Influencer (Influencing Trilogy Book 2)

by Daniel Hurst

  This is either a terrifying coincidence or my whole world is about to fall apart.

  I should try and call her. I should message her and tell her to reply. I should check her account to see when she was last online. But I’m not doing any of those things right now, because the aching feeling of despair that I feel in my stomach is already enough to tell me that my dear daughter is gone.

  Tragedy in Paradise as Yacht Explosion Claims Hundreds of Lives

  It is believed that there are no survivors after a multi-million-dollar yacht exploded and sank just off the coast of Bimini, an island in The Bahamas, at around 10pm last night. The vessel was owned by social media star Zack Reynolds who was hosting a large birthday party and it is believed that there were at least 200 people on board at the time of the blast.

  Many of those at the party were successful influencers who made their living promoting to their millions of fans online and the world of social media was in mourning today for the loss of so many popular figures. Mr Reynolds, who at the time owned the most-followed account on PhoGlo, is believed to have perished in the blaze, alongside other notable figures such as Mason Manor, the popular British influencer with 172 million followers and world-renowned Dutch DJ Danny Van Dijk, who was performing on the vessel at the time.

  Search and rescue crews have been working through the night to locate any survivors but have so far found none and several eye-witness accounts indicate that it is unlikely that they will. “My wife and I were taking a walk along the beach when we heard a loud boom out at sea” said Louis Hansen, an American holidaymaker who is staying on Bimini with his wife Gillian. “The fireball was huge and there’s no way anybody could have survived that.”

  The yacht had sailed to the island from Miami earlier in the day, and the partygoers had enjoyed food, drinks and fireworks in the tropical location before re-boarding the vessel to make the return journey to America. The explosion occurred shortly after the yacht set sail and it is currently unclear what caused the devastating event, but the large debris field and witness accounts indicate that this was an extremely powerful blast.

  Christina Simpson was staying in a resort near the beach where the explosion occurred and told us she had seen many of the victims shortly before they died. “We had seen the group partying on the beach all day. It was a large event and you could hear the music from our hotel. My daughter even recognised several of them because she follows them on social media. There was a big firework display just before they left. They were all so young and full of life. It’s just terrible.”

  The process of identifying victims is likely to be a difficult one given the severity of the blast but this is a unique event in that so much of the party was documented online, meaning many of those on board will be traced through photos and videos on social media sites. But for now, many millions of people all around the world are in mourning and the residents of Bimini are shaken that something so terrible could happen in their popular yet peaceful part of the world.

  #1DayAfterTheParty

  #AshesToAshes

  Emily Bennett

  Am I dead?

  The last thing I remember is an explosion. I was in the sea. I was sinking...

  But now where am I?

  It’s pitch black. I can’t move. I must be dead.

  But then why am I still conscious?

  I try again to sit up and this time my body is a little more willing. I am able to rest on my elbows, but my body feels like lead weight and I still can’t see a single beam of light around me. If I’m not dead, maybe I should be. Because wherever I am now is just as scary.

  ‘HELLO?’ I shout into the darkness, but I get nothing in return.

  No noise. No movement. No sign of any life at all. Maybe this is what death is. Just a black void that I am trapped in forever.

  But I can feel the springs of a mattress beneath me and the fact that I can feel the slight pain of them digging into my elbows is a good sign. If I can feel things then maybe I am still in the real world.

  But why can’t I see anything? And what happened after the explosion?

  The explosion...

  A wave of nausea rushes over me as I suddenly remember the explosion on board the yacht that Ryan was standing on. I feel my chest becoming tighter as my heart races and I try to think of any way that he could have made it off in time.

  But there was no time. I had barely made it off myself before it went up in flames. Which meant he was gone. Just like Mason was gone. My boyfriend and my best friend. Perished in a raging inferno. And all the other people. So many people. All drinking and dancing and having the best time of their lives. Now gone.

  Forever.

  Then I remember the reason I was in the sea in the first place. The phone call. Somebody had told me to get off the yacht. They had told me to jump if I wanted to save my loved ones and I believed that they meant it so had done as they told me and leapt into the water. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was saving everybody. But then the yacht had exploded and now all those people are dead. Whoever had called me wasn’t doing it to protect my loved ones.

  It now seems like they had done it to protect me.

  I feel like my heart is going to burst through my chest and every second that goes by without being able to see anything is only making it worse. I need to get up. I need to move. I need to find out where I am and I need to know what happened to the yacht.

  I need to know if there is any chance that somebody survived it.

  I push myself up further until I am sitting on the springy mattress. With a little more effort, I am able to get to my feet. It’s not easy to keep my balance though and not being able to see anything is only making it worse.

  ‘HELLO?’ I shout again, desperate for somebody to shine a torch in my face or open a door or just do anything that will allow me to see where I am. But the darkness remains, almost taunting with me with its obscure lack of detail and I think that remaining in this black prison for the rest of my life would be a fate even worse than death.

  Unless this is death.

  But then suddenly the room is flooded with light and I fall back onto the bed, closing my eyes tightly to protect them from the harsh beams that are trying to penetrate them.

