17. Hunter

SEVENTEEN

HUNTER

M isha made a joke a few days ago that I live in the war room, but the fact is, he isn’t wrong.

Ever since the breakthrough that I might have actually met The Architect on Isla Cara all those years ago, I’ve been searching everything I brought to Misha’s home from the island, scouring them for any further clues.

Sure, Isla Cara isn’t the size of Texas, but if we needed to go through the entire island looking for clues to where The Architect is and who they are, then it would be so helpful to narrow things down so we’re not searching for a needle in a haystack.

Plus, the time crunch is real. It’s like I can feel Morris Winthrope breathing down my neck, getting ready to tear my life apart.

No, not tear it apart. Completely annihilate it.

I started documenting my memories, examining them backward and forward and trying to draw connections.

And still, I’m coming up short.

It’s frustrating as fuck, but not as frustrating as the need to give Winter space.

Winter.

I do the thing I’ve done over and over every hour for the last two weeks.

I push the thoughts of her aside.

You need to get your shit together before you can even begin to think about approaching her again.

I rub my eyes and try to refocus them on the computer screen in front of me when the scent of soy sauce, ginger, and five-spice registers.

I blink in the darkness and startle when I realize my mother is there holding a plate of beef and broccoli and a tall glass of lemonade.

“I don’t know what it is about you all not eating regular meals, but I can’t let you miss what the chef made tonight,” she says, placing the plate on the only spot not covered with papers to the side of the laptop. She moves a stack of legal pads and places a coaster down before putting the glass on top of it.

“Thanks,” I mumble just as my stomach releases an audible growl. With a glance at the clock on the monitor, I realize it’s well into the night and I haven’t eaten since the forgotten bagel this morning.

Mom sits in the chair next to me as I pick up the fork and waste no time shoveling a bite of the food into my mouth. She watches me with her head resting on her fist as she leans against the table, and in a few blinks, the plate is nearly empty.

“See? You were hungry,” Mom says. “You need to take breaks, Hunter.” She flicks on one of the desk lamps, bringing light to the room that isn’t from the ambient glow of the computer monitors.

It’s a mess in here, and I grimace when I take in the clutter. The pile of blankets and pillows in the corner mock me.

I’m not taking very good care of myself right now. I stopped looking in the mirror when I went to the bathroom about a week ago; the prominent dark circles under my eyes reminded me of Christian Bale in The Mentalist .

She watches me as I finish off the rest of the dish and gulp down the lemonade. I feel full for the first time in days.

“I talked to her this morning,” Mom says, and I close my eyes to avoid her words.

I grunt. I can’t think about Winter. I can’t talk about Winter.

I need to leave Winter alone until I’m good enough to be with her again.

Until I’m good enough to make things safe for her.

Until I am a safe person for her.

“She wants to see you, you know. Your absence is doing more harm than good,” she says.

I try not to grunt again, so I settle for clearing my throat.

“How long are you going to shut her out?” she asks, her voice soft.

I want to lash out at her and make her feel bad for trying to be maternal in this moment.

But I realize that this is her trying. This is her caring.

And it’s okay to allow myself to be cared for, especially by my mom.

“I hurt her,” I say simply.

Mom nods. “It looks that way,” she says.

I rub my thumb over my top lip.

“Hurt people hurt people,” she says. “It sounds trite, right? Like it’s a cop-out for people to act like assholes.” She laughs.

But then she says, “You’re nothing like your father, Hunter,” and air seizes in my chest.

“I know I feared that you’d take after him, but I get it now. I see your heart. You are not a monster, Hunter.”

I want to walk away, instead, I stay rooted in this spot.

“You and Winter…I dreamed of having a love like you two have, Hunter. I truly did. And I’m so incredibly glad to see that you do have it.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. I turn my head away from her and stare at the wall.

“Hunter, allow yourself to heal from what has been done to you. Don’t throw this gift you’ve been given away.”

The seconds tick on as her words spin in my brain.

Winter is a gift—the most precious gift in my life, alongside August and the child we’re bringing into this world.

