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5

ADELE

Night was falling. Enchantments, just up the drive from the campsite, was a presence, something looming on the edge of Adele’s consciousness.

“Are you sure that you don’t want to spend your first night at the off-site hotel?” Gustavo asked, having helped her get settled and heading toward the waiting SUV.

“No,” she said, though the idea of a real bed after the long flight was tempting. “I think I’m good.”

She glanced over at her tent. She’d spared no expense on most of her gear, running up her already blisteringly high credit-card balance, knowing that it might mean the difference between winning and losing. After careful research, she’d decided on the CloudDome 6 for its sturdy build, weather protection, and reflective detailing to help you see in the dark.

She’d posted about it and immediately got an offer in her DMs from the company for sponsorship that nearly covered the cost of the tent, which was nice. Now, all set up and glowing orange from the interior light she’d turned on, she took a photo for her socials, filtering it so the greens and oranges in the image popped.

Ready for my first night on Falc?o Island. The CloudDome 6 was supereasy to set up and is very comfortable inside. Highly recommend!

Was that stupid? Too prosaic? Should she try to be funny or cool? Whatever. She clicked to post.

The air felt fresh and clean, filled her lungs. Adele wanted the night on the site, to get the lay of the land, and to remember what it felt like to be outside again. Really outside. It had been years since she’d slept in a tent.

Her parents had taught her to climb, to camp, to live for days in nature with just what you’d brought and what you caught or foraged.

We’re supposed to live like this , her father used to say. He’d open his chest and his arms to the sky. This is home.

They’d traveled the country, Adele and her sister, in the back of their beat-up old minivan, Dad singing along to the radio, Mom reading in the front seat. She still loved that feeling of sleeping under a blanket of stars, home being wherever you pitched your tent that night.

“I never sleep indoors when I can be out,” Malinka said, coming up beside her.

Adele had liked the girl at first sight; there was something, an instant connection. Bright, fresh-faced, able, she’d greeted Adele with a big hug, immediately chipped in to help Adele get settled. Malinka’s own tent was one Adele had seen online and knew that it cost well over a thousand dollars; she’d already strung some fairy lights around the entrance. Very photogrammable .

“Are you sure?” Gustavo asked again. His eyes, trained on Adele, seemed to hold some kind of deeper invitation. But maybe he was just that kind of guy, the kind who knew how to look at a woman, make her feel seen. “The hotel is nice—big showers, hot tub, the whole thing. The next few days are going to be rough.”

“I’m sure it’s lovely,” said Adele, with a nod. She looked around at the trees and up to the stars. “But this is why I came.”

“Me, too,” said Malinka, her Polish accent heavy, pleasantly lilting. She gave Adele a wide smile. “Girl power, right? We got this.”

Adele nodded her agreement, even though she was not a girl , far from it. Nor was she a fan of the phrase We got this . Something about it almost sounded like a taunt. Like a dare to the universe. Here comes that hard fastball like a cannon-shot, grrl! Don’t fumble.

Still, she shared a high five with her new friend.

Adele would have to remind herself that Malinka—not a girl, either, but a woman and world-class athlete—was the competition. They’d both come here for the money, not to make friends. It was Adele’s fatal flaw to open her heart too wide, to not see the truth that was right in front of her. She promised herself that this time she’d be tough, a competitor. Cold, even, if she had to be.

“Okay,” said Gustavo, clapping his hands together, the sound echoing. He went to the Range Rover and pulled out a pack, held it up. “All provisions from our sponsors. If you have a chance to post about any of it, that would be great. Vege Fuel Protein Bars, Atomic Turkey Jerky, Nut Case Dried Cashews and Fruit, Quench Energy Drink.

“And here are two big canteens of water,” he added with a smile. “Sponsor mother earth. No need to post.”

Adele took the pack; Malinka held on to the water.

“Have a good night, and we’ll see you bright and early.”

Then he was in the SUV, disappearing down the drive.

Was there a shadow of something on Malinka’s face when Gustavo drove off, leaving them and taking all the light and noise with him? Adele knew that she felt a tingle of self-doubt. More than a tingle.

