Page 58 of Tricks for Free

“You call this ‘small’?” He held up one long-fingered hand. “This is all of me.”

“That’s what I said.” I grinned briefly before sobering. “But it’s all of you that we need to get out of here. Lowryland doesn’t allow adults to wear costumes.”

Sam snorted. “Good thing I’m not wearing a costume, huh?”

“Yeah.” I turned to look thoughtfully at the maintenance door. “I have an idea. Ever seen Alien?”

Sam blinked.

It’s technically a violation of, oh, several dozen Lowry Entertainment, Inc. rules to take non-employees into the tunnels under the Park. Punishable by immediate termination, fines, black mark on your record, yadda, yadda, everything is awful. But at the end of the day, they’d have to catch me before they could do anything about it.

The tunnels leading to Fairyland were largely deserted, since maintenance still happened at night, even when there were closures on Park property. The process of restoring the street to its pre-accident condition would be swift, efficient, and most of all, unseen. Anything that could break the illusion that Lowryland was a magical kingdom where nothing ever went wrong would be concealed from the eyes of our paying guests, because without them, the Park might as well burn.

I inched in first, looking around to be sure I was alone before beckoning for Sam to join me. The sound of the door closing behind him seemed impossibly loud. I winced, waiting for footsteps to come running in our direction. When they didn’t, I relaxed marginally and pointed upward, indicating the supports and pipes running across the ceiling.

“Most of those should hold your weight,” I whispered. “If something seems unstable, move on to the next one, and keep moving. As long as you don’t fall . . .”

“You’d make a hot space marine,” he said, and kissed my cheek before jumping nimbly up to the ceiling, catching hold of the pipes with hands, feet, and tail. He had to pull himself into what was virtually a crawl, rather than dangling with bent knees, but once he was done, he was far enough up that no one was going to see him by mistake. I hoped.

I blew him a kiss and started walking.

This wasn’t a tunnel section I was familiar with, but the people in charge of Lowryland’s subterranean layout learned long ago that getting employees lost wasn’t good for anybody. All the thoroughfares are constructed along as simple and straightforward a pattern as possible, and while there aren’t any maps, there are little architectural quirks that can be used for orientation if necessary.

(As for why there are no maps, well, if a guest did somehow manage to get into the tunnels, we wanted them to get lost. Not permanently, “open a missing persons case” levels of lost, but lost enough that they’d think twice before going through any more forbidden doors. We got one or two kids in the tunnels every season, usually people who’d read about them online and couldn’t wait to see the secret side of Lowryland for themselves. They forgot that some things are secret for a reason.)

Sam moved like a shadow on the ceiling above me, making my joking Alien comparison a little more unnerving. Every time I caught a glimpse of his tail from the corner of my eye, I would stiffen momentarily, until I remembered it was my boyfriend and not a murderous xenomorph.

“Definitely a Halloween costume to keep in mind,” I muttered.

There isn’t much cell signal in the tunnels. Phone calls were right out, but text messages could generally get through. I pulled out my phone as I walked, keying in Cylia’s number before texting a quick request for her to come and pick up me plus a guest—and to bring something with a hood. Hopefully, she’d be curious enough to actually show up, and compassionate enough to bring what I’d asked for. If she wasn’t there when we emerged, we’d figure something out. Figuring something out is sort of what it means to be a Price.

The unfamiliar tunnels gave way to more familiar ones, and I kept walking. The sound of conversation from up ahead drifted back to greet us. I tensed and kept going as a Metropolis food service crew passed, some of them nodding genially in my direction. I didn’t recognize any of their faces. That didn’t matter. If I was down here, moving with purpose, I was a cast member, and if I was a cast member, I was family. We didn’t all like each other. We still had to stand together against the endless tide of tourists and demands.

Once they were out of sight behind me, I glanced at the ceiling and flashed Sam a thumbs-up. He returned the gesture, looking relieved. Maybe this was going to work after all.

“Well, well, well,” said a voice. “If it isn’t Princess Melody. Slumming, your highness?”

“Hello, Robin,” I said, turning to face her. Don’t let her look up, I thought. Distract her so she doesn’t look up. “What are you doing down here?”

“Unlike some people, I still have to work for a living,” she snapped. She was in the paper doll primary colors of Chapter and Verse, the exaggerated stitches on the sleeves dyed yellow, which meant she was working somewhere near Aspen and Elm. She wasn’t one of their handmaids. That was a much more flattering costume. That mattered; she knew I lived with Fern, and I wouldn’t have wanted to wind her up before sending her off to spend a shift with my roommate.

“Oh, right. You weren’t in Fairyland yesterday, since they stopped scheduling us together after we reached the mutually assured destruction stage. I got the day off because I wound up covered in blood after I ran to help our guests—helping people. That’s not something you’d know much about, is it?” I offered her a sugary smile. “I earned this break. Sorry you didn’t.”

“Seems like you just happen to ‘earn’ everything good, and I don’t earn anything.” Robin took a step forward, back suddenly straight, shoulders suddenly hunched. She wasn’t taller than I am—few women are—but she was a pretty sizable girl. She could do some damage, if she decided she wanted to.

On some level, I wanted her to try. I hadn’t been in a proper brawl in months. At least when I’d been with the Covenant, and then with the carnival, I’d been able to keep myself in shape, sparring with people and bouncing off the walls. Since coming to Lakeland, I’d been taking my training where I could find it—and where I could find it came with a shameful lack of punching things.

Plus I knew I could put her down in under a minute if I had to. That was the problem. No matter what the movies say, knocking someone unconscious is a dangerous game. I’d either need to crack her skull without breaking it, or cut off the blood supply to her brain without doing permanent damage. One slip, and I could kill her. Not something to do lightly, and not something to do when I was trying to sneak Sam out unseen. I couldn’t forget the fact that he was clinging to the ceiling above me, and would get involved if he felt he needed to.

Quick and clean. That was the plan.

“Maybe if you were nicer to people, people would be nicer to you,” I said.

“Who’re you to talk? You don’t have any friends, except for the little blonde bubble girl. What, did you steal her from a cult somewhere?”

“Don’t talk about Fern like that.”

“I’ll talk about Fern any way I damn well please, and you won’t stop me.” Robin peeled her lips back in a sneer. “She’s a freak, and so are you. Good, honest people shouldn’t have to look at your kind when we’re in a place like Lowryland.”