Gauntlet: Chapter 3

The scent of something heavenly brought Clio out of the depths of a satisfying sleep. For a brief, muddled moment, she was back home, waking up in her childhood bed and straining to hear the sounds of her mother in the kitchen. On cue, her stomach rumbled. Clio smiled.

She rolled from her side to arch her back in a deep stretch. Something jingled as her arms spread above her head. Clio froze.

The mild hunger pains in her stomach twisted into bitter disappointment.

Clio blinked her eyes open, but the windowless room was utterly dark. Her fingers fumbled for the lamp next to her. The warm light glowed around her, illuminating a tray next to her bed.

A small basket of fresh blueberry muffins sat next to a pot of tea and creamer–her favorite breakfast. Clio frowned as she considered how they had discovered that. She only briefly acknowledged that the food itself could be dangerous–if someone were out to hurt her, they would have done so while she slept.

And she was hungry. Britt had never had enough canned goods for Clio to feel full, and there was no knowing when another meal would come along. Her stomach growled louder this time, prompting Clio to grab a muffin.

They were still warm. Clio moaned as she barely chewed the first bite. The buttery sweetness spread over her tongue, and she swallowed only to take another large bite. She wolfed the muffin down in the space of a minute.

She paused to pour herself some tea before consuming another of the treats. They were delicious, and as the minutes passed and she didn’t start puking or dying, she relaxed a little more. She allowed herself to slow down and enjoy her third muffin at leisure.

When she was too stuffed to do anything but lean back against the pillows and sip tea, Clio laughed a little. She never would have expected breakfast in bed after spending so many nights on cold, dirty floors.

Maybe, though…maybe it meant that she was getting closer to the end. The excitement of that thought was too much to smother completely.

Don’t get your hopes up, she warned herself. And what about Britt?

“Britt.”

Clio chewed at her lip worriedly, and a rush of guilt swamped her. Here she was, lying around and gorging on muffins while Britt could be in trouble. Even if she wasn’t, Clio knew very well that Britt wouldn’t be distracted by breakfast. No, Britt would be out looking for Clio.

That got Clio out of bed–a sacrifice that wasn’t easy to make. She shuffled over to the main light switch and snapped it on. When the room lit up, she recoiled in surprise.

In the place of a mirror from the night before, a large, recessed monitor now took up a good portion of the wall. The split-screen display showed various locations–empty rooms and hallways, dark shafts, bathrooms, and supply closets. Clio gasped when she saw the pool where Britt had taken her. Occasionally, the pictures faded out to be replaced by new scenes.

Clio watched in fascination. Her breath caught when two people sitting on overturned crates flashed in the upper corner of the display.

“Britt!”

Britt’s face on the monitor turned up briefly, almost as if she’d heard Clio’s voice. But even more shockingly, Britt was laughing. Clio couldn’t hear what was being said, but the two girls–and she was almost sure the other person was girl, despite the grainy video feed–were definitely laughing.

Clio had seen Britt laugh…a little before, but never with such gusto and with her head thrown back. Clio wondered what could be so funny.

Something in her chest twisted. Who was that other girl? Where had she come from?

Clio moved closer to the screen and noticed a small console with controls. With a bit of trial and error, she figured out how to zoom in on the feed.

The girls were eating, too. A nice little stash of food was scattered next to them.

“Where did all that come from?” Clio’s voice sounded thin and high-pitched in her ears. She suddenly felt a lot less guilty about her muffins.

Her eyes focused on the other girl. It was hard to pick up details, but the girl was pale, as if she hadn’t seen the sun in ages, and she was shorter and heavier than Britt. Her hair was a little wild and shaved on one side. She gesticulated broadly as she talked, which seemed to entertain Britt.

Whatever Clio struggled with was forgotten when her eyes fell on something at the girl’s feet. The zoom wouldn’t go any closer, so Clio rose on her toes and peered at the grainy picture.

An unpleasant frisson of shock ran down her spine. The puddle of dark cloth was a prowler mask. The bug-eyed shape of the goggles was unmistakable.

“Who is she?”

Questions tumbled in Clio’s thoughts, mainly focused on what relationship Britt had with this person. And for how long.

“Did Britt take the mask when she got away?”

