Wish You Were Here

55

Detective Larsen read from her notes and spoke to us in a matter-of-fact tone. She told us that from what they gathered so far, Gina and Dean lured teenagers to phony summer camps in order to participate in a deadly game. Teams were arranged and put on the island with the goal being to fight each other - to the death.

"This was created on the dark web," the detective said. "The prize was twenty million dollars to be awarded to the winning team's representatives. We are still looking into all of the parties involved. Dean and Gina seem to be new to this...sort of thing."

"Twenty million dollars?" I asked. "For the team who survived. And for the losers? The ones who died? What about them?"

"Well, all the teams were made up of minors. All teenagers. Only the reps were adults," Detective Larsen said. "We still don't have an accurate account of every person involved including the ones who...died."

"So they pitted a bunch of teenagers against each other to fight to the death?" Grant asked.

My mom interjected. "Maybe I'm naive, but what's the dark web?"

"You're not naive at all," Detective Larsen replied, waving her hand in the air. "It's like the World Wide Web, only you would need special software to access it. It allows users to remain anonymous."

"Oh," my mom said, shrinking back into her chair. A look of worry fell onto her face.

"It's complicated," the detective sighed. "There's a lot more to it, but I'll tell you what I know. This investigation may go on for a while, but the most important thing right now is making sure you all are safe."

My parents nodded. I glanced over at Grant.
We were tired and overwhelmed, with a long road of recovery ahead of us.

"If the dark web is anonymous, will you be able to find Dean and Gina?" I asked.

"Most likely we can find them, yes," she sighed. "We've gathered some good information on them. But they're only minor players in this."

I shook my head. "What do you mean? They kidnapped us!"

"Well, yes, and we'll charge them with that, among a lot of other things, when we catch them. But they're not the ones who started this. They were probably just hired to do a small part. There were other groups - teams - put together, too. We have no idea who was a part of that. We need to find out who the main ringleader of this was."

My eyes welled up with tears out of frustration. Gina had made it seem as though she and Dean owned the whole island, the camp, all of it. All along, she was nothing but a lying kidnapper who was paid to keep us chained up in a basement. After talking briefly to the detective a bit more, she promised to keep us updated on the progress and return again soon. My parents wanted to take me home, but the doctors advised keeping me in the hospital overnight until my vital signs improved. Reluctantly, they agreed. They got a hotel room near by, even though my mom didn't want to leave me. I had to tell her about ten times that I would be fine staying in the hospital. She hugged and kissed me so many times that even my dad had to laugh.

I couldn't sleep that night. Everything Detective Larsen said ran through my mind over and over. After growing much too restless, I climbed out of my bed, rolling my IV along with me, and peeked out into the hospital corridor. It was empty, except for the nurses station at the very end. A security guard they had stationed to keep watch overnight was flirting with one of the nurses. I slowly walked to the room next to mine and opened the door. The TV was on and was shining its multicolored lights down onto the bed.