Please,” said Carter.
“Sure,” said Adi. “Think we should track down our resident social outcast?”
“That’s actually what I want to talk to you about,” said Beck as they stepped into the hall. “This way.” Not far down the corridor, he pushed open another door, revealing a concrete stairwell. The door shut behind them with a heavy clunk.
“Are we supposed to be here?” Carter asked. “What if the producers come looking for us?”
“This won’t take long. I hope,” said Beck.
Adi sat down on one of the steps, long legs sprawled in front of him. The stairwell had an unusual scent—stale air and old concrete mixed with something . . . sweet? “What is it?”
“Sierra,” said Beck. “We can’t have her on our team. The episode won’t drop for a few more days, so maybe there’s still time for the producers to find someone else and—”
Adi held up a hand. “The producers aren’t going to find someone else. Do you know how many people will tune in to see Sierra again? Ranielle Russell knows exactly what she’s doing.”
“But she murdered her sister,” said Beck. “Right here. Not here, here, in the stairwell. But on the set.”
“She was never arrested,” Carter said, wrapping her arms around herself. “Although, isn’t the investigation ongoing? She’s still a suspect.”
“Innocent until proven guilty,” said Adi. “They don’t have the evidence to pin it on her.”
“You don’t think she’d hurt us, do you?” Carter said.
“Not unless we lose a round,” Adi said with a grin, but Carter looked so terrified he added, “I’m kidding. She knows she’s not going to get away with it again.”
Beck clawed his hands into his hair. “Look, I’m all for giving people second chances, but she’s a loose cannon. What if she ruins our chances at getting to the finale?”
“Her team made it to the finale last season,” Adi pointed out.
“A miracle, given how she was at Elijah’s throat the whole time,” said Beck.
Then he waved his arms through the air, as if to clear away the distraction.
“Here’s the thing. Jarius called Sierra a psychopath, and he might be right.
I know people like to throw that word around, assuming all psychopaths are serial killers, but they’re a lot more common than we think.
I researched them when I was designing my torture chamber, and it’s fascinating”—Beck caught himself and added quickly—“I mean, my torture chamber escape room. In case that wasn’t clear.
” He pointed at himself with his thumb. “I swear I am not a psychopath. My brain is ninety-five percent empathy and five percent confetti.”
“I hope there’s a point somewhere in that confetti,” Adi said.
“What I’m saying is, Sierra came back after everything that happened. Wouldn’t there be, like, trauma or something? She found her sister dead in a coffin. Only a psychopath wouldn’t care. They can mimic social behavior, but they don’t feel empathy.”
“Sounds like my mother,” Adi drawled.
“This isn’t a joke,” Carter cried. “I’m going to be sharing a room with her!”
They were interrupted by a slow clap echoing through the stair-well.
Bootsteps clomped down from the next floor.
Adi stood as Sierra appeared on the landing.
Her dark makeup made her look like a vengeful demon beneath the harsh fluorescent lights—at odds with the half-eaten cookie she held up as if to toast them.
That sweetness Adi had smelled. She’d been there this whole time.
“Great talk,” she said. “Sounds like you’ve got this puzzled out.” She finished off the cookie. “You know, while you were chatting, I was thinking about our team name. What do you think of . . . the Psychopaths?”
When no one responded, she grinned cruelly, licking butter and crumbs from her fingertips. “Or the Killers? Oh—I know. The Sister Slayers. Gotta give the people what they want, right?”
“S-Sierra . . .” started Carter.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Sierra interrupted. “As long as you don’t get in my way of winning that prize money, I won’t kill you in your sleep.
” She came down the stairs and paused in front of Beck, who shivered, although whether in fear or thrill, it was hard for Adi to tell.
After all, this was a guy who apparently built torture rooms for fun.
He appeared almost hypnotized as he stared into Sierra’s eyes.
“Thanks for the diagnosis, doctor,” she said to him. “You really cleared some things up.”
Beck’s swallow was comically loud in the silent stairwell. Beside them, the door swung open, hitting the wall so hard Adi jumped.
That god-awful social media girl, Vera, stood at the threshold, white-knuckling her iPad. “There you are! Come on, Fitzy is ready for your post-round interviews.” Turning away, she threw one arm into the air. “Everything I do around here, and now I have to play babysitter, too?”