The other end of the bunker was emitting an eerie blue glow. Armed with the weight, she walked slowly towards the light, nervously triple-checking the shadows as she passed. She carefully edged around the crate with the chessboard set out on top; there was a game in progress—checkmate. Bates liked his games and liked to win. No surprises there.
The blue glow was coming from a bank of monitors covering one wall, tidily arranged above a desk with a gray coffee cup next to a row of matching gray pens. The desk was stained with several cup rings. Whoever had been sitting there really liked coffee.
As Ana moved closer, the screens came into view.
All but one were switched on, grainy images from around the motel lining the wall: the pool and reception area, the flashing motel sign lording over everything. Several familiar rooms appeared as the images changed, views constantly switched around.
Every corner, every angle of the motel was there in front of her. Several blank screens cycled in and out—maybe where they’d successfully destroyed some of the cameras, and there were no images of bathrooms. But there must have been so many more cameras than any of them ever suspected. Eyes everywhere, following their every move.
It was hard to believe that someone had stood right where she was now standing and had seen and heard everything that happened to them. That they’d watched the bus arrive, watched them laughing at the poolside, crying on the line. They’d heard them in their rooms, talking, sleeping, kissing… Alex.
She sat in the chair and pulled herself close to the desk, setting the free weight on the desktop within easy reach. Then she studied thescreens one by one, searching for any sign of Alex. The images were on a cycle, maybe ten, fifteen seconds before they flicked to another view. It could take precious minutes waiting until he showed up on one of them.
Ana half-watched, glancing around her when she could, searching for anything else she could use. Maybe there was a radio or some way to reach the outside world and call for help.
The end wall was barely visible in the gloom.
A pale rectangular shape could just be made out. Ana’s curiosity got the better of her and she pushed her chair towards it. It was a large corkboard; several photos were pinned to it alongside a crumpled twenty-dollar bill.
It took a moment, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see the images, materializing one by one—faces. Seven school photos, with the familiar St. Francis High logo, were neatly arranged around one picture in the center of the board.
Ana stood up and walked over to the board, reaching out to touch the picture in the middle.
It was an ordinary-looking boy, smiling awkwardly. Blue eyes and sandy-blond hair, wearing his gray-and-orange striped debate team shirt. He looked so young, raw. He might have been good-looking when he was older, when he’d escaped high school, if he had lived long enough.
Karl Hunt.
Ana looked at the other photos; Raya, with her home-cut mullet back in her BTS phase, Caden grinning lopsidedly, Ellis in his green-and-yellow varsity jacket, Jade and Jax, all smiles. Then there was Alex, his hair cropped short, pre-glow-up. Sweet and young, achingly familiar.
Her eyes briefly found her own photo—Ana Reyes, smiling shyly. She looked away, not wanting to remember the way she used to be. That girl was long gone.
Everyone was there. All seven. The motel seven. All the happy, innocent faces. They were so much younger then—the photos were from the year before the fire. Before the Motel Loba or Rosa or whatever the hell it was called. Before anything really, truly bad had happened to any of them. Grinning stupidly, on the edge of unimaginable darkness.
They wouldn’t have been smiling if they’d known.
She turned back to the desk. The coffee cup and pens had logos on them—the letters HT in bright orange. Instinctively she touched the cup, feeling the temperature. It wasn’t hot, but there was a little warmth left. It had been used recently.
Returning to her search, she studied the monitors, a newfound resolve as she scanned from left to right, looking for Alex. He would have to show up at some point. He had to. Over and again the screens kept flicking from view to view. Where was he? Where was Alex?
She didn’t know what it was—maybe a slight shuffle, or a flicker of a shadow, but something made her freeze. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, every sense on high alert. Nothing tangible, but her instincts were on fire. She leaned back in her chair, her hand moved to the weight, her fingers curling around it ready.
Somehow, she knew, without a doubt, that she was no longer alone.
Very slowly, she turned around.
Standing in the center of the bunker, backlit by one of the bare lightbulbs, was the dark outline of a man.
36
Ana
“Water?”
The man’s voice was low, almost a growl. Ana’s heart was beating fast. This was it. This was Bates—the puppet master. The one who was killing them off one by one and filming it so he could enjoy the show.
A white mask hid his face, the eyes cut out, revealing ominous black holes, a creepy bland smile on the white surface. Around the edges she could see signs of the man hidden beneath. Dark-blond hair, tan skin with freckles. The hands were a little wrinkled, he was older, probably middle-aged.
In one hand, he held a bottle of water. The other hand was raised placatingly in front of him. He had what looked like a radio clipped to his belt.
