Page 22 of Never Thought I'd End Up Here
“To be fair, I don’t think anyone can be more ready than Lydia,” Cyrus remarks. “That doesn’t mean she’s going towinthough. We will.”
I sneak a curious glance in his direction: Everything about him is serious, sharp, severe, from the hard set of his jaw to the crisp lines of his pushed-up sleeves. This new version of him is so self-reliant and self-possessed, like a lone cottage on a remote island, that he leaves no room for anyone else to come close.What’s changed?The question nags at my mind.What changed you?
I can’t stop myself from studying him as he’s beckoned over by the teacher, and returns with two blindfolds.
“We’re meant to wear these when we enter, apparently,” he says.
“These?” I raise a skeptical brow as I assess the thin scraps of fabric in his hand. “Will they even do anything? I swear I have dresses made from this exact material and those things are, like,fullysee-through.”
Cyrus blinks fast. “Why do you own dresses that are see-through? Does that not defeat the very purpose of clothing?”
“The same reason I own anything in my closet: because it looks good,” I say. Then, unable to resist a chance to fluster him, I add in an offhand tone: “I even brought one of the dresses with me. Want to see me wear it?”
He freezes, blood rushing to his face, the look in his eyes almost panicked. He doesn’t even seem to be breathing until I burst out laughing.
“Don’t worry, I won’t show you just yet. I can’t have you going into shock before the competition is over.”
“I—” He clears his throat. “I wouldn’t go intoshock—”
“You almost went into shock just now at my mere suggestion. Also, wait, can you help me put this on?” I nod at the blindfold.
“Yes. Sure,” he says, moving behind me. I expect him to be quick with it, the way the others are—out of the corner of my eye, I see Oliver tying the blindfold so carelessly that it ends up sliding down to Daisy’s chin—but Cyrus’s movements are like him: deliberate, precise. As the world goes dark, I feel his fingers in my hair fastening the ends of the blindfold, taking care not to mess up my bangs.
The world stays dark for the next few minutes while I’m led forward by a hand at my elbow. In the beginning, I try to keep track of where we’re going, the places where the smooth stone underfoot transitions into uneven wooden boards, where I hear the creak of a door opening and closing behind us, where the air turns colder, more compact, and the floral notes of tea waft up to my nose. But then we make one turn after another after another, and my head is spinning by the time we come to an abrupt stop.
There’s a softclick, a lock snapping into place.
Cyrus’s voice sounds from my right. “I think we can remove our blindfolds now.”
I let the fabric fall and squint around the room. The details register in pieces: stainless steel counters, woks left on stoves, blunt cleavers lying on cutting boards, bottles of vinegar and soy sauce, more pots hanging in a neat row like clothes on a laundry line, flickering lights. A kitchen. It looks like the back of any restaurant, except for the fake blood splashed everywhere.
“So that’s where thehauntedpart comes in,” I say, leaning over with mild curiosity to inspect the dark red liquid dripping down the closest wall. “Looks like someone was murdered in here. Daisy’s not going to enjoy this very much.”
“We should look for a password of some kind” Cyrus is saying, businesslike. The bulbs above us flash off for three seconds, throwing us briefly into darkness, and creaking can be heard from somewhere deeper in the teahouse, like a rusted seesaw. I’m not sure if all of it succeeds at making the atmosphere eerier, but it certainly does add an element of danger; I almost knock my chin against Cyrus’s shoulder as I fumble my way forward. “Any numbers or letters or diagrams,” Cyrus continues when the lights come on again, like nothing happened. “Any objects that look like they’ve been moved—”
“There’s something here,” I say, pointing at the keypad lock on the back door. The numbers are already starting to fade in places. “It requires a code.”
“Let me see.” Cyrus steps forward and starts punching in a few numbers.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “We don’t know the password yet.”
“Testing to see how many numbers we need,” he replies over the beeping. “Look. It only lets you enter up to six numbers. And it should involve some combination of …” He shifts a little closer, running his hand over the digits that have been carved into the metal. “Two, five, seven, and nine. You can tell those are the main numbers people have pressed in the past because they’ve been worn away the most. Of course, there’s always a chance that the staff here figured it was obvious and have changed the passcode since, but I doubt they do it very frequently because it would require them to update all the clues.”
“Right. That makes sense,” I say, grudgingly impressed.
“Of course it makes sense, qin ai de,” Cyrus says, craning his neck to inspect the dangling pots.
I narrow my eyes at him. “What did you call me just now?”
“Hm?”
“Qin ai de, or whatever that was,” I say. “It sounded like an insult.”
“It meansmy worst enemy,” he says casually without even turning around, and proceeds to pull open the drawers beneath the stove one by one. “There’s nothing here. Nothing in here either— Oh.” He pauses.
“You found something?”
“Just a severed hand.” He picks up the prop and waves lazily at me with it. “What do you think the story is here? They murdered one of the guests, then cut off his hand out of spite?”
