“I shouldn’t have too,” I lightly bit his chest.
He yelped before he laughed in shock. “You know I really can’t help picking up your feelings more than others.”
I looked around to see if we were being noticed, but everyone was still poring over our intel. “Did you…grow since you got it back?”
His brows knitted for a moment before he nodded reluctantly.
“Why do I have a feeling you’re not telling me something?” I asked him suspiciously.
He tweaked my nose before looking at the black clock on the wall with the red digital display. “Later.”
“Go ahead and take your places,” Darren called out. “Thirty seconds until our time officially starts, and I’m hoping to beat the time of twenty-four minutes and thirty-four seconds.”
“You’re hoping,” Jaxson teased. “Last time I checked, we were the ones going in, not you.”
“Shut up Jax,” Remy stated with an eye-roll. “You know we need Darren.”
“I know,” Jaxson laughed as he left the room. “Couldn’t help but clown him, though.”
As we closed the door to the conference room, I heard an ear-piercing scream. It took me a moment to realize it was Darren’s cry that I had heard. Jaxson was laughing as Remy and I went running back inside.
“Jaxson James!” I yelled at him.
“What,” he said with a feigned look of innocence. “I heard Darren was afraid of heights. I didn’t realize sitting on the top of a high wire hovering over a canyon would have such an effect on him.”
“One day,” Jace warned with an indulgent shake of his head.
Poised next to the door leading to the arena, I took deep calming breaths in and out. I looked up and noticed that Will, Paul, Kirk, and a few other people I didn’t recognize were in the viewing area directly in front of us.
It was eerily silent. The teams that had already gone were in the viewing areas above. I could see most of them were animatedly talking and laughing, but it was sound-proof, so we couldn’t hear them. The groups still awaiting their turn were sitting on half bleachers or in the break room to the right.
“Team Four, are you ready?” Paul asked through the intercom system.
Remy nodded and held up a thumb.
“Excellent. Your time starts… now!” Kirk directed.
“Let’s go,” Remy bade us. “Jace, Baby Girl, Linc, and Dre after you.”
I allowed Lincoln and Jace to proceed me into the double doors.
I didn’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t a hotel-like lobby we stepped into. There was a registration desk to our left and what looked like a café area to the right. Straight ahead were three sets of elevator doors, but we knew it was just background aesthetics in this simulation.
“Okay, I see you guys,” Darren said through our earpieces. “Problem is, that’s all I see. All the other feeds are blank. I can’t see anything else.”
“What do you mean you can’t see anything?” Jace said quietly back into his com.
“I mean. You entered and now…you’re gone,” Darren said in frustration. I could hear him angrily tapping away at his keyboard. “Someone created a backdoor into my system. Dammit! I’m going to have to shut it down. We’re flying blind.”
“No,” Lincoln said in a deep soothing voice. “Darren, relax. You can still be our eyes. I’m looking at a room that’s painted with red walls.”
I looked over at him, and I noticed his eyes were wide open, and he seemed to be in the present but had a faraway look in his eyes. He seemed to be rubbing the pendant on his necklace. It was slightly disconcerting to me to realize I was observing him so carefully and remembered the first time I saw it.
“I have two rooms with red walls,” Darren said in a much calmer voice, causing me to focus on the task at hand.
“This room has pictures with a lot of orchids in them,” Lincoln stated.
Darren muttered something. “Stand by. This may take a moment.”