“Just a trick of light,” I whisper. “A modern-day mirage, as it were.”
Hunter looks at me grimly. “Exactly.”
I look to Morose. “And when we found the cameras, it was time to call an end to the farce.”
“Of course,” Morose says with a smile that turns my stomach. “Your boyfriend called it right on that count. There was no other purpose to keep you there anymore. See? I didn’t set out to destroy you. I brought you home in the end.”
He has no remorse. No fucking remorse.
“And the others?” I say. My nose tingles. It’s too much. Too fucking much. “The other men on the island who died? What about them?”
“They weren’t worthy,” Morose says. He looks so sane. So fucking sane. But the man is out of his mind.
“Not worthy? And who appointed you some kind of god?” Cy says. He’s angrier than I’ve ever seen him, and I’ve seen him pretty damn furious before.
“Cy,” I say, holding my hand up. “Now we call this in.”
Hunter turns to me. “Call it in? What do you mean?”
What does he think I mean? Does he expect us just to nod and smile and go our way?
“You committed an act of terrorism,” I say, so that he understands the severity of this. “Don’t you understand the severity of that? Or do I need to remind you?”
Whether or not it’s actually an act of terrorism will be for the courts to decide. Still, words have weight, and these words matter.
“You ruined everything,” Hunter says to Morose. “I won’t let you keep the footage.”
“No!” Morose screams, a note of chilling desperation in his voice. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare! The footage is everything. And you can’t, anyway. It’s all backed up.”
“That’s what you think,” Hunter says, shaking his head. He goes to the wall leading to the room from which he emerged. “Come with me,” he says to us grimly. We ignore the screams from Morose and follow Hunter. Cy stands beside me, saying nothing. But I feel him, and I know. We are in this together.
We walk to the other room, and when Hunter flicks on an overhead light, I cover my hand with my mouth. This was where he hid it all. There are so many monitors and screens I can’t even count. And in the center, my picture and Cy’s, like some sort of sick, twisted version of a photo collage. We were the heroes of this story. I feel as if I’m going to be sick.
“All for fame? Recognition?” I shake my head.
Hunter sighs. “People have done worse for less.”
He’s right. They have, and they will continue to.
Harper takes out her phone, presses a few buttons, and begins recording, speaking into the mouthpiece before she does. She’s doing a live feed and introducing the video footage first. Christ, it’s surreal. We want answers. We’re actually getting them now.
Then what?
We watch as Hunter presses a button and the screens in front of us spring to life. I cringe. Every single damn screen has a picture of us, various images on the island. I turn, unable to look at them. Though we knew we were being recorded in the end, it doesn’t make it easier to see how terribly we were manipulated.
“Enough,” Cy says, reaching for my hand. “We don’t want to see this. How will you destroy it?”
Hunter scrubs a hand across his brow. “I know where everything is hidden,” he says. “Where the backup is. How to destroy it. Everything. All I ask is that you let me go.” He shakes his head, bargaining. Cy and I look at each other. If we don’t, will anyone ever find all the footage?
“Get rid of the footage first,” he says.
Hunter nods. “That’s fair.” Hunter leans over and goes to push a button. But this isn’t it. I know it.
“Where else?” I demand.
The placid expression on Hunter’s face vanishes for a fraction of a second, and I’m reminded of a feral animal. Then that quickly, he looks normal again. I’m not buying it.
I take a step toward him. “You’re lying. It isn’t just that. It isn’t that simple, and you fucking know it.”
Morose screams from the other room as Hunter pushes a series of buttons and pulls up files on a computer.
“No!” he screams. “Don’t you dare! My entire life’s work. No!”
Without response, Hunter coolly continues until every last image is gone. He pulls up the monitors to show us. Nothing.
“There’s more,” I say to Cy. “He’s bluffing. There’s got to be a cloud or something else stored remotely, I know it.”
Searing pain lashes across the back of my head, and it takes me a minute to realize Hunter struck me. I fall to the floor, pain radiating across my head when he strikes me again. I gasp in pain, turning to look, just as Cy tackles him to the floor.