  With my eyes still shut I hear footsteps coming towards me and I know that I will have to open them if I am going to be able to defend myself from whoever is walking in my direction.

  I open my eyes, but am forced to squint and as they adjust, I am able to see a dark form heading towards me, surrounded by dazzling white light.

  I put my hands up in a pathetic bid to protect myself from whatever is about to happen, and I feel two strong hands grip my arms and pull me up off the bed, away from where I was sitting.

  My stumbling and thrashing is not enough to loosen the grip on me and within seconds I am being dragged through a doorway, into a bright room that causes my vision much distress while my eyes slowly adjust to the amount of light suddenly surrounding me.

  ‘GET OFF ME! WHO ARE YOU?’ I shout weakly, but I already know that the hands holding on to me won’t let go until they decide to. I’ve never felt more vulnerable than I do right now and I just pray that whatever is about to happen to me will be quick because I’m not in any position to fight back.

  But mercifully the hands suddenly release me and I am left standing alone, almost falling to the floor before I regain my balance and begin to acclimatise to my surroundings.

  I am in a small room which seems to be made entirely from wood. Two wicker chairs sit on sanded floorboards and a painting of a beach scene hangs on a nail protruding from the unpainted wall. The source of the light that almost blinded me a moment ago is the sun streaming through the three windows in here and, now my eyes have adjusted to the harsh glare, I can see the bright blue sky on the other side of the glass. There is a closed door opposite me and even though I can’t be sure where it leads to, I can make out the sound of waves outside.

  But where
is the person who brought me in here?

  ‘Hi Emily’ the male voice says behind me and I recognise it immediately.

  It’s the same person who spoke to me over the phone when I was on the yacht. It’s the same person who told me I needed to get off it immediately. It’s the person who saved my life.

  Is this also the person who killed everybody on board?

  I turn around quickly and take a step back, putting some distance between myself and whoever it is that I am about to see. The man has short, dark hair and looks to be in his thirties. He is wearing a pale blue t-shirt and black denim shorts, but his feet are bare. His cheeks show a hint of sunburn and his diminutive stature contrasts with the strength he possessed when he grabbed me by my arms a moment ago to bring me in here.

  If I were to see him in a different setting, then I wouldn’t think there was anything particularly remarkable about him. We seem to be somewhere warm and he is dressed like a tourist. But given all that has happened recently I know this man isn’t as plain and unassuming as he appears to be.

  ‘Who are you? What did you do to the yacht?’ I ask him, keeping my weight shifted away from him in case I need to make a sudden run for the door.

  ‘My name is Michael. And I didn’t do anything to the yacht. But I know who did’ he says in a calm manner that is opposed to the seriousness of what we are talking about.

  ‘Are they all dead?’ I want to know, even though the answer terrifies me and is probably plainly obvious at this point.

  He nods and I feel the wave of nausea rising up from my stomach again. But this time there is no springy mattress to support me. Even the nearest wicker chair is too far away to help me if I fall. I just about retain the strength to stop my legs from giving way from beneath me as I fix the man in the eyes and ask him my last question.

  ‘Why did you save me?’ I say, trying to understand why I was seemingly the only person on board that yacht who was spared.

  Michael doesn’t break eye contact with me as my question hangs in the air between us. Then eventually a wry smile spreads across his face and his unassuming demeanour takes on a rather more sinister appearance.

  ‘I didn’t save you’ he says, the wicked grin consuming his whole face now. ‘I didn’t save you at all.’

  #TheWatcher

  Michael Wright

  As hideaway locations go, this isn’t a bad one. We’re on a tiny island in the Caribbean Sea and there isn’t a single soul around us for miles in any direction. This beach house is a small but perfectly adept place to base ourselves for a few days while the rest of the world focuses on the events that occurred last night on the larger island to our north.

  The person who built this home clearly liked their solitude and had installed all the amenities required to exist in such an isolated place. Food, water, entertainment, they had it all, but while they are no longer alive to enjoy it, I will make sure that I savour every last bit of their hard work. It’s time for a beer and while my employee keeps an eye on the prisoner in the front room, I will visit the fridge and help myself to refreshments.

  Technically I’m working but it’s hard not to feel like it’s a holiday when I’m in a place like this. But while my assignment is a simple one and I doubt the skinny young woman I am holding will cause me any trouble, I have to remember what she is capable of and so I can’t let my guard down too much.

  One beer then I will get back to work.

  I open the fridge and take out two bottles of some local brew that I don’t recognise but then again, I can hardly expect to find the mainstream stuff here. I don’t know how often the guy who lived here had to sail across to Bimini to get his supplies, but his shopping was probably less about taste and more about the practicalities of what he could fit in his boat.

  As I close the fridge, I see the photos stuck to the front of the door. Many of them feature the homeowner, on various vessels holding up various sizes of fish. He was obviously a keen fisherman and he certainly lived in the best place for it. If it weren’t for the small mound of earth sticking out of the sea that this home had been built on, then it would literally have been smack bang in the middle of the ocean.

