We peer inside the dark room.
“Please enter,” he orders when we just stand there.
“Let’s do this.” I clap my hands and hoot.
They all blink at me—except for Julia who pumps her fist with me. Clearly, she gets it.
My eyes adjust and make out what looks like a bench in the middle and horizontal metal bars on the other side of the room. The rest appears empty.
Bang.
The door slams behind us and locks.
Boone grabs the handle and tries to open it. He stalks to the other side and checks out the bars. “What if this place is a front for murderers?”
No one replies since a clock eerily appears on the wall and glows into the darkness. It starts to tick down.
Boone huffs. “What if I have to piss?”
Taylor pats the bench he’s sitting on. “Just have a seat and calm down, love.”
“The bars need a combination of four letters to be opened,” Reece calls out as he messes with them. “It’s our first thing to solve. Obviously.”
I nod at him. I should be helping, but . . .
I nudge Julia. “So, Channing. I saw you guys on campus. Is that a thing?”
She arches a brow. “Are we friends who chat about our love lives now?”
“Yeah. Can’t a friend ask about another friend?”
“Not while the second friend is trying to escape from a cage. Find a clue.” She taps me on the nose. “Boop.”
I’m shocked by the touch, then laugh as she dances away from me.
Okay, okay. Things aren’t weird between us.
Taylor speaks up. “The hunchback didn’t say I hope you like THE dark. He said I hope you like DARK. Try DARK as the combination.”
I didn’t hear a word Igor said.
Reece tries the four letters and we hear a click. The bars squeak as he swings them open.
We rush out of the cage to continue the search while Taylor stays on the bench.
I flick on a light switch and the room fills with a purple glow.
“Another fucking door,” Boone says faintly. “With words written on it.”
GOOD TO 5EE YOU MADE IT THIS FAR,
BUT ABANDON H0PE.
IF YOU WANT TO AVOID BEING D1NNER,
DON’T CH0KE.
I motion them into a huddle. “Alright, team, we’ve got a poem and we need a key to open the door. Look for puzzles, maps, anything you find could be important.”
A few minutes later, I find a key under the rug, but it doesn’t fit any of the doors.
“None of you searched this bench,” Taylor murmurs.
Julia rushes over to the bench, feels around the legs, and finds a small drawer underneath. A box falls out with a four-digit combination lock.
“We need four digits to open this,” she says, looking at me.
Several minutes pass as we go over the current clues we have, then— “5010!” yells Julia. “The poem has a 5 instead of an S on the first line. Some letters are actually numbers. 5010.”
She uses the combination and squeals as the box opens. “A key!” She hands the key to me and I open the new door.
We enter a room with chainsaws, sledgehammers, handcuffs, knives, and chains on the wall.
“Serial killer shit,” Boone grouses.
“Keep searching,” Julia and I call at the same time, then look at each other and laugh.
I slide in next to her. “We seem to have the same sense of team spirit.”
She smirks. “Good thing. One of your guys is terrified and one of mine is sitting out.”
“I knew the first clue!” Taylor shouts, obviously listening to us.
Reece works a puzzle box but can’t get it to open, Poppy examines old news clippings about missing college students while Julia and I do a crossword.
“Fun?” I ask her.
“Less talking, more puzzle solving,” she says tartly.
“Seven minutes on the clock, loves,” Taylor calls out.
“We’re not gonna make it,” Poppy cries.
“Fine, I’ll help.” Taylor sways into the dungeon room and glances down at the crossword. He scoffs. “Two across is CUR. And nine down is a seven-letter word for Banal. The answer is TEDIOUS. Just like this puzzle.”
Julia shouts in victory. “Good job, Tay. Okay, guys, the word in the puzzle is ICHTHYOLOGY.” She throws a wild look around. “Does anyone know what that means?”
We stare at each other.
“It’s the study of fish,” Boone says and we stare at him. “What? I know things,” he adds grouchily.
“There’s a bookshelf on the wall. Mostly anatomy books, but I saw one about fish,” Poppy says.