Page 44

43

VIOLET

The night after she realized her father wasn’t coming back, she’d torn up her room looking for the note she was sure he would have left her. When he went on trips, he always hid sticky notes in places she would find them. Inside the book she was reading, on the package of cookies she favored, in a shoe, between her pillows. They’d just say silly things like I’m thinking about you right now . Or Give your mom a hug from me . Or I love you so much . Or You’re my special girl . Or it would be something funny that they had laughed about recently, like I’m off to goat yoga!

She never knew how he did it. How he knew where to hide the notes, how he did it without her knowing, since he often worked late, and she and Blake were usually sleeping when he came in at night.

Finally, she realized that the notes, though they were signed Dad xoxo , were from her mom. That she hid them for Violet and Blake after they went to school. It was Mom who knew where to hide them and what each of them most wanted to hear from their father.

When he went away for good, there were no sticky notes, just those she had saved, pressed inside her journal. He had left them without a word, as he always had. But this time, Adele hadn’t thought, had the energy, or wanted to cover for him. She couldn’t cover for him.

Violet remembered the feeling of shame more acutely than any other feeling she had when her father left. She remembered walking into the school the week after and feeling like everyone turned away from her. Like everyone could look at her and see that she wasn’t enough to keep her father with them.

One by one, they lost their friends. Had to sell their house and move in with her grandparents for a time. Eventually, Violet and Blake had to leave the private school her mother could no longer afford, even though she worked there now, thanks to the job her best friend had gotten for her. There was anger, too. Sadness. Grief. All feelings she had learned to identify with Dr. S.’s help.

But mostly there was shame that her father was a bad man who had hurt people, and she was his daughter, so she must be bad in some ways, too. Otherwise, why would everybody hate them because of what her father had done?

“Holy shit,” whispered Coral behind her, gripping her arm. “O.M.G.”

Now the feeling that came up as Violet saw her father for the first time in years was rage. It was a hard knot at the base of her throat, a clench in her stomach.

“Violet,” said Blake, moving in front of her, “don’t lose it.”

“What are you doing here ?” The words felt like acid in her throat. The back of her neck and the palms of her hands tingled; her whole body quaked. If it wasn’t for Coral’s hand on her shoulder she might have fallen over. “I’m calling the police.”

He looked so strange, haunted around the eyes. There were deep lines etched in his face. In her dreams, he was always smiling, color high in his cheeks. The man before her looked hollowed-out. He lifted a palm, bowed his head. “It’s okay. You can do that. But let’s talk first.”

She remembered that about him, how calm he always was. How her mom would get angry, and how even Violet was prone to door-slamming and fits of temper. But her dad and Blake were always chill, easy, accepting of the circumstances whatever they were.

“First,” said the faded version of her father, “let’s make sure your mom is okay.”

“What do you mean make sure she’s okay ?”

“There’s a storm,” said Blake, brow furrowed, cheeks flushed. “Her phone is dead. And there’s some kind of mess happening on the island.”

She’d been so caught up in Blake’s drama, that she hadn’t even checked in on her mom since the morning. But Adele, she knew, was tough, ready for anything. And this was just a silly game—less challenging than the Tough Be-atch competitions she participated in.

Blake worried about her, but Violet didn’t as much. Her mom was the strongest person she knew. The steadiest. Not like her father. Even when Violet was small, even before her father left, she had the sense of him as ghostlike, always almost slipping away, almost not quite there—staring at his phone, or lost in thought, like whatever was going on elsewhere was just slightly more important than what was going on right in front of him. Adele was rock-solid, always present.

“What’s actually happening?” she asked Blake.

She found herself staring at her father. He seemed like a stranger, not the person who lived in her memories or her dreams. Mostly, he just looked worn-down, like someone you’d see on the street and feel sorry for. The moment was wobbly and strange. How could she process all of this? She couldn’t. A kind of mental fog was setting in.

Blake motioned for her to follow him farther into the house, and she did so hand in hand with Coral.

“This is crazy, V,” Coral whispered urgently. “We need to call the police. Your dad is like a total fugitive from justice.”

That was true. But he was still her father. A man who’d taken on mythic proportions since he left. He was villain, mystery, and heartbreak wrapped all into one. Violet had no idea what she should do, what she wanted to do.

On a table in the sun-washed kitchen were several large computer monitors, each one streaming a different site.

There was a weather site open on one, in which a big red swath was swallowing whole the island she knew her mother was on.

There was Extreme’s WeWatch page showing Maverick live, about to go down an elevator shaft. Malinka’s page was dark. Mom’s LifeTracker listed her as unavailable . Meaning that her phone was dead.

Violet felt a notch of dread. Her mother had never been untraceable, unfindable, unreachable. It just wasn’t a thing that happened with her mom. She’d never called her mom and not reached her, never needed her when she wasn’t right where Violet expected her to be.

Instinctively she reached for her phone and called, though she knew it was probably futile. Predictably, it went straight to voicemail.

“Mom,” she said, “please call me.”

She felt an intense lash of fear and anger.

“This is your fault,” she said to Blake. “She’s there because of you .”

“You didn’t try to stop her, either,” he said quietly. “You encouraged her.”

She shook her head, tears welling, words jammed up in her throat. He was right. She could have stopped her mom. All she would have had to do was ask her to stay home.

“I left school so that I could help her,” Blake said miserably when she didn’t answer him.

“How are you going to help Mom sitting in front of a screen?”

