Page 23 of Hide And Seek

Jasmine smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. “You’ll get used to it,” she said. “But yeah… for the first week, you’ll be discovering muscles you didn’t even know you had, because they’ll all be on fire.”

“Thank god I was stuck doing indoor stuff all day,” Tamsin cut in, looking down at her plate as she sliced up a baked potato. “But tomorrow I’m on rock climbing and rappelling.”

Jesse’s gaze slid back to me. “Aside from the sore legs, how was the Wander for you?” he asked.

“It was good. It’s beautiful out here, and the kids were mostly well-behaved.” I paused for a beat, nose wrinkling. “But I would’ve liked it more if Jensen wasn’t there. He really is a total ass.”

“What about Zach and Rhys?” Jasmine asked. “How were they?”

“Honestly, they were fine. Zach seems pretty easygoing.”

Wren snorted. “Oh yeah, heseemsfine at first. But just wait until he’s drunk off his ass at a bonfire and starts talking about how he believes that poor people are only poor because they have low IQs.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, there’s a reason we hate the Legacies,” Jasmine said. “We’re not just petty and jealous, which they love to imply.”

Tamsin snorted. “Speaking of Legacies… your not-so-secret admirer has returned, Alissa.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t look now, but Rhys is staring at you.Again.”

Even though she’d told me not to look, I reflexively whipped my head to the right to peer over at a nearby table where Rhys was seated with five of his buddies. He was indeed staring right at me.

He didn’t look away instantly, embarrassed to be caught. Instead, his lips curved upward in that infuriatingly knowing smirk that he seemed to reserve for me. Then, after a few more slow, deliberate seconds, his gaze finally slid across to Jensen.

I returned my attention to my own table. “Sorry for the sudden subject change, but all four of you are from Millhaven, right?”

“Yup. Born and raised,” Jasmine replied. “How come?”

“I was wondering if you know much about Edmund Strake.”

Tamsin groaned. “Oh god, are they still trotting out that story for the newbies?”

“Isn’t it true?” I asked, brows puckering.

“It is. But it was like, a hundred years ago,” Jasmine said. “Almost, anyway. I’ve never understood why anyone finds it interesting.”

“Same,” Tamsin said. “Maybe it’s just because I grew up hearing about it. So it seems kinda blah.”

“I think it’s pretty interesting,” Wren said. “It’s got that whole Blair Witch vibe to it. If the Blair Witch was a dude with Gilded Age wealth.”

Tamsin rolled her eyes. “Strake was just a rich, self-aggrandizing asshole who started a weird cult, and honestly, I think the world would be better off if we all stopped paying attention to pricks like that.”

“My great-great uncle was one of his victims,” Jesse said casually.

Wren’s mouth dropped open as the rest of us turned to stare at him. “What?” she said. “How have we never heard this before?”

He grinned. “I only found out a couple of months ago when my grandpa got drunk at a family fry-up. He started talking about it, and it turns out he has a bunch of old photos and letters from back in the day. Stuff his parents kept.”

Jasmine lifted a palm. “Okay, scratch what I said about the Strake case not being interesting. It’sveryinteresting now.”

“Tell us everything,” Wren added, nodding fervently.

Jesse leaned forward. “So, it was my grandpa’s uncle on his mom’s side. James. Apparently he was always the black sheep in the family. He’d disappear sometimes for weeks or months at a time. Then he got involved with Strake when he moved to the area,” he said. “Grandpa told me he gotreallyweird after that. He didn’t actually see any of it, because he wasn’t born until after all the shit went down, but his parents told him all about it.”

“Weird how?” Tamsin asked, arching a brow.