I stretched out in my bed, the mattress uncomfortable hard under me. It always was but I forgot about it each year and was always surprised somehow. I think it must have been the same mattress that my uncle had used when he was a kid and they just hadn’t changed it in however many years but either way, it was lumpy and hard.

I rolled over again, wiggling to try and find a comfy spot where there wasn’t a spring or whatever else there was digging into me but I failed.

I sighed with irritation and pulled my duvet up higher, shivering in the cold room. There was always a faint breeze in the room, even with the windows shut. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from or how but it was annoying. I could feel it against my skin almost constantly.

I rolled again, letting my mind slip back into the fantasy almost seamlessly and for a moment, I was disorientated. I’d expected us to still be on Spinalonga but we weren’t. I was in one of the restaurants, a pout on my face as I picked at my plate of perfectly grilled vegetables.

It was dark outside.

I stared out the window in confusion. How much time had passed? It had only been an hour or so in the real world. I’d showered as quickly as possible, having had to wait for the water to heat up, and had got ready for bed. I should have kept an eye on what was happening with Mitch whilst I was at it but I’d been distracted by texts from Phoebe. It was hard to keep bouncing in and out of my fantasy, it made me so dizzy I almost dropped my phone into the toilet.

She’d landed in Paris and was frantically texting me because her family insisted on only speaking to her in French. It had been hilarious and I felt sorry for her but it had kept me away from the fantasy and now I’d missed the rest of the tour.

I still had some memories of it, when I thought about it hard. Flashes of a long tunnel, metal gates waiting just inside, and fear were the first thing to hit me. I remembered faintly being worried about the tunnel falling on us and crushing us or Mitch having to blow it up, like he did to the building in Italy. No, I’d been worried that Sterling’s people were already there. That they’d already set the charges and were just waiting for the perfect opportunity to kill us.

They weren’t though, obviously. It had just been the three of us on the island. Me, Mitch and Vasia. They’d flirted a lot. I remembered being almost in awe of the easy way that Mitch flirted and how he managed to ask the most suspicious of questions but make it sound completely innocent. I mean, now that I was thinking about it, I could remember him asking about other entrances to the island and if anyone would be there after dark.

If anyone else had asked that, I knew that they would have been met with suspicion but somehow, Mitch had pulled it off. Vasia just laughed and said that there was another entrance somewhere but that no one used it because it was crumbled to nothingness. It was too dangerous.

I’d caught the expression on Mitch’s face though. He planned to use it. Or at least look into it.

There was more too. I could just about remember flashes of colours. Buildings, surprisingly well-kept, with brightly coloured shutters, lined one of the streets but some of them had open doorways that we could duck into if needed. If we were being followed or shot at.

“You alright, kid?” Mitch asked, bringing his glass of whisky to his lips. “You’ve been pretty quiet this afternoon.”

There was no one nearby, I could speak almost freely, but I still hesitated. I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth.

“Oh, yeah,” I said quickly. “I’m fine.”

He surveyed me carefully and I quickly took another bite of the perfectly grilled courgette, trying to appear as normal as possible.

“You sure?”

I nodded quickly.

“Just… distracted,” I lied, hoping it was enough.

“That makes sense,” he said softly. “It’s intense seeing a potential target for the first time, I know that. If you’ve changed your mind and want to stay somewhere safe when I go to where I need to, that’s completely okay.”

I shook my head.

“I still want to go,” I said quickly.

Mitch laughed softly and finished his whiskey, the ice cubes clinking gently in his glass.

“We’ll talk about it properly when we get back to the room,” he replied in his normal voice before slipping into his more needy tone. “Do you want any dessert today, Alice?”

I forced the smile from my face and looked away from him, trying to arrange my expression to one of boredom.

“No. I didn’t even want dinner but you insisted,” I said, trying to sound as annoyed as possible.

“Can I get you another drink?” a waiter asked as he approached the table.

