Chapter 11 Sierra
Sierra
Sierra woke before six. She slipped from the bedroom with her toiletry bag and bundle of clothes, Carter’s soft snores remaining undisturbed.
Sierra had returned to the complex late last night to find her roommate asleep and a tote full of Escape Game merch on her bed, which she’d promptly dumped into the trash.
All the same crap they’d gotten last year.
She brushed her teeth and took a quick shower, giving herself plenty of time to apply her armor.
There was a soothing quality to the ritual, layering the pale foundation, the eye makeup so thick it made her eyelids heavy, the black lipstick sticky from an outer coat of gloss.
In the mirror, she watched herself become a girl who didn’t care.
Who could take every hit without a flinch.
While her hands went through the morning ritual, her mind replayed the snag round.
She didn’t know what to make of her new team.
She needed people who were hungry to win.
Desperate, even. Carter might feel the pressure of the fan base, but Beck’s and Adi’s stakes were harder to gauge.
What were they really here for? Ranielle had a reason for bringing them on.
Plenty of teens could do escape rooms. It was the ones with the crunchy backgrounds that made for good TV.
Sierra cinched her ponytail so high on her head that the tips of her coarse inky hair hung above her shoulder line.
The effect was marred by the fluffy white towel she was wrapped in.
Soon she’d be decked in her costume, clomping around in her boots, but for now her skinny shoulders and knobbly knees made her look like a kid who’d been playing with her mother’s makeup.
Her phone dinged on the counter. Not a text message—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten one of those—but a sale alert.
She swiped it open. Sales of her artwork weren’t exactly lucrative, but they made enough to keep her afloat from month to month.
Every order helped, and someone had just bought a print of Dance Macabre, one of her older paintings.
“Thank you for your patronage,” she muttered, approving the order and submitting it to the third-party printer that fulfilled the sales. “And that is deserving of a celebration.”
She dug into the ziplock bag hidden in her clothes and pulled out her last chocolate chip cookie. Breakfast of champions. She savored it as she got changed, careful not to leave behind any crumbs.
Fueled, armored, and ready for battle.
As expected, Elijah was swimming laps in the pool when Sierra slipped out her villa’s door. He had done the same thing every morning last season. Overachieving prick.
Lucky for her, it made him oblivious to the world. Now that she thought about it, he was awfully vulnerable, paddling his way up and down the length of the pool. Goggles on and earplugs in. How easy it would be to sneak up on someone like that. A knife to the back. A rope around his throat.
We get what we deserve.
Sierra circled the pool deck, staying close to the fringes, until she came to Villa 4. It was Elijah and Lisa’s villa now, but last season, it had belonged to her sister’s team. The last place Alicia had ever slept. Sierra’s steps led her past where she and Alicia had had their final argument.
The memories from that night were engraved on her mind. A million questions. A million doubts.
She rounded the villa, standing on tiptoes to see over the privacy wall. No sign of the other RA.
Annoyingly, the gate handle didn’t budge. One little murder and suddenly everyone was paranoid enough to lock up.
Sierra backed up and surveyed the wall. It was too high to climb without drawing attention to herself.
The rhythmic splashing stopped.
With a kick at the wall, Sierra skulked back toward the pool. Elijah was drying his hair with a towel, his back to her.
He really was an easy target, wasn’t he?
She was mere steps away when he finally turned. He yelped, stumbled—and fell into the water.
Sierra crouched at the edge while he came up.
“Sierra,” he spluttered. “What are you doing here?”
“Scaring the crap out of you.”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t remember you being a morning person.”
“People change. What are you doing here?”
Elijah looked pointedly around the pool.
“I mean, what are you doing here?”
Elijah hauled himself out of the water and grabbed a fresh towel off one of the lounge chairs. “I had so much fun last season, I couldn’t imagine leaving.”
“Right. Especially that part where we found my sister’s body in a coffin. That was a real blast.” Sierra crossed her arms. “You know, they say killers like to return to the scene of the crime.”
