CHAPTER THIRTEEN JUNE 17, 2020   After indulging in the free breakfast provided by the Ramada by Wyndham and then checking out of the hotel in Burbank, they loaded their luggage into the SUVs and drove to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The moment they arrived, the girls made a beeline for the iconic Urban Light exhibit and began posing amongst the display of antique street lamps. The photo shoot extended for almost half an hour, thanks to Bianca going all out for the girls and directing them individually for several minutes each.   Once she was satisfied, they found a place to sit that was under some shade and began discussing their plans for the morning.   “I booked us a session at the Exit Game in Monterey Park for anyone who wants to do another escape room,” Kallie said with a grin.   Vanessa shivered upon remembering the Asylum escape room she had solved back in San Francisco. “Is this one horror-themed as well?” she asked, eyes filled with worry.   Kallie shook her head. “Nah, this one is science fiction-themed. It’s called Lab 51 and we have to find out what’s going on in this secret alien lab.”   Ripley brightened up after hearing the plot and rubbed her hands in excitement. “Count me and Jerry in! This is a paranormal investigator’s dream scenario!”   “I think I’ll pass,” the Singaporean girl said with a grimace. “I’d much rather explore LACMA. We haven’t really visited any museums on this trip, so I’d like to walk through this one today.”   “Unfortunately, I think it’s closed today,” Estee said sadly as she looked at a brochure that she had taken from their hotel. “The museum is closed every Wednesday, so we got really unlucky. However,” she fished out another brochure, “we can go to the Huntington Library instead! It has an extensive art collection and beautiful botanical gardens!”   “I’m joining the escape room group,” Amelie announced. “The Asylum was quite fun when we tried it a few days ago and this one sounds like it’ll be a thrilling adventure as well.”   Chanel pointedly elbowed Jonas and grinned at him. “Are you also gonna join us?”   He briefly glanced down at her before moving away and tonelessly saying, “Yes, I will.”   “Nice! How many people can participate in the escape room?” Russell asked Kallie.   “I made a reservation for ten people, since that’s the maximum number they’ll allow in one room,” the Chinese-American girl informed them. “So who do we have so far?”   Spots quickly filled up and Kallie soon had a list of ten that included Ripley, Jeremy, Amelie, Jonas, Russell, Chanel, Alexander, Karter, Chloe, and herself. It had taken some coaxing to get Chloe to join them, since Jason and Leon had decided that they’d rather visit the Huntington Library instead. None of the couples had wanted to split up either, preferring to spend their morning on a romantic date.   “Leon, you should come with us to the escape room,” Alexander said while genially slinging his right arm around the other male’s shoulders.   “Nah, I’m good,” Leon answered as he slipped away from the Chinese-American boy.   Alexander pouted. “Aw, why not?”   Kallie shook her head in exasperation and grabbed his arm. “Shut up and let’s go.”   As she dragged him away, Alexander called out, “C’mon, Leon! Join us! We need your brain!”   “And you need to start using yours,” Kallie shot at the Chinese-American boy.   Alexander angled his head at her while wearing a puzzled expression. “What? Leon was really good at the escape room we did in San Francisco. Why shouldn’t we take advantage of that for this escape room?”   “Oh my god.” Kallie smacked her forehead in disbelief. “Maybe if you didn’t smoke so much, you’d be better at reading the situation!”   “What situation? Museums and gardens are so boring,” Alexander protested. “I’m doing Leon a favor by inviting him.”   “Alex Yu!” Chanel joined them to begin hounding him as well. “You seriously can’t be this dense, right?”   “Leon and Nessie kissed in Las Vegas!” Kallie happily danced around upon remembering the Singaporean girl’s bashful confession. “And have you seen how Leon looks at her? And how Nessie looks at him? They’re basically a couple at this point!”   Alexander looked at the two girls in confusion. “Huh? Since when were they an item? I thought that was just a joke.”   Kallie whacked his arm. “Since day one, you dummy! How are you so blind?!”   “Did you not hear me making bets with everyone when we were in San Francisco?” Chanel asked. “Everyone else did.”   The Chinese-American boy paused and thought for a moment before answering, “Oh, I must’ve missed it since I was talking to Chloe that night. We were discussing some pretty deep stuff.”   