Influencer (Influencing Trilogy Book 2)

by Daniel Hurst

  Mason and I had naively assumed that killing him would make all our problems go away, leaving us free to live life on our own terms. It had seemed that way for the last few months but now it was clearly not the case. Mason had been killed, along with the other influencers who used to work for him, and while I wasn’t dead yet, it seemed like it was only a matter of time until I joined them.

  But why go to all this effort of taking me off the yacht and bringing me to this island? Why have somebody watch me? Why lock me away in a room when they could have just left me to die with everybody else at the party?

  I slump to the hard wooden floor, my back sliding down the wall until I’m sitting with my knees hugged tightly against my chest. I am doing my best not to break down about everything that has happened. I’m trying so hard not to think about Ryan and Mason and what my mum must be going through as she reads the news and sees all the comments online.

  PhoGlo must be full of messages of condolences to my family and friends right now.

  RIP Emily. Pray for her family. What a tragic way to die.

  But I’m not dead. Not yet. And I can’t give up yet either.

  I force myself back to my feet, using the wall to steady myself in the absence of any light. There has to be something I can do to get out of this.

  There has to be a way out of this room.

  I begin re-tracing my way along the walls, using my hands to feel for anything that might be a weak spot or an opening or just something that can give me the tiniest bit of hope that I might be able to break free.

  I’ve already felt my way all around the room and there wasn’t anything that seemed helpful the first time, so I doubt there is going to be anything new to discover now. But what else can I do?

  As I keep feeling around in the darkness, I feel my thigh bump against the thin metallic frame of the bed. I step around it and keep going, even though all I feel like doing is lying down on the springy mattress and crying. But the thought of the person coming for me in the morning is enough motivation to keep me on my feet and working to find a way out of here.

  By the time I’m halfway around the room, I’m still no nearer to finding anything that can help me. It’s hard to keep going with that thought in my mind and even harder still when I can’t see a damn thing, but I persist and soon I am at the entrance to the room.

  I can feel the edges of the door frame between my fingers and lower my hand until it finds the cool, hard body of the doorknob.

  I twist it gently even though I’ve already tried it before and of course nothing happens again because it’s still locked. Michael has the key and even if I could get him to come in here there’s no way I could fight him for it.

  But maybe if I could get him to open this door then I could see if there’s anything in here that might be able to help me. It’s pitch black now but there was plenty of light when he entered here earlier today. I didn’t see anything because I closed my eyes to protect them from the brightness but maybe, if I could force myself to keep them open, perhaps I might spot something that gives me a chance to get out of here.

  It’s a long shot and I know there is probably nothing but me and the mattress in here but I have to do something. Scrabbling around in the darkness isn’t going to get me anywhere. I need to see what I’m working with so I can see if there really is any hope.

  I put my ear to the door and listen out for Michael on the other side. I can’t hear anything but that doesn’t mean he isn’t there. I heard him moving the dead body earlier and this house can’t be that big. He must be nearby.

  He still hasn’t brought me that drink yet, so I will try my luck.

  ‘HELLO? MICHAEL? PLEASE CAN I HAVE SOME WATER?’ I shout into the darkness, in the direction of the door.

  I have no idea if he heard me and even less of an idea if he will be kind enough to bring me something to drink but I have to try.

  If I can just get him to open this door, and if I can keep my eyes open long enough to make out my surroundings, then maybe I can find a way out of this prison. Then maybe I can get away before the mystery person comes for me in the morning.

  I put my ear back to the door and listen out for him. But there’s silence. It hasn’t worked. He is just going to leave me in here until the morning and there’s nothing I can do about it...

  Then suddenly I hear footsteps.

  They are coming my way.

  I jump back from the door and head in what I think is the direction of the bed. I hit my knee on the bedframe and the pain makes me grit my teeth but at least it means I’m in the right place. I put my hands out and reach down for the mattress and when I find its bumpy, spring-riddled surface, I allow the rest of my body to sink down on to it.

  Then I prepare myself for the blinding light that is about to enter the room. It’s going to be tough but I have to keep my eyes open. This might be the last chance I get to find a way out of here.

  I hear the footsteps stop on the other side of the door and then the sound of the key turning in the lock.

  A moment later the door creaks open and the first rays of light hit the room. The glare burns my retina and I have to strain every muscle in my face to keep my eyes from closing but I just about manage it.

  And just like that, in the brief moment that Michael’s hand pokes around the door and places a glass of water onto the floor, I see how I can get out of here.

  #Why

  Liz Bennett

  This isn’t real. I refuse to believe it. My daughter can’t be dead. She just can’t be. Not at her age. She’s so young. She had her whole life ahead of her. And in such a horrible manner. An explosion. A fireball. A tragedy. This isn’t happening. She will go online any minute now and tell her followers it was just one big hoax. That she is okay. That she will return to posting selfies and beach photos just like she usually does. Or even better she will walk through the front door of our family home and fall straight into my arms. Hug me tightly. Show me that she is still here for me.

