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ANGELINE

As she finished setting up their tent, Angeline was still jittery and agitated from the violence between Petra’s men and Maverick. She kept seeing the men taking Mav to the ground. Petra’s words echoed. And that moment when she thought about leaving came back to her again and again. But she pushed it all aside. Angeline was good at putting distress away; her life with Maverick necessitated it.

Maverick and Angeline were last to get their tent up after mucking about with all the other equipment in the trailer, managing the social-media shitstorm that followed Malinka’s (unauthorized and in violation of their contract with her) live where Mav was attacked, and hundreds of thousands watched on their phones.

Just what they needed. More bad press.

On the other hand, the video was going viral. Six hours until game time. And truthfully, views and follower numbers were way up.

So why did she feel so sick? A pall had settled. And where was Alex?

He wasn’t answering her texts.

Angeline sat on top of her sleeping bag, using her cellular hot spot to sift through a swath of emails from the lawyers, not to mention a nastygram from the CEO of Quench who claimed that it was clear to everyone that Mav’s heart was just not in the content he’d broadcast for their shitty drink. Which everybody, like everybody , hated. But she’d written them an email that she hoped was soothing. She just prayed that Quench wouldn’t go under before they made their final payment.

She called Alex again. Straight to voicemail. She didn’t bother to leave another message.

Stress was a white noise that never went silent.

There was another sound now, too, a kind of rumbling growl. She hadn’t noticed it at first, but now it leaked into her consciousness. She listened. What was that?

She clamped her laptop closed. Then something else, layered over the rumbling.

Voices. Someone yelling.

What now?

She cast about for her jacket, found it in a tangle on top of the duffel bags Mav had been hauling around. What was in there? She felt around for the zipper on one of them and discovered that it was locked. The other one, too.

What are you up to, Maverick?

She stared at the black bags a moment, frustration rising. She gave one a kick with her toe. Heavy but soft, malleable. Could be anything in there. Finally, she gave up. She’d find out soon enough. Or so Maverick kept promising.

Angeline stepped out into the cool, damp afternoon.

The other tents were pitched in a loose circle around the fire pit. Where was everyone? Probably scouting the site. That’s what she’d be doing if she was participating.

Clouds swirled above. The fresh smell of the trees was a balm to her spirit. The dirt beneath her feet felt solid, as she crossed the campsite, heading to the trailer.

She felt Enchantments watching her. She stopped to stare at it a moment. It had a presence, an attitude. Petra’s voice rang back to Angeline. This land is unwell. Did she believe that? That places could be sick, or haunted, evil?

She thought of Eaton House, where they’d staged their Extreme Haunted Hide and Seek. The place hadn’t seemed evil as much as it seemed tired; bad things had happened there, horrible things. But as far as Angeline could feel then, there was no echo of past horrors, no lingering specters.

She decided standing there that Enchantments, likewise, was just a place.

People could be sick, haunted, evil, their deeds creating a terrible legacy. But, if anything, places were just impervious, indifferent. They just stood observing the folly, standing long after their inhabitants had returned to the earth. The trees whispered all around her, bearing witness to all their human madness and remaining unchanged.

Angeline moved noiselessly toward the human sounds that were coming from around the bend.

As she walked, she recognized the other sound she’d heard. The boys must have gassed up the generator for the trailer. The sound spoiled something about the place, disrupted the ancient beauty. And the smell of burning fuel hit her nostrils. They were pollution. Toxic. We taint and ruin , she thought before pushing that negative thought away quickly, too.

Mav and Gustavo were fighting, their voices carrying through the thin walls of the trailer as she approached, loud enough to be heard above the generator, which was loud .

God, people, nature. That’s what Petra had said in their initial meeting and it resonated. Her abuela used to say in heavily accented English, You can’t fool Mother Nature .

If that was true, and those were the only important things, then what the hell were they all doing? What would Mav say were the most important things? Thrills, views, money—not necessarily in that order.

She pushed in the door, and they didn’t see her at first.

Gustavo was pointing angrily at his phone.

Hector was sitting with his head in his hands, like the abused kid forced to listen to his parents arguing.

On Gustavo’s screen there was a big swath of red. He tapped it hard.

“This storm,” he said. “It’s coming, Mav. Tonight.”

