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ANGELINE

“Who are you?” Angeline yelled again at the still form in the corner.

The figure hadn’t moved, and the red light kept blinking.

Was she losing her mind? Was she dreaming? Maybe this wasn’t even happening. It was so bizarre that it didn’t even seem real. The pain was real—her head, her neck, her bound arms and legs. She heard the distant sounds of the storm and dripping water. There was a heavy smell—mold, rot, age.

“There are people out there. Please,” she said, desperation replacing anger, fear settling in. “What do you want?”

But the form stayed still, silent. Unmoved and unmoving. Maybe she was imagining it. Was there anyone even there?

“Is it money?” she asked. “How much?”

That earned a snort, but no words in response.

“Then, what ?”

Silence. Which was somehow worse than anything else. The silence allowed her mind to race, thinking about all the reasons she found herself in this place. Her abuela had liked to get biblical: We reap what we sow. What we put into this life is what we get from it.

But that wasn’t true, was it? How many evil, undeserving people were living lives of ease and luxury? And how many good people were toiling, suffering, struggling to get by? It was just another lie they told you to keep you obeying the rules, doing what they wanted. Do good, be good, and life will treat you well.

She worked to measure her breathing, clear her head from panic.

“You must want something,” she said. “Everyone wants something.”

More silence.

Finally, her rage and distress took over.

“Help!” she screamed to the camera, to the air around her. “Help me! I’m in the basement of Enchantments. I’ve been kidnapped.”

A shuffle to her right caught her attention, but she didn’t turn to look.

“He’s going to come for me,” Angeline told her captor. “Maverick will be here.”

And then she realized that’s what the person wanted. Too late it started to make sense. That’s what they were doing. That’s who they were waiting for. She was the bait; Maverick was the catch.

“Ange!”

Maverick burst from the darkness then, gun in hand, looking like some kind of action hero come to the rescue. Her heart flooded with love and relief. He hadn’t taken the money and left her. He’d come for her.

“Over there,” she said as he raced to her. “There’s someone there. In the corner. There’s a camera.”

He turned to face whoever it was, putting his body in front of her.

“Who’s there?” he asked, raising the gun. “What do you want?”

“Mav,” said Ange urgently, “untie me.”

There was a loud groan, the sound of the building straining. The powerful wind, the rising water—warnings from Petra loomed in Angeline’s memory. This land is unwell. Nothing good can happen here.

She kept working her bindings, feeling them start to loosen. They had to get out of here.

Maverick pointed his gun at the figure in the corner. “What do you want?” he asked, voice shaking. “Who are you?”

“Put the gun down, Mav.”

When the person stepped into view, Angeline knew her right away, before she even took off her mask. Still, when she did remove it, honey hair cascading down her shoulders, Angeline released a gasp.

It was Chloe Miranda. Thinner, but looking older, stronger than Angeline remembered her. She had an unfamiliar sense of purpose, a coldness to her.

“Chloe ,” said Maverick, his voice holding all the notes of relief, anger, surprise.

And she wasn’t alone. Another form moved out of the darkness. Angeline’s scattered memory from the blow she took on the path came back into view. No.

“Tavo?” said Maverick. Angeline could hear Maverick’s despair, his sense of betrayal.

“Put the gun down, Maverick,” said Hector, coming in from the other door. Gone was the frazzled, anxious worry, the sweetness. The man before them was tall and upright, his face still and cold.

Hector, too? All of them?

“Hector?” said Mav. “What the fuck?”

The three of them formed a grim-faced line, all eyes on Maverick. Angeline struggled against her bindings, feeling them loosening more, panic swelling. That groaning. The yowl of the wind. Were they going to die down here? Was this it?

Maverick dropped the gun to his side, letting out an angry laugh. “What is this? An intervention?”

The guys just stood there, staring. Angeline’s shock was only surpassed by her rage. How could they? The traitors.

“You hurt people, Maverick,” said Chloe. She stuck her chin out at him, shoulders back, the very posture of indignation. How could she muster it? After everything she’d done. Had she just been hiding all this time, working with Hector and Gustavo to ambush Maverick? Her brain went into hyperdrive, remembering how Tavo had suggested the island, and Hector had eagerly supported. Was it all a ploy, from the beginning? It must have been.

Chloe even seemed taller than Angeline remembered her. There was a new hardness to her now, like she’d taken off her sweet-girl mask to reveal the woman she really was. “You take and you take. And you don’t think about how your actions impact other people.”

Angeline got one of her hands free.

“Oh, really,” Mav said with a mirthless laugh. “And what about you, Chloe? Where have you been this year while your family suffered, police investigated, reporters chased us around wanting answers. There’s even a podcast.”

Chloe nodded slowly, had the decency to look ashamed. “I’ve made mistakes. I’ve hurt people, too. But you drove me to it. You’re like a poison, Maverick. You make people sick.”

“Okay, sure. I’m the bad guy. You were blackmailing me,” said Maverick.

“That’s a lie,” Chloe said, raising her palms. “I never did.”

“No one has been blackmailing you, Maverick. Everyone knows that you’ve been stealing money from the company,” said Tavo. “How much, Mav? Two million?”

