Page 155 of Hide And Seek

Rhys held my gaze without flinching. “I always knew there was a chance this could end with me getting caught,” he said. “I don’t want that outcome, obviously. But I accepted the possibility a long time ago. So if that’s what you want, then that’s what has to happen. It’s the only other option.”

“That’s not true. There’s another option,” I said, quieter this time, as though lowering my voice could somehow soften what I was about to say.

Rhys’s expression shifted, the crease between his brows deepening. “If you’re about to suggest I disappear and spend the rest of my life on the run, that’s not realistic. I’d get caught eventually.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, shaking my head. “I meant… you could kill me. Then you’re free to pin everything on Zach, and no one would ever question your story.”

For a moment, nothing moved between us except the slow rise and fall of his chest. Then his hand came up, closing around my chin, not rough enough to hurt but firm enough that I had no choice but to meet his eyes properly.

“I need you to understand something, Alissa,” he said in a low voice. “That was never an option. Not once. Not for a second.”

My pulse picked up, hammering hard enough that I could feel it in my throat. I swallowed once, then again, trying to steady myself enough to speak.

“How long do I have to decide?” I finally asked.

His gaze flicked briefly toward the bathroom door where Zach lay out of sight. “We’ve probably got an hour or two before he wakes up,” he said. “But we won’t be able to film anything until morning when there’s actual light outside. So you’ve got the rest of the night.”

“Okay,” I murmured.

Rhys stayed there another second, eyes lingering on mine like he was trying to read something buried underneath my expression. Then he finally rose from the bed and stepped back.

“I’ll crash on the couch,” he said. “Give you some space to think.”

I nodded faintly.

For a moment it looked like he was going to say something else. Instead, he turned and crossed the cabin, and the sofa creaked as he lay down. After that, silence settled over the room again, broken only by the wind brushing against the outer walls and the occasional shift of old timber.

I lay down and stared at the ceiling, my thoughts spiraling so violently that I almost felt sick from it.

The right thing to do in this situation was incredibly obvious. Wait for the police, tell them the truth about everything, and let the system handle it. That was the answer any sane person would give.

Except… the last day had completely destroyed my faith in what ‘right’ or ‘sane’ looked like anymore.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and thought about Carly's family. How nobody with actual power had taken them seriously. How their daughter’s death had barely made a ripple outside the local area, because she wasn't the kind of victim the world would stop for.

I thought about what Rhys had said about powerful people absorbing exposure and walking away intact because they could afford to. Then I thought about the sixteen Legacies standing on that dark lakeshore after the horrific act they’d committed, and I wondered how many of them would’ve actually faced real consequences if they’d been caught.

Maybe one or two. But possibly zero.

I took another deep breath. Then I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes and made myself think about thebrutality of the last week. The harpoon through Delia. Reid's decapitated head and hacked off limbs. Sloane's slashed throat. All the others too.

They were people. Terrible people who’d done something monstrous… but still people.

But Carly was a person too. She'd walked down to the lake that night, trusting all the adults around her, and none of them had hesitated long enough for the horror of what they were doing to reach them through the alcohol and group hysteria. Even afterwards, when they were all sober, they only cared about themselves. Never her, the innocent little girl whose life they’d snatched so cruelly.

Something twisted and cold settled in my chest then; a part of me that looked at everything Rhys had done and understood exactly how he’d gotten there.

Not the brutality of it, or the bloodshed and gore. But the fury behind it… I understood that now. Far more than I wanted to.

And worse, some dark, deep-seated part of me thought the Legacies deserved to be destroyed for what they’d done to Carly. Maybe not butchered in the woods, but certainly punished a hell of a lot more harshly than they ever would’ve been through the legal system.

I sat up slightly, staring across the dark cabin toward the faint outline of the sofa. I couldn’t properly see Rhys from here, but I knew he wasn’t asleep, because every so often the cushions creaked softly beneath his weight, like he was shifting restlessly too.

I pictured him lying there with his eyes open and his heart thudding, awaiting my decision. Then I lay back again and stared up at the ceiling as every vulnerable moment from the last few days suddenly replayed in my head in horrible, crystal-clear flashes.

Waking up tied to this bed while Rhys stood calmly over me with a knife in his hand. Falling asleep in this cabin knowing he was only a few feet away on the couch, fully capable of killing me before morning if he wanted to. Letting him touch me in the woods after he’d saved me from the others.

At any point, he could’ve snapped my neck. Could’ve put a knife through my chest. He could’ve made me vanish so completely that nobody ever would’ve known what happened to me. But he never had.