Page 34 of Hide And Seek

“It’s so weird. I texted Linda twenty minutes ago to tell her we finished the shutdown, so obviously everything was fine then. But then it suddenly went dead thirty seconds later.”

Grace nodded. “I was literallyjustabout to text Hayden when it died. Now I can’t even tell him I’m coming home soon.”

“Just call him from one of the landline phones,” Jasmine said, jerking her thumb toward the building containing all the staff offices. “They should be working fine.”

Grace nodded and headed inside, followed by a few others. The rest of us lingered, watching our screens like something might flicker back to life if we stared hard enough.

I briefly glanced over at Rhys, who was standing with some of the other Legacy guys. He wasn’t swearing at his phone or looking pissed like the rest of them, but that actually tracked. He didn’t really seem like the type to care about something like bad reception.

“Um… guys?” Grace’s voice suddenly rang out, and we all turned to look at her. “The landline phones are down too.”

A ripple of unease moved through the group.

“What do you mean?” Sutton asked. “Like, the lines have been cut?”

One of the guys who’d accompanied Grace inside shook his head. “The lines are fine. There’s just… nothing. No dial tone. It’s dead.”

“What the fuck?” Jasmine muttered.

“Maybe they shut off all the networks around here because of the environmental thing,” a guy named Cole said. “Like, some kind of safety protocol.”

Several people started talking over each other, theories quickly piling up.

A couple of minutes later, Maren rolled her eyes and snorted. “This is ridiculous,” she said. “I’m outta here.”

She grabbed the handle of her suitcase and turned on her heel. No one stopped her.

I watched as she strode over to the path that led toward the parking area on the other side of the campgrounds, her pace quick and purposeful, until she disappeared from view.

For a few minutes, nothing happened. Then a sharp, frustrated shriek cut through the air.

Everyone froze.

“What the hell was that?” someone said.

“Maren, obviously,” Sutton snapped.

We all started toward the parking area, but before we even made it halfway across the lawn, Maren came sprinting back toward us. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide with something that looked like a mix of anger and fear.

“We can’t leave!” she shouted as she drew closer.

“Why not?” Jasmine asked.

Maren shook her head, like she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying.

“We can’t leave,” she repeated. Her gaze swept across all of us, wild and disbelieving. “We’re trapped!”

9

For a second,nobody moved.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rhys asked.

Maren's voice had steadied slightly, but her hands were still shaking. “Every car in that lot has slashed tires. And it's not just that. My car won't even turn on. The engine's totally dead. So even if the tires were okay…”

She trailed off, and the silence that followed lasted all of two seconds before everyone started moving at once.

The parking lot was a five-minute walk from the assembly hall, tucked behind a tree line on the western edge of camp. By the time we got there, it was clear that Maren hadn't been exaggerating for effect.