Rat Race (Devil’s Playground #2)

12. Aubrey

Aubrey

Is this what death felt like?

I f Cam wasn’t so… Cam, I would’ve already bashed that bitch’s head in.

I scrambled after Ella, staring at my watch in her hand as she moved to cozy up beside Cam to look at the walls. How the fuck she’d managed to get it so expertly off my wrist was anyone’s guess. She leaned closer to the pipes, using the light from my stolen watch to inspect each of them.

The water dripped from my skin in icy droplets, freezing my insides and slowing my movements. In the short time we’d been in the room, the chill had gotten so bad my fingers began to numb.

First they wanted to boil us, then they wanted to freeze us. What else? Is a fiery pit waiting to swallow us up? Spikes? Flesh-eating bugs?

“Shouldn’t be that hard, if you aren’t a bimbo Barbie at least,” Ella muttered, her free hand already pulling at the pipes, trying to match up the like sides.

“Aw, baby, I’d rather be bimbo Barbie than stuck as forgettable stupid Skipper,” I hissed, reaching to grab my watch from her hand.

She shot me a look. I shot her one back before my stiff fingers closed around the watch, pulling it from her grasp and reattaching it to my wrist. It was pinging like crazy, but I was too focused on the rat to even consider looking at the flood of messages.

“Do you want to get out of here or not? We don’t have time for you to fuck around with the goddamn puzzle.”

“Quit touchin’ shit,” Cam said with an irritated sigh. “Last time you did it didn’t end so nice. Haven’t you learned fuckin’ anythin’ in here? If we just take our time and work together ?—”

“You should’ve shut the fucking door on her,” I said, stepping closer to Ella with a sneer. “You’re not just holding us back, you’re a fucking liability . Cam may not be able to see it, but I see right fucking through you.”

Ella rolled her eyes and turned back to the wall of pipes.

“Whatever,” she mumbled under her breath. “You might not see it, but I care about Cam. We’re friends . And you might have some kind of weirdo obsession with them, but that doesn’t change anything. I’m getting the fuck out of here?—”

A loud click echoed through the room as Ella moved one of the pipes with a triumphant shout.

“ See ? I told you I could figure this shit out?—”

“Fuckin’ shit ?—”

It happened so fast there was no way to brace for it.

There was no sound. No rumbling. Not even the telltale tingling sensation that something was wrong.

One moment we were standing in the dark, water raining down on us in a slow, cold drizzle, and the next, the floor beneath us was open. Slanted toward a pitch-black gap in the center of the room.

“Fuck!”

I scrambled to hold on to the wall, my fingers slipping off the slick pipes as gravity failed me. The floor was at a heavy angle, my nails digging into the rough, wet surface of the jagged ground in an effort to stop myself from falling.

Hot pain shot up my hands and arms, adrenaline the only thing warming my body as ice-cold fear overtook me.

Ella’s scream echoed up to us as she rocketed downward, a loud splash following.

“Christ on a cracker,” Cam swore from their place at my side. They were trying to hold on as well, but there was no use. The floor was too tilted, the ground too wet. Booted feet slipping as we couldn’t find purchase. “Sorry, Peaches,” they groaned, sliding off the shallow lip and tumbling into darkness.

I didn’t have time to worry—or worse, to mourn . I had to hope that the initial splash I’d heard from Ella’s fall meant there was enough water at the bottom of the pit to stop them from breaking bones. But then there was the concern of whatever might be in the water with them.

“Fuck this,” I growled and tried to use my boot to force my body up again. My nails were screaming at me to stop. My body was shaking with the force it took to keep me up.

But just like Cam, it was no use. My body gave up.

Splash .

My boot slipped, and with it went the rest of my grip. I fell down into the blackness. My back hit the edge of the tunnel I was thrown into, knocking the air from my lungs. I gasped. My hands outstretched feebly to grab on to something— anything —as I fell down.

Is this what death felt like?

The unending, potent fear that gripped my entire body? Did everyone feel this way?

The hole had to lead somewhere. And if I was falling down, and fast, that meant my untimely end would be there at the end waiting for me.

For a moment, it was a bit like how I’d imagined flying to be. Weightless, almost magical in its suspension from reality.

This wasn’t like being thrown during cheer practice. This was something else.

Something more .

Ella’s screams stopped when she hit the water, the only sound in my ears now the whooshing of the wind as I fell. The sound was like music to my ears. But any joy that was brought by it was smashed by hearing Cam fall through the air and hit the ground.

It hurt more than expected. The knowledge that they were hurt. The fear that they were seriously injured even more so.

Was it worth it? A small voice whispered in the back of my mind. You’re gonna end up just like Natalie. Dying a boring, unsatisfying death. Just because you wanted to prove something to the world.

I hated that voice. Hated how it attacked my being. Hated how the same overcritical thing, far too close to my grandmother’s voice, showed me picture after picture of my unsatisfactory life over and over again as I fell.

I didn’t want to listen to it.

I wouldn’t.

“Fuck you?—”

Pain. Mind-blowing, sharp pain flashed through my body as my back hit water and then, far too quickly, the ground.