Page 83 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

“Hey, open up!” Daniel shouts.

I hear the rattle of a door. Together, we step over the threshold.

“Drop your blindfold!” someone says. I tug it off, and for a moment the light is too bright for me to see anything.

“Are we in time?” I ask, panting. “Did we make it? Did we get eliminated?”

My eyes adjust, and I can make out Dawn Taylor in front of me, with everyone—Peter Dixon, the camera crew, the producers, Lex—surrounding us in a semicircle.

“Eliminated?” Dawn Taylor holds out two glasses of champagne. “You not only survived my Wrath Challenge, you won!”

Chapter Seventeen

Hell Is When Shit Hits the Fan

Dawn Taylor is beaming at us like we just presented her with an Emmy Award, and Daniel is saying something corny about how we strengthened our love in the labyrinth. But I’m still processing that we didn’t just survive, we came in first.

Leah is ecstatic as she leads us a few feet away to get our reaction interview.

“You two nailed it,” she says. “How are you feeling? Ready for some quality time together in the hot tub?”

Daniel and I lock eyes, and for a split second I think I see panic on his face, but it’s quickly replaced with his usual easy smile.

“We can’t wait,” he says, winking at me.

Another couple staggers out of the labyrinth moments later. It’s Noah and Ava, followed by Mikayla and Trevor, who are loudly bickering.

“Looks like there’s trouble in paradise,” Ava wryly observes.

Then Jaxon arrives, hand in hand with a slime-covered Brittany, who does the Electric Slide to celebrate. We all laugh as Selena and Chase charge through next, screaming at the top of their lungs. Somehow, both of them are drenched head to toe in slime.

And then, finally, Zya and Dominic straggle through last, looking miserable. Gone is any sense of camaraderie as Zya tears off her blindfold and hurls it in Dominic’s face.

“You didn’t listen to a single thing I said,” Zya accuses Dominic. “It’s not my fault you got dick-punched by that wall!”

Dawn Taylor glides over to meet them. “Zya, Dominic, your journey through my inferno is at an end. It’s time for both of you to get the hell out of here.”

Dominic looks like he’s about to spontaneously combust. A vein is popping on his forehead, and he’s breathing like he just ran a marathon. But then he glances back at the labyrinth and all the fight drains out of him. “Fuck this. I didn’t want to go on this show anyway.”

Zya and Dominic stalk away in silence with Seth and a cameraman hotfooting after them to get their soundbites. Daniel tugs me away from the crowd as the producers descend on the others.

“So, Cinderella, where did you leave your shoe?” Daniel asks me.

“It fell off back in the goo.” I eye the scene in front of us. “Think anyone’ll notice if we go back and grab it?”

“Nah,” Daniel says. “Come on.”

“Let’s get a group shot going in ten,” Peter Dixon is saying as we head back to the labyrinth. “A clip of the slimed contestants together will make a killer promo.”

As we turn the corner into the labyrinth, I see my shoe sitting at the edge of the slime pit. Daniel picks it up and guides it onto my foot, his touch at once gentle and firm. Ignoring the butterflies in my stomach, I look anywhere but at him.

That’s when I see the body.

There’s someone lying by the slime pit, limbs splayed out, in a puddle of something dark.

“Daniel, look,” I say, tugging his arm as he straightens up. Then I call out, “Hey, are you okay?”

“Shit,” Daniel breathes. His hand finds mine, and together, the two of us make our way across the drawbridge, carefully at first, and then we start sprinting.

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