by Paul Draker
Camilla and Jordan’s gift of water had helped ease the tension between the teams, but the water was pretty much gone now. Camilla knew that Julian couldn’t afford to let them get too dehydrated, but she would still suggest rationing the next batch more carefully.
Travis had found everyone’s luggage, stashed inside the chicken coop. Camilla’s bag was now in her own room—next door in the Greek Revival house. She had dragged it upstairs before coming back across the foyer to rejoin the others in the Victorian’s vast central room—red territory, but a gathering place for both teams as they waited for Julian to reappear on the monitor. The red and blue teams weren’t mingling much—not surprising, really, after the way the first challenge had gone. But Camilla’s blue team had done well. She was proud of them.
Her heart still ached for the wounded bird she had seen. It was probably dead by now. Just a part of nature. She wouldn’t think about it anymore; she’d think about something else. The cameras, for instance—where were they hidden? She scanned the walls and ceiling. Something tiny darkened a corner high above, where two walls met the ceiling. Squinting up at it, she couldn’t make out any details, but she was sure there was a tiny lens behind it.
Across the room, Juan sat slumped against the wall next to his teammates, forearms on his raised knees. His gaze, too, slowly roamed the corners of the ceiling. Then his eyes dropped to meet hers, and he nodded in confirmation. Moving only a finger, he indicated another spot—a knothole on the wall next to the monitor screen. Another camera.
Camilla glanced toward the archway of the foyer between the houses, but Jordan wasn’t back yet, so she tilted her head to indicate the monitor itself and mouthed a silent question to Juan. “Power?”
His finger moved a couple of inches to indicate the floor alongside the fireplace, beneath the monitor, then pointed downward. Look beneath, his gesture said.
Camilla bounced up and walked toward the monitor. Squatting, she stared beneath the inch-wide gap between the floorboards, into darkness. Although she didn’t want to waste her phone’s limited battery life, she turned it on briefly to aim the brightness through the crack where floor met the wall. A quarter-inch cable descended below the floorboards, dropping four feet to disappear inside a row of shoe-box shapes wrapped in clear plastic.
Of course. She switched off her phone and grinned at Juan. “Car batteries—”
“Guys, this is so weird…” Jordan burst through the archway, and stopped, her gaze flicking from Camilla to Juan, then back. Her puzzled expression vanished.
Camilla stood up, not liking the way Jordan’s eyes had changed. “What’s weird?”
“My other shoes are missing,” Jordan announced to the room, her face showing cheerful surprise again. She was barefoot. “I brought six pairs of shoes with me, but now they aren’t in my bag.”
Lauren sneered. “You brought six pairs of shoes?”
Camilla tried to remember whether she had packed an extra pair Jordan that could borrow. She didn’t think so. “Veronica,” she said, “do you have something she can wear?”
“No, sorry.” Veronica pushed herself upright and glared at her. “You were so sure you knew why Julian wanted to search our bags.”
Feeling a growing disquiet, Camilla raised her voice. “Everyone, go check your bags. Maybe they accidentally stuck her shoes in someone else’s luggage.”
The room emptied rapidly, and Camilla turned to meet Veronica’s glare. “So I was wrong about that,” she said. “Now I’m wondering what else I was wrong about.”
CHAPTER 32
JT pulled his tote bag from beneath his cot and dropped it on the mattress pad. With a glance at the doorway to make sure it was still clear, he unzipped the tote and reached inside. He relaxed when his fingers closed on the hard metal edges they were looking for.
He was actually surprised to find it. Julian’s crew must have been rushing when they searched the bags, and missed it somehow.
JT had been a model Boy Scout growing up, and the Scouts had taught him to be prepared, just as the motto said. His years as a Force Recon Marine had only broadened his thinking about the types of situations he needed to be prepared for.
There was probably a camera here in his room, too, watching him right now. He pulled his hand out and rezipped the bag, then wadded it under his cot.
He lay down and crossed his arms behind his head, staring up at the ceiling, thinking. For now the competition was pretty tame—a joke, really. But he could already see that Julian and his crew, with their limited civilian mind-set, didn’t understand what they had set in motion here. Things were going to get dicey soon, the way they always did in situations like this.
When they did, he’d be ready.
CHAPTER 33
In the room next door to JT’s, Lauren had spread the contents of her backpack across her mattress pad. Clothing, toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, and underwear were separated into organized piles, each pile aligned with the others, just the way she liked it. Everything she had packed was here.
But there was something else, too.
Something she didn’t remember packing.
A lone climbing carabiner—a large aluminum D-ring— sat on the mattress. She had set it apart, a good distance from her clothing and toiletries, as if it might contaminate them somehow.
She stood staring down at it, troubled. It was a brand she hadn’t used for many years. She must have missed it when she cleared out her backpack to get ready for this trip.
She picked it up and rubbed the side of it, feeling the sandpapery roughness where it had scraped against rock. How long had it been there, hidden in her backpack, tucked away in a fold somewhere? She felt her chest tighten. She didn’t think the pack was that old.
