It had been 43 minutes since Jessie went "voluntarily missing," and that was 42 minutes too long.
"She wouldn't just leave," Zara said, pacing the hallway in her fuzzy slippers and silk kimono like a stressed-out influencer. "She hasn't even done her morning eye masks yet!"
Leo popped a donut into his mouth. "Maybe she finally swiped right on a lumberjack and ran off to the mountains."
"Seriously?" I said. "You think Jessie would leave for a man who wears flannel unironically?"
"Fair point," he nodded, crumbs flying.
Milo pulled up a map of the compound on his phone—yes, compound. That's what we'd started calling the dating resort-slash-digital prison we were apparently trapped in.
"She's not in the common areas, spa, confession booth, or karaoke dungeon," he said.
"Wait, there's a karaoke dungeon?" I blinked.
Leo grinned. "Yup. That's where I did my emotional ballad night. Got three standing ovations and one existential crisis."
I sighed. "Focus, team."
That's when Crystal's face appeared on every screen in the hallway—big, too-smiley, and very 4K.
"Hello, Love Seekers! Jessie has chosen to exit the journey for personal reflection. We wish her well. Now please return to your scheduled activities: couples yoga and honest staring."
Milo narrowed his eyes. "That's not suspicious at all."
Zara squinted. "Did she blink during that message?"
Leo nodded. "Nope. Definitely robot-coded."
I looked around and lowered my voice. "We need to find the control room. Wherever they're running this app—maybe Jessie's there. Or at least clues about where she went."
Milo slid his phone into his pocket. "You had me at 'control room.' Let's go full Mission Impossible."
Zara grabbed her emergency dry shampoo. "In case we get filmed."
Leo threw on sunglasses at night. "I was born for this."
And just like that, we became a secret squad: Team HeartHackers.
---
Ten minutes later, we were crawling through a maintenance tunnel behind the smoothie bar, using a stolen resort map, two glow sticks, and Leo's questionable instincts.
"This feels illegal," Zara whispered.
"Good," I whispered back. "That means we're doing it right."
We reached a locked gray door labeled: "Authorized Staff Only – LoveTech Systems".
Milo pulled out a paperclip. "You guys trust me?"
Leo shrugged. "You had me at paperclip."
Click.
The door creaked open, revealing… rows of monitors. Footage from all over the resort played in real-time: poolside chats, staged confessions, awkward dates in themed rooms.
Then we saw her—Jessie. On one of the screens. Sitting in a plain white room, talking to someone off-camera.
Zara gasped. "Oh my god, she's wearing Crocs."
"That's not important right now," I said, but honestly, it kind of was.
We leaned in, but the audio was glitchy.
"She's saying something about… testing us?" Milo guessed. "And data? Emotional mapping?"
Just then, the lights flickered—and all the screens went black except one.
Crystal's face again.
"You weren't supposed to find this."
"Plot twist," I muttered.
"Return to your rooms," she said, smile still frozen. "Or we'll have to accelerate your storylines."
"What does that even mean?" Leo said.
Milo grabbed my hand. "We need to go. Now."
We ran. Alarms didn't go off. No guards chased us. Just... the weird silence that said, "Someone's watching."
---
Back in our suite, panting and paranoid, we collapsed on beanbags.
"So now we know," Zara said, "this isn't just some app. We're... experiments."
"But they also gave me matcha lip balm," Leo said. "So it's complicated."
I looked at Milo. "You think Jessie's safe?"
"I hope so. But we need to be smart about our next move."
He paused. "And maybe… trust each other a little more."
I nodded. "Like not hiding creepy documents behind mirrors?"
He gave a small smile. "Fair."
Then he reached out, brushing a strand of hair from my face.
For a moment, the world—the weird app, the secrets, the glitchy Crystal—faded.
It was just us.
"I'm glad it's you," he said softly.
My bracelet glowed bright green.
And even though we were stuck in a fake dating app inside a possibly evil tech experiment—
For once, something felt real.