Page 158 of Hide And Seek

“You really haven’t worked it out?” Rhys asked, tilting his head. “After all this time?”

Zach stayed silent for another moment. Then his shoulders dropped a fraction. “It’s about Carly, isn’t it?” he said in a low voice.

“Finally. He gets it.”

Zach closed his eyes for a few seconds, body sagging against the cabinet. Then he looked up again, shaking his head once. “Just do it already,” he said listlessly. “Kill me.”

Rhys didn’t react right away. He just looked at Zach for a moment longer than necessary, like he was waiting for him to notice something in the silence. Then he shook his head. “As much as I’d like to blow your brains out, that’s not happening.”

“Don’t fuck with me, man. Just get it over with.”

“I’m not fucking with you,” Rhys replied. “Killing youwaspart of the original plan. I was going to stage it as a suicide and pin everything on you. But luckily for you, Alissa made some very good points about that when she came on the scene. She changed my mind.”

Zach’s gaze shot to me. “What do you mean?”

Rhys’s expression softened slightly, and he crouched again. “I saw the group chat,” he said. “You were the only one who felt bad about what happened, weren’t you?”

Zach didn’t respond to that. Just stared at the wall.

“I know you didn’t feel guilty enough to act on it,” Rhys continued. “But you still felt it, didn’t you?”

Zach let out a quiet breath through his nose. “For a while,” he muttered. “Who wouldn’t after something like that?”

“Our fifteen dearly departed friends. That’s who.” Rhys rose to his full height again. “Anyway, when I told Alissa the whole story, she pointed something out. Something obvious in hindsight.”

“What?”

“You’re not like the others,” Rhys said, slowly shaking his head. “As much as I hate being wrong… I have to admit she’s right about that.”

“What are you saying?” Zach asked in a low voice.

“I’m saying you still deserve punishment. Just not death. Prison will do.”

“They’re not going to send me away for what happened to Carly,” Zach said flatly. “I didn’t do anything to her. I just watched.”

“You were complicit, and you know it. That’s why you felt guilty for so long,” Rhys replied. He paused, tilting his head again. “But I wasn’t actually talking about you going to prison for that.”

Zach blinked. “What?”

“It’s like I said a minute ago. I always planned for you to be my fall guy, because you were the easiest to set up,” Rhys said, smiling faintly. “But Alissa convinced me that it works much better if you’re alive to confirm everything.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m saying I can still make it work if you’re dead, but an actual confession would make things a hell of a lot cleaner,” Rhys said. “So, as much as I’d like to shoot you in the head and call it a day, I’m going to give you a chance instead.”

Zach’s eyes narrowed. “What chance?”

“You confess on camera to the camp massacre, and in return, you get to stay alive.” Rhys’s gaze flicked briefly to me before returning to Zach. “I walk away clean then. The video locks everything in place so there’s no room for debate later. And it’ll also help to launch Alissa’s journalism career as an added bonus for her.”

Zach stared at him for a moment. Then he let out a low, throaty laugh, eyes flashing with disbelief. “You’ve got to befucking kidding me. You honestly think I’ll confess to fifteen murders I didn’t commit?”

“It’s a lot better than the alternative, isn’t it?” Rhys asked, gesturing with the gun. “Besides, you probably wouldn’t even go to prison in the end. You’d be deemed unfit for trial and sent to some high-security mental health facility. And given who your family is, it’d be the cushiest one in the system. Not a bad outcome, all in all.”

“I’m not fucking stupid,” Zach spat out. “Even if I did give you two some bullshit confession, you’d just kill me straight afterwards. Because you know I can recant it later and tell the cops I was forced at gunpoint.”

“You wouldn’t do that.” Rhys lifted the gun slightly. “Because you know what would happen if you even tried.”

Zach scoffed. “What, you’re going to break into a holding cell and kill me?”