Though the signal was strong on her phone, she felt again, profoundly, how she was an ocean away from her kids, camping for the first time in nearly twenty years.

Fearless . That’s what Adele’s mother had always called her. Sometimes she said it in admiration, sometimes in anger. Either way, Adele had always worn it like a badge. She remembered it whenever she was feeling anything but, and it made her stronger. Like now.

You’re fearless , she told herself, felt a calm settle.

The truth was that Adele hadn’t been any such thing since she was her parents’ child, living in their care, cabled to them for safety literally and figuratively. And if she’d been so then, it was only because she didn’t know how hard, how unforgiving, how deadly the fall could be.

“Let’s get the fire going,” said Malinka, voice bright.

“Great idea.”

Together, they had it roaring in no time.

They both took a seat on the ground and dug into the pack of provisions. They ate some jerky and looked up at the sky, stars obscured by the thick cloud cover. In the middle of the Atlantic Adele had imagined a wild light show, but no, just a heavy black ceiling of night.

Their conversation, light and easy, ranged from injuries incurred during Tough Be-atch competitions, to the loss of their fathers, their love of the outdoors, favorite equipment, Malinka’s little brother, Adele’s kids.

After a while, Adele noticed that the charge was dwindling on her phone. And was dismayed to find that even her power bank was running low.

“Oh,” said Malinka when Adele mentioned it. “Come with me.”

The inside of Malinka’s tent was strung with lights, everything color coordinated, a stack of books and journals by her puffy sleeping bag, even a little jute rug. It looked more like a stylish teen bedroom than a tent. In Adele’s own tent, there was barely enough room for her pack and her sleeping bag.

Malinka kneeled down to one of the hard cases over in the corner and opened the lid. It was filled with tech gear—lights, chargers, adapters, camera and lenses, a variety of wires.

“Here,” she’d said, handing Adele a large white rectangle of plastic with multiple ports. “This one is solar-powered and still has some juice. Use it to charge your phone and power bank, then put it in the sun tomorrow.”

“Thank you so much,” Adele said, a little embarrassed by Malinka’s generosity and by her own gear failure. “I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.”

Malinka waved her off. “Keep it. I have like three.”

Adele’s eyes fell on a photograph lying on top of the pile of books. Malinka cheek to cheek with a sweet-faced, dark-haired girl who looked vaguely familiar to Adele. She tried to place the face but couldn’t. Malinka noticed her looking and quickly slid the photograph underneath the leather cover of the journal.

Adele was about to apologize for her inadvertently prying eyes, but she was interrupted by a strange sound, long and low off in the distance. Not an animal. Almost mechanical, it was something she hadn’t heard before, impossible to identify.

“What’s that?” asked Adele, listening for it again.

Malinka looked up at her, slipping the journal beneath her other books. “That’s Esperanca—Enchantments. It’s groaning. Some say it won’t be standing in another year.”

Adele had read that the structure had been condemned, hence the giant sign warning visitors away. It was slated for demolition, but the project just kept getting put off for various reason of politics and funds. Extreme had assured contestants that it had been tested and found perfectly safe for the time being.

“I’ve heard it a couple of times now,” Malinka said. She rose easily from her squat and shouldered her pack.

“Ready for the tour?” she asked, giving Adele a friendly shoulder nudge. “I’ve already been through. Let me show you.”

It was exactly what she’d planned to do tonight. She was happy enough not to have to do it alone.

“I’ll get my gear.”

* * *

The towering entrance to Enchantments was a gaping mouth breathing a fetid odor of decay. Water wept from the ceiling, streaming down the walls, pooling on the floor. Tendrils of foliage snaked in through the windows and cracks in the walls, hung like corpses from the exposed landings.

“What do you think?” asked Malinka, coming up beside her. “Pretty crazy, right?”

The wind howled and moaned, traveling through hallways and stairwells, swirling down elevator shafts. Adele didn’t believe in ghosts, but if a place could be haunted, this would be it.

It was precisely the kind of situation she’d warn her kids to stay away from, but there she was, stepping into Enchantments with Malinka. She scampered over a fallen beam in her path, looking up to see where it had come from. The ceiling, high above, was riven with holes, the sky visible.

A high chain-link fence obviously erected to keep people out had been cut down the center and rolled back to either side. Another huge sign reading Keep Out in three languages had been cast to the side and was covered in spray paint and grime. They moved past the jagged remains of the fence, careful of the sharp edges.

Excitement was an electric current through Adele’s nerves, dread a drumbeat. When was the last time she’d felt so alive ? Not lying in bed worrying about how she was going to take care of her kids; not sitting in a car line or in her windowless office trying to help students who often didn’t seem to want help or to even be paying attention; not struggling to complete her online degree so that she could keep the job that she wasn’t quite qualified to do when contracts were reviewed and re-upped at the end of the year.

Here in this wild place, a dormant part of herself was stirring from slumber.

If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the grand past of Enchantments: luxury cars purring in the circular drive, wealthy guests entering, doors held wide-open for them. The glittering chandeliers, the lobby music, the pop of champagne corks.

Once a glittering, hidden destination for the very rich, now a ruin. Mysterious. Dramatic.

“Look at this,” said Malinka. She had a powerful light on her pack, and she shined it around the space. “Over here.”

They stood now at the empty elevator shaft where Adele saw a deep crack in the concrete.

“There are others,” Malinka went on. “There. And there.”

Her light fell on more wide fissures, rising from the floor, traveling up the walls.

“That can’t be good,” said Adele. “How long do you think before it collapses?”

Malinka shrugged, tracing one with her finger. The walls were covered with graffiti: names and dates, declarations of love, defiance, anger, warnings, cartoons, illegible scribbles. On the back wall of the empty elevator shaft, someone had spray painted Free Candy with an arrow pointing down. Creepy but funny. Adele snapped a picture for Blake, who would definitely find it hilarious.

“Hopefully not in the next couple of days?” said Malinka, offering Adele a confident wink. The very young. They didn’t know how unstable the world could be. How very unforgiving the consequences of missteps. Adele envied her, not a little.

You’ll die here , someone had written in red scrawl.

Surely the people at Extreme had been telling the truth when they claimed to have inspected the site and found it safe enough for their challenge. Right?

Adele flipped on her own pack light. The winding concrete staircase leading upstairs seemed solid enough if slippery with mold and wet earth. Were those footprints? Yes, large boot tracks leading up the stairs. Probably the Extreme team had been all over this place, and Malinka said she’d already been through. Adele headed up.

She’d had a few moments to check out the satellite views of the property that Blake had sent of the site from WholeEarthNow.

Probably the hotel itself is not the best place to hide. Too predictable, and Extreme has likely scoped out every inch of that place , he’d advised via text. If it was me, I’d go for one of the casitas .

Adele had seen on the images how paths from the hotel led past the pool to a smattering of small houses in the woods. Inside the hotel now, she knew that Blake was right. Things were too wide-open here, many of the hallways exposed to the grand lobby, sounds carrying.

Still, she’d check it out. She climbed carefully up.

At the landing, a long hallway unspooled into darkness.

“Have you been up this way?” she asked. But Malinka, who she could have sworn was right behind her, was gone.

“Malinka?” Adele’s voice bounced off the concrete walls.

No answer. Some distant sound carried on the air, but Adele couldn’t make it out. She couldn’t worry about Malinka, who seemed as intrepid and courageous as Adele wished she still was.

It was nice to have company, but truthfully, she should do the recon on her own. After all, when it came down to it, she’d only have herself to rely on.

She pointed her light ahead.

Doors punctuated the hallway that seemed to have no end.

She pushed into the first one, heaving it against the heavy draft coming from the open glassless window frame. As she walked through the abandoned guest room, she found it stripped bare—all fixtures, furniture, and decor gone, a grim concrete shell like a jail cell. Graffiti on every surface, water dripping from the ceiling.

She stepped through the room onto the balcony and looked out.

The sky was a dramatic black. The volcanic lake below glittered like it had been scattered with jewels, ringed with deep black-and-green foliage. She took out her phone and snapped a photo, but the image didn’t capture the wild, breathless beauty around her, its dimension and movement lost on the screen.

Why, even now, did she think of Miller when something moved her? He’d abandoned them, ruined all their lives, and yet she still wanted to share everything with him. Wanted to hear his thoughts, his laughter. Isn’t this amazing? she wanted to tell him. Look at where I am.

If she was better at WeWatch, she’d be using this moment to go live. But she didn’t. She just wanted to be present.

Somewhere a structural groan. Then, maybe, the sound of a voice carried on the wind. Adele pulled herself away from the view, moved back out into the hall.

“Malinka?”

There. Something moved. A bulky shadow.

Her eyes grappled with the changing light. What was that?

Then, at the end of the hall, a thick, dark form seemed to spill from the black, moving fast. Toward her? Away? She couldn’t tell.

“Hey,” she yelled, alarmed. “Hey!”

Then it disappeared through one of the doorways.

Fear like the strum of a guitar string vibrated on her nerve endings.

“Who’s there?” Her voice wobbled, betraying her.

No answer.

She flashed her light around, scattering the night. Behind her, nothing, just the ambient glow from the stairway, ghostly and gray.

She should leave. Walk away from danger , she always told the kids, not toward it.

But she kept moving. The hallway felt like a nightmare tunnel, growing longer and longer. A perpetual moan of air moved through cracks and openings in the structure, kicking up dust and debris, snapping at the legs of her cargo pants, tossing the free strands of her hair.

No door on room 704. Empty but for that view again. Her breath was ragged, throat dry.

“Hello?” Some joke maybe. She’d seen enough of these on WeWatch to know how they would manufacture scares for the camera. Malinka would suddenly jump from one of the doorways and scare Adele for her followers.

But no. The girl with her still features, her serious bearing, didn’t seem like a prankster.

Room 706 was also empty. She kept moving.

The door to 708 stood slightly ajar.

“What scares you the most?” Another question from Dr. Garvey. “And how do you deal with that fear?”

“Not being able to take care of or protect my kids. I just keep working at it. One day at a time.”

“What else?”

“Secrets and lies. People who pretend to be one thing and are really another.”

“Those are all existential. What else? What about heights or enclosed spaces?”

She’d thought about it. Violet was terrified of snakes: anything that looked like a snake—a hose in the backyard, a stick on a hiking trail—could make her scream. Blake couldn’t handle bugs, even ants had him running in circles batting at himself. But Adele? There was nothing, not really. Not having good health insurance…that was scarier than most things she could conjure.

“Well, when I was a kid, I used to be afraid of the dark. But aren’t all kids afraid of the dark?”

Her light flickered, came back to life, then flickered again. Of course. Because unlike with her tent, she’d cut costs and purchased the one that cost nineteen dollars instead of the one that cost a hundred and thirty-nine. She knocked it on her palm, and it came back to full brightness.

“The dark in the closet. The dark under the bed. The dark behind a closed door. Where things hide,” she had replied to Dr. Garvey.

At the door, she paused, realized she was holding her breath.

“And how do you handle your fear?” said the doctor.

“Malinka?” she said again.

“Head-on,” had been her reply.

She pushed the door open fast, slamming it hard against the wall. The sound echoed, reverberating down the hall.

Nothing. No one.

But this room had a ratty mattress on the floor, was littered with trash and debris, a tattered sneaker, a fallen chunk of plaster, a pizza box rotted and covered with mold, a crushed, faded condom box, a cracked purple bong. She thought of those boot prints, who they might belong to.

What had she seen? Was someone hiding in one of these rooms?

She kept moving toward the double doors at the end of the hallway. They seemed to breathe, opening and closing just slightly. Shining her light, she pushed inside.

Her pack light flickered and went out.

The sudden loss of brightness left her blind.

Her eyes slowly adjusted, forms taking shape. Then a shadow loomed from the black, moving fast toward her, heavy footfalls echoing. She lifted her arms as she was knocked back. Slamming hard against the wall, her head smacked on the cement. Then, stumbling, she lost her footing and went down onto concrete as the form ran past her, disappearing, footfalls still echoing off every surface, heavy on the stairs.

“Hey,” she yelled, struggling to her feet.

She gave chase, tripping again, then getting up. By the time she reached the stairs, Malinka was coming up.

“Did you see that?” Malinka asked, breathless, eyes wide. “Who was it?”

“I don’t know,” Adele managed, still reeling.

“He knocked me down,” said Malinka. She rubbed her arm. “But he’s gone now. He ran out the back.”

Adele put a hand to her forehead, brought back fingers bright with blood. Her heart pumped in overdrive, adrenaline making her shake.

“Oh, God,” said Malinka. “You’re bleeding.”

Malinka sifted through her pack, came out with a white cloth, which Adele held to her head. Adele leaned against the wall, breathing still shallow.

“Where did he come from?” Malinka asked, peering into the darkness.

“Down that way,” Adele answered.

After taking a moment to catch their breath, they walked back down the hall, Adele looking over her shoulder in the direction the shadow had disappeared. “In here.”

Adele’s light decided to come back on, dimmer than before. Note to self: never get the cheap stuff.

Inside what must have been the biggest suite in the hotel was a tatty old tent. Shining their lights, they saw that someone had boarded up the windows. There was a small camping stove in the corner, a pile of magazines, what looked like a tangle of old rags.

Malinka carefully pushed back the tent flap to reveal a cot, a camping light, a faded sleeping bag.

“Someone has been living here,” she said.

She lifted up a pack of cigarettes, a lighter. A paperback, Walden by Thoreau. She let the things drop back on the cot.

Adele stared, her stomach clenching. The cigarettes—Marlboro—Miller’s brand. Or so she came to discover after he’d gone when she found a carton in his desk. Walden. His favorite book, which she knew well because he was always quoting it. To stand at the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment , he’d say.

She wondered how he justified the things he’d done against the principals he’d supposedly held dear.

“What’s your greatest disappointment?” Dr. Garvey had asked.

She didn’t have to think about that for very long. “My husband. My ex-husband.”

Coincidence, of course. The book, the cigarettes. Or just the universe fucking with her as usual.

“Are you okay?” asked Malinka, coming in close and putting a gentle hand on Adele’s arm. Her skin was dewy with youth, eyes bright.

“Yeah,” Adele said, forcing a smile. “Just spooked.”

Malinka inspected her cut with tenderness. “The bleeding stopped. It’s not too bad.”

Adele gave another look inside the tent, shone her light around the space, but there was little else to see. Just a collection of empty booze bottles in the corner. “Some squatter, probably.”

Who would live here? Why? Someone on the run. Someone with no place else to go. She was still quaking slightly, felt chilled.

Not a ghost. Not someone with nefarious intent. Not… Miller.

Right? Her thoughts went back to her last conversation with Agent Coben. Even people in witness protection, whose lives depend on staying hidden, can’t always stay away forever.

Adele felt her heartbeat in her throat.

“Whoever it is, we scared him off,” said Malinka, maybe reading Adele’s worry. “He won’t come back.”

The young woman sounded so certain. But how could she know that?

“There’s more to see. Are you up for it?”

“Yeah,” Adele answered. “Of course.”

Malinka exited through the double doors, and Adele gave the room another pass, her light falling again on the crumpled pack of cigarettes, the tattered paperback.

“What else scares you?” Dr. Garvey had wanted to know.

“That he wins.”

“Who?”

“Miller. That he never comes back, that he gets away with it. That my children and I spend our lives wondering what happened to him.”

What she didn’t say was that she was equally afraid of what she would do if she did see him again. There was animalistic rage that lived inside her, that had fueled her survival. She kept it caged. Who would she be and what was she capable of if it got loose?

Finally, she followed Malinka out the door.

* * *

Later, Adele drifted off to a fitful sleep. In her hypnagogic state, she was chased by the dark form through endless hallways, only to come upon Miller lounging on the cot, smoking.

“You don’t belong here, Adele,” he said with his familiar disapproving frown. “You know that.”

Then Malinka leaped out at her, and she was startled awake.

Adele shrunk into her sleeping bag. Who was that shadow? Where was he now?

Off in the distance, she heard the sound of Malinka’s voice, bright and talking fast. Then a long low groan from the hotel.

Esperanca —that’s what Gustavo had called the hotel.

Hope. It was a tricky thing, powerful enough to lure you across an ocean, and so easy to lose.