Page 160 of Hide And Seek

He spent the next few minutes recounting what happened to Carly. It was the same story Gen had told, but he didn’t try to soften it or make excuses for any of them. He just laid it out exactly as it happened, in the blunt way of someone who’d replayed the memory in his head so many times it had stopped feeling real.

He listed the names of everyone involved. The sequence of events. The pact they'd made on the shore afterward. His voice stayed mostly level, cracking only once, when he got to the part about what Carly had been told before they walked her down to the lake.

“I was the only one who couldn’t let it go afterward,” he finally said, voice flattening again as if he was forcing it back into control. “Everyone else just kept living their lives. Some of them were scared of getting caught, sure, but that’s not guilt. Not even close.”

He leaned forward slightly, as far as the bindings around his wrists allowed.

“I tried to talk about it,” he continued. “I tried to make them understand that we couldn’t just pretend it didn’t happen. And you know what those fuckers said?”

He let out a short, bitter laugh and slowly shook his head.

“They told me if I ever opened my mouth about it, I’d be next,” he said. “And honestly, for a while, that scared the shit outof me. So I stayed quiet. I let it sit there and rot in my head until eventually I realized something. I shouldn’t have been worried about them killing me. I should just fucking killthem. They deserved it.”

He paused to let that sink in, jaw clenching. Then he pressed his lips into a grim line and leaned toward the camera again, eyes fixed on the lens.

“So that’s when I started coming up with the Blackpine plan,” he continued in a low voice. “Spent months figuring it all out and setting things up. I knew no one would ever suspect me. Not in a million years. Because nobody else knew what we did that night, which meant nobody would ever see my motive.”

His eyes flicked briefly toward the floor, and a hollow laugh escaped him.

“You know what the craziest part is?” he said. “It wasn’t even hard to get away with it at first. None of them suspected me. Even after the bodies started piling up, they still trusted me. Slept beside me. Ate with me. Let me comfort them.” Another humorless laugh escaped him. “Some of them even cried to me about how scared they were.”

Zach’s gaze unfocused slightly for a moment.

“I kept waiting for one of them to finally admit what we did,” he went on. “Just one fucking person. But none of them ever did. They just kept lying. Kept protecting themselves.”

A long silence followed that. Then he leaned his head back against the wall and looked straight into the lens again.

“People are gonna call me a psychopath after this,” he finally said. “A monster. And maybe I am. I honestly don’t know anymore. But at least I know that Carly mattered to me in the end. And at least I know somebody actually gave enough of a shit to do something about it.”

He swallowed hard, shoulders rising slightly.

“I know none of this actually changes anything,” he went on. “It doesn’t bring her back. But I’m not sorry I killed any of those motherfuckers. I’m only sorry Carly died, and that I didn’t stop it when I had the chance. And I’m sorry I waited a whole fucking year before I did something about it.” His jaw flexed. “Butthem? No. I’m not sorry about that and I never will be.”

Another lengthy silence followed that. Then Zach shrugged one shoulder.

“So that’s it, I guess,” he said. “That’s the truth. If any of the families of the people I killed are watching this, don’t waste your time pretending they were good and innocent. They weren’t. Every single one of them helped kill a girl and cover it up, and they got exactly what they deserved in the end.”

He went quiet again, glaring at the camera. Then he looked over at Rhys. “You can call the cops now,” he spat out.

Rhys motioned for me to stop recording, and I lowered the phone, slipping it back into my pocket.

For a moment, nobody spoke, and the only sound in the tiny bathroom was Zach’s uneven breathing. Then Rhys let out a low whistle and started clapping slowly. “Holy fuck,” he said. “You almost had me convinced.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Zach muttered.

Rhys just smiled faintly. Then he reached into his pocket again.

The second Zach saw the phone in his hand, his entire expression changed. His brows knitted together, eyes locking onto it. “Wait,” he said. “That’s mine.”

“Good eye.” Rhys turned it lazily in his hand before glancing at me. “See? Told you he wasn’t brain damaged.”

Zach ignored that, still staring at the device. “Why the fuck did you take that?” he asked. “It’s not like I could’ve called 911 while I was tied up in here.”

Rhys stepped forward and crouched in front of him again. “Because we need to call the cops, remember?” he said. “The signal jamming software’s been on your phone this whole time.”

Zach blinked. “Are you serious?”

Rhys didn’t answer. He just tapped on the phone screen a few times. Then he dropped it on the floor, reached around, and started working at the knots around Zach’s ankles with quick, practiced movements.