“I’m familiar. So what are you doing here?”
“Collecting my prize money.”
He scoffed, toweling his hair. “It was always about the money to you.”
“Are you trying to pretend you’re above it all?”
He cast his gaze toward his villa, like he was wondering how best to escape this conversation.
He seemed resigned when he turned back to her.
“You know I wanted to win, but the odds were stacked against us from the start. We were the villains of the season. Ranielle never intended for us to walk away with that prize.”
“And now you’re here, getting paid to hang out where my sister was last seen alive. You gotta admit, Elijah. It’s kind of creepy.”
“You always assume the worst of everyone.”
There was a slight flush on his cheeks—from the swim . . . or something else? “What were you doing in the pool that morning?”
He squinted at her. “Excuse me?”
“The day Alicia died. I came back to the complex at four thirty a.m. Too early for a swim, even by your standards.”
“What were you doing out all night?” he shot back.
“Not killing my sister, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“You can’t even say her name, can you?”
“Nice dodge.”
He wrapped the towel around his swim trunks with a sniff. “I heard a car and thought it was Alicia coming back. So I went outside to see if she’d join me in the pool.”
Sierra’s arms slowly unfolded. “You heard a car?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you tell the cops?” Sierra’s voice had raised in pitch.
“Of course I did,” he said with a scowl. “Right after I told them how I heard you two fighting.”
She dismissed that—ever since they’d found Alicia’s body, he seemed to think sibling rivalry was grounds for murder. “Did you see the car? Recognize the make or model? Was it electric?”
“No idea. I was half asleep. The only things I heard was a door slam and the car drive away. The cops don’t think it had anything to do with Alicia, though.
The car was out front—it might’ve been anyone.
And it was well after she’d been . . .” He faltered, finally finding some grace to look uncomfortable.
He was probably right, though. The GPS data from Alicia’s phone showed she was a mile south of the complex at 10:28 p.m., when she had either switched off her cell or the battery died.
A few hours later, she was dead. Sierra didn’t know where her sister had gone that night, but she hadn’t stayed here.
She scanned the sandstone buildings. “Someone was in our villa before we arrived yesterday. Any idea who it was?”
Elijah stalked past her, opening the pool gate. “No idea. This place was pandemonium last week. Camera crews, publicists—”
“Camera crews? Why?”
He shrugged. “They did some photoshoot here with Fitzy and Louis to promote the new season. Ranielle, too. But as far as I know, the only people who went into your villa were the cleaning crew.”
“Something tells me the cleaning crew didn’t leave behind a bloody cow heart.”
“A what?”
“It had a note stuck in it.” She paused, because Ranielle wasn’t the only one who could do drama. “It said: We get what we deserve.”
Elijah’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”
“I thought maybe it was another competitor.” Sierra eyed the security cameras. “Did someone get in early? Trying to put me off my game?”
“No one even knew you were going to be here. You’re the season’s big shock factor. Maybe the producers were messing with you.”
“Or maybe it was you. Are you worried that if I stick around, I might stumble onto some secrets you’d rather keep hidden?”
A muscle jumped in Elijah’s jaw. “Nice deflection, Sierra. We all know you did it.”
“I was never the only suspect. Vera hated her.”
“Vera hates everyone.”
Elijah finally walked out of the gate, slamming it shut on her. She wrenched up the latch and hurried after him.
“Alicia was seeing someone,” she said to his back.
His reaction did not disappoint. The shoulders bunching toward his ears. The hands curling into fists.
He liked to pretend he was so calm, so grounded, so balanced.
Sierra knew better.
“That’s a lie,” he said quietly.
She matched his pace. “No, it’s not, and I think you know it. All those times she disappeared, or came in late to the studio, smelling like high-end perfume, and practically glowing . . .”
“She wasn’t,” he said, more intensely now. “She wasn’t that kind of girl.”