  But every hour that goes by is making this whole thing seem more real. The news reports keep coming. The eye-witness accounts. The images of the burning yacht as it crumbles and sinks into the sea. The silence that suggests there are no survivors. The dormant accounts of all the social media stars that were on board, their profile pages frozen in time, their last updates posted before the explosion, and not a single one since.

  The line on Emily’s PhoGlo account that tells me when she was last online. Every time I check I see the number increase. The hours go up. Soon it will be twenty-four hours and then it will just say ‘Active 1 day ago.’ Each day that passes will add a number to that sorry statistic. If she really is gone then she will never be active again. Not online. And not in person. I will never see that beautiful smile in front me again nor will I hug her and tell her that I love her. Please just come online Emily.

  Please.

  I am curled up on the sofa where I have been ever since I got the phone call in the early hours of the morning about the blast at the party Emily was attending. Margaret came around shortly after she had phoned and she has been with me ever since, helping me try to make contact with the authorities in Bimini, making me cups of tea and watching over me to make sure I don’t do anything stupid.

  She is sitting on the sofa opposite me, scrolling quietly through her iPad on the hunt for more information about what has happened. The news plays on the television in the corner of the room but the current story is something about a wind farm project in Scotland. It’s a slight relief to hear the newscasters talking about something other than the loss of so many young people for a moment but also sobering that the world goes on and that there are other things that people want to know about besides the possible loss of my beloved daughter Emily.

  I’m not crying but I’ve shed my fair share of tears today. Now though, I am exhausted, and it is taking all my energy just to keep myself from rolling off the sofa and onto the floor. If I do that then I don’t think I’ll ever get up agai
n.

  I feel bad for doing nothing. I assume I should still be trying to make phone calls to the other side of the world, where the incident occurred. Or to the UK Foreign Office, which deals with the high-profile deaths of its citizens overseas. Or even to the local funeral parlour to make the necessary arrangements.

  But I have already made numerous calls today and, on the rare occasions when I got through to anybody, I was told that they are still gathering information and nothing is official yet. They should try telling that to the news reporters because they have been telling me all day that everybody on board that yacht is dead and that includes my only child and the last remaining member of my immediate family.

  For this to happen to anyone is cruel but this seems even more so for me, considering that I lost my husband last year too. It wasn’t so long ago that this house was filled with so much noise and love. The bad jokes from Dave. The singing from Emily. The clatter of cutlery on plates as we all eagerly consumed our meals. The chaos that ensued every morning when it was time for us all to get out of bed and get ourselves out into the world.

  Now it is all gone. There is no joking or singing or any signs of life whatsoever, bar the tapping of Margaret’s finger across her tablet’s screen and the monotone voice of the news reporter speaking to the nation through the television.

  I thought my husband’s death had left an unfillable void in the home but if Emily has gone too then that void has just grown to unimaginable proportions. If what they are saying is true, and everybody who had been partying on that yacht is dead, then that means I am all alone now.

  No husband. No daughter.

  A widow. A grieving parent.

  Husbandless. Childless.

  Alone.

  The tears begin to flow again and my assumptions that I am too mentally drained to even cry were clearly premature. I do my best to keep my sobbing to myself, but it doesn’t take long for Margaret to notice my distress and rush across the room to try and comfort me again.

  I hate being vulnerable, especially in front of a woman whom I admire for her own strength and confidence, but this is no time for self-reproach. I doubt there is a woman in the world who would react any differently to what I am going through now. So that is why, as Margaret pulls my face into her sweater and holds me tightly, I allow myself to weep the deep uncontrollable tears of someone who has lost the only things that they ever cared about.

  Even amongst all the pain flooding through my body I am still somehow able to process thoughts about the future.

  Which black dress I will wear to the funeral. The same one that I wore when I buried my husband.

  What I will say in Emily’s eulogy. That she followed her dreams and inspired so many people, none more so than her loving mother.

  Where I will hold the wake. The Dog and Peasant pub, just off the main road into town, where we had enjoyed many a roast dinner together as a family on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

  When I will put the house on the market. Soon, because there is no way that I can keep living here now, surrounded by so many memories of the people who I have lost.

  Who I will surround myself with in a bid to take my mind off things and keep me smiling even though I am dying on the inside. Friends, because they are all I have now.

  And why I will even bother to keep going at all, when I have nothing left to live for and might as well just give up. Because what other choice do I have?

  I let all the different thoughts pass through my mind, washing over me as easily as the water had washed over the burnt-out remains of the yacht that once held the bodies of Emily and hundreds of other healthy, happy young people just like her.

  I could stay in Margaret’s arms like this for hours and would likely have done were it not for the words of the journalist on the television as he reports live from the scene on Bimini.

  He is talking about the operation to retrieve the wreckage from the seabed, but he is also talking about the possibility of an investigation.

