That’s what her followers really wanted, anyway.
Her phone dinged with a notification from the Clue Master forums.
It was late enough that the overseas crowd was starting to wake up. Fitzy had garnered attention from his home audience, and also from the Brits, who loved him from his Australian soap opera days. Now that it was easily accessible to everyone on a streaming service,The Escape Gamewas officially an international success.
Being a contestant hadn’t hurt Carter’s brand. There’d been a huge uptick in followers when she first announced she was going to be on the show, along with an outpouring of encouragement from her longtime fans.
After the snag round had aired, things had been . . . more subdued. Some fans had defended her, but the online trolls had claimed that surely the highest-ranking Solve Specialist should’ve done better. Clearly, Kick It Carter was all talk.
Their words nagged at her. She’d been so eager to be on the show, to surround herself with other Clue Masters, people she could actually relate to. It hadn’t occurred to her when she’d sent in her audition video that not only might she remain alone . . . she might lose the online support she relied on to get through each day.
What would people say when the next episode ran? The fortune teller room hadn’t been as terrible as the chemistry lab, but she wished she could have contributed more. She was letting her followers down. She was letting her team down.
And maybe, a little, she was letting herself down.
Another ding from the Domain.
Then another. And another. Seven more in fast succession.
Carter finally stopped organizing the video files to check her phone. A new episode wouldn’t drop until next Sunday; there wasn’t anything to be excited about.
She pulled up the forums, and there, at the top—a headline that hadn’t been there when she’d checked an hour ago.
RIP ALICIA
She clicked the link.
Someone calling themselves the Real Game Master had posted a bunch of screen grabs from the snag round episode showing the different elements from the periodic table, and ultimately the anagram that Adi had figured out.Alicia Angelos.
The comments were lighting up. A whole lot ofWTFs and talk of Easter eggs and in memoriams. But no one knew why the Game Master would have hidden Alicia’s name inside a clue. Carter certainly didn’t.
She clicked on the profile of this ‘Real Game Master,’ but it was blank.
As she was reading the rush of new comments, another post popped up, this one a photo of a ribbon covered in code. Carter zoomed in on the image. She could have sworn she’d seen—
She gasped.
She definitelyhadseen it before.
Clambering from her bed, she rushed into the villa’s living room, where Beck was sitting on one side of the couch reading a magazine and Sierra was on the other doing a crossword puzzle.
“Where’s Adi?” Carter said.
They both jumped and looked at her.
“What happened?” Sierra asked as Beck pointed to his and Adi’s shared bedroom.
Carter spun around and knocked on the door. “Adi? Are you awake?”
She was about to knock again when the door opened. “What?” said Adi. He was wearing gray flannel pajama pants and nothing else.
Carter screamed, pressing her hands over her eyes. “Oh my god, why do you boys never have shirts on? You’re as bad as Jarius!”
“I was getting ready for bed,” said Adi, grabbing a T-shirt off the dresser. “And I am definitelynotas bad as Jarius.”
Carter peeked through her fingers as he yanked the shirt over his head, and even she had to admit that, yeah, okay, he wasn’t as bad as Jarius. In fact—
Oh god, Carter, no. You’re here to win.
