Chapter 32
Weather Alert
Emma saved the final spreadsheet and closed her laptop with a soft click that echoed in the empty conference room, her mind still flooded with staffing data.
Through the windows, the sky hung purple gray over the water, dark clouds massing on the horizon like an invading army. The air had a charged, electric quality, making her skin prickle with awareness.
The last of the non-essential staff left the island last night, leaving only the Storm Team behind.
The resort felt hollow, stripped of the usual hum of voices and movement.
Even the ocean sounded different—louder, more insistent, as if the waves were throwing themselves against the shore with increasing urgency.
Her phone buzzed on the polished wood table, the vibration loud in the silence.
Emma picked it up, expecting another weather alert.
Zach
Need to show you something. Solombra cliffs. Urgent. Don’t bring Nick.
Her breath caught as she stared at the message, her thumb hovering over the screen. Zach rarely texted. He preferred face-to-face conversations or brief phone calls—communication that couldn’t be misinterpreted. The fact he messaged at all meant something.
‘Don’t bring Nick.’
That made her chest tighten. He said it was urgent. Personal? Or something about the threat level keeping everyone on edge since the assassin's attack?
Emma stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. The wooden floor creaked under her feet—a sound she’d never noticed before, but was now amplified in the emptiness. She moved through the lobby, her sneakers silent on the tile, and pushed through the doors into the rising wind.
The temperature had dropped almost twenty degrees since midday.
Palm fronds rattled overhead, and the first scattered drops of rain hit her face as she headed toward the coastal path.
The scent of ozone mixed with salt air, sharp and clean, cutting through the usual tropical sweetness of hibiscus and plumeria.
Emma pulled her hair back into a quick ponytail as she walked, her athletic stride eating up the distance.
She’d run this route dozens of times in the mornings and knew every root and rock.
But in the gathering gloom, with the wind picking up and the vegetation thrashing around her, everything looked different.
Unfamiliar. The shadows stretched, reaching across the path like grasping fingers.
She checked her phone again. No follow-up message. No clarification.
A whisper of wrongness brushed against her awareness.
Why didn’t Zach text more? Not details, but something. Context. He was deliberate in everything he did, in every word he chose. This message was… odd.
Her sneakers crunched on gravel as the path narrowed, climbing toward the cliffs.
The wind was stronger here, less filtered by trees, carrying the taste of rain and something else—that metallic tang that always preceded a major storm.
Her pulse kicked up, not from exertion but from the growing unease coiling in her stomach.
The resort disappeared behind a curve in the path. She was alone now, with nothing but the angry sky and churning ocean far below. The waves crashed against the rocks with a percussion that vibrated through the soles of her feet.
Emma’s pace slowed. Her observant nature—the same skill that made her good at reading people during interviews, at spotting the small details that reveal character—was now cataloging inconsistencies.
He would never ask her to walk alone when there was a threat, no matter how minor.
He normally called instead of texting; his voice told her more than his words ever do, giving her a measure of his mood, his level of concern.
He wouldn’t send her into something blind.
He would never block Nick.
And the storm was about to arrive in full force.
Emma rounded another bend and stopped. The path ahead was empty. No Zach. No movement except the violent dance of wind-whipped vegetation. The cliff edge dropped away to her right, a sheer fall to rocks and surf. To her left, the jungle pressed close, dark and impenetrable.
She pulled out her phone, fingers clumsy. No new messages. She tried calling Zach.
It went straight to voicemail.
No.
The word was sharp in her mind, edged with ice-cold realization. Zach’s phone was never off. Ever. It was surgically attached to him—always charged, always within reach. It was part of his job, part of who he was.
Emma’s heart pounded in earnest now, a drum solo against her ribs. She spun, scanning the path behind her, the tree line, the shadows now multiplying as the light failed.
The message hadn’t been from Zach.
It couldn’t have been.
Zach wouldn’t send her out here alone with a storm coming. Wouldn’t turn off his phone. Wouldn’t be vague about something urgent. Every instinct he had was protective, cautious, thorough.
Someone lured her here. And she fell for it.
The thought arrived with absolute clarity, and with it came a surge of adrenaline so potent she felt dizzy. Her hands were steady—years of yoga breathing practice kicked in—but her mind was racing, calculating.
She needed to move. Now. Get back to—
Movement.