“No, thank you. I think we’re done here actually. Are you going to finish your meal, Alice?” he asked me.

I scrunched my face up and shook my head, pushing the plate away from me dismissively and grabbing my phone instead.

“I guess not. Can I just get the slip to sign, please?” Mitch asked.

I clicked on the Instagram app and scrolled through it mindlessly, pointedly ignoring Mitch as the waiter hurried away.

We sat in a tense silence until they returned moments later. I continued to ignore them, pretending to be entirely absorbed in my phone until Mitch handed something to the waiter and I felt his eyes land on me.

“Great. Shall we go back to our villa now?” Mitch asked me.

“Fine,” I said, still not looking away from my phone even though there was really nothing interesting on Instagram.

I’d already seen everything on my feed and I truly just didn’t care about anything else.

Mitch started to lead me out of the restaurant and I followed slowly, trying to look around the room slyly for Christian but he wasn’t there.

I was a little disappointed but at the same time, it didn’t really matter. Even if he was, what would I do about it? Go over and talk to him and his family? Just the idea of that made my heartbeat quicken and I sped up, just in case. I couldn’t think of anything more anxiety-producing than that. I would never have the courage to do it.

We emerged into the warm air and both slowed automatically. I slipped my phone into my pocket, preferring to walk back to our rooms without it. It was better to not have it. Then, I could focus on the world around us.

Couples walked by, hand in hand and in their own bubble. No one paid us any attention but I was glad. It made it feel more peaceful. I felt isolated but in the best way possible. It was relaxing. It almost felt like I could stand straight, like the weight on my shoulders wasn’t slowly trying to crush me. I hadn’t even noticed that before but now that it was gone, I did.

I found myself torn between wishing that the walk was longer and hoping that we’d get to the room quicker. I wanted to talk to Mitch about what he’d seen on Spinalonga and what the plan was but at the same time, I really enjoyed the walk.

It didn’t matter. We were back at our door before long.

I waited for Mitch to open it and scan the room before walking over to the table and sitting down.

“We’re safe. So, what did you think of the island?” he asked, joining me and pulling his iPad towards him.

“It was really interesting, not quite what I expected though,” I said truthfully.

“No? How so?”

I cocked my head considering it for a moment.

“I expected it to all be ruins, like the church by the fortress, but the houses looked like they could have been built yesterday,” I said finally.

Mitch nodded.

“You’re right, they absolutely did. What does that tell you?”

My mind went blank but I forced it to start turning again.

“That the thing we’re looking for is in the older bit, right?” I guessed slowly. “If it were in any of the houses or the newer looking church, people would have found it already… Right?”

Mitch grinned toothily at me.

“Bang on. So… where do you think it is? I’ll give you a hint, I believe it is underground.”

I wanted to immediately say I didn’t know but I took my time to think about it. The room was too quiet though. It made my anxiety rise until I began just thinking out loud.

“The fortress is too obvious, right? Like, people would have already looked there, wouldn’t they? But it would need to be close, right? Like, if the treasure was put there when there fortress was still a fortress, it would need to be close enough that they could watch over it. That makes sense, I think. So… maybe in the church near there?”

Mitch grinned at me.

“I thought that too,” he said, typing on his iPad. “I mean, keeping the entrance to the underground system nearby is only smart, right? That way, people in the fortress can keep an eye on it without it being too suspicious and they can access it not too difficultly so…”

I watched his face carefully as he trailed off, trying to work out what he was looking at on the iPad but it was tilted away from me.

“Ah, here we go. I highlighted this place before. I had someone fly over the island last night to do some scans. I think we got away with it but we’ll see. Look at this, what do you see here?”

He turned the iPad towards me, watching my face carefully.

I stared down at the screen. It was a greyscale map of the area with some of the graves highlighted by a thin red line.

I looked between the highlighted ones and the non-highlighted ones, trying to see the difference but it was difficult. The graves were obvious. They were almost perfectly rectangular shapes, darker than the space around them but some were more evenly dark.

