She was a big-time Solve Specialist. He hadn’t even thought to ask if she wanted to be leader—just agreed when Beck suggested Sierra. No pissing off the psychopath. It was a smart play.
But Carter must’ve been irked to be shoved out of the limelight.
“So let’s hear it,” said Fitzy. “What’s your team name?”
Sierra leaned closer to the microphone and said in an ominous voice, “Helsing.”
“Helsing? Sounds . . . familiar. Where do I know that from?”
Adi scoffed quietly as Sierra drawled, “People who have the slightest knowledge of classic literature will recognize the name from Bram Stoker’sDracula. ButEscape Gamefans will appreciate that we drew inspiration from a certain vampire-themed room. Season four. The finale.”
Fitzy’s eyebrows shot upward.
“Roll with it,” said the director’s voice in their earpieces.
Fitzy made a sound that was part cough, part laugh. “All right, Team . . .Helsing. Great. So now that we’ve met our teams, let’s see how they did in the snag round.”
Footage played on a large screen, a montage of the five teams in their colorful lab coats and significant moments from the round interspersed with “getting to know you” snippets they’d filmed in their greenlights. Adi watched the teams solve the puzzle for their combination locks, kicking himself for not realizing sooner that the abbreviations spelled out Alicia’s name.
The footage ended and the lights came back up. It was impossible to tell how the teams had fared. The editors were good at their jobs.
“Wow,” said Fitzy. “That snag round was a real sizzler, wasn’t it?” He beamed. “Sizzler? Get it? Because ‘snags’ is an Aussie word for ‘sausages’?” When a few of the contestants groaned, he waved his arm at them. “That joke gets funnier every season.” Then he faced the cameras. “Let’s find out who’ll be entering into round one with some coveted snags, and who’s about to be at a severe disadvantage.”
A scoreboard appeared on the giant screen, listing the new team names, each with a zeroed-out clock to their right.
“The first snag of season five,” continued Fitzy, “will be awarded to the team who was fastest in figuring out the quote.”
The words “No one nor anything can silence me. —Dmitri Mendeleev” appeared on the screen, and the clocks began to tick upward—numbers blinking and flashing, until . . .
“Team Mind Hack!” shouted Fitzy.
Nadia whooped, pulling her teammates in for a hug.
“Having worked out the quote a full thirty-seven seconds faster than the second-fastest team,” continued Fitzy, “you will receive the chance to add thirty-seven seconds to an opponent’s final time during a round of your choice.”
Adi kept his gaze on the board, ignoring the looks burning into him from his teammates. Yeah, heknewhe had held them up for that puzzle. There was nothing he could do about it now.
“Next, let’s see which team first put together the element numbers from the periodic table.”
The clocks on the board ticked again, this time landing on—
“Team Dread!”
Adi could hear Carter take in a long, slow breath in front of him.
“For this victory, you can add an error penalty to any opponent’s escape room. If they make a mistake during the round, they’ll gain one whole minute on their final time.”
Team Dread shoved each other on the shoulders. Gabriela flashed a peace sign at the other teams, while Delphi raised her middle finger—to which the director barked into their earpieces to knock it off; this was a family show.
“Our third snag,” Fitzy went on, “will go to the team who made it out of their storage closets the fastest. Who was it?”
Adi had a bad feeling about this . . . which was confirmed when Fitzy shouted, “Team Dread again! Your second snag can be used to plunge an opposing team into pitch blackness for one full minute during a round.”
“It’s okay,” Beck whispered. “We’re still good.”
Sierra gave a bitter laugh. “We sucked.”
Adi kept his gaze on the scoreboard. Come on.Come on.