I don’t want to throw it away. I don’t want to push her away. And yet….

“I’m afraid,” I say, my voice so low that I’m sure she can’t hear the words.

“I know, Hunter. I know.” She squeezes my shoulder. “But I promise you that with you and Winter? If you both work at it, it will be okay.”

I am very conscious of my inhalation and exhalation; I force myself to count just as Winter taught me.

When I feel the crushing weight of her declaration release its stronghold around my neck, I relax my shoulders. Mom pats me on the back and stands.

“Go sleep in a real bed tonight, yeah?” she says with laughter in her voice. “We’re keeping an eye on Winthrope and Ella’s training is going well. We’re close, Hunter, but this,” she motions to the piles of papers and the now sleeping computer, “isn’t going anywhere. It’s okay to rest.” She picks up a stack of legal pads and loose-leaf paper and taps the documents on the table to straighten them. The action causes a forgotten granola bar wrapper to flutter to the floor. “You can shut it down for a night.”

I nod and she gives me another pat on the shoulder. When she goes to remove her hand, I grab it on instinct. She stills at the touch, and I spin in my chair, hugging her, planting my face in her stomach as if I were a child. It’s like she’s not breathing for several long moments as I hold her, but then, when her arms wrap around me, we both relax into the embrace.

“If you remember nothing else, remember this: I am proud of the man you have become, Hunter James Brigham, and I love you.”

I bite my lip.

I squeeze her one last time and sit back in my chair, moving the laptop to give my hands something to do.

But I surprise myself when I say, “Ditto.”

Her smile is radiant.

“Shit!” I shout and we both jump when the door claps open again and the overhead lights come on, blazing.

Misha, Luna, and Max rush into the room, followed by Leo. Their faces are serious, with a slight edge of panic, so I jump into action alongside them.

I stumble, though, when Winter enters the room.

She wears a plain white T-shirt and black yoga pants—a simple outfit for a random Tuesday. But I can’t stop staring at her neck. Even though her flesh has healed, I can only see the ring of my handprint around her throat.

Like me, she has dark circles under her eyes, and she clutches Kitty, who gives me a menacing glare, to her chest.

I want to say something, anything.

“Hunter,” she whispers, and it’s like a gong going off in the room. The sound of my name coming from her lips has me wanting to run toward her while also forcing the feeling of wanting to run away.

Run away so I can’t taint her anymore.

Ella charges into the room, and I’m saved from my pining by Leo’s clap on my shoulder, spinning me away from Winter and toward the television screen.

The two agents from the bombing, who I now see are from Homeland Security, stand behind a podium surrounded by at least fifteen other officials. The shorter male agent begins to speak.

“The Chevy Chase Bombing earlier this month has claimed four hundred and forty-nine lives to date.”

The statement shoots ice through my veins.

He continues. “As of now, those who are recovering are doing so with a long road ahead of them. Many of them have lost their families in the massacre. We, as a nation, grieve alongside them.”

A camera flash goes off as the agent speaks.

“After a tireless investigation by the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we have determined that this terrible event was not the doing of an outside terroristic force, but instead the actions of homegrown enemies.”

The crowd begins to rumble.

“We have reason to believe that this attack was a coordinated effort by a small team of individuals who had specific, personal motivations to see this particular location wiped from the map.” The man’s gaze hardens as he looks directly into the camera.

“We believe that this attack was motivated by money and a disregard for human life rather than for ideological or religious reasons. There will be more to come as the investigation continues, but please rest assured that our agencies will stop at nothing to capture those responsible and to bring swift justice to those who have been impacted by this tragedy.”

The agent walks off the stage, declining any further questions as the crowd starts to spit them in his direction.

Another agent that I don’t recognize comes forward, but the broadcast cuts away to show Addison St. James’s somber face. The newscaster nods with her finger pressed to her ear. Her expression is very different from the one she wore when interviewing Morris and Blair Winthrope all those weeks ago.

After a beat, she raises her eyes to the camera. “That was Special Agent DeSoto with the Department of Homeland Security providing a much-needed update on the Chevy Chase Massacre. However, new information is coming in right now for startling breaking news.”