A shadow detached itself from the deeper darkness of the trees behind her. Silent. Deliberate. The figure was tall, lean, dressed in dark clothing which made him virtually invisible in the failing light.
But she recognized the crossbow.
Emma didn’t think. Her body, trained through countless runs, gym sessions, and, more recently, Zach’s dawn training sessions, exploded into motion.
She ran.
Not back to the resort—he blocked the path. Forward, toward the only shelter in this direction. The cave. Solombra Cave, with its local legends and Zach’s warnings about staying out of closed areas.
Right now, closed areas were where she wanted to be.
Her sneakers found purchase on the rough terrain. Rain was falling steadily now, making the rocks treacherous. She heard nothing but the wind and her own harsh breathing; couldn’t tell if he was following or how close he might be.
The cave opening appeared like a mouth in the cliff face, blacker than the surrounding darkness. Emma bolted inside without hesitation.
The wind cut off, replaced by a profound silence that was somehow worse. The temperature dropped. She pressed herself against the coarse stone just inside the entrance, chest heaving, trying to quiet her breathing enough to hear.
She fumbled for her phone. The screen lit up, casting a pale glow in front of her. She activated the flashlight—
It flickered once. Twice. Died.
“No, no, no,” she whispered, pressing buttons that did nothing. A dead battery, signal interference, or some combination of both. It didn’t matter. She was in absolute darkness, in a cave she’d never explored, with a killer somewhere behind her.
Think. Think.
The light might have drawn the assassin’s attention. She had to hide, to remain unseen.
Zach described it to her only yesterday, mentioning a rear chamber. Multiple chambers meant multiple ways to hide, to confuse her pursuer, to buy time until—
Until what? No one knew she was here. No one was coming.
She pushed the thought aside and forced herself to move along the wall, her right hand maintaining contact with the damp stone while her left stretched out in front of her. She moved as quietly as possible, but every shuffle of her feet echoed.
Behind her, from the entrance—
Footsteps.
Not running. Not hurried. The measured, confident tread of someone who knew their prey had nowhere to go.
Shit. He’d either seen her enter the cave, or he already knew it was here.
Emma’s throat closed with terror so pure it tasted metallic. She pressed harder against the wall, willing herself to be smaller, quieter, invisible.
She followed the passage as it curved. The air quality changed, becoming thicker somehow, pressing against her ears.
A chamber. She was in a chamber now; the space opened up around her, echoes shifting. Emma slid along the wall and squeezed herself into a corner. Her hand brushed over something smooth.
She slid a hand into her pocket and wrapped her fingers around the Red Veil coin she had been carrying like a lucky penny.
She pulled it out, clutching it hard enough to hurt.
“Please,” she mouthed into the darkness.
Not a prayer—she wasn’t sure who or what she was talking to.
The island itself, maybe. Anything that might help.
Her other hand was still against the wall, fingertips tracing a carved shape. A spiral, cut deep into the stone.
Light bloomed behind her. A flashlight beam swept across the chamber entrance.
Emma’s breath stopped. The assassin was outlined by his own light, his crossbow held with professional ease. He was pivoting slowly, searching the chamber.
The beam swung in an arc toward her.
Emma’s hand brushed a recess in the wall—a hollow space below the spiral carving. Something was inside it, smooth like glass but warmer, almost alive against her palm.
Her fingers closed around it. The stone filled her hand. Volcanic glass, dark as midnight, with something pale inset in the center. A soft glow emanated from the center.
The beam found her. “Ah, there you are.”The assassin raised his crossbow, his finger moving to the trigger.
She clutched the stone with both hands; the coin fell forgotten to the cave floor. Something within her—instinct or desperation or the island itself speaking to her—told her to push.
Not physically. The movement was internal, like releasing a breath held too long, or opening a hidden door.
The stone flared.
Wind exploded outward from where Emma stood, lit in pale blue-white, painting the chamber in sharp relief. The assassin’s eyes widened behind his tactical mask—
The wind caught him and flung him backward.
He hit the far wall with a sound she felt more than heard, a meaty thud that made her stomach clench. The crossbow clattered across the stone floor. The flashlight spun, its beam wheeling crazily before it too went dark.
Then silence.
Emma stood frozen, her legs shaking; the talisman still clutched in her hands, its glow fading.
A groan echoed in the chamber, followed by the rustle of clothes.
Shit. I’ve got to get out of here.
Her attacker was waking up. And he was between her and the way out.