That was the difference. The ones that Mitch had highlighted were consistently dark but the ones that he hadn’t were more spotty.

“Why are some darker than others?” I asked carefully.

I didn’t need to look up to know that Mitch was grinning at me proudly. That made my heart clench with happiness.

“Because there’s something other than bones in some of them,” he said excitedly. “I reckon one of these graves holds the entrance to the underground cave system. There are probably more ways in but I’ve had my person scan the shoreline and the only other way I can see is through a partially obstructed tunnel and I really don’t want us to have to squeeze through there. Lauren barely made it.”

“Lauren’s here?” I asked.

Mitch chuckled lightly.

“Oh yeah, I’ve kept her close in case we run into any trouble and need a quick getaway. She’d very used to that.”

“So… are we going tonight?” I asked, my heart starting to race in excitement.

“Nah,” Mitch said, turning the iPad back towards him. “Too obvious, plus we need to be in a better position for it. We need to prepare.”

“What do we need to do?”

Mitch leant his head to one side causing it to crack loudly before leaning it to the other.

“I could do with hiring a boat, I think. A nice one with a little speed boat or a jet ski on the back. The boat would be better, a jet ski is less protected but it is more manoeuvrable so I would accept that too. We can rent it for the full day and camp out somewhere near the island, head over when it gets dark,” he said, almost to himself. “We’ll need to pack up here too.”

I looked around the room, spotting his closed suitcase in the corner.

He’d kept it much neater than I had. My clothes were spilling out of the bag and taking over part of the room, I’d need to put them all away.

“Will we go straight from Spinalonga to the airport?” I asked.

I kind of hoped he’d say no. I wanted to spend more time relaxing by the pool and maybe flirt with Christian again but I didn’t want to risk it if there was the chance it wasn’t safe.

“It really depends on how things go when we’re there. If Sterling’s assholes haven’t found us then we’ll come back here and lie low until an appropriate amount of time has passed but, if they have… well, we’ll probably leave straight from Spinalonga. It’s not worth risking it. I’ll just call the hotel when we’re on the plane and say that something came up at work or something. It’s not the smoothest of exits, a little suspicious, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

I nodded, unsure which outcome I was hoping for.

Although just moments ago, I had wanted to stay on the island, now, the idea of staying at the hotel and waiting to see if anything kicked off on Spinalonga sounded painful. I knew that I’d spend every minute tense and waiting for the police to arrive and arrest us.

Maybe it would be better to leave straight away. But then, the idea of Sterling’s people finding us was terrifying too. They were like something from a nightmare. Everything I’d heard about them painted them as cruel, ruthless people who wouldn’t hesitate to murder me if it came down to it.

I really hoped I didn’t die. I was enjoying the fantasy too much. If I did die, what would happen in it? Could I come back or would it be the end?

I couldn’t just come back from the dead and I didn’t want Mitch to have my death on his conscience. I needed to be careful, to be smart.

“So, what do we do tonight to prepare?” I asked. “Should I go pack up my stuff? Will we bring it with us on the boat tomorrow or is that too obvious?”

“Way too obvious,” he said. “We’ll leave it here. Lauren can come and pick it all up and, if we get to come back here, she’ll drop it off again. I’ve already slipped her a spare key so you should probably get packed up. We’ll need to bring some spare clothes for tomorrow too.”

I stared at him in confusion.

“Wait, what? When did you give Lauren the spare key?” I asked incredulously.

Mitch chuckled under his breath.

“At dinner. Left it in a crumpled napkin and she and Oscar swept in and got it before the waiters had a chance to clean it away,” he said nonchalantly. “They used the excuse of wanting our table. Why do you think I insisted on that specific table? I needed one out of the way and with a good view.”

I stared at him blankly.

“I… don’t know. I just thought you wanted to sit there,” I said dumbly.

He laughed and pulled his phone out, reading the message before turning it towards me.