Dramatic, tense music pops through the speakers for three seconds as the camera angle changes. “We’ve just received an exclusive report that Blair Winthrope, daughter to business mogul and presidential hopeful Morris Winthrope, has been reported missing by the Winthrope family. Justin, what information do you have on this?”

“Yes, Addison,” the other newscaster, Justin, says with his finger pressed to the speaker in his ear. “We’ve just received a report that Blair Winthrope, fiancée to BwP CEO Hunter Brigham, has been reported missing by the Winthrope family. Sources say that Blair has been missing for the last two weeks, coinciding with the bombing of her fiancé Hunter Brigham’s building in the Chevy Chase Massacre.”

The camera angle changes again as silence falls over the room, and my heart thuds in my chest.

I don’t look at anyone—not Misha nor my mother. I definitely don’t look at Leo, who mutters an emphatic “shit” as he starts to pace the room.

Ella gasps and I allow myself to look at her. I’ve been avoiding her as much as I’ve avoided anyone else. She seems tired and sweaty, as if she’s come from a hard workout…and her eyes affix firmly on Leo.

“This news comes on the heels of the statement from Agent DeSoto regarding the same Chevy Chase Massacre which claimed four hundred and forty-nine lives. Justin, I have to say, there’s an obvious common denominator here and, I hate to say it, but….”

“Addison, that’s correct. It’s startling to say that both these events allegedly have some connection to Hunter Brigham. The BwP CEO hasn’t been seen in the weeks since the attack and very rarely before. Lance, can you bring up the images?—”

The television flicks off when a picture of Blair and I at our engagement photoshoot flashes on the screen.

Luna is the one to break the tense silence. “So, I guess that’s their angle. Huh.”

She says this as if she’s curious about their actions rather than alarmed by them.

“They want my take down to be public,” I say, everything locking in place.

I see their plan so clearly, as if watching it on a movie screen.

First, they’ll provide evidence of Blair’s death, linking it to me. Maybe they’ll bring up Amelia Manor and the attack that happened there. Of course, they’ll make it my fault somehow.

Then they’ll find something to point to my involvement with the bombing. Maybe it will be BwP’s failing financial state. Maybe it will be the idea that we can’t pay investors back after billions of dollars wasted on Project Panacea.

Then they’ll find me. They’ll try me. They’ll execute me either in secret by The Legion or through the state as a homegrown terrorist.

It’s all so very simple.

“So what’s the plan?” Leo asks the room, directing his gaze to Misha.

“We move now. That’s the plan,” Misha says.

Ella straightens and puts her hands on her hips, her back straight. “I’m ready,” she says, her voice confident. I stare at her for a solid three seconds before turning away. She does seem ready. Even if I’m not.

“Max, any luck on cracking Leo’s code?” Misha asks. The younger man bounces his leg as he sits in front of his computer screen.

He pulls something out of his pocket, keeping his palm closed until we can gather closer.

He reveals what I know to be the golden eye band that belonged to my father. Next to it is my mother’s pear-shaped diamond ring.

When I left Isla Cara after finding my father’s decomposing body, I threw his ring in with the box of other recovered materials.

“What’s this?” I ask, taking the rings from his palm.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said about the symbols. Look at this one,” he says, shifting the papers across the desk. When he lands on a large photo of the floor in my father’s vault, I search it for clues.

“What am I supposed to see here?” I mutter, rubbing the skin between my eyebrows.

“Look at the lines here.” He points to the juncture at the top of the eye, right over where the iris would be. Tracing the line, I see the pear-shaped image form, but he doesn’t stop, and I see that?—

“It’s three-dimensional,” I say, assessing the rings in my hand.

“Yes, like a diamond. Put them together, Hunter,” Misha replies. Luna steps closer, as does my mother. I situate the smaller diamond ring beneath my father’s larger one. The image matches the one in the picture.

“Cool, but what does it mean?” I say.

“Wait,” my mother says. Taking the rings from me, she flips them over to peer at the undersides of the stones.

“Wow,” she says on a breath. “It looks like a code. Coordinates, maybe?”