The carabiner nagged at her subconscious, glinting silver in the room’s dimness…
Like ice crystals on a granite wall just out of reach. Blood streaking the vertical rock.
Muted sobs from below. Weak voices calling her name.
Pain. A vise crushing her head.
Blood dripping in her eyes.
Upside down.
So cold.
The carabiner’s shiny metal gleamed in the fading light.
• • •
How long had she just been standing here, staring at it?
Lauren looked up, surprised to find herself in near darkness.
CHAPTER 34
Veronica sat on her cot with her back against the wall, knees raised in front of her, holding a thin stack of typewritten pages. Her Louis Vuitton travel bag lay open on the mattress, by her feet. She had pushed the bed against the same wall as the empty doorframe, so it couldn’t be seen from the hall outside.
Her eyes strained against the dimness as she scanned the lines of text. She folded over the next page and read the last few paragraphs. Her mouth hardened, and she deliberately relaxed it. She didn’t want to give herself wrinkles—Botox was expensive.
She wasn’t really surprised by what she had just read, though. Not at all.
A dog-eared manila folder lay by her hand, its flap open. She checked the front of the folder again, where a thick diagonal ribbon of red-and-white label tape cut across the corner. She reread the label:
CONTENTS INCLUDE CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
Sliding the report back into the folder again, Veronica shoved it into the pocket of her travel bag.
CHAPTER 35
Camilla’s upright rolling bag lay open on her bed. A large object, wrapped in newsprint, lay nestled among her familiar clothes. She gave it a tentative poke.
“Is anything wrong with your luggage?” she called out.
“No,” came Veronica’s sharp reply from next door. “Nothing missing.”
“Mine, either.” She prodded the newspaper-wrapped shape again. It was about eighteen inches long and hard, like metal. Definitely not Jordan’s missing shoes.
What on earth had Julian put in her bag?
The newspaper crinkled in her hands as s
he lifted the heavy item out. The paper wrapping disguised its outline. Peeling back the wrinkled columns about budget overruns and missing women, she peered at the mysterious object. It looked like a large machine part—a metal armature or lever of some sort with a gear on one side. Camilla crumpled the wrapping one-handed and tossed it away. With her other hand, she turned the metal shape this way and that, trying to identify it. She had absolutely no clue what it might be.
She hefted the heavy chunk of metal, holding the lever part like a handle, not liking how the jagged teeth of the gear jutted from its end. Then she dropped it to the floor, struck by a disquieting thought.
It felt like a primitive weapon.
CHAPTER 36
Everything Brent had packed in his overnight bag was present and accounted for, including his meds. He stood at his room window, watching the last of the fading light and listening to the distant barks, groans, and rumbles on the beach below. The island was noisy at night, but at least the wide area of flat ground outside the houses was now free of seals.
Juan and JT had rebuilt the zigzag log barricade that cut across the center of the island from bluff edge to breakwater. All ten contestants had worked together to herd the seals out, and the southern half of the island had once again been reclaimed by humanity.
Brent shook his head. The others were failing to see some obvious things about their situation. Warning flags. Things that, at this point, they all should be starting to get very concerned about.
For example, no one was questioning the glaring lack of safety precautions. Their complete dependence on their hidden hosts for such basic survival needs as drinking water. The apparent lack of any protocol for dealing with injury or illness. The dangers presented by the native wildlife—and even by some of the contestants themselves.
He needed to bring these things to the group’s attention soon. He would have to raise the subject if no one else did, but he was reluctant to be the first. As the oldest contestant present, trying to fit in with others half his age, he knew how quickly someone like him could turn themselves into an outsider. But he would say something if he had to.
They all needed to understand that there was something very wrong going on here.
CHAPTER 37
Camilla sat up with a gasp and stared into darkness. The creak and screech of torn metal echoed in her ears, and her heart thudded in her chest and neck. Head fuzzy with confusion, she gulped a few breaths of air, smelling smoke. Where was she? Her legs hurt. She was so cold.
She could still hear the screams, the groans, the hopeless sobbing. Lots of different voices overlapping. But the sounds were different now. Farther away. They didn’t really sound like people anymore. They were only animals. Barks and yips in the distance. Seals. Camilla remembered where she was.
Stars glittered, uninviting and cold, through the ragged hole in the ceiling.
She put her feet on the ground and sat on her cot with her head in her hands, covering her ears, as the last wisps of the dream faded. She got her breathing and her heartbeat under control, and pushed away the lingering sadness.
The empty plastic bottle skittered away underfoot when she stood up.
She was so thirsty. But there was no water.
Camilla stepped out into the hallway, navigating by touch as her eyes adjusted. She could now hear deep breathing from the open doorways of neighboring rooms. A few steps down the hall, a board creaked underfoot and she stopped, listening. Sleep sounds came from Jordan’s room, and she peeked in.
