“Frankie!” My sister stepped out the way as Kyle and his cronies were now right in front of me.
“Kyle. Wh-what the hell is going on here?”
“What’s going on here is that we are live streaming this to one million people around the world.”
“Live streaming what?” I looked around, completely confused.
“Hashtag Find Frankie. And we found you!” He turned to the guy who was holding the phone and spoke directly into it. “And thank you to Huntsman Private Eyes, for helping in the search. If you are looking to find someone you love, look no further than Huntsman. Your hunt is their business.” He shot the phone a huge, supermassive Explosive™ smile.
“Uh . . .” I gaped at that. It sounded like an advertising slogan. “What the actual fuck?” I mumbled to myself, but I think a few people heard me. I looked over at my sister in horror—she was smiling at me. This was all so strange. I felt like I was still asleep and dreaming. This couldn’t be real, could it?
And then Kyle turned back to me and his very false-looking, bright white, veneered smile waned. (Had his smile always been this fake-looking, or was I only noticing it now?)
He looked me up and down. “What the hell are you wearing? What’s wrong with your hair? Wait, have these people kidnapped you and . . .” He turned back to the guy with the phone and started talking directly into it again. “Well, I found her, but she’s wearing some really weird clothes, everyone is, and this looks a little culty. If you’re watching this and you know anything about cults, put your thoughts in the comment section below and hit me up and let me know what you think’s going on here.”
“Wait! What is going on here?” I shouted. “And how do you have the internet?”
He turned to the camera again. “And thank you to our internet partner, WebActive, who donated one of their state-of-the-art satellites for us to get internet to this remote part of the world. No part of the world should be disconnected, so trust WebActive to keep you connected.”
Logan stepped forward now, looking big and intimidating. “Do you know it’s illegal to use the internet here? It interferes with the ASO satellites.”
“Kyle, you can’t do that. You heard him. It’s illegal,” I said, in a pleading tone.
Kyle looked back at the camera. “Definitely some kind of cult, but the important part, the part that you’ve all been waiting for, is that we have found Frankie and I couldn’t have done it without you all. All my new followers who supported me through this time and gave me helpful suggestions and strength.” Kyle walked straight up to me and pulled me into his arms, giving me a huge hug. He held on so tightly that I felt crushed.
“You’ve put on so much weight,” he whispered into my ear. “But you can lose it again. It will make for great content too. Your weight loss journey.”
I pushed him away. “Kyle . . . What . . . Why . . . It’s . . .” I was struggling to get the words out. This situation was wordless. I didn’t think I had any at all. “What about Paige?” I finally managed to say.
Kyle hung his head, then turned to the camera guy and indicated for him to come closer. Then he looked back at me. “I’m sorry, Frankie. That was a mistake. The worst mistake I’ve ever made. I have already shared that with all our followers, and they have reached out and forgiven me and told me that the only way to make it right was to come here and find you and bring you home. And so, that’s what I’m doing. Bringing you home. To me. And to our millions of followers.”
My mouth dropped open. “Millions?”
He nodded. And now it genuinely looked like he had tears in his eyes. And it had nothing to do with finding me. “I know. It’s what we always wanted. It’s what we’ve worked so hard for, and now we have it.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Millions. Millions of people?”
“Look.” He passed me his phone and I started scrolling through our social media accounts. The phone felt good in my hand. As if my hand had missed it. My fingers moved instinctively over the keys like they knew how to do this in their sleep.
Instagram: 560,000 followers.
Twitter: 150,000 the hashtag #FindFrankie trending.
Snapchat: 334,000.
My vlog on YouTube . . . Fucking trending!
Facebook: Live video, 1,098,987 people watching . . . Right now!
My eyes widened and I looked at him. And, for a second, everything came back to me.
I wanted to be a somebody. A real somebody. And now I was.
Kyle nodded at me. “I know. It’s everything we ever dreamed of.”
I found myself nodding a little. My head just did it, even if I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Well, maybe there was a part of me that wanted this. Millions of followers! Millions of people thought I was somebody. Millions of people had tuned in to find me and had been worried about me and wondering where I was and . . .
“Oh my God, what the hell is that?” Kyle took a step back as Harun stepped forward and started growling at him.
