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You have to tell him, Sam.

“It could’ve been me,” I whispered, looking down at my twisting hands.

For once Travis remained silent. Tentatively, I looked up, but it didn’t help because I couldn’t read his face. “I have something called depth sensitivity illness. Sometimes it causes blackouts.” The words rushed out, eager to fill the open space and get the weight off my chest.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Travis said, his jaw grinding. But he still wouldn’t look me in the eye. I feared I’d made a horrible mistake. “My money’s still on Prince Charming.”

“It isn’t Mason,” I snapped, and he finally did look at me. I bit my lip and tried to adjust my tone. “I, uh, know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I had a talk with Mason and, well, he isn’t as bad as you think.”

Travis scoffed.

“He didn’t know about the pregnancy.”

“And you believed that crap?” Every muscle on Travis’s face twisted until he was almost unrecognizable. “I thought you were smart.”

“You don’t understand. He was shocked. He fell apart right in front of me. Nicole convinced Lupe he cheated and he didn’t. He—”

“Unbelievable.” Travis turned his back on me and strode toward the door, pausing for one last dig. “The one person I thought understood, and they got to you too.”

“Where are you going?” I jogged after him. “Don’t leave like this, Travis. Please! We need to figure this out.”

But I was talking to an empty room.

* * *

The next days became a blur of headaches and burrowing through code that started to mesh together and looked like random strings of nonsense. On the floors above Engineering, people had become quiet and suspicious, most of them unaware of the real danger they were in.

The moments I found to steal with Mason were the only time I felt like myself. I doubted my sanity would still have been intact if I hadn’t had his touch to bring me back to life. But even those times were few and far between because I was determined to fix the error in the AI before something else happened.

We’d been lucky so far in that nothing more had happened. I drew a deep, steadying breath as I boarded the elevator to head upstairs. I couldn’t help but notice the smattering of robot staff in the lower levels, sitting quietly like they were asleep, red lights glowing on their chests. I shuddered as the doors closed and leaned my forehead against the glass, letting the cool feel of it soothe the ache. Even after all these days, I still hated stepping in the thing, but we’d been able to isolate elevator controls from hackers. We think.

I wondered if anyone besides me had noticed the increased presence of the staff or felt like every tiny red dot on the ceiling was boring into their backs as they moved around the resort.

The doors whooshed open, and I slipped outside, again taking stock of the artificial staff parked around the grounds, observing silently.

Turning toward the main pathway, I noticed Travis leaning against the wall across from the Mess Hall restaurant, staring with an intensity that belonged to only him. It was the first I’d seen him since he broke into my room. I started toward him, determined to talk this through, when Mason grabbed my arm, startling me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling back. “I thought you saw me coming. How’s the project going?”

One glance told me Travis had disappeared. With a sigh, I turned and took in the dark circles rimming Mason’s eyes. They were almost as deep as my own. I shook my head. “Every time we get close, the computer kicks us out. It’s like the saboteur is on the same line, shifting and changing things every time I get close. It puts up firewalls we can’t break through or redirects us somewhere else.” I shrugged, pressing a hand to my head.

Mason guided me to the corner and pried my fingers from my temple. “Are you okay, Sam?”

I laughed bitterly. “Okay? I saw two sharks yesterday through the glass and what I can only assume to be some form of octopus, but do you know, I didn’t even flinch? I was just…numb.”

Mason pulled me against his chest and wrapped me into his arms, setting his chin on my head. I sighed, content to stand there forever, swathed in his tropical scent.

“Sam, I’m worried about you. You need more time to rest and recuperate.”

He wasn’t wrong, and it was sweet that he worried, but there was no way I could rest. If I could just get a breakthrough, we might be able to reestablish contact with the world above and summon a rescue party.

“You should be more worried about the psycho that’s out to get us all. I have to get back downstairs.” Reluctantly, I pulled away from his embrace. I couldn’t even remember why I’d come here. Food probably. But right now, my stomach was curdled and in no shape to digest a french fry, let alone a whole meal.

Before I could get away, Mason snatched my hand. I stopped, but he tugged me toward the elevator. “I’m coming too.”

I shrugged, too tired to argue. The last few days felt so choppy to me, I wasn’t sure how much time I actually spent in any one place. I got the feeling I was missing more time, but in a weird way it didn’t matter because nothing new of significance had happened. I kept to the same schedule so that at times I seemed to wake up in the middle of working on code.

“Why do you think the killer hasn’t made another move?” I asked when we were alone and the elevator started to move.