The Island

I laugh as Reeve opens the door to the service room. It leads to stairs…and a dark basement room. This is nothing like the basement with the game room.

He has got to be joking.

“I’m sorry, have you lost your mind? You want me to go down there?”

He grins and it lights up his whole face. He’s carefree. It makes him look cute, but I’m not paying attention to that. Or I’m trying not to. “Are you scared, crime girl?” he asks, using Malcolm’s name for me.

“Um, I’m not scared. I’m just thinking, if anyone else is here, a basement is a good place to hide out.”

“How would they get in there without the door code?”

“Maybe they have the door code. How many members of staff work here? The ones who aren’t due to start until the official open?”

Reeve’s eyebrows shoot up as if he hasn’t already considered this. Surely employees are the most likely suspects? They have security codes, know the layout, the routines. Who else could have done this?

“What are you thinking about the lack of phone service?” I slap his arm playfully as I have an aha moment. “It’s a cell jammer?”

His face is the picture of shock for about a second. Then he comes to the same conclusion. “It must be.”

“They’re ridiculously easy to pick up. I’ve thought about leaving one in my brother’s dorm and sitting back to enjoy. Would that take out the whole island?”

“The cheap ones certainly wouldn’t. Some of the better ones have a wider range and certainly could. You’d splash out a bit if you wanted to…do whatever is going on here.”

“Are we getting ahead of ourselves?” I ask. I have a habit of doing that; it’s why I spend longer on research now rather than reaching straight for my camera to record.

Lack of accurate facts and knowledge can really screw you over. No one will continue watching your videos or listening to your podcasts if you can’t even do basic research.

“The storm has already hit the mainland. Could that have knocked the Wi-Fi and service out?”

Reeve looks over his shoulder as we walk down the stairs. He takes a second to think about my question. “We’ve never lost service before. It wouldn’t be down for this long when the storm hasn’t even reached us yet.”

I straighten my shoulder and follow him down.

“Given the fact that Will’s missing and the boat’s gone, I don’t think we should just explain this away.”

“I agree. But we also shouldn’t panic.”

At the bottom, Reeve switches another light on, and the room brightens further.

He stops and turns toward me. Down here couldn’t be more different from the hotel. Light concrete floor, clinically white walls, and long tube lighting overhead. “You think I’m panicking?” I ask.

I almost bump into him again. He’s one of those awful people who just stops with no warning.

“What? Oh, no I don’t. I’m just saying that I think it would be easy to let paranoia take over. Let’s not do that.”

He turns away and radios Gibson.

Okay. I take a breath and follow him deeper into the room. There’s a massive boiler and rows and rows of electrical switchboards. It reminds me of a modern version of the control room in Jurassic Park.

At least we don’t have to worry about dinosaurs.

“Is this all for the hotel?” I ask.

“And the park,” he replies. “There are other smaller electrical hubs around the island, for the rides, but this is the only place where everything is right here.”

“What are we looking at or for?”

He stops at one of the boards and opens the glass doors. “This one is for the island’s internet connection.”

“Reeve…”

“Yeah, I see it.” He looks over his shoulder. “Someone’s been in here.”

I nod. “Oh my gosh.”

The rows of wires marked Internet have all been vandalized, snipped neatly.

“I don’t like this,” I whisper. “Someone came down and cut the wires.”

“Neither do I,” he replies. “We need to check the rest before we leave.”

“Shouldn’t we get in touch with the others?”

“Yeah, we’ll go find them when we’re done. We all need to come up with a plan. First, look for anything else that’s been tampered with. The rest of these are electricity, and we know that’s working. I doubt there will be anything else, but we have to be sure.”

I’m flustered, dashing along the wall of wires, looking for any that have been cut.

“I can’t see anything,” I say, my fingers shaking against the glass cabinets.

The room feels thick, like it’s full of smoke. I can barely take in enough oxygen.

Reeve grabs my hand. “Paisley, breathe. You’re safe.”

“Will is missing, the boat is gone, someone’s done—”

“Hey, it’s going to be okay.”

He sounds so sure of himself in a way that eighteen-year-old guys with no fear have. I recognize it from Blaine. Fearless and able to conquer the world. Or at least whoever is messing with us.

“I’m fine now,” I say, holding on to some of his strength and keeping it for myself.

I take a long breath and mentally slap myself for being such a baby. When has freaking out ever helped any situation?

Reeve and I spend the next few minutes meticulously checking each board for cut wires, but like he thought, they’re all intact.