A small patch of starlight gleamed through the plastic-covered window, lighting Jordan’s face. She was sleeping peacefully, curled on her side. Camilla remembered the cold look she had seen flicker across that face when Jordan caught her talking to Juan. She was sure she hadn’t imagined it. She needed to be more careful.
The next doorway was Veronica’s. As she passed it, moving down the hall, she sensed the breathing change. She hurried by, feeling like a teenager sneaking out at night.
Mason’s room was next. She could hear him breathing in there. He sounded asleep, but she didn’t look in.
A deep, slow rumbling came from the last room. Brent was snoring. She grinned. Sleepy bear hibernating. No, what he actually sounded like was—she pinched her nose shut and leaned against the wall to keep from laughing out loud—an elephant seal.
Her urge to laugh suddenly disappeared, because she could see something at the end of the hall. A shape crouched in the corner, hidden by darkness. What was it? It looked too big to be a seal, but small for a person. Camilla stared at it, straining her eyes, not daring to move.
Could it see her, whatever it was? The skin on her arms crept. She forced herself to breathe slowly and silently as her eyes probed the darkness, trying to make out the shape.
Long minutes went by. Now she could tell that it was a person—a small person, sitting in the corner, hugging her knees to her chest. Natalie. Why wasn’t she saying anything? Did she need help?
Natalie’s eyes glittered in the darkness. She sat motionless as a statue, as if waiting for something. In the gloom, Camilla couldn’t make out any expression at all on her face.
A red team member, sneaking into the blue building at night… why? Camilla started forward. A small motion shifted the darkness ahead of her. She stopped, blinking. The corner was empty now. Natalie was gone.
She reached the end of the hall, placed a hand on the damp banister, and looked down the dark stairwell. It was the only place Natalie could have gone. Feeling a little nervous, she edged down the stairs to the first floor.
Downstairs, with fewer windows, the gloom pressed in closer. Not much chance of finding Natalie now. Navigating by touch, Camilla made her way to the front of the house, where the starlight filtered in through the windows, the clear plastic rustling lightly in the night breeze. What if she was on camera now? Those infrared ones? She composed her face in the darkness; she didn’t want to look scared.
Through the window, she could see a black shape moving outside. A man’s silhouette, edging along the shadows, headed past the house she stood in. Moving to the window, she pressed her nose against the plastic, but the shape remained too blurry to make out. She reached up, pulled the edge of the sheeting free from its staples. Easing it open a narrow crack, she put her eye to it. The cold air chilled her cheek and made her want to blink, but she could see the man’s back in the starlight as he headed toward the barricade. It was Juan.
Where was he going in the middle of the night? Camilla felt a rush of curiosity. Her motorcycle rider was up to something. He turned to look back toward the houses, and she instinctively stepped back so he wouldn’t notice her. Then she pressed forward again, eager to see.
Juan put a hand on top of the four-foot seal barricade and vaulted over, into the seal territory beyond. Was he heading to the factory buildings? To the dock? She had to go find out.
Camilla reached for the door to open it… and stopped.
Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, sneaking after a man she didn’t know, across a deserted island in the middle of the night. She had seen this movie before: the plucky heroine follows the mystery man, alone and unarmed, and something terrible happens. It was so clichéd that Hollywood screenwriters called the story trope “too dumb to live.”
Still, she might get a chance to talk to him without worrying about Jordan’s reaction. She knew she’d be safe with a man who would casually risk his own life saving a stranger’s child. Well, probably safe. No. She was smarter than this.
Camilla reluctantly turned away from the window, and the darkness shifted right in front of her face. She threw her body backward, slamming her back against the door with a thud. Travis grinned at her. He had been standing right behind her in the darkness, almost on top of her. For how long?
“Easy, easy,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t.”
He raised his hands, palms out in surrender, and took a step back. “I wanted to ask you s
omething. Your team killed us today, but I can’t say I feel right about how y’all won. What your buddy with the glasses did was pretty low. But then, it’s about what I’d expect from a banker.”
Sending seals into the other building? But that had been her idea, not Mason’s.
“I think you should go now,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “You got no call to be rude to me. I’ll say one more thing: I heard your buddy didn’t come up with that idea all on his own.”
Travis took a step toward her, and she bumped against the door behind her again. Her mouth went dry. If he got any closer, she’d yell for Veronica.
“I’m telling you now,” he said, “that five mil’s not going to end up with somebody who wins by cheating. It don’t matter if that’s okay by your rich buddy Julian, because it ain’t all right by me. We clear on that?”
“I said you need to leave,” she said.
He pressed in closer, crowding her against the door, his face inches from hers. “Maybe I ought to make sure you understand.”
He had no right, bullying her, terrorizing her in the dark this way. Furious, she balled her hands into fists to hide their shaking. Even if she got hurt right now, she wasn’t going to let herself get intimidated like this.
“Listen carefully, you snake-eyed creep, because I’m only going to say this once.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not afraid of you. Get away from me right now, or I’ll kick you in the crotch so hard you won’t be able to move tomorrow—then we’ll see how much your score improves.”