Here, he was a Game Master.
And like the great Game Masters before him—Louis Augustus Russell, Victor Cunningham, Jasper Barrett—he knew the importance of getting the details just so. It was painstaking work. Mixing the paint to be the right shade of red, the right consistency, the right sheen when it dried. Styling it in a way that would appear random at first . . . but not after careful examination.
His laptop was set up on the bench, playing through oldEscape Gameepisodes while he worked. He’d been watching the series on repeat ever since he got chosen as an upcoming contestant. He was back to season four, episode two—the speakeasy room, one of his favorites.
He paused his painting to look up as Sierra Angelos fumed about Elijah’s incompetence. It was hard to tell who she hated more, Elijah or her sister. As Sierra ranted, Beck’s mouth fizzed with a distinctive mixture of blue Kool-Aid and sherbet. All noises had this effect on him—a form of synesthesia that Beck liked to think of as his secret superpower. The flavors were mostly random. Sirens tasted of ash mixed with chili pepper. Barking dogs were like chewing on sticks, unless they were small yappy dogs—then it was more like a mouthful of splinters. Pinball machines translated into sour candy and pennies on the tongue, and musical instruments ranged from pretzels to marshmallows to asphalt.
“He never should have been chosen as team leader,” Sierra continued. She had a punk look—one of those keep-a-knife-in-her-combat-boots types. Her straight, jet-black hair and black lipstick contrasted with her pasty skin. “Everyone knows that I’m—”
“—the smartest person on this team,” Beck mimicked. “Yeah, Sierra, we know.”
She never tired of saying it. And maybe it was true. Beck figured you had to be pretty smart to get away with murder. Though everyone knew she’d done it, there hadn’t been enough evidence for the police to make the arrest.
“I swear to god,” she went on, “if Elijah ruins my chance of reaching the finale, he’ll have hell to pay.”
Every single word she spoke was sour and sweet and effervescent. Even when she was being cantankerous, he loved the taste of her voice.
He had just gone back to painting when his mom cried out, “Beck! They’re here!”
Heart leaping, he threw his paintbrush into a tub of murky red water and peeked out the garage’s window. An unmarked van was out front. The sort that belonged to either a kidnapper or a reality TV crew.
A Black woman in a pristine white suit stood in the middle of the driveway surveying the front of Beck’s house, while a frizzy-haired white guy in jeans and sandals opened the back of the van and pulled out a massive camera. Beck scrubbed the fake blood from his hands in the utility sink before heading into the house.
His parents were at the front door, welcoming the newcomers.
“Hi,” Beck said. “Thanks for coming.”
The woman’s sharp gaze traveled from Beck’s bare feet to his paint-smeared T-shirt. Her black hair was shiny and straight, bobbed at her shoulders, and her lips were crimson. “I’m Ranielle Russell, executive producer ofThe Escape Game.”
Her voice was expensive perfume on Beck’s tongue. He tried not to cough.
“Ranielle Russell,” he mused. “Any relation to the Game Master?”
Her lips thinned into a tight smile. “Louis is my husband.” She then gestured at the frizzy-haired guy behind her. “We’ll be filming today. Pretend he’s not here.”
Ranielle shook Beck’s parents’ hands, then took stock of the living room. The secondhand furniture. The framed Thomas Kinkade print. The embroidered pillow of wild horses his mom had bought at a yard sale. “Mind if we do some rearranging?”
The camera guy didn’t wait for approval before he started moving the coffee table.
“Uh . . . sure?” said Beck’s dad, casting Beck awho are these people?look that Beck could only respond to with a shrug that he hoped was interpreted as,Hollywood.
“Today we’ll be filming what we call greenlights,” said Ranielle. “We’ll use these shots to give viewers a glimpse of your home life. No one cares how many puzzles a teenager can solve if their personality is as flat as a pancake. Our viewers want contestants they can cheer for. You want to be likable, yes, but it’s even more important that we can tell a story. We need to know why anyone should care about you.”
She stared at Beck, and it was a moment before he realized she expected an answer.
He was tempted to point out that, generally speaking, people did care about him. He didn’t necessarily try to be likable, he just . . . was. It was almost as if a fairy godmother had waved her magic wand over Beck’s cradle, back when his blankets were pink and his first name was three syllables instead of one.This kid shall be adored by all!
Homeschooled from the start, he’d spent his formative years running around his grandpa’s ranch in Montana. After the ranch was sold—a decision that was still a sore spot among his relatives—Beck and his parents had become seminomadic, always bouncing from town to town, state to state.
People were always saying that homeschooled kids were socially awkward, but in his opinion, his unconventional childhood meant that he’d encountered all sorts of different people growing up, and had gotten really good at winning them over.
Winning over the show’s viewers would be no different. He wasn’t worried about that.
His other purpose for going onThe Escape Game?
Nowthatwas going to be a challenge. And Beck freaking loved a challenge.
But he couldn’t exactly share his biggest secret with the executive producer.
