Fun was fun. What had seemed like a good idea after quite a few Bud Lights was now, in the cold winter light of this snowed-in cabin, ridiculous.

“Buffalo.” As soon as the word left his lips, Bob relaxed.

But Derrick didn’t reach into his pocket and produce the key to the shackles. He just looked at the threatening note, still on top of the typewriter. Then he turned back to stare at Bob, his expression unreadable.

“Buffalo,” Bob repeated.

It was the safe word they had agreed upon. Chosen because it wasn’t a word Bob or Derrick normally said. It wasn’t a word anyone normally said. So there was no chance of accidentally using it in conversation. Now its meaning was plain.

It was time to end the charade.

DERRICK

Dangerous Combat Infraction

Derrick stared down at the foolish old man on the bed, the one who’d just said, “Buffalo,” as if it mattered. Derrick’s note was still propped on the typewriter, undisturbed. The cheese was the only thing that had been touched. It looked like a giant rat had been gnawing at it.

All day, he’d been impatient for school to end. Watching Bridget get in trouble for listening to the audio of King of Swords, he’d felt a secret thrill thinking about how soon he would be reading words even she had yet to see. The drive out to the cabin had felt agonizingly slow.

And all that anticipation had been for nothing. His hand tightened on the wand of the stun gun his mom had insisted they get, even though he had no intention of using it. “Why aren’t you writing?” he demanded.

Bob pushed himself upright. “Why do you think? Because I probably have a concussion from getting hit in the head.” He glared at Derrick. “That definitely wasn’t in the plan.”

Didn’t Bob get that the plan was just a starting point? It was just like in Mysts of Cascadia, the LARP Derrick been playing with his dad a couple of times a month since he was eight years old.

In a LARP, the players and the audience were the same thing. While a plot committee came up with the overarching storylines, it was the player characters, or PCs, who decided how it all actually worked out. PCs had absolute freedom to run headlong into fights, or stay in their cabin all day and talk with other PCs, or anything in between.