  I lift my head out of Margaret’s bosom and reach for the remote control to turn the volume up on the journalist’s voice. As I do, I hear him talking about the possibility of foul play being a factor in the explosion. That is different to the earlier reports from the media which had all hinted at an electrical fault or a gas leak on board the yacht. But now this man in the white shirt standing on the shores of a tiny Caribbean island is suggesting that there may be other factors at play.

  The sheer size of the explosion is of interest to the islands authorities who are now saying that they can’t rule out the use of an explosive device somewhere on the vessel. Then there is an eyewitness report. Apparently, somebody had seen a small boat sailing in the area not far from where the yacht had exploded and had also heard its engine as it sped away from the scene shortly after the blast.

  Next comes an interview with an expert who speaks about how the pieces of debris will be carefully examined in the coming days for any traces of substances that could point to a man-made explosion, rather than a simple accident caused by faulty parts on the yacht itself.

  The remote control falls from my weak hand and rolls across the cream carpet, the one Dave and I had carefully picked out two years earlier and I feel all the pain and sorrow in my body being replaced by an all-consuming wave of intense rage.

  Was my daughter’s death not an accident?

  Was there more to it than that?

  Did somebody murder my little girl and worst of all, are they going to get away with it?

  #SpannerInTheWorks

  Anna Akari

  Time flies when you’re having fun and I’ve certainly had a lot of that in the past couple of days. If blowing up a yacht of irritating selfie machines wasn’t enough, then spending some of the three million yen that was deposited into my bank account immediately after I had completed my mission sure is.

  Since leaving Bimini and boarding a private flight back to Asia I have purchased several new designer dresses, a supercar with gold rims and I’ve even made enquiries about buying a yacht of my own. I know that might seem a little morbid considering what happened the last time I was anywhere near a yacht but that’s actually what turns me on about the whole idea.

  I quite like the notion of lounging on the deck of my very own vessel while reminiscing about the time I blew up one just like it. I could even call it something related to those past events in the Caribbean.

  The Bimini Boom. The Influencer’s Nightmare. Or my current favourite;

  The Sizzling Selfie.

  As if I haven’t had enough of a good time running all over Tokyo splashing the cash and looking forward to the next time I get to end a life or two, I have enjoyed reading the online news reports about the explosion in Bimini. There are no survivors, but I knew that already. There are tentative reports about the discovery of explosive substances in the wreckage but that wouldn’t lead anywhere even though it was true. And best of all there are no suggestions that this was the work of a highly-skilled and highly-paid assassin who had actually been on the yacht just hours before it turned into a fireball.

  I executed the job perfectly and I was paid on time. My client was clearly pleased with my work, so I can add one more happy customer to my growing tally. There isn’t a website where people can leave reviews for contract killers but if there were then I would be the proud owner of a five-star rating and a series of glowing recommendations.

  Or maybe there is such a website out there, somewhere on the dark web, that illicit corner of the internet where illegal activities are shared as easily as the legal ones in the wider online world. I should check that out. Maybe I could start my own website. Or a social media site for killers. Now there’s an idea. You could take a selfie with your latest kill bleeding out in the background. But I’m just being silly because I’m on my third Martini and I’m in a great mood.

  I pick up the frosted glass that contains my chilled drink and take another sip, leaving another deep red lipstick mark on the rim of the glass
. The bartender glances over at me, clearly desperate for me to finish my latest drink so he can engage me in conversation again. But he could just come and talk to me now if he really wanted to.

  I won’t bite him.

  Hard.

  Alas he is a little too nervous to come over and speak until he knows he can hide behind the task of making me another drink and so I continue to sit alone and enjoy my strong refreshing drink in silence.

  I’m sitting on the fifty-fifth floor of an exclusive hotel in the heart of Tokyo. The bar I’m in has sweeping views of the entire neon-filled metropolis outside and being this high up is only adding to my already inflated sense of self-worth and satisfaction right now. I’m feeling so good in fact that I might give somebody the gift of life tonight.

  There are many men in this bar and any of them would be happy to take a girl like me back to their room and usually that means the game is over for them. But tonight I might simply just give the lucky guy a good time and be on my way. Leaving them with a big smile on their face instead of a deep wound and a feeling of regret as the life leaves their butchered body.

  I take another long sip from my cocktail and see the bartender looking over again. I put him out of his misery and give him the nod that tells him he is good to start making me another one. He eagerly gets to work, keen to impress me with his quick hands.

  He’s not my usual type but seeing the way he handles the knife as he cuts up a lemon for the peel of the garnish on my drink is getting me excited, and I’m not sure if it’s his skilled hands or the flash of the light as it catches the deadly blade that is getting me so worked up.

  I had a great time pressing a button and ending the lives of 200 people, but it definitely lacked the personal touch that comes with being face to face with someone and penetrating their skin with a sharp object. I decide that the next job I take will be of the more intimate kind.