What was this strange, yet somehow familiar, place? She turned her attention toward her father now. “And you .”

Rage came up hot and wild, fueled by worry for Adele. “Why are you here? Where have you been? How could you do this to us and then just turn up? Who even are you ?”

Her father bowed his head again, put his hands to his chest in prayer hands.

“I have screwed up big-time, Violet,” he said, his voice a rasp. “Made too many mistakes to count. But I’m here now, to help you guys and your mom, to make amends. To answer for the things I’ve done—to you and to the law.”

She barely recognized him: gone was all his light and energy. He was a faded, broken version of himself. She thought of something she’d overheard Agent Coben say. Life on the run is no life.

“What does that mean?”

Her father drew and released a breath, held her gaze. “It means when I discovered that your mom had left to go to Falc?o Island, I knew I had to come home and be here for you guys. I didn’t just ruin my life, I ruined yours and your mom’s. That’s why she’s in this mess. It’s not your fault or Blake’s. It’s mine. I did this, and I’m here to face that.”

She couldn’t stand to look at him, in her chest that terrible tangle of anger and love. She wanted to break things.

Instead, Violet moved in to look at each screen. And Blake filled her in on everything that had happened—from the missing CFO to the men on ATVs returning; from the storm and Malinka’s last, desperate broadcast to Angeline’s apparent abduction. The feeling of anguished helplessness was almost too much. They couldn’t climb through the screen to bring their mother home.

“So what do we do?” she asked. That was her mom’s thing. When the going got tough, what specific action could you take to make things better? “Can we…call the island police?”

“I did that,” said Blake. “I used the translate app. And they said all the roads to Enchantments are swamped. There’s no way to get them now. They were warned to leave, and they all chose to stay. Including Mom. So there’s nothing they can do now.”

“What about those men, those soldiers on the site?” asked Violet. “Can’t they help?”

“I asked that, too,” said Blake. “They have nothing to do with island law enforcement. They’re a private security team.”

“Owned by who?” asked Violet.

Blake just shrugged. Then his lower lip quivered, and his eyes filled. “I don’t know. You’re right, this was my idea. If anything happens to her—”

“It’s not your fault, son,” said Miller. “You’re all in the place you’re in because of me.”

“Well, that’s the truth,” spat Violet. She flung her arm wide. “What is this place? How did you get in touch with Blake?”

Her dad moved closer, like he might try to embrace her, and Violet reeled away from him. “Don’t touch me.”

“We’ve been talking on Red World ,” said Blake, voice soft, crying in earnest now.

The news landed hard. Violet played Red World all the time, and her father had never approached her there. She could see how easy it would be, to create an avatar and seek to connect. If he’d wanted to, he could have reached out to Violet, too. But he hadn’t. Just Blake.

“For how long?”

Blake looked ashamed, like he was reading her mind. “A long time. In the game, he was Charger.”

There were so many things to be angry about she had no idea which one to choose. Her head started to ache, and finally she sank into one of the kitchen chairs. Think, Violet. Think. But her head was a confused swirl of thoughts. Coral came up behind her, put her hands on both of her shoulders.

“ Red World ,” said Blake, eyes widening.

“What about it?” Violet snapped.

“I know someone on Falc?o Island. He’s the one who told me that Extreme was coming to the island, about the hotel.”

“Who?”

“His avatar name is King Killer.”

Violet threw up her hands. “Perfect.”

Blake spun and sat down at the table, fingers dancing across the keyboard. “Maybe he can help us.”

“ Red World is not the real world, Blake.”

“Maybe it should be. Anyway, I have something he wants. Maybe that will motivate him to help us. He and his friends are all adventure guides. If anyone can get to the site, it’s him.”

Coral leaned in close and whispered so that only Violet could hear, “Violet, do you hear that? Are those sirens?”

Violet felt her father’s eyes on her, and when she looked over at him, he smiled. His eyes were glistening. Did he hear? Would he run again? I love you , he mouthed. Violet couldn’t say it back. Did she? Yes, but it was buried deep beneath anger, betrayal, grief.

A booming voice startled her. “Hey, Extremists!”

“Mav is live,” said Blake, moving over to the other keyboard and turning up the volume.

They all crowded around to look at the screen.

“Oh, my God,” said Coral. “Look at all those views. There’s like a million people watching.”

Maverick’s face filled the screen, and the comments section was a rushing river of emojis, expletives, praise, anger, jokes.

“As you may know, everything has gone completely FUBAR here on Falc?o Island.”

He was moving backward, voice breathless, eyes wide.

“And the game has taken an ugly turn. We’re trapped. The storm is raging out of control. Our hiders are off the grid, be cause back at the trailer we’ve lost power for our devices. So the trackers we gave them are useless now. I hope they’re okay, and I will look for them soon. But before I do that, I have to save Angeline.”

He pointed the camera down to reveal that he was wading in knee-deep water.

“I’m in the basement of Enchantments. And this place is flooding fast. And I don’t know how much time I have.”

His face filled the screen again.

“I think I may have found where whoever is doing this is holding Angeline. I’m about to go in. Wish me luck.”

The screen went black.

Violet just stared at the emptiness. Coral dropped an arm around her shoulder and held her tight. Her father had put his head into his hands. He seemed beaten, no help at all. Why had he come back? She wanted to remember him how he was—before. Not like this, someone hollowed-out, deeply flawed.

Blake had his back to them and his headphones on. He was on Red World , presumably looking for King Killer.

What could go wrong?