Page 70 of Rewriting the Story

“Can we just get this over with?” he asks, already annoyed.

“Alright, if you guys could just put these over your heads before we go in, that would be great.” He hands us all burlap sacks. “And two of you have to go ahead of the others.”

“Are you serious?” I ask, knowing Oliver and Ella were about to say something much harsher to this poor dude.

“Yup,” is all he says. “And you two,” he points between me and Henry, “you both can follow me while the other two figure out the sacks.”

Ella and Oliver groan, and I’m literally going to throw up as I toss the sack over my head and wordlessly follow this guy down a few different dark hallways. Henry has barely said a word, but I can feel the awkward energy coming off him. I would rather die and end up a prop in one of these rooms than talk with him. As we turn into the first room of our adventure, the guy instructs us to get into a small cage in the corner of the room.

“The other two have to figure out how to get you out. It’s the first part of the puzzle.”

“Is this a joke?” I ask, and he shakes his head.

“Let’s just get in, Amelia. The faster we get in, the faster we get out,” Henry says as he heads to the cage.

“He’s right, you know.” The worker smirks at me as I roll my eyes and watch him lock us both in the cage.

As he leaves and shuts the door, I rip the sack off my head and fix my hair, Henry doing the same.

“Where do you think we should start?” I ask, breaking the silence.

“I think we should wait for Ella and Oliver, since they’re not trapped in here and can actually figure out the puzzle.”

Well, there goes working together.

As soon as they get inside, they both start laughing.

“I could make so many jokes about this, but I’ll refrain,” Ella says.

Oliver comes up to the edge of the cage. “How does it feel, Amelia?”

“I’m sure you would know, Oliver. I don’t think you need me to describe it for you, not with all the experience you have being behind bars.”

“You know what,Amelia—”

“What, Oliver? You are the living embodiment of the color beige. What could you possibly—”

Ella cuts our bickering off. “Look, we all know why Grant put the teams like this, so if you three could shut the hell up and be civil for five minutes, maybe we’ll win this thing and beat Leo’s team.”

I love how competitive Ella is, but an escape room in the middle of nowhere in Virginia is not where I want to sort my shit out with Oliver, and especially not Henry.

“I can be civil if they can,” Henry says as he opens and shuts the small locker in the corner of the room.

“I’ll be nice,” I say, looking at Oliver to see what sort of remark he has for me.

“Let’s just get the fuck out of here, okay?”

“Glad we’re all on the same page,” Ella says as she picks up a small piece of paper. “Now, let’s figure out how to get you two out of there.”

“Thank God,” Henry says under his breath, and I roll my eyes as I start to look for clues.

This is going to be the longest hour of my life.

“Lookathowcutethis picture is, you guys!” Paige waves the photo around as if we all weren't in it just a few minutes ago. Paige’s team won, and the worst part is, they only beat us by a few minutes. We had around ten minutes left to escape when we finally got out, and we only used one clue. Turns out, Oliver forgot to grab one of the vials we needed from the second room. I thought his literal job would have made him great at these, but I guess not.

And yes, thesecondroom. This is probably my last time doing an escape room. I thought I was going to get murdered.

“I’m gonna frame this!” she says as we head back to the car.

---