He groaned. He grumbled. He stomped.
But he followed her out the door anyway, because he’d follow her fucking anywhere.
9
“After your introductory video ends, you’ll have an hour,” the escape room attendant told Molly and Karl, after they’d both signed their waivers and Molly had insisted on paying for their allotted hour. “When you’re ready for one of your three hints, tap the icon on the screen. If you need to leave before the hour is up and before you manage to escape, press the emergency exit button next to the door.”
Molly inclined her head. “Got it.”
The young woman left, brandishing an enormous metal key, and the door shut heavily behind her. The key turned in the lock with an emphaticclunk. Unable to stop herself, Molly tugged at the brass door handle, testing just how locked in they really were. The handle didn’t move a millimeter. There’d be no escape until they either put together all the clues, employed the emergency button, or ran out of time.
Hopefully they’d work together and communicate well under pressure, even in an environment unfamiliar to them both. That was precisely what she hoped to find out today.
Whenever a situation turned difficult and her ex got frustrated, he either gave up or turned snarky and unpleasant. And too many times, Rob had turned his snarkiness on her. When that happened, she hadn’t put up with his behavior—she’d told him to cut it out or simply walked away—but she’d always managed to excuse it afterward. She’d told herself medical school was stressful, that hehadn’t gotten enough sleep, that he didn’t realize how sharp and disagreeable he was being.
Turned out, Rob was just a dick. That was all. And if her long-lost high school crush could do better, even under artificial circumstances, that would be one more step toward trusting him with more than her friendship and her body.
“‘The Curséd Amulet of Egypt’?” When Karl squinted at the computer touchscreen on the wall, the corners of his eyes creased in an unfairly handsome way. “That’s our scenario?”
Before she could answer, the informational video started.
“In the final year of the nineteenth century, an Egyptian expedition led by a prominent British archaeologist uncovered the ancient, untouched tomb of an unknown queen.” The computer screen flickered with black-and-white photos of archaeological digs, mustachioed Victorian men in suits looking extremely pleased with themselves, and the local Egyptians hired to do all the hard, dirty work. “The tomb was ruthlessly opened, and priceless artifacts of Egypt’s rich historical legacy were packed away to far-away London museums—including the queen’s breathtaking amulet, made of turquoise carved into a scarab shape and hung on a plaited chain of gold wire.”
Karl stabbed a blunt finger at the amulet on the screen. “Are we supposed to steal the amulet from her tomb or something?”
He sounded disgruntled by the prospect. Well, evenmoredisgruntled.
“I certainly hope not,” she said with feeling.
He grunted in agreement. “Only an asshole takes another country’s artifacts.”
As she twisted her neck to smile at him, the informational video’s narrator continued speaking.
“—remained tucked in a dusty drawer for over a century. Until last week, when a museum curator came across the artifact once more, cleaned it, and translated the inscription on its back, which warned of a curse placed upon whoever might despoil the queen’s tomb.”
Karl folded his arms across his chest, satisfied. “Of course there’s a curse. Bastards should’ve kept their eugenics-obsessed meat hooks off a foreign country’s historical legacy.”
“The curse wouldn’t only target the expedition’s original members. It would also doom their descendants and their descendants too, unto eternity. They’d ripped away a queen’s and a nation’s legacy, and so their own legacies, the fruits of their loins, would—”
“Fruit down there? Basically asking for a yeast infection.” Karl pursed his lips and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter how hot that old-school romance scene was. Like I told all the Nasty Wenches: Raspberries don’t fucking belong in vaginas.”
“—rip and destroy too,” the voice-over actor announced. “And so it came to pass. With the first utterance of the inscription in a dusty museum storage room, the Colonizer’s Curse fell upon the expedition members’ descendants. Hundreds of them transformed into zombies and rampaged throughout their communities, killing without thought or pity and creating yet more undead creatures.”
The narrator paused for emphasis. “The only way to break the curse and save humanity? Steal the amulet back from the museum, survive the ravenous zombies, and overcome all the dangers of the despoiled tomb to return the artifact from whence it came.”
“Like a reverse Indiana Jones?” Karl looked significantly more enthusiastic now. “Ignore my bitching and sign me the hell up.”
“Your mission begins with the necklace,” the narrator concluded. “Find it first, then enter the tomb. Good luck, and your time begins... now.”
The overhead lights of the ersatz museum storage room flicked off, and only the soft glow of two vintage-looking lamps illuminated the space. The computer screen went dark too, other than its bright blue hint-dispensing icon and the timer ticking down from sixty minutes.
The wall across from them was lined with shelves. A solid wooden desk to the right boasted several drawers, a metal typewriter, an enameled ashtray, and a pile of files. To their left: the exit door with its old-fashioned lock and a safe of some sort.
She headed for the desk and those tempting files.
“Take us half an hour, max.” Karl reached for the nearest shelf. “Let’s fuckingdo this.”
“This fuckingblows,” Karl grumbled approximately fifty-seven minutes later. They were the first intelligible words he’d spoken in a good half hour.
