Page 4 of Hide And Seek

Stop it.I mentally chided myself.That’s not what you’re here for. No distractions.

He wiped off his hands with a rag tucked in his back pocket as he crossed the clearing toward us, all easy confidence.

“New blood, huh?” he said, by way of greeting. His gray eyes moved briefly to Jasmine before settling back on me. “I’m Rhys,” he added, extending a hand. “Rhys Usher.”

I briefly shook his hand, trying to ignore my racing heart. “Alissa Madsen,” I said. Or croaked, more accurately.

“I’m guessing you're here to replace Gen?”

I opened my mouth, but Jasmine got there first.

“She's an extra hire,” she said. “Mabry decided to bring on a few more this year since we were stretched kinda thin last summer. But Genevieve should be back like always.”

Something crossed Rhys's face, and he hesitated, easy confidence dialed back half a degree. “You didn't hear?”

Jasmine frowned. “Hear what?”

“Gen died,” Rhys said, lowering his voice slightly.

“What?”

“It happened four months ago. Car accident."

Jasmine went very still. “Oh my god.”

“I assumed you knew." Rhys pulled out his phone and scrolled briefly. “Everyone was talking about it in the group chat for ages.”

“What group chat?” Jasmine asked.

He turned the screen toward her. She looked at it for a few seconds, then looked away, her jaw set. “I'm not in that one,” she said.

Rhys looked at the phone, then back at Jasmine, the implication landing visibly.

“Looks like it's a Legacy-only thing,” Jasmine added. Her voice was still pleasant and even. Impressively so.

Rhys had the grace to look uncomfortable. “I'm sorry, Jas,” he said. “That's a really shitty way to find out.”

She didn't respond to that. Just gave him a withering look.

Rhys turned back to me, and just like that, the smile returned, though something behind it had shifted slightly from when he'd first flashed it at me. “Nice to meet you, Alissa,” he said. “Welcome to Blackpine.”

With that, he turned and walked back toward the range.

I watched him go for a moment longer than was strictly necessary, then turned to find Jasmine already moving back toward the path.

“See what I mean about those asswipes?” she muttered without looking at me.

“Yeah. Although, to be fair, he did seem sorry about—”

She cut me off with the wave of a hand. “I don't doubtthatpart,” she said, voice tight. “I just meant: do you see what I mean about what snobby pricks the Legacies are? They have a whole-ass Blackpine group chat without half the counselors in it. Which doesn’t even make sense.”

“Yeah, it sucks,” I said. I paused, then spoke up again. “I’m sorry for your loss, by the way.”

Jasmine’s nose wrinkled again. “Honestly… I didn't really like Gen. She was a nightmare to work with. But still, it would've been nice if one of the Legacies had bothered to tell the rest of us what happened, instead of just letting us be blindsided,” she said. She let out a huff and went on. “I mean, sure, I didn’t get along with the girl, but holy shit… it’s still a shock to hear, right? That someone you’ve worked with every summer for the last four years has been fuckingdeadfor months?”

“Yeah.” I fell into step beside her and didn't push it.

After all, she wasn’t just mad about being left out of some silly group chat where friends shared memes and Insta reels. It was a purposefully exclusionary group that clearly made her feel like an outsider in her own neck of the woods.