“It’s a little rain. So what? It just adds to the atmosphere.”

That cocksure smile, those folded muscular arms. How was he always so confident, even after everything? How had his life, a challenging one in spite of how it might look online, not brought him a shred of humility or self-doubt? For a moment she hated him a little. But it passed.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

They all shifted their gazes to her, caught, like their mom had just walked into the room.

She was Wendy. They were her Lost Boys.

Mav lifted his palms. “Gustavo’s freaking out about the rain.”

“Angeline, it’s not just rain.” Gustavo moved over toward her. His dark eyes pinned her. For an adrenaline junkie, he was reliable, levelheaded. “It’s a tropical storm. High winds, heavy rain. The hotel—the empty elevator shafts, the basement—it all fills with water. The land here, it swamps. It’s dangerous.”

Mav came over to stand beside him. He looked back and forth between them.

“Guys,” he said. “We have forty-eight hours and then we have to leave. I don’t have to tell you how much money is riding on this, do I? Spon con, advertising dollars, the WeWatch bonus?”

It was a balancing act, how much they spent on things like this and how much they earned. If they didn’t get the views—and truthfully, until Malinka’s live, they’d been losing subscribers at an alarming rate, views were down dramatically, and so was revenue—they didn’t get the payout. Even the sponsors weren’t paying as much for content since Chloe had gone missing and the Moms Against Mav campaign. All the mainstream brands had dropped them. Only places like Quench were still on board.

“Where’s Alex?” asked Angeline.

He was the only one she could rely on to give her an accurate cost analysis.

“I think he’s still at the hotel,” said Hector, offering a shrug. He had raccoon rings of fatigue around his eyes. His black curls were wild, and there was a stain on his shirt. She had the urge to put him in clean pajamas and tuck him in somewhere.

No one said anything for a moment.

“He left,” said Maverick. He looked down at his feet, shuffled them like a kid.

“What does that mean?” she asked, trying not to panic. “He left ?”

“He, uh—he quit,” said Mav, bowing his head and stepping back.

“What? No.”

This was not happening. She thought back to Alex waiting in the dark of the suite for her.

Ange… We have to talk.

Then, too, the echo of another conversation with Alex before they’d left for the islands. “I found something in the books. Something I don’t understand.”

But she’d blown him off. Look, let’s just get through this challenge, and we’ll have a serious financial meeting .

He’d given her a look that she didn’t understand. Now that she was thinking about it again, she realized that it was pity, maybe also anger.

“What happened?” she asked, squaring off to Maverick.

He kicked his right foot, kept his eyes down like a boy in the principal’s office.

“We argued after the meeting with Anton,” he said and rubbed a nervous hand over the crown of his head, something he did when he was upset. “He didn’t want to make the donation. He wanted to pull the plug on this. I said no. And he like lost it a little.”

Angeline felt a dump of dread, like the only other adult chaperone had left the summer camp, and she was alone with the kids, outmanned, outgunned.

“He can’t quit ,” said Angeline, a rise of desperation making her voice shrill. “He’s a partner.”

“Yeah, we have to work that all out,” said Mav, with a wave of his hand. “Whatever. His loss. We don’t need him.”

He wore the Mav mask, the one he donned when he was hurting.

“When were you going to tell me this?” asked Angeline.

“I’m telling you now.” That was so Mav, to pretend that he hadn’t omitted critical information from her.

“ When did he leave?”

“This morning. Before we left the hotel, I tried to talk to him. We fought again. He said he was leaving.” Maverick offered an elaborate shrug, palms raised.

“So we don’t have a CFO.”

“You know as much as Alex does, right?” said Mav to Angeline.

Did he really think that? That anyone could just step into the role of chief financial officer of this shitshow? Did he not know that Alex had been holding them together for the better part of a year with a financial shell game that Angeline could barely follow, while Maverick continued to spend unchecked? The goddamn jet was costing them around a hundred thousand a month.

“No,” she said. “I don’t. At all. Like not even close.”

“Look how well you managed that Quench asshole.”

“That is not the same thing.”

She saw it then. In Mav’s eyes. Fear. He knew how fucked they were. On some deep level, he knew. But the look was gone quickly.