This time, Kallie was the one to look at him in utter bewilderment. “What? Since when did you two get close enough for that?”   “I’m a very approachable person, you know,” Alexander claimed, puffing up his chest with pride. “And weed is a great way to make friends,” he added with a smug grin.   “You didn’t offer her any, did you?” Kallie asked in horror.   “Of course not,” the Chinese-American boy hastily replied before she could smack his arm again. “I knew you’d kill me if I did. But maybe you should take some right now to chill out.”   Chanel shook her head in amusement. “You really are a pothead, Alex.”   Alexander sidled up to her and waved an unlit joint in front of her face. “Wanna smoke with me, Nellie? I’ve got enough for two.”   “ you,” Chanel answered with a laugh.   “Sure, let’s end this road trip with a bang.” Alexander playfully wiggled his eyebrows at her. “You know you want it.”   “As appealing as that sounds, Uchi and Lani took our car,” Chanel said, dramatically letting out a long sigh. “But we can always have some fun later tonight,” she added with a wink.   Amelie, who had been walking nearby, suddenly turned her head and incredulously cried out, “What the , my car again?!”   Before the Taiwanese girl could continue making a fuss, Ripley fixed them all a pointed look and said, “Hurry up! I’ve got an alien conspiracy to solve!”   Luckily, Rowan and Lani were still clothed when the group returned to the SUVs, albeit making out heavily while their limbs were a tangled mess. Amelie demanded that they return the car keys to her in an ear-splitting shriek, so Lani grudgingly tossed the key ring to her while Rowan adjusted her rumpled shirt.   Everyone else boarded their respective cars and Ripley began flipping through her notebook that contained all of her research on paranormal activity. She first read through the few entries that were about aliens before turning to a fresh page and marking a new entry. Although this escape room was fictional, it had to be based in some sort of reality. At the very least, she could cross-reference any details that she noticed during the quasi-investigation with her previous notes on alien conspiracy theories.   “Are you excited for the escape room?” Jeremy softly asked her as they cuddled in the backseat of the SUV.   “Well, duh. You know that this stuff is right up my alley,” Ripley deadpanned while scanning through her notes. “And I’m going to be so busy adding updates to our blog once this road trip is done. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a break from updating for this long.”   “It’s been a fun break though, right?” Jeremy asked before pressing a light kiss against her cheek.   “I suppose,” she answered wryly. “At least I got to do a fair amount of investigating. I think I’ve gathered enough content to last a month or two.”   Her boyfriend pouted slightly. “What about us finally getting together? Isn’t that something to celebrate?”   “Of course it is.” Ripley smiled up at him and then leaned her head against his shoulder as she closed her notebook. “We’re Ripley and Jerry, the best paranormal investigating couple around.”   Jeremy tilted her chin up so that their lips could meet in a sweet kiss and Ripley melted like goo in his embrace. They then re-watched some of the footage of the road trip on her boyfriend’s camera for the rest of the hour-long drive.   After dropping off the others at the Huntington Library, the group of ten separated into smaller groups of five and hopped back into two of the SUVs. Kallie and Russell then drove them down to Monterey Park, where Exit Game was located, and parked the cars side-by-side in the underground parking lot. They took an escalator up to the first floor and entered the escape room facility.   Kallie checked in their group and was given a locker key by the employee sitting behind the front desk. They managed to fit all of their valuables in the locker before Kallie deftly turned the key and pocketed it. Another attendant approached them and began handing out crisp white lab coats to everyone as he explained the rules of the escape room. Once they were all dressed, he each handed them a flashlight before leading them into a stark white room with minimal furniture. The moment he locked them in, the digital timer mounted on the wall began counting down the hour.   “Spread out and look for clues,” Ripley barked as she and Jeremy began inspecting the sparse bookshelves that sat in the corners of the room. They were able to find a box that required a numerical code, which Karter eventually deciphered from a book that he and Chanel found. Inside the box was a key which fit in the keyhole to the white door that was at the opposite end of the room from the door that they had entered earlier.   Once the door was unlocked, the group found themselves in a white hallway with symbols and letters written on the walls in neon green paint. There was another massive door that required a code, so they began searching for it along the walls.   Chloe was the first to decode the pictures on the wall and translate them into a four-letter code. Karter deftly inputted the letters and then shucked off the lock. Alexander and Russell swung open the heavy door, revealing a ladder that led up to a platform. Amelie nimbly scaled up the ladder with Jonas right behind her.   “What does it lead to?” Chanel asked.   “I can’t see much. It’s completely dark,” Amelie reported while peering down.   “We probably have to jump down,” Russell deduced. “There’s no other place to go.”   “Alright, I’ll jump first,” Amelie bravely volunteered. She crouched slightly before launching herself into the pitch-black pit and then let out a stifled, “Oof!”   “Are you okay?” Jonas called down, his eyebrows furrowing with concern.   “Yeah, I’m fine!” Amelie called back up. “There’s foam down here that’ll break your fall. It’s completely safe!”   “I’m going next then,” Ripley said as she climbed up onto the platform. As she looked down, she could barely discern Amelie’s silhouette in the darkness. “I’m gonna jump now.”   Amelie shifted out of the way before answering, “Go for it!”   With that, Ripley let herself free-fall into the pit as well. Seconds later, she landed in a soft pile of foam blocks and Amelie stuck her hand out to the paranormal investigator. Ripley let the Taiwanese girl pull her out of the pit and into a narrow hallway.   As the others began jumping down, Amelie pointed to a tunnel at the end of the hallway. “I think we have to crawl through that.”   With Amelie taking the lead, the two girls crawled on their hands and knees through the tunnel, which was covered in a net made out of rope. After they stumbled out of the tunnel, they walked down a short staircase and found themselves in a massive laboratory filled with hundreds of lockers. “Let’s split up,” Ripley said, noting that there were two main rooms.   Amelie nodded and they each began searching for the locker that contained their next clue.   The others soon joined them and it wasn’t longer before Kallie shouted, “I found it!” She had followed a fluorescent footprint trail on the floor, only visible when lit up by the flashlights that they had been given, to Locker Nine Hundred Twenty. Inside, they found another key and they quickly made their way back through the tunnel.   Once they were back in the hallway, Ripley pointed to a small door that was blocked off by a metal gate. “We have to get over there somehow.”   This portion of the escape room took quite some time, with half of them crawling back through the tunnel to see if they had accidentally missed another door in the locker room while the other half of the group tried looking for another code. After much pushing and prodding, it wasn’t until Jonas and Russell accidentally shifted what they had initially believed to be a wall. It was a false front that revealed another pit filled with foam blocks.   One by one, they jumped down and found themselves on the other side of the gate in another narrow hallway that had several alien-themed decorations. Ripley inserted the key that they had retrieved from the locker room and successfully unlocked the small door. Inside were several specimen tables and stations filled with various paraphernalia. There was also an alien dummy standing in a corner with a chart behind it.   “We wasted too much time trying to figure out how to get in here. Let’s speed up this last leg,” Ripley instructed as she and Jeremy walked up to the alien. The couple carefully decoded the chart, with the help of Kallie and Chloe who had retrieved a set of clues from several black lacquer boxes.   Jeremy was able to extract several bones from the dummy and Russell waved him over to a circular table that required the bones to be set in a certain order. Luckily, Amelie and Jonas had figured out the sequence by finding various symbols scattered around the room and around the hallway just outside.   Ripley looked questioningly at her boyfriend when he held out the bones to her.   “You can have the honor of solving the escape room and freeing us,” Jeremy told her with a bright beam.   