Maverick said nothing; Angeline saw his shoulders tense, his hand gripping the gun. Finally, Angeline got her other hand free. She kept both hands behind her back, biding her time, looking for the way out.

“You’ve cheated innocent people,” said Gustavo, his voice soft and sad. “Charities you raised money for with these challenges but never paid. Or like Moms Against Mav. You never even said you were sorry. All those kids hurting themselves because they were emulating you. You haven’t given a dime to those families.”

“All the girls you’ve used and abused, hooked up with, ghosted,” said Chloe. “You use people, then discard them.”

Then Hector. “The jet—for fuck’s sake, Mav. The planet is dying. And you’re traveling around on a private plane.”

Maverick was shaking his head. He pointed his finger at them, accusing. “And you were all right there with me. You never turned down a single thing I offered you.”

“Yeah,” Hector said, sadly. “I’ve fucked up, too. I’m not proud. But Chloe’s right. You’re a sickness, Mav, contagious.”

A thunder crash from outside. Another long, loud groan from the building. Angeline felt the electricity of bad possibilities. Nothing good can happen here now. Everyone flawed, everyone broken.

“The BoxOfficePlus deal? Were you even going to tell us about it?” said Hector. “We all would have been rich, even me with the piddling shares you gave me in Extreme.”

“I was going to tell you,” said Maverick, voice thin. “When I was sure it would be good for all of us.”

The red light blinked in the darkness like a watching eye. Who was on the other side of the camera? There was an audience, had to be. Everything had an audience these days. But would any of those people act to help them?

No.

They’d just sit there watching, waiting to see what happened next. Voyeurs. WeWatchers. We watch , but we do nothing.

“Where’s Alex, Mav?” asked Chloe sadly.

Maverick stayed silent a moment. Then, “Yeah, Hector. Where’s Alex? ”

Angeline flashed back to Alex’s body in the closet, Gustavo and Maverick carrying him in the rug, dumping him over the wall.

Alex. Angeline felt another painful wave of regret and self-loathing. What had they all done?

Hector stayed quiet, too, clenching his fists.

“You were the last person at the hotel,” Maverick went on. “ What did you do to him, Hector?”

Angeline saw a flash of guilt across Hector’s face; he pulled his mouth into a tight line, said nothing. Hector was the last person at the hotel after they left. Had he killed Alex? Sweet Hector. But he wasn’t sweet. He was conniving, a liar, just like Chloe. Hector and Chloe exchanged a look that Angeline couldn’t read.

“What did you do, Maverick?” Tavo was moving closer, voice booming.

“Alex was on my side ,” said Maverick, lifting the gun. Tavo stopped in his tracks. “You think I’d hurt him? I needed him. If something happened to Alex, it wasn’t me. Which one of you? What did you do to him?”

“Stop it, Maverick,” said Gustavo. “You’re not slipping out of this one.”

Maverick backed toward Angeline, waved the gun at Gustavo, who took another step back, lifted his palms.

“What do you want ?” asked Maverick. “ Why are we here?”

Hector stepped forward with Chloe by his side. He dropped an arm around her shoulders, and she moved into him. Both of them stared at Maverick. Oh, wow. Were they a couple? Angeline felt a rush of hatred so intense, she had to keep herself from raging. So self-righteous, so hypocritical. Even Tavo. What had she ever seen in him? All of them as bankrupt as Maverick and worse. Angeline’s stomach roiled as she got one of her legs free.

“We want you to tell the world all the things you’ve done, Mav,” Hector said softly. “You’ve put on this show of yourself, all your life, convinced the world you’re one thing. Now we want you to tell the truth.”

“You know the truth, Hector,” said Maverick. “You’ve been with me— every minute .”

“No, man,” said Hector. “I’ve spent most of my life trying to help you. Trying to fix what you break. Trying to keep you safe. That’s it. I’m tired.”

“ Wah, wah , Hector. Poor baby. You’re cowards. What are you going to do to me with the camera going?”

Maverick put the gun in his pocket, turned his back on them, and helped Angeline with the rest of her bindings.

No one moved, everyone locked in place, frozen. When she was free, Angeline stood wobbly beside him. He propped her up, holding her tight around the shoulders, and turned back to face the group. She held on to him, the pain in her head a siren.

Maverick pointed at the group, at the camera. His voice wavered when he spoke. “I was never anything but what you all wanted me to be. I never did anything out of your sight.”

Hector bowed his head, but Tavo kept staring him down.

They’d turned on Maverick, his friends. Chloe was crying, angry tears streaming, fist clenched. They stood there, making a spectacle for the camera. But none of them moved to do a thing. Because they were just watchers. Maverick Dillan was the only actor among them.

Angeline could only imagine the comments scrolling. It was true: Maverick was deeply flawed. Broken, even. But so was Angeline, so were they all. She decided right then and there, she was staying with him. They’d make amends for every wrong he’d done. They’d limp back into the light together.

She squeezed him around the waist, tugged at him.

“Don’t you guys hear that?” she said. “The building is failing. We have to get out of here.”

“What is this? What kind of sick game are you all running?”