“It’s fine,” he said, with a deep exhale. “We’ll deal with it when we get back. He probably didn’t even mean it. He’s just mad. He’ll cool off.”

Gustavo leaned against the trailer wall, watching her darkly. He’d stayed silent, but she could feel his eyes.

She took her phone from her pocket and called Alex again. No answer. She hung up, frustration and anger rising like bile. How could he do this to her? What would she do without him?

“We don’t need him for this,” said Mav.

Hector put his head down on his arms. Gustavo looked off into the middle distance.

“Guys,” said Mav into the uncomfortable silence, “we cannot afford not to do this challenge. And it’s going to be so epic. When we’re done, all our problems will be handled.”

Angeline was aware of a vein throbbing in her throat, heat in her cheeks. Nobody said anything. Outside, the sky grew light, then fell dark again. Was that lightning?

“Look,” said Mav finally. He walked over to Angeline and took both of her hands. “I know things have been bad. But I promise you, when this is over, and we’re flush with cash again, we’ll go home and fix everything that’s broken at Extreme.”

She could see in his face that he really believed it. He thought that the problems Extreme had—falling revenue, lawsuits, the disappearance of Chloe Miranda, the upcoming IRS audit—he could just charm his way out of it. Part of her wanted to believe it, too.

The bill is about to come due for Maverick. Save yourself if you even can.

You can’t save them. But maybe you can still save yourself.

MavIsALiar and Petra, people with no connection to each other, saying essentially the same thing, speaking directly to her.

Her abuela would say, The universe speaks to us in all sorts of ways. Listen, mija .

Mav was pleading. “Please believe in me, Ange. I’ll fix everything, I promise. Just…let’s get through this.”

He turned to Gustavo, who was watching Angeline intently. “When is it coming? The storm.”

Gustavo shifted his gaze back to Maverick. “Tonight, before midnight.”

“See? That’s perfect. We’ll start at sunset. By midnight, we’ll be packing up. We’ll keep it tight.”

Gustavo nodded reluctantly. “If things go as planned. If you find everyone fast.”

Mav brightened. “Look, Hector is going to place the wireless cameras. Everyone is going to have a tracker. We won’t look at their locations unless we have to, right? But we’ll know where everyone is. So no surprises. Not like last time.”

They’d been accused of cheating before. Of making sure certain people won to ramp up views, generate goodwill, please sponsors, or whatever. Like Benito, the gamer kid from East LA whose mom had died from Covid, or Tania, the Jamaican teen beauty-influencer who needed money for college. Angeline knew Mav’s personal favorite for this challenge was Adele, the mom who’d been to hell and back, remade herself, and was working hard for her kids. Maybe he thought it would earn some love from the Moms Against Mav. That was Mav, always thinking.

“There are only twenty casitas, the pool house and cabanas, and the spa. The ramp down to the beach is way overgrown. No one’s going down there. There’s the hotel itself, which is like an echo chamber. Sounds carry. It will be easy to find anyone who hides there. All the doors are gone anyway. Everything is wide-open.”

Another beat. Another breath. Another chance for her to say, No, we’re done here. I’m pulling the plug. She was about to, really. But.

“Okay,” said Gustavo finally. “If we’re out by midnight.”

Mav slapped him hard on the back. And Gustavo offered a reluctant smile.

Angeline watched them embrace, a big, hard-patting man hug. She moved toward the door, grabbed the keys from the table.

“Where are you going?” asked Mav, brow wrinkling, hand reaching for her.

“I’m going to find Alex, talk him out of quitting.”

“Fuck him,” said Mav. “He hasn’t been with us , not really, since he had that kid. Let him go.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Tavo to Angeline. She was about to decline his offer, but instead she found herself nodding.

She thought Mav might step in, say he’d go with her. But he didn’t. What was that look on his face? It was new. “We’ll stay here and get everything set up,” he said, turning his attention to the equipment on the table. “In and out. Easy. You’ll see. I—”

Angeline stepped out of the trailer, closing the door on Mav, who was still talking.

“Uh…okay, goodbye,” he shouted through the closed door.

She looked up. The clouds above had cleared some; it didn’t look like a big storm was coming.

She didn’t say another word as Tavo followed her to the big SUV, climbed in the passenger seat. He knew better than to even suggest he might drive.