Holy shit.

When held together, markings that would appear completely benign when the rings are separate now transform into a legible set of numbers and letters.

Max moves from his station, rushing over to us. Amelia hands him the rings, and he takes care to keep them pressed together.

Holding them high and close to his face, he says, “No, not coordinates. They’re the key to Leo’s anagram. A cipher.” He jumps over to his desk, sliding into his chair with his hands already on the keyboard. He types furiously for several seconds before blindly grabbing a notepad and pen and scribbling on the paper with his eyes locked on the screen. “But there are a few more digits in the series than is necessary.”

Max ignores us, and Leo walks over to him to pick up the notepad when Max drops the pen and returns both hands to his computer.

“How do you know?” Leo asks. We all tried working on the anagram that Leo received in a text message over the past several days. None of us could figure it out—meaning Max couldn’t figure it out.

He ran several scripts to try to detangle the code, but none of them worked. Deciding that there must be letters missing, we set solving the anagram aside.

Max pulls the pad from Leo’s hands and spins back to his desk, hunching over the notes and resuming his frantic pen scratches. After several seconds, he stops and his eyes move back and forth as he scans the top and the bottom of the page.

Misha taps on his phone and then turns it around to show us the map on his screen. “Clearly, they’re coordinates. And unsurprisingly, they take us to Isla Cara.” Misha’s eyes spark with excitement over his discovery. “Specifically, it leads to the northwest side of the island.”

“The mansion is on the southeast side,” I say.

“So clearly the northwest side is more important,” Misha offers, confident in his conclusions.

“It’s a key ,” Max presses. “Everybody shut up so I can think.”

He curls in more on himself, and the scratch of his pen is loud in the room. Max is in the zone.

We all look at each other.

“Or it could be a date?” This comes from Leo. I work the numbers backward and forward in my brain.

It comes together. Zero-six two-zero.

“It’s June 20 th ,” I say. My brain goes back to the summers spent on Isla Cara…and the horrors that happened there every year. “It’s The Hunt.”

Leo gives me a grave expression, standing straight. On the summer solstice, my father gathers the selected elite to join him on Isla Cara. For seven days, they fulfill their deepest, most depraved desires. They dance with sin and play dark games.

No one is safe during The Hunts.

“It definitely is,” Leo says.

I run a hand through my hair, grateful for the sensory feedback my body gives me as I’m pulled under by my memories.

“Ominira.” I say her name, even though she’s long gone. Blood cakes beneath her head, a deep crimson. I feel pressure to give her my time and honor her life. Her life which was spent, against her will, on Isla Cara. But now I was able to give her a choice—a single choice—to die as she wanted, on her terms.

“I hope you find peace,” I say to her body.

I listen to the waves as they crash on the shore.

Minutes later, the hunters stumble across us. Two men groan at missing their opportunity to catch their target.

The third man—the man in the center—hums.

It had to be him. Alistair.

The other men walk off, diving into the dense jungle to stalk the scarce group of survivors from phase one.

But that leaves me and the corpse. And him.

Alistair.

Mosquitos buzz past my ear, and I stay completely still, willing him to leave. Leave me alone.

So I continue to ignore him, even though keeping my back to him feels like standing in front of a firing squad.

“Excellent, Hunter. Truly an excellent job,” Alistair says. “All hail The Huntsman!”

He yells so loud in his posh accent that birds flap away from the dancing palm trees.

He gets closer—one step, two. His breath ruffles the hair at the back of my neck. I grip the switchblade still in my hand and ? —

Maybe it’s not just a message, but an invitation.

“What are you thinking, Hunter?” This comes from Winter. I’d almost forgotten she was there.

Almost, because my body can’t forget her proximity anytime we’re in the same room together.

“I think this is a calling card. An invitation for The Legion—maybe some of them, maybe all of them—to show up at this place,” I point to the map on Misha’s screen, “on this date. And if I had to guess, it’s for The Hunt. I never thought too deeply about The Hunt and all that happens over that week, but clearly there’s more.”

Winter’s eyes widen, and there’s a bit of excitement in them.

