Page 53 of Matched to the Alien King
A wrinkle formed between her brows, and the piles of questions in her eyes grew larger the longer she stared.
Had she heard him or not?
“Attention, contestants,” someone said, from everywhere all at once, and with the obvious use of a deep and disturbing voice transposer. “You’re running out of time. The next room issodrams,muchlike. In it, you’ll either play the hungry games…or die a very unsexy death. The clock is ticking.”
A faux horrific laugh followed and then some e-cig hacking and coughing for good measure.
I already knew what happened next though.
I was going to kill Pete more than once.
Just as soon as I killed the Killian.
Chapter nineteen
Nera
Okay,socallmecrazy, but I was a little impressed with Pete. And blasted to the past to Saturday afternoons when I lived for Dad’s invitations to go into town for a little father/daughter escapism.
I couldn’t get enough of escape rooms, but mostly, I couldn’t get enough of my dad. I sure missed him, especially now, 870 million light-years away from Earth.
After Maxx repeated Pete’s announcement to me, and then as a group, we made one more right turn, we found ourselves in a tiny room filled with human hands. As in a whole thirty-foot-tall wall of them, jutting outward from the wrist, and spaced equally apart.
“I give Pete a C for creativity,” I announced while absently poking one hand’s middle finger.
It was made out of rubber, but it felt oddly like real flesh. The number seven was written across its palm in red ink. They all had different numbers written across their palms.
“No.” Backing away, Bling shivered and wrapped her impressively long arms around her three boobs and the rest of herself. “A C for creepy.”
With his lizard-like hands on his stick-thin waist, Judge looked around the strange room with his oversized black eyes. “I typed my college thesis paper on a waffle maker, andIgot a better grade than Pete. It just goes to show you that life finds a way.”
Yeah, I had no idea what he was talking about either. And why was my hand so sticky and wet after holding his?
Maxx and Miekil were ignoring all of us, across the room from me, and arguing like two warrior enemies about to trade blows.
I sighed. At least they were being quiet about it, but whatever Miekil had said to him in the mirrored hall had really ruffled Maxx’s scales. I’d never seen him shoot fiery daggers from his eyes quite like that before.
I’d ask him about it later though. Right now, we had bigger issues.
“So what do we do?” Bling asked, studying one of two tables in the room.
Judge pointed to a very old-fashioned digital countdown clock on the corner of one table. “Whatever it is, it looks like we have nineteen minutes to figure it out.”
From next to the clock, Bling eyed a tray of two differently sized glass vials. One read five ounces, and the other read three ounces. They sat between a scale that readFour Ounces Only! (X, Y)and a small jug of water.
Bling picked up the jug and shook it. “Thirsty?”
“Probably shouldn’t drink that,” Judge told her.
“That’s why I was offering it to you,” she muttered with a roll of her eyes.
“Is it me, or is this room getting smaller?” Judge asked.
Still poking the fleshy finger, I turned back to the wall of hands toward the obvious gap between the top of the wall and the high ceiling. Drones hovered there while they recorded us.
I turned toward everybody else to point this gap out to them, but my hand slipped a little. Then, fleshy fingers clasped around mine.
I shrieked and yanked back, cupping my hand to my chest like I’d just been burned.