Clio bit her lip. Maybe this girl had helped her. Or maybe…the girl was a prowler herself.

No.

It didn’t have to mean anything bad. Clio tried to quiet the thumping of her heart, but she couldn’t completely quell her fear. How had Britt managed to get away? The Jacks had told her not to trust Britt. Red Jack, anyway. And Britt herself had said not to trust anyone.

“But…Britt’s not like that,” Clio whispered.

Britt wouldn’t string someone along just to betray her later. Clio believed that. It felt true.

As far as the other girl’s loyalties went, Clio couldn’t say.

“I’ve got to get back to Britt.”

Clio pulled back the zoom until she could see the whole room the girls sat in. It looked like every other room in the Gauntlet. Nothing distinguished it. Clio scowled in frustration.

She played with the controls until she figured out how to switch feeds.  She kept an eye on Britt as she cycled through location after location. Britt and the girl were smoking now. Britt had been out of her own smokes for days.

The sudden appearance of two prowlers in the middle of the display frightened Clio, but they passed through a hallway and disappeared again. She flipped rapidly between feeds to find them again, but had no luck.

A brighter location popped up, lit with natural light.

Outside!

Her breath caught. It was a rooftop garden with high walls, but Clio could see the sky and the tips of taller buildings in the distance. If she could figure out how to get there, maybe she could climb down the side of the building.

The exhilaration quickly faded. These disconnected locations didn’t help at all–she had no idea how to reach any one in particular. She cycled through the feeds until another familiar room caught her eye.

It was the theater. The stage was dark except for a small spotlight that beamed beneath the arch. A wooden easel stood there, holding a poster printed with a flourished Vaudeville font. Clio zoomed in.

Act II ~ Deus ex Machina

~

Ace in the hole!

~

Fight or Flight?

At the bottom of the poster, a fat king sat on a bicycle and held up an ace of spades card. But what caught Clio’s eye was the rolled paper dangling from a ribbon tied to one of the easel’s wooden supports. Her name was written on a paper heart threaded through the ribbon.

Clio flew out of the room.

Her feet squeaked against the boards of the stage until she skidded to a halt in front of the easel; she winced as she landed on her knees. Her hands were shaky when she reached for the scrolled paper.

She untied the ribbon and spread the scroll. It was a blueprint–a map. A doorway had been circled in red ink in the bottom left, with the word EXIT printed next to it and underlined twice. Her heart began to pound.

EXIT.

Clio’s eyes traced the lines of the map. She picked out the route that led from that tantalizing EXIT all the way back to the theater. There it was: a hidden door that would get her out of here. The mechanism to reveal it was clearly marked.

A trick–it had to be a trick. But it wasn’t. Somehow Clio knew that. This was a true chance, a way out, and all she had to do was follow the map.

That was when she saw the two black dots in a small room on the far side of the blueprints. Arrows pointed to each one, labeled with small, neat letters.

Britt. Lilah.

Fight or flight.

***

It took Clio longer than expected to get there. She had to backtrack once when she found a hallway blocked by a pile of concrete rubble, and to work around it, she had to crawl through a tight service shaft.

That wasn’t blocked, luckily. Clio emerged into the wider hallway with relief. A quick scan of the map confirmed that her destination was through the door ahead.

Clio tightened up her ponytail and brushed off her knees. Her nerves burned as she walked to the door.

“At least I’m dressed for my big return,” Clio whispered to herself. A little defiantly, she threw open the door.

The girls inside leapt to their feet.

Clio felt a slight, wicked flicker of satisfaction at the shock on their faces. Then Britt’s face lit up.

“Clio!”

Clio’s chest warmed at Britt’s response, and her defensive resolve softened. She walked through the door and beamed.

Before she could greet Britt, the other girl stepped between them and eyed Clio up and down. Clio stared at the short, plump girl with rainbow-colored hair that fell over one eye. The other side of her head had been shaved to stubble and dyed bright yellow.

The girl smirked and cocked her head. Her heart-shaped paperclip earring jingled.

“This is her?” the girl drawled. One surprisingly nondescript eyebrow rose, and her smirk grew. “I thought you said she was a princess.”

Continued in Chapter 4.

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