“No, but how hard can it be?” Dominico read the first clue aloud—a riddle blatantly pointing us to the fireplace. We searched the hearth until we found a loose stone, which pulled away to reveal another piece of paper. This one had the number six and a clue on it.
“See? Piece of cake,” Dominico said, suddenly in my space. “Nothing to worry about. In fact, I think we should talk about a reward.” His gaze was intense as he draped an arm around my waist and pulled me closer.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, both afraid and excited. “Reward?”
“Yeah. If we win—when we win—you owe me a second date.”
And what if I was the one who figured out all the clues? But since I wanted a second date with him, I didn’t question his methods, instead nodding in acceptance. “Deal.”
He smirked and gave me a quick peck on the cheek before reading the clue aloud.
Each clue grew increasingly difficult to decipher. Not only that, some of them purposely misled us. Iwould have swornthe third clue pointed to the window, but when I pulled back the heavy drape, a giant fake spider jumped out at me. I screamed so loud I’m sure the entire building heard. Dominico rushed to help me, but when he saw what had happened, he laughed until I thoughthe was goingto pee his pants. Once my heart stopped racing, I laughed as well. We worked together and eventually figured out the riddle, but I was much more cautious searching for the fourth clue.
By the time we had the fifth riddle in hand, we only had six minutes left. We read it over and over, looking for patterns and searching for deeper meaning, but it didn’t make sense. I was scanning the paper, hoping to shed some light on the problem, when I realized the first letter of each word spelled out “red lamp.”
“Red lamp! Red lamp!” I shouted. We had barely over a minute and still had to punch in the code.
Dominico rushed for the end table with the red lamp and searched for the clue. When he couldn’t find it, he ripped off the shade and tossed the lamp on the floor. Surprisingly, it didn’t break.
“What are you—you can’t—”
Before I could even form a coherent sentence, he jumped on the lamp, smashing it to pieces. I watched, too shocked to speak, as he bent and removed the final piece of paper from the debris and laid it on the coffee table.
“Read me the numbers,” he said, running toward the keypad.
That snapped me out of my stupor. I leaned over the table and recited the digits as he punched them in. The door clicked open only seconds before the clock ran out.
“Ohmigod, we did it!” I said, looking from Dominico to the smashed lamp. I still couldn’t believe he’d broken it, but the adrenaline had me all amped up.
“Let’s go get our prizes,” he said, draping an arm over my shoulders.
“We get prizes?” I asked.
“Of course we do. But my real reward is coming later. Thank you, Annetta.”
His tone was somber. Confused as to why he’d be thanking me, I stared up at him. “For what?” I asked.
He played with one of my curls. “For coming with me. For this. I needed it.”
His eyes were almost black. Mysterious and a little frightening, they made me feel like Alice, straddling a bottomless pit full of magical potential. This Wonderland might kill me, but it would be one hell of a fun ride.
“I did too,” I admitted.
Someone cleared their throat by the door. “I apologize for interrupting,” John said, opening the door the rest of the way. “But they are ready for you.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The photographer. We need pictures—lots of pictures—to immortalize the night we kicked Escape Room C’s ass!” Dominico said as he slid away from me, grabbing my hand.
We followed John down another hall, where we were shown into a small room with an early 1900s backdrop. Props were everywhere. We dressed in overcoats with attached capes and the silly little hats Sherlock Holmes wore, which the photographer informed us were called deerstalkers. We were each awarded a magnifying glass and a pipe for our win, and we spent the next ten minutes egged on by an overzealous cameraman to explore every ridiculous pose we could.
“Come on, give her a kiss,” he heckled.
Dominico pecked my cheek.
“You call that a kiss?” the cameraman hooted. “Who is she? Your sister?”
Dominico didn’t seem like the type to turn down a challenge, and he certainly rose to this one. Slipping his arm behind my back, he pulled me closer and set my world on fire again with his ownuniqueblend of passion and power that made my knees buckle. I leaned into him and the contact threatened to burn up my entire body. The camera flash brought us both back to reality. We pulled apart and breathlessly stared at one another. He looked as affected as I felt.