There was a message from Lauren that simply said ‘Got it. You’re paying for this ridiculous overpriced dinner.’

“She knows I’ll pay for it. I always do when she’s on assignment for me,” he said with a shrug.

I nodded, still shocked that I hadn’t even noticed before my mind caught up with what he’d said before.

“Wait, I need to pack a spare set of clothes?” I asked. “Why?”

“Yeah, just so that you can blend in more. You need to be all in black ideally. Well covered too. You’re too pale, you’ll stand out in the dark and that’ll make you an easy target. Did we get any long-sleeved tops for you?” he asked.

I thought hard about the shop we had done when we stopped to refuel.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay, good. Pack one. Bring your trainers too, I’ll pack them. I want us to look as normal as possible when we go onto the boat so I’m going to pack a bag and pretend it’s picnic stuff. They’ll provide that for us as part of the package with the boat so it’ll just make me look more bumbling and useless, feel free to pounce on that,” he said, barely looking up at me as he pulled up the notes app and started typing. “I’ll need to bring the spades, some weapons too. Ah, I wish we had time for you to have some target practice but it’ll be fine. If you need to, just point and shoot. We’ll need extra food too. I have some in my bag but you can never be too safe. I don’t want the bag to be too heavy but we need to have all the usual stuff.”

I watched him plan and mutter to himself, not having anything to contribute but also finding it fascinating to watch him. It felt like he was ten steps ahead of me, his mind always racing and strategising. It made me a little jealous. Well, not jealous but I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be quick and smart.

Maybe I could be? The fantasy was part of my mind, after all. It was coming from somewhere within me so I had to have the ability to think like that, didn’t I?

I fought a yawn that caught me off guard, surprised by how tired my body was even though my mind felt wired.

“You should pack and sort out your stuff for tomorrow then get an early night,” Mitch said, drumming his fingers on the table and staring into space. “Ah, money. We’ll need to bribe them so that we don’t have any staff on the boat. I can deal with it by myself, I lived on a boat for four years.”

"You did?” I asked.

Somehow, I was still surprised every time I learned something new about Mitch. I wasn’t sure why, I should have known better by then, but I still was. His life just sounded so cool and fun.

“Yup, I had to. It was a pretty safe way to live for a while. I had a fake ID that I used when entering marinas and I rarely had to pay for things. It was easy enough to live off of fish and I could trade for anything else I needed. It gave me some space and time for the people looking for me to give up… at least temporarily.”

“Sterling’s people?” I asked.

“Oh, no. That was a different time. There was a different band of idiots trying to kill me then but I’m pretty sure their company has gone under. Most of them have been incorporated into the Sterlings but their dumbass boss is gone at least.” He grinned almost to himself before looking at me again. “Go on, you should probably get to bed. I’ll wake up early and head down to the pier to bribe some people but I’ll set up all of the alarms and whatnot here so you’ll be safe. I’ll text you when I come back so you know it’s safe to come downstairs.”

I nodded, fear trickling into my stomach.

I hated the idea of being in the room by myself with Sterling’s people potentially nearby.

“Can I come with you?” I asked, the words slipping out without my consent.

Mitch smiled at me softly.

“It would be easier if you didn’t, kid. I can blend in better there without you and people sometimes get weird if you try and bribe them when there’s a kid about. Plus, Alice would spend the morning in bed if she had the chance.” He paused with an almost sad smile. “You’ll be safe here though. I’ll make sure the doors and windows are locked and I’ll leave a gun on the stairs so you can defend yourself if you need to but you won’t. You’ll be okay.”

I hesitated before nodding.

I didn’t want to insist on going with him. He made some good points but still, I didn’t want to stay there alone. Maybe I’d be able to just avoid the fantasy for a while, stop back in when I knew he was back.

But I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that. I’d be constantly checking in to see if I had been murdered.

“Go on, up to bed. Leave your spare change of clothes out, I’ll put them in my bag in the morning.”