“Can we go now?” I ask. As calm as I am now, I have no desire to stay down here longer than I absolutely have to.

“Yeah, we’ve seen enough. I’ll need to get Gibson down here. We might be able to repair these and get us back online,” he replies, tapping the glass in front of the snipped wires.

Reeve and I make our way upstairs, this time much quicker. I want to get far away from this creepy basement room. Reeve holds his hand to my back as if he’s frightened that I’ll have another meltdown.

That’s not going to happen. I’ve had my minute, and now I’m going to figure this thing out.

“There must be another way to contact people off this island.”

“Not that hasn’t been destroyed,” he replies. “That I know of, anyway. Malcolm will know more.” He laughs. “Or he should.”

That doesn’t fill me with confidence.

In the lounge, we find Camilla pacing. Ava and Harper are huddled together, whispering.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, wondering if what Camilla is about to tell us is as bad as what we have for her.

She freezes and turns her head to us slowly. She’s pale and her wide eyes look too big. “Kenna is missing. We can’t find her in the hotel.”

So, yes, what she has to say to us is worse.

“Dammit,” Reeve says, running his hand over his hair. “Someone’s cut the wires downstairs. We have no internet connection. We’re not getting back online unless we can wire it up again. And we think there’s a jammer somewhere, which would explain why we can’t get service even with the Wi-Fi down.”

Camilla’s mouth drops. “I—I can’t believe it. No. This can’t be right. Are you sure?”

“I wish I wasn’t sure. Paisley and I are going to catch up with the others. Do they know about Kenna?”

“I radioed. They told us to stay here and keep trying the phones, but…”

“Yeah, they won’t work. Are you coming with us?” I ask.

Harper stands. “I am.”

It comes as no surprise that Camilla and Ava make an excuse to stay. In case Kenna or Will come back, apparently.

I don’t want to voice my suspicions, but what if they don’t come back?

Reeve, Harper, and I leave the hotel and agree with Gibson to meet by the haunted house. Not a great omen, I’ll admit.

“Malcolm with you?” Gibson asks as our group merges with his.

Reeve glances at me. “No. I figured when he wasn’t back at the hotel, he’d be with you.”

This is great.

Gibson is straight on the radio.

I take a minute to glance around, and Liam stops beside me.

“How’re you doing, Paisley?”

“Well, we’re stuck on an island with no way of communicating and no way of leaving. And no cook.”

Clearing his throat, he replies, “When you put it like that…”

“Did you find any sign of Will or Kenna?”

“Nothing. Some trash in some of the trash cans, but I think that was from us yesterday.”

We all eat a bunch of Hershey’s Kisses and KitKats. Even Ava, who is supposed to be a vegan.

“There was a can of Pepsi in one of them, though. That was weird,” he says.

I lift a brow. “Right. Because they only have Coke here.”

“Exactly. But someone could have brought it with them.”

“Will or Kenna, you mean.”

“They’re the only ones missing…unless you count Malcolm too.”

Which I currently do.

“Dammit. Malcolm’s not responding,” Gibson says. “He has an office underground. He could be there.”

I do a double take. “He has an underground office?”

“It’s an apartment, really, off the staff quarters,” Reeve replies. “It’s directly under the lounge.”

“How do you get to it?”

“First door on the right through the staff area.”

My brain hurts. “What’s our next move?”

“I’m going to radio Camilla and Ava to knock for Malcolm and get back to us. I can’t imagine that he’d leave the hotel. We’re going to keep searching.”

“What are we searching for, exactly? We’ve been out here for hours and we’ve found nothing but a can of Pepsi,” James says, rolling his eyes as if this is all such an inconvenience for him. He seems oblivious to the fact that people are missing and that this is a bad thing.

“James, shut up,” Gibson says, sounding exasperated.

“Gibson and I need to try fixing these wires, so Paisley and Liam, can you walk the park and do a sweep clockwise? And James and Harper, go counterclockwise.” Harper turns her nose up at Reeve’s instruction. “At no point do you split up. Keep the channel on two and stay in contact with each other and Camilla.”

Reeve hands radios to me and Harper.

“We’re really splitting up?” I ask him.

He gives me an amused smile. “Better than being underground, right?”

“I guess…”

“You all right?” he asks.

“Fine.”

“Okay. I want you back in the lounge the second you’ve completed the sweep. Got it?”

We all agree to meet back in exactly two hours.