“That could be—Hunter, that could be huge,” she says.

“It’s for the anagram,” Max pipes up, agitation plain in his voice, even though he doesn’t look at any of us.

“They’re coordinates,” Misha emphasizes.

“And it’s the date,” Leo and I say at the same time.

I’m confident that the message is an invitation for The Legion to gather on the summer solstice. That’s two weeks from now.

Max throws his hands up and pushes back from his desk. Whirling to grab the laptop docked next to the monitor, he grumbles, “Do whatever the fuck you want,” and leaves the room.

Leo blows out a breath and says, “I’ll go talk to him,” and follows Max out the door.

“Hunter, you think you heard The Architect on Isla Cara. When was it?” This comes from Luna. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, waiting for my answer.

I close my eyes and bring up the memories.

“It was the day before The Hunt,” I say. “I tried to stay out of my father’s way, so I mostly kept to my room unless Father summoned me, but it felt like…a shift in the mood on the island. I was there for the entire summer that year, and the first few weeks were relaxed, fluid.”

I rub my thumb back and forth against my top lip, thinking. “But then everyone snapped to attention. There was this...energy among everyone there—especially with my father, Morris, and Alistair.”

I managed to say his name. I don’t look at Winter.

Misha walks over to the massive wall calendar opposite the television screen.

“The solstice is in sixteen days,” he says, still facing the wall.

Ella perks up. “What are you thinking, Mish?” Ella shortening his name makes me itchy, but I focus on the scenario at hand.

“I think,” Misha begins, turning around, “that despite Isla Cara’s previous state, The Hunt will still happen as planned. I think someone else has already taken over your father’s spot, and I think that person is Morris Winthrope.”

He leaves his station near the calendar and walks toward me. “I think we’ve been handed the opportunity to take them all out in one swoop. The Architect included.”

The revelation makes the skin over my sternum feel tight, the implications becoming clear. “Ella doesn’t have to be involved in this anymore.” I rub my chest and look at my sister.

“Wait, what?” Ella interjects, but Misha gives her a brief glance before addressing me.

“Correct,” he says. “It’s better this way.”

Ella gapes at us, opening and closing her mouth before tilting her chin down and rushing out of the room.

“I should go after her.” Winter’s soft voice causes a shockwave in the confused silence. At least, it does for me.

I barely think about my next words when I spin to face her. “No. Stay. I...” I need you. “Just stay.” Please.

It feels like a lifetime passes before she says, “Okay.”

My mom surprises me when she breaks the silence. “Well, let’s get the motherfuckers.”

Misha grins wide and I feel the side of my mouth kick up, but only for a moment.

“Let me get the rest of the team up to speed,” Luna says, nearly bouncing with anticipation.

“Hunter,” Misha says. He walks closer to me, and I’m startled when he places his beefy hand on my shoulder. His gaze is sharp and pinned on me.

“We’re going to figure this out, and we will keep you and your family safe.” He places his other hand over his heart, and in his eyes, I see the rest of the sentence: I swear it.

I nod, absorbing his words…but not fully believing him.

Because while I trust that he will figure this out and he will get to the endgame in this fucked-up mess, I’m not a hundred percent convinced that I will make it out of this. The investigator’s words roll through my thoughts.

They’re coming for me.

I turn my attention to Winter. She’s pale and shaking, but I feel the knot in my chest loosen when, in her gaze, I see the same fierce love she’s stopped trying to hide.

As long as she and August and our baby are safe…I can be at peace with that.

I move over to Winter. She stares up at me and grips Kitty’s fur as though he’s her only lifeline.

I do the thing that I’ve been denying myself for the last two weeks. I caress her cheek.

“Don’t be scared, Sunbeam,” I whisper just for her ears. “It’s going to be okay.”

Her lips tremble, and then she says, “How do you know?”

I so badly want to kiss her. To be with her, inside her—inside her heart.

To make everything be right just because I say so.

“I just know. Call it a hunch,” I say, trying out a grin. The expression she wears telegraphs her skepticism.

So I say, “Come with me.”