05
Carter
Carter, who got nervous taking a selfie, was now being dogged bycamerapeople. She hadn’t been allowed to stop smiling since seven a.m., and her cheeks were killing her. First there was the shoot for the show’s opening credits, then publicity shots in which they had her wear some ridiculous white pleather miniskirt and a beaded top that itched like hell, then social media reels filmed by this morose-looking girl who looked like she’d rather be doing literally anything else. Every time Carter thought they were going to break for food, she was accosted by another team of hair and makeup professionals, sat down in front of another camera, and ordered around by some crabby director.
“Sit up taller!”
“Smile more!”
“Stop fidgeting!”
“No, a real smile—honestly, who picked this girl?”
Finally, she’d been stuck alone in a room plastered in posters and told to wait until someone came to get her.
Judging from the itinerary she’d received that morning, her team was supposed to start the snag room in—what, an hour? She should have met them by now.
Carter twined a finger around one of her curls. A stylist from the show had come to her house yesterday and spent more than twelve hours bleaching and fashioning her hair.
Which meant it was red.
Fire-engine red.
Combined with the uncomfortable yet inarguably fashionable clothes they’d put her in, she looked more like her avatar than ever before.
She wanted to feel transformed, like a modern-day Cinderella.
Instead, she felt like a fraud.
She collapsed onto the sofa. All seven trillion nerves vibrated through her body. Coming on this show was a mistake. The constant snapping from the crew had made it quite clear she wasn’t cut out for this. Her smile was too nervous. Her mannerisms too awkward. Her voice too quiet.
She covered her face and let out a frazzled groan—then yanked her hands away when she remembered her makeup.
She was an impostor.
She would be the laughingstock of the fandom.
It was one thing watching the games from the comfort of her bedroom, having the advantage of cameras zooming in on certain clues and seeing the rooms from multiple angles. Anyone could solve a puzzle that way, pausing and going back when necessary.
But to be in the actual game, in real time, with real consequences, was totally different. What if the pressure got to her and she couldn’t decipher an obvious clue? What if her teammates were brilliant and wonderful and she ruined everything for them?
They would hate her.
She stood and paced from one end of the cramped room to the other. She needed a distraction before this downward spiral of doubt had her running for the first flight home.
Maybe she should call her parents. They always knew what to say to calm her anxiety, and at that moment, she would have given anything to hear her dad’s warm Trinidadian accent or her mom’s robust laugh as she fought to push back her wayward ginger curls. Carter got so far as to pull out her phone and find them at the top of her contacts, where a small bubble next to her dad’s cell number showed their goofy grins, cheeks squashed happily together.
No. She couldn’t call them. The homesickness would be too much.
Gripping her phone, she stared around at the promotionalEscape Gameposters. There was a signed photo in a silver frame of Fitzy and Louis from their YouTube days, in season one. Fitzy looked so young then, even younger than Carter was now.
Carter leaned closer to read the message scrawled in cursive beneath the photo. She recognized the handwriting as the Game Master’s—she’d received a postcard from him during season three after she’d sent him a fan letter with a homemade puzzle. She instinctively lifted her phone to take a picture of the message.
This is just the beginning . — Louis
She smiled as she took the shot. Louis Augustus Russell had believed even back then that the show was something special.
There was a knock. At the door was the morose interviewer from before—a short, plump girl in her early twenties, sporting blond pigtails, garish blue eye shadow, and one long silver earring in her left lobe. A tattoo of a reptilian tail snaked beneath her sparkly halter-neck top. Carter was about to ask what it was—a dragon, maybe?— but the girl cut her off.
