Escape the Night: Betrayal at the House on the Hill

A/N: Hello, world and welcome back for the next installment of the season finale of Escape the Night! So, I did go to the dentist yesterday and instead of the root canal, the dentist worked on a different tooth because the filling was starting to crack. So, next week I'll have the root canal done.

Anyway, I'm excited to say that tomorrow and Saturday, I will be going to Salt Lake Fan-X Spring 19 with my sister, Yami Faerie, for panels, two photo opts., and a whole lot of fun! Now, on with the story!

Read, review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Escape the Night. I just own any and all characters that I just happen create.

CHAPTER FOUR: HIDE AND SEEK PART 3

Oli and Eva were trapped inside the house and had been forced to retreat down the hallway after Sarah had suddenly appeared, preventing them from following Joey and Dawn out the front door, and they duck into the study.

"Eva," Oli whispered, closing the door behind them. "Hide. Please. You need to hide. I can't…they won't find you. Okay?"

Eva nodded and she duck underneath the nearby desk while Oli hid behind the door, on the off chance that Sarah did enter the room.

`"Eeee-va?"` The maid's voice echoed throughout the halls. `"Are you still here? Eeeeee-vaaaa…"`

`"Hello?"` Arthur called out from outside somewhere. `"Oli?"`

`"Eva, Marvin thinks you're cute!"`

`"Oh yes."`

Eva thought she was going to be sick when she heard that, especially having overheard Marvin wanted to do things with her and Dawn earlier. Even Oli was making a face upon hearing that, and there was no way in hell he was going to let Marvin do anything to either Dawn or Eva.

Meanwhile outside, Joey and Dawn were still hiding behind the fountain, and having heard Arthur call out the names of their friends, they knew that they hadn't been found, but they were running out of time, and the sun was going to be rising over the mountains soon.

"You know what?" Joey whispered to Dawn, fed up with all of this. "Screw it. You and I are going to the freakin' staircase ourselves. Come on." He started for the back of the house and Dawn reluctantly followed him, partly because she didn't want to be left alone, and partly because she didn't think it would work since she knew that Eva had the emerald with her.

Inside the study, Eva and Oli both froze when they heard Joey call out their names from somewhere in the backyard. `"Guys! Guys, we're in the backyard, where the hell are you?!"` And they scrambled to the window to get it open in order to save their friends before the bad guys got to them.

`"Get them!"` Sarah shouted from inside the house.

'Oh crap!' Joey and Dawn both ran off, and Joey was cursing himself for being stupid. They ran for the pool house, having to duck and dodge when Arthur began firing at them, the bullets whizzing past their ears, and they barely got inside, locking the door behind them.

They moved so that they couldn't be seen through the glass as Marvin ran up and began banging on the door, trying to get the door open. `"Come out,"` he sneered, peering through the glass, trying to spot them. `"Come out and play!"`

'Not a chance in hell,' Dawn thought, clinging to Joey, who was holding her close.

`"Marvin! Marvin!"`

Much to the relief of Joey and Dawn, the groundskeeper left to see what Sarah wanted. Once they were certain that he was gone, they slipped out of the pool house, hoping that they would find their friends before the bad guys did, and headed for the back of the house once again.

Since the bad guys were currently preoccupied with trying to find Joey and Dawn, Oli and Eva were working on opening the window in the study so that they could get outside and find their friends before it was too late.

The moment they got the window open, both Joey and Dawn appeared, and they were seriously out of breath by this point. Oli and Eva climbed out the window with their friends' help, and they hurried to the spiral staircase.

Reaching the top of the staircase, they found a huge metal bust with an open compartment in its' chest.

"Omigod," Joey whispered. "What is this?"

"This is it," Eva said, pulling out the emerald from her pocket, and she was about to feed it into the open compartment when they heard movement below and they duck down to keep from being seen from Arthur and Marvin as they walked around below them.

Marvin threw his hands up in frustration at being unable to find their quarry. "Am I fired?"

"No," Arthur replied. "No one else can do the pansies like you." And they walked away, resuming the search.

Once she was certain that they were gone, Eva fed the gem into the open compartment, and it spit out their prize: a key and a map.

"Ok," Joey said, relieved and unaware that Oli had just pocketed the key. "There we go. A key and a map."

They examined the map and Oli realized that it was a map to the outside of the house itself. "Look. That's the front door there. The way it's set up…"

"We're going back in the basement," Joey realized.

"Ugh, here we go again," Dawn groaned. 'Back to the infernal basement!'

Joey took a deep breath and looked at his friends as they stood up. "Wait. Let's think about this. Let's actually have a plan and stick to it. Okay?"

"Ok," Oli agreed, wishing that they'd had a plan from the start. "Right. So what's the plan?"

"The plan is," Joey said after a few awkward seconds of suspense, "we're going down here, turning right, and going straight into the-" and had to stop Oli when he tried to push past them to get down the stairs. "No. Arthur's right down there." And sure enough, Arthur was walking around below them.

They waited until the ex-butler left, and then they hurried down the stairs and around the back of the house to get to the basement. They were running out of time and if they could get to the basement without getting caught or separated again, they would still have a chance to free the final owner and seal the evil of the house away forever.

They were almost home free.

A/N: Man, talk about your close calls, right? I will see you all on Tuesday to see if our heroes can find Arthur's brother and end this nightmare. Bye for now! R&R everyone!