“Fine. We’ll do it in the daytime.” Ellis glanced around at them. “Let’s go to our rooms, clear out any cameras, and get some sleep. If you’re worried, you can sleep together. In the morning, anyone who wants to leave can head out early with water and supplies. It’ll be a long walk, so rest up. As long as we are out of here before 9:58 a.m., we should be fine.”
The others nodded. It was a solid plan. Anything was better than staying in the Motel Loba for another day.
As they walked back to their rooms, Ana briefly considered asking Raya to sleep over. But no one else seemed bothered and she didn’t want to look like she was making a big deal out of things. After all, it was going to be okay. They would leave in the morning and never look back. Nothing to worry about.
She paused at her door and looked around at the road sign, still endlessly flashing. The letters L and the B were off sync, alternating with the O and A: MOTEL L B, MOTEL O A, MOTEL L B… Over and over. WELCOME, COME AND STAY, VACANCY, A COZY BED FOR THE NIGHT—false promises.
“See you in the morning.” Alex was back at his door, key in the lock. Despite all the drama, he still had his guitar with him, slung low over his shoulder, his hand resting on it. Like a security blanket. Same old Alex.
Ana forced a smile.
“Yeah. Crazy day, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’d have thought…”
“I know…”
The words tailed off until there was just space between them. But it wasn’t empty, the air felt charged with something electric—something that pulled Ana in. She wanted to lean into it, lean into him, but heldherself back, feeling the draw, the need, the desire to move closer, to succumb.
Did he feel it too? He must feel it. There was something. She couldn’t be imagining it.
“Well, goodnight,” Alex muttered, turning the door handle and pushing his door wide open.
Ana snapped out of it. She stepped back, reaching in her pocket for her key.
She must be tired and imagining things. Weakness. That’s all it was. It had been one hell of a day. Tomorrow was shaping up to be even worse. She just wanted connection. It didn’t mean anything.
“Night, Alex,” she said briskly.
He went into his room; the door closed.
The moment was gone. Ana opened her door and stared into the musty darkness. How could she sleep? It wasn’t possible. There was too much in her head.
She stepped inside and pulled the door shut, locking it carefully behind her. Then she headed to the bathroom and peered around the door at the tiny black dot, high up in the corner. Still there, still listening, the beady little bug—capturing everything.
Picking up a bar of soap, she held it under the faucet until it was foaming. Carefully, she climbed up on the bath surround and wedged the soap hard into the microphone, filling the hole.
No one would hear anything now.
Slowly and systematically, she searched the entire suite, end to end. There was another bug taped to the frame above the mirror, and one more on the bedside lamp. She plucked them out and dropped them into the toilet, flushing them away for good. Next, she dragged the chair over to the door and, tipping it at an angle, wedged it under the handle.Finally, she plugged her phone in to charge, ready for whatever tomorrow would bring.
Feeling a little stupid, she lay down on the bed, fully clothed.
She could see the road sign through the gaps between the blinds; the letters lit up red and yellow, stripes of garish color illuminating the walls around her. The two out-of-sync letters, L and B, were a different font from the rest—more modern-looking, as though they had been recently replaced but no one had bothered to try and match them. They flickered on and off, out of sync—a lazy, half-assed repair job, uncared for and neglected like everything else in the motel.
There was something oddly relaxing about the discordant rhythm of the winking lights, the contrasting colors flashing on and off like a dangerously irregular heartbeat. For several minutes Ana lay there, silently watching as a deep weariness settled over her. Her eyes felt heavy and the soft mattress pulled her in—but she knew it wouldn’t be enough. She wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.
Her thoughts wandered.
Was she overreacting? What if Jax was right and this was all some prank?
But then…what if he wasn’t right?
Her mind was racing. Alex, the card, the bus exploding, the message. She couldn’t just pretend that everything was okay. Jax might be able to switch off his brain and go with the flow, but she couldn’t.
Because there was one thing that wouldn’t fade away, that kept playing over and over in her head. One part of this that made her feel, in her heart, that this was not a game. One single inescapable truth:
