Chapter 35 Ana
Ana
Ana woke with a jolt. She sat bolt upright, her hands pulling at her shirt. It felt as though something was tight around her neck. But there was nothing there.
She coughed several times—a dry, rasping cough. Everything hurt. Her head was spinning, her eyes burned. Her throat felt like she’d swallowed sandpaper.
Instinct told her to pull herself together; danger was still here. But her body responded sluggishly. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, darkness pulled at the edge of her vision; she kept coughing in violent bouts.
She was sitting on something soft; it had the downy feel of a sleeping bag. Was she on a bed? Was she back in her room? Where was Alex?
Her mind was slowly pulling itself together, remembering bits and pieces. The smoke, Alex at the door, Ellis coming towards her… Someone had grabbed her and pulled her backwards. She remembered it now, the feeling of strong hands dragging her into the hatch.
The hatch! She was inside the hatch!
Fuck. She jumped to her feet, all senses kicked into gear as she scanned the room, searching for Bates.
Where was he? Where? He had to be here, he’d carried her here and left her on this sleeping bag.
Where was he? For several terrifying moments she checked every corner, every shadow, picking out shapes in the dark—but there was no one there.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look at her surroundings.
The long, narrow room was dark and had the musty, earthy smell of a damp basement.
A string of bulbs lit up the curved corrugated roof above her, giving off a weak yellow glow.
There was a small, curtained area with the lid of a camping toilet peeking out behind it.
A modest kitchenette was installed at the end wall with a single gas burner; utensils and plates were lined up neatly on a shelf above the counter, with food stacked below in labeled plastic containers.
To her right she could just make out a large crate pushed up against the side wall.
A chessboard was set out on top, a single chair to one side.
There was no sign of a way in, or out.
Everything was utilitarian and meticulously organized, like some prepper’s underground bunker—built for survival. Ana swallowed nervously. Who was this person? Who built this whole setup? Who spent time carefully lining up their plates in a neat row, right before kidnapping seven teenagers?
Nervously, she scanned the shadows one more time. At the far end, she could only make out vague angular shapes in the weak light. Maybe a desk? A chair? It was hard to tell what was down there, but it wasn’t human. She was alone.
Her thoughts flashed to Alex. He was outside somewhere, with Ellis—and if Bates wasn’t in the bunker right now, then he had to be out there too, probably armed.
If she didn’t do something soon, before the hour was up, Ellis would make damn sure Alex crossed the line and Bates would be there to finish things off.
There must be so little time left! She had no idea how long she had been unconscious. Quickly, she pulled out her phone.
49:14
For a moment she was disorientated. That couldn’t be right. It was too long—after the bunker and the code. It should have been closer to the end of the hour. Then it hit her like a hard punch in the gut.
It was a new hour.
The timer had restarted. While she was unconscious, someone must have crossed the line. Someone else was dead.
Ellis, Jade, or…Alex? Who was it? Panic hit her. Please not Alex. Ellis would have got rid of him first if he had the chance. Had Alex crossed the line? Was Alex already dead? Was this all for nothing? She couldn’t go on. Not without Alex.
Stop it, she told herself sharply. Alex is alive.
She could feel it in her heart—she could feel him. Alex was fine and she was going to find a way out of this trap. Everything was going to be all right, he was going to be all right.
With a self-control she didn’t know she had, Ana switched her thoughts over to the job at hand. She was in Bates’s secret lair. There had to be something she could do from here, something that would end the game once and for all.
Barely aware she was doing it, Ana’s hands curled into fists. She checked around—a set of free weights were lined up in a neat row next to the mattress. Reaching for the middle weight, she hefted it in her hands. Light enough to swing. Heavy enough to do some damage.
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 the screens 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.