Page 150 of Hide And Seek

Sometimes it was Grace.

Sometimes Sutton.

Sometimes me.

Always terrified, always begging for help.

The panic outside escalated every time the voices moved again, and the fragmented groups kept second-guessing themselves, running in circles between the woods, the lake path, and the cabins.

Rhys crouched beside one of the darkened buildings near the edge of camp, watching everything unfold through the trees. Then the camera shifted slightly as three figures sprinted past the far side of the building.

Zach. Noura. Maren.

The last remaining Legacies.

They were moving fast, flashlights bouncing wildly across the ground as Grace’s voice rang out from somewhere ahead of them.

“Please! I can’t walk properly!”

“Grace!” Maren shouted breathlessly. “Where are you?”

“She sounded close!” Noura yelled back. “I think she’s around here!”

The three of them rounded the building corner in a blur of flashlight beams and ragged breathing.

Maren vanished first. One second she was there, her light jittering wildly across the dirt, and the next she was yanked violently backward into darkness. Her flashlight hit the ground and spun uselessly as a wet choking sound cut through the night.

Noura screamed and wheeled toward the noise, and Rhys stepped out of the shadows. His arm flashed once, and Noura’s scream ended in a horrible gargle as a knife plunged into her throat, spraying blood across the side of the building.

Zach froze.

For half a second he just stood there staring at Noura, his face blank with disbelief. Then instinct finally took over, and he turned and ran. “I don’t think so, man,” Rhys said calmly, already moving after him.

The feed suddenly cut to black.

My heart hammered violently against my ribs as my mind’s eye filled with awful images. Zach pinned to a wall with a harpoon. Zach’s neck gushing blood as a knife tore through it. Zach dangling from a tree, limbs hacked off.

The tablet screen stayed black.

I lay there in the dark, listening to the wind outside, and waited. About five minutes later, the cabin door finally creaked open.

Rhys stepped inside, and in the darkness I could only make out the broad shape of him. He moved to the bed and reached down, working through the knots at my wrists and then the gag with the same efficiency as always.

“I worked out a new plan,” he said, straightening up. “To solve our problem.”

I blinked. “What?”

He reached down, tenderly rubbing his thumb across my jaw. “This is your chance to prove that I can trust you enough to let you go.”

“What do you mean?”

He didn’t answer that. Just turned toward the open door and stepped back outside. There was a dull, dragging sound for a minute, and then something heavy hit the cabin floor.

I leaned over and squinted into the dark.

It was Zach. He was on his side, wrists bound behind him, a strip of cloth tied across his mouth. His eyes were closed, but his chest was moving.

He was alive.