Sierra lifted an eyebrow. “What kind of girl, exactly? The kind who flirts? The kind who dates people who aren’t you?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “The kind of girl who gets what she deserves?”
For a moment, she thought his anger might overcome him. She could see it simmering, simmering . . .
But then he stopped walking and took a long, slow breath. When he looked at Sierra again, his composure had returned. “I could never have hurt Alicia.”
“Do you know who she was seeing?”
His jaw remained firmly shut.
“Right,” she said. “Well. Thanks for nothing, I guess.”
She turned on her heel and strode away. She’d lied—he hadn’t given her nothing.
Elijah had been in possession of her villa’s keys the entire time.
If he was telling the truth and he hadn’t let any of the crew inside, either there was another set of keys somewhere, or he’d written the threatening note himself.
Sierra had managed to steer clear of her team all morning, but she had no chance avoiding them on the shuttle bus to the studio. Beck marched down the aisle and sat beside her on the back bench.
“Oh goody,” she said.
There was a determined shine to his eyes. “We haven’t had a chance to talk.”
“That was on purpose.”
“I saw your welcome bag in the garbage, so I’m assuming it’s okay if I keep the coffee mug? Thought I’d give the matching set to my parents for their anniversary.”
She glared at him.
“Excellent,” he said. “Thanks. Also, the rest of us decided to let you be team captain.”
“That wasn’t open for discussion.”
“But a team captain has to lead, so at some point you’re going to have to, you know, talk to us.”
Carter was stealing glances at them from the middle row. When she saw Sierra looking, she spun away again. Adi, in the seat across from her, was pretending to read a book, but Sierra could tell he was paying more attention than it appeared.
“I’ll talk to you during the round,” Sierra said to Beck.
“We’d work better as a team if we got to know each other.”
Sierra ground her teeth. He had a point, but she didn’t want to concede.
“As for the team name,” he went on, opening the Notes app on his phone, “Carter and I were brainstorming, and we have a few ideas—”
“Team Helsing.”
Beck looked up from his screen. “What?”
“Or Van Helsing. I’ll let you decide.” There. Some generosity for the group.
“Hel—” Beck’s eyes cleared. “Like the vampire hunter?”
“You are a smart one.”
“But isn’t . . . ?” Beck closed his phone, glancing around to make sure none of the nearby contestants were listening. “Isn’t that . . . ?”
“A reference to the room my sister was found dead in? Yeah.” Sierra bared her teeth in a smile. “The producers will eat it up.”
“I don’t think—”
“Listen. I know how this works. They want drama. Outrage. That’s why they brought me back. So let’s give them what they want.”
“You don’t seem like the type to give people what they want.”
“Are you kidding? You think I’m accidentally creating scandal?” She lowered her voice so Beck had to crane closer to hear. “And if we provide it, what might the producers do to keep us playing?”
Beck’s expression slowly shifted. From confusion to comprehension to stubborn disbelief. “They wouldn’t rig the game.”
“It’s a reality show, not reality. We’re their puppets. So dance, little Pinocchio, and maybe they’ll keep us on the strings long enough to get that cash. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
A beat.
“Yeah. Obviously.”
The hesitation was interesting.
What did Beck want besides the cash?
His expression changed again, into one of curiosity. “So then . . .” He gestured to her. “How much of this is an act?”
“Fuck off, Pinocchio.”
“Okay, for the record, I’m clearly Geppetto. But, like, way younger and hotter.”
She bit her tongue, hard, to keep her lips from twitching. “Go. Away.”
“Right-o, leader of Team Helsing.” He began to swing off his seat, then paused and leaned back, adding, “It flows better without the ‘Van.’ ”
Sierra watched him trot down the aisle before turning her gaze toward the window. Everyone was going to lose their minds when they heard the team name. How appalling! Distasteful! Disrespectful to her sister’s memory!
There’d be such an outcry, perhaps no one would pick up on the fact that Van Helsing was more than a callback to last season’s finale.
It was the name of the one who’d slain the monster.