She glanced around at everyone else, who all nodded in agreement. “Okay.” Ripley carefully slotted the four bones in order, with guidance from Amelie and Jonas. Once the final bone was set, the cloud of white smoke erupted from the middle of the table and a panel opened up to reveal one last key.   “There’s the door!” Karter pointed to a door that was suddenly illuminated with green.   As soon as Ripley unlocked it and opened it, they were greeted by the attendant who congratulated them on a job well done. After he collected all of their lab coats and flashlights, he offered to take a commemorative photo of the group when they were back in the lobby.   “Yes, please!” Chanel was the first to present her phone to him after Kallie opened the locker containing their belongings.   Russell also handed his phone to the employee behind the front desk, who briefly left her post to take pictures of them.   After posing for a minute, the group thanked the two before taking their leave and heading to Shin-Sen-Gumi Hakata Ramen for lunch.   “Have fun?” Jeremy asked, swinging their intertwined hands between them.   “That was incredible,” Ripley replied with a grin. “And thanks for letting me do the last section, Jer. You really didn’t have to.”   “Of course I let you do it!” Her boyfriend looked at her with his eyes shining like stars. “If it weren’t for you leading the charge, we would’ve never escaped. And I knew that it would make you happy to solve the final puzzle.”   “You’re the best, Jer.” They locked lips again and Ripley smiled into the kiss.   She had never felt luckier.       Leon was thankful that he had finally managed to wiggle himself out of the escape room group, despite Alexander’s incessant pleas. Any other time, he would have gladly accepted the offer and participated in another exhilarating game that required him to exercise his brain. But not today, not when he had a museum to visit and exhibitions to check out.   As soon as the escape room group drove off, Rowan and Lani took over the remaining SUV to resume their private time together. The others let the couple be and headed to the ticket counter to purchase entry into the Huntington Library.   The eight of them decided to visit the art museum together and began admiring massive Renaissance paintings that hung on the walls in intricate golden frames. There were also several sculptures situated in various corners of the gallery rooms. Vanessa and Estee marveled the most over the European art, and Leon stood to the side and watched them with a small smile on his face.   They leisurely walked through the lavish art gallery while Estee and Bianca snapped photos every so often. When they neared the exit, Vanessa saw a notice for two of the exhibitions that were currently featured at the Huntington Library. She tugged the hem of Leon’s shirt to grab his attention and looked up at him with big eyes.   He stopped in place and looked back at her. “What’s up, Ness?”   “Can we visit the Beautiful Science and Orbit Pavilion next?” the Singaporean girl asked.   “Sure,” Leon answered with a nod. He then glanced around at everyone else. “Where are you guys gonna go?”    “Jason and I are planning to visit the Chinese Garden and the Japanese Garden now,” Estee eagerly replied.   “We’re heading to the Camellia Garden first, na ka,” Lucy answered while Elliot tenderly held her waist.   Bianca briefly scanned the map of the grounds that was near the exit before saying, “I think Luka and I are just gonna walk around and have photo shoots at as many gardens as we can.”   “Let’s meet at the Freshwater Dumpling and Noodle House for lunch,” Vanessa suggested as they all walked out of the building.   “Sounds good,” Jason agreed before they all headed into different directions.   It was a relatively short walk to the Dibner Hall of the History of Science from the Huntington Art Gallery. The exhibition was divided into four rooms—astronomy, light, medicine, and natural history—and the pair gradually walked around, taking their time to inspect every display.   As they strolled through the exhibition, Leon and Vanessa began to reminisce their high school days since they had both taken the science track. “I was in chemistry and physics,” Leon said as they moved from the light room to the medicine room. “What about you?”   “I did biology and chemistry,” Vanessa answered while walking up to a display about human anatomy. “This is really bringing back a lot of memories,” she said with a wry smile as she lifted up a tab to showcase the musculoskeletal system in the human body.   “Are they good memories?” Leo