Page 94 of Hide And Seek

And that was the part that really stuck with me. Not the danger. Not the plan.

Him.

20

By the timewe made it back to the main hall, Jasmine knew everything.

She’d listened without interrupting as I laid out Rhys’s theory, her expression tightening more and more the further I got into it.

“Do you think he might be right?” I asked quietly as we stepped inside.

“I think it makes a disturbing amount of sense,” she muttered. “Which I hate. Because it means we’re probably not even close to getting out of this.”

The rest of the day settled into something that almost looked normal from the outside. Most of us stayed in the assembly hall, pulled into loose conversations or half-hearted card games; anything to keep our hands busy and our minds from spiraling too far.

No one wanted to be alone. Every so often, someone would glance toward the door or the windows, like they were expecting the search teams to come back at any second. Or worse… not come back at all.

Time dragged, every hour feeling longer than the last. At some point in the late afternoon, Caitlin clapped her hands together from the kitchen doorway, forcing a brightness into her voice that didn’t quite land.

“Okay, so, I’ve been doing an inventory,” she said. