Chapter 6 Web of Lies – Luna
Erik’s practically dragging me up the cliff path. His hand is locked around mine, and he’s moving so fast I have to jog to keep up. The autumn wind whips my hair across my face with every step.
“Erik, slow down,” I protest, breathless. “What’s the rush?”
“I want to catch the sunset,” he says, but his voice is tight, strained in a way that has nothing to do with physical exertion. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
We’ve walked this path dozens of times since returning to Shark Bay—the same cliffs where Selena supposedly saved us from Dominic, where we thought we found sanctuary.
The view is spectacular from the top, the ocean stretching endlessly toward the horizon, the sound of waves crashing against rocks far below.
Erik doesn’t even glance at the view. He’s looking around, checking behind us, making sure no one followed us up here.
My stomach tightens with a mixture of dread and vindication.
“Erik, what’s going on?”
He doesn’t answer until we reach the cliff’s edge, where the wind is strongest, and the ocean’s roar drowns out everything else. Only then does he turn to face me, and what I see in his expression confirms what I’ve been suspecting since my conversation with Professor Austin.
Fear. Raw, undisguised fear.
“I need to tell you something,” he says, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. “And I need you to stay calm. Can you do that?”
“Just say it.” My voice comes out harder than I intend. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”
He pulls me closer to the edge, where the noise is loudest, where anyone trying to eavesdrop would have to be standing right next to us. “Belle sent me a message. In the book club. She coded it into the pages of Nineteen Eighty-Four .”
“What did it say?”
Erik’s hands grip my shoulders, and I can feel them trembling slightly. “Selena Harpsons is The Architect.”
The words land like a punch to the gut, even though some part of me has been bracing for exactly this since Professor Austin’s cryptic warnings. Since Selena’s too-perfect timing. Since everything started feeling wrong beneath the veneer of safety.
“Fuck,” I breathe, closing my eyes. “Fuck. I knew it. I fucking knew something was wrong.”
“You knew?” Erik’s grip tightens.
“Not knew, but—” I open my eyes, meeting his gaze.
“Professor Austin tried to warn me. Asked all these weird questions about safety protocols, about whether I’d noticed anything unusual.
And then Selena showed up and shut him down.
Threatened him.” The memory makes my skin crawl.
“I’ve been trying to convince myself I was being paranoid, that I was seeing patterns that weren’t there because I’m so used to being hunted. But I wasn’t, was I? It was real.”
“It’s real.” Erik’s voice is grim. “Belle’s been watching, paying attention. There are cameras everywhere—in our rooms, in the corridors, in every building on campus. The entire island is a surveillance network. We’re not being protected. We’re being monitored.”
The confirmation is somehow both a relief and a nightmare. Relief because I’m not losing my mind, not inventing threats where none exist. Nightmare because it means the danger is real, immediate, and we’re trapped in the middle of it.
“That day in class,” I say slowly, pieces clicking together. “When Austin was so agitated. He said a student had come to him, asked careful questions. That was Belle?”
“Yes. She figured it out—recovered a memory of Janet Wilson’s murder. Selena was there, giving orders to frame Belle for it. That’s what made her start looking closely, and once she did…” Erik trails off, gesturing helplessly at our surroundings. “Everything is wrong. All of it.”
I think about how Selena appeared on that boat like magic. How she killed Dominic without hesitation—eliminated him before we could ask questions. How she welcomed us back with open arms and grand promises while isolating us on an island with no escape.
“I’m such an idiot,” I say, but there’s anger in my voice now, not just self-recrimination. “She played us perfectly. Made us grateful, made us dependent, made us believe she was saving us when really—”
“She was trapping us,” Erik finishes.
“This place.” I laugh bitterly. “This fucking place. My parents sent me here to keep me compliant, to isolate me from Alex, to maintain control. And I came back voluntarily. I walked right back into my own prison and thanked her for the key.”
The irony is devastating. Shark Bay was always a cage. I just convinced myself it had transformed into something else.
“I want to confront her.” The fury is rising now, hot and fierce in my chest. “I want to march into her office and—”
“No.” Erik’s grip becomes almost painful. “Luna, no. That’s exactly what you can’t do.”
“Why not? She already knows we suspect something. Professor Austin practically spelled it out for me, and she was standing right there. She has to know he tried to warn me.”
“Suspecting isn’t the same as knowing for certain.
And even if we suspect, we can’t confirm it by confronting her without evidence.
” Erik’s voice is urgent, desperate. “If we tip our hand now, we’re dead.
Or disappeared, or made to look crazy, or any number of things that powerful people do to silence threats. ”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But the anger needs somewhere to go, and confronting Selena at least feels like doing something instead of cowering under her surveillance.
“So what?” I demand. “We just pretend everything’s fine? Keep playing the grateful students while she watches our every move?”
“Yes. Exactly that.” Erik pulls me against his chest, his heart hammering against my ear. “We need to be strategic. Like Belle. She’s been gathering information, noting camera placements, looking for blind spots.”
The practical information helps ground me, gives me something to focus on besides the rage and fear warring in my chest.
“And then what?” I pull back to look at him. “We gather evidence and do what with it? We’re trapped on this island, Erik. Even if we prove Selena is The Architect, how do we get that information off the island without her knowing?”
“I don’t know yet.” His honesty is somehow more comforting than false reassurance would be. “But we’ll figure it out. Together. All four of us.”
I nod, trying to channel the determination that carried me through testifying against my parents. But this feels different, more impossible. Then, I had allies outside the system. Now we’re completely isolated, surrounded by Selena’s surveillance, with no clear way to call for help.
“I should have trusted my instincts,” I say quietly. “When Austin tried to warn me, I should have listened instead of convincing myself I was being paranoid.”
“You were trying to believe we were finally safe. We all were.” Erik’s hand cups my cheek. “Even Belle wanted to believe it until her memory proved otherwise. Selena is good at this. She’s been doing it for years.”
The wind whips around us, carrying the salt smell of the ocean and the sound of waves destroying themselves against the rocks below. I think about how easy it would be to fall from here. How a tragic accident could solve so many problems for someone like Selena.
How Dominic’s body probably looked after it fell.
If it even fell. If she didn’t just have it disposed of some other way.
“I hate this,” I whisper. “I hate feeling powerless again. I hate that we walked right into another trap. I hate that she’s watching us right now, probably laughing at how thoroughly she fooled us.”
“Then we make sure the last laugh is ours.” Erik’s voice is fierce. “We get evidence, we expose her, we burn this whole network to the ground. Just like you did with your parents.”
“My parents didn’t have an entire island under surveillance. They didn’t control every exit, every communication line, every potential ally.”
“No, but they had the Queens’ fortune and political connections and decades of established power. And you still took them down.” He forces me to meet his eyes. “You’re the bravest person I know, Luna. Don’t lose that now.”
I want to feel brave. Want to channel the fury into action, into the kind of determined resistance that brought down my parents’ empire.
But right now, I just feel tired. Tired of fighting, tired of being hunted, tired of discovering that every moment of safety is actually just another form of captivity.
“Okay,” I finally say. “Okay. We play along. We act normal. We work on figuring out our next move.”
“That’s my girl.” Erik kisses my forehead, and for just a moment, I let myself lean into him, drawing strength from his presence.
We stand there as the sun sets, the sky all orange and purple. It’s beautiful. Everything here is beautiful. That’s the whole point.
“We should head back,” Erik finally says. “Before someone notices we’ve been gone too long.”
The walk down is careful, measured. We don’t hold hands—can’t risk appearing too intimate, too much like we’re sharing secrets. Just two students returning from a romantic walk, nothing to see here, nothing suspicious.
But I can’t stop cataloging everything with new eyes. That decorative molding—are there cameras hidden in those holes? That portrait of Silas Harpsons—is there a lens in the painted eye? The smoke detector in the corridor—is that blinking light standard or surveillance?
How many times has Selena watched us? Listened to our conversations? Monitored our every movement?
It feels like someone’s watching me from every direction.
***
That night, I lie in bed beside Erik, rigid with tension. Our dorm room suddenly feels like a cage. The smoke detector above the door blinks its steady red rhythm. The heating vent could hide a microphone. The mirror on the wall could be two-way glass.
Everywhere I look, I see potential surveillance.
Erik’s arm is around me, but neither of us is sleeping. I can feel the tension in his body, the way his breathing isn’t quite steady. We’re both hyperaware that anything we say could be heard, anything we do could be watched.