They all spun toward the voice. Wild Cody, Malinka, and Adele behind him, looking like they’d been through it, too—bleeding, clothes torn and mud-caked. Wild Cody had lost his hat. Another wash of shame.

The people who thought they were here to play a game and win, dragged halfway around the world—for nothing. There was no money. Except what Maverick had in those duffel bags. Which were…where?

The money.

Where was it?

Gustavo used the distraction to rush Maverick, crashing into him hard and taking him to the ground with a grunt. The gun went skittering, and the two of them were a tangle on the floor, groaning, punching.

Angeline ran for the gun, but not before Hector knocked her out of the way, sending her tumbling into the wall. She lay, wind knocked from her, head spinning from the earlier blow, tasting dirt in her mouth. Chloe came to stand over her, her smile victorious. The room spun.

Hector held the gun now, pointing it at Maverick and Gustavo. Mav was on top of Tavo, hitting him hard again and again.

“Stop,” Hector yelled, voice bouncing. But as usual, no one listened.

“I was always going to win,” Chloe said to Angeline. But Angeline had no idea what she meant. There were clearly no winners in this insane game. Angeline saw the gleam of instability in the other woman’s eyes. An anger that chilled her.

“Chloe?” Malinka moved tentatively toward them. “Chloe? What is this? I’ve been…so afraid for you.”

An expression of sorrow, of shame, clouded Chloe’s face when she looked at Malinka. Malinka reached out a hand, and Chloe took it.

“I’m sorry,” said Chloe. “I have so much to tell you.”

But before Malinka could answer, the sharp report of a fired gun froze the moment. The building shuddered, plaster falling from the ceiling in chunks. Then Maverick was tackling Hector, punching him hard in the face and easily taking the gun from him.

“Enough,” Maverick roared, struggling to his feet. He kept the gun pointed at Hector, who lifted his hands from his place on the ground.

“We have to get out of here,” yelled Adele. “This place is going to collapse.”

Maverick ignored her, moving away from Tavo, who was also on the ground, doubled over, seemingly immobilized by pain.

Maverick walked toward the camera. Adele, Malinka, and Cody were moving toward the door.

Where was Chloe? Angeline didn’t see her. Had she run? She was gone; she’d left them all.

“I am only exactly what you all want me to be,” Maverick yelled at the camera. “I do the things you’re afraid to do. I live the way you all wish you could live. I break myself to make you laugh.”

He looked around, waited for someone to say something, but no one did. He spoke again straight to the blinking red light.

“I’m sorry. But if you hurt yourself to be like me, or if your kids do, that’s on you. Who’s parking them in front of their devices and letting them watch?”

Angeline moved over to him, grabbed his arms. A crash somewhere inside the hotel. Did she hear voices?

“If I make promises I can’t keep…well, who doesn’t? If I took money, it was mine to take. The point is, I am out here. Doing shit. Living large, sucking the marrow out of this life—climbing, diving, flying, falling. And if you hate me, it’s because you’re jealous. You never stop watching me. You never decline to come along for the ride. If you hate me for who I am, then ask yourself this: Who are you for watching me? Who are you for making me who I am?”

He swept the gun around the room. Everyone stayed frozen, speechless. Breathless.

“I’m leaving here with Angeline,” he said.

And his tone reminded her why she had first loved him. He was sure of himself. He knew himself, where he was in the world, what he could do. Physically, he was sure-footed, athletic. He was right. He could fly. Only the most confident person could. Only the boldest person leaped into the air without thinking about the hard, unyielding ground.

“You’ve abducted an innocent woman,” he went on. “To get to me . Derailed a game that was meant to help people. One of you is responsible for whatever happened to Alex.”

He never lost sight of the agenda, even as it all fell apart.

Hector and Tavo were silent, helpless, both on the ground, bleeding. They thought they’d brought Maverick to his knees. They’d failed.

Were they live? If they were, Maverick had shamed them all and emerged unscathed as ever. Always on top. Always ahead. Always the winner of every game.

It was the camera that gave him his power. If they’d confronted him alone, he might have crumbled. But not with the eye on him. That’s what his mother had taught him, from the time he was a little boy. Never, ever let them see you cry.

“And trust me, if you try to come after us, I will kill you. In self-defense.”

It was at that moment that Enchantments offered its final protest. Somewhere deep in the belly of the beast, another crash. Outside the door, a great piece of concrete dropped from above, crashing into rubble. Adele let out a scream.

“Everybody, get out of here,” yelled Cody, moving to usher people out. “We have to get up top.”

They ran, Maverick holding Angeline’s hand and forearm tight, half dragging, half carrying her really, as she struggled to keep moving. The place seemed to be turning to rubble all around them, debris falling, water gushing in. She could hear the others running, screaming behind her as pieces of the ceiling fell, crashing into the water.

They moved toward the elevator shaft, but it was blocked now, filled with fallen debris, a giant plank of wood, chunks of concrete.

“This is where I left my rope,” said Maverick, turning to her. “Ange, we can’t get out this way. We’re trapped. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He moved toward her and held her tight as Enchantments started to crumble all around them.