  There are a couple of other photos too, most of them featuring a young family. A middle-aged man and a woman with long blonde hair stand with a small girl who also sports the flowing yellow locks. Presumably, this is either his son or daughter and the child is his granddaughter. I wonder where they live. I doubt they chose to settle as remotely as this guy did. Maybe they’re in America. They probably didn’t see him much anyway, which is probably for the best. It may make the grieving process a little easier for them when they find out he is dead.

  But it will be a long time before anybody knows the man who owned this isolated beach house in the Caribbean is dead. It’s not as if people will call by here on a daily basis and even when someone does eventually come looking for him, they will never find his body. That is already out there somewhere in the ocean that surrounds this house, sinking to the bottom and providing all the tropical fish with something extra to nibble on.

  I open my bottle of beer and take a long sip. The second bottle is for my colleague, who is currently keeping an eye on Emily, but he can wait a moment longer for his drink. I’m in charge here so I can take my time. Besides, it’s not as if a 6’5 man who can bench press 350 pounds is going to be easily overwhelmed by some British girl whose daily exercise is limited to how quickly her thumbs can scroll through her social media accounts.

  My colleague and I plucked Emily from the sea shortly after the explosion and brought her by boat to this island, which we had already scouted out and colonised ourselves a day earlier. After we had taken care of the old man who lived here, we had prepared the bedroom where we would keep Emily once she arrived, and then all that had been left to do was sail towards Bimini and wait just offshore for the partygoers to get back onto the yacht. Shortly after they set sail, I called Emily and she threw herself off the vessel just in time, leaving the rest of the poor souls on board when the yacht went boom. She was lucky.

  Or unlucky, depending how you look at it.

  After fishing her unconscious body out of the ocean and taking her back to the recently-vacated island, we had left her locked in a room overnight, only checking on her occasionally to ensure she was still breathing.

  Now she is finally awake, so the next part of the plan can begin.

  Deciding to put my colleague out of his misery and bring him his beer, I leave the kitchen and re-enter the basic front room, where I presume the former homeowner spent most of his time. There is no electricity on this tiny island, so there is no television to dominate the room, nor is there a radio on the shelf or a games console to use for entertainment. There is just one large bookcase filled with classic American literature and a guitar standing up against the wall in the corner of the room. But my colleague doesn’t play guitar and I know for a fact that he doesn’t read classic works of literature so there won’t be any music or reading today.

  No matter though, because if all goes to plan then we shouldn’t be here for more than a couple of days and there’s enough food and beer in the fridge to keep us going until then. And we won’t have to share much of it with Emily either. She is a prisoner after all. She’ll get what she’s given and that won’t be much.

  I see Emily and my colleague sitting where I left them, each in a wicker chair, facing each other. But while they have the chairs in common, that’s where the similarities end. While Emily is sitting with her hands in her lap, the man opposite her has a gun resting on his knees. That explains why she is sitting so quietly and doesn’t appear to have moved a muscle since I left the room a moment ago.

  I hand the beer to my guard dog and notice with approval that he keeps one hand on his gun even when his other one is occupied with the drink. Professional. Just the way I like it.

  I cross over to the other side of the room and stand by one of the windows, looking out across the clear blue ocean t
hat keeps this house so secluded from the rest of the world. Right now, when the wind is calm and the waves are gently lapping at the sandy shoreline, this habitat seems like the perfect place to live. But I suspect it isn’t so great during hurricane season when the wind is whipping around the property and the water rises so high that it threatens to engulf the whole island.

  The house might be made mainly of wood, but I noticed that several stronger materials were also used in its construction and I don’t doubt for one second that while this little piece of paradise looks tranquil now, things can get hairy here all too quickly.

  Just like things went from good to bad so suddenly for all those young souls aboard the yacht yesterday on a strip of water not a million miles from here. The eyes of the world’s media will be on Bimini now, as the wreckage is recovered from the ocean floor and tributes are paid to all the unfortunate victims who were on board the doomed vessel at the time of the explosion.

  As far as the world knows, the young girl sitting in the wicker chair behind me was amongst them. People will be mourning her now, writing her obituary and grieving for the loss of such a talented and successful individual.

  But the eulogies and the tears for Emily Bennett are premature. She is still alive. For now. Although her existence will be short lived. Soon the reports of her death will be accurate. Soon she will be extinct, just like those people with whom she shared the yacht with. Soon I will hand her over to my employer.

  Then she will wish she had died when she had the chance.

  #ThreesACrowd

  Emily Bennett

  ‘Tell me why I’m here’ I say to the two men in the room with me when it becomes clear that neither of them are planning on speaking to me any time soon.

  The silence of their response is deafening. If it weren’t for the waves outside then I would have absolutely no idea where we are now. It feels like I’m in the middle of nowhere and I probably am. My best guess is that I’m either on a remote part of Bimini or a whole other island altogether. These men must have picked me up just after the explosion because somehow I got from the sea to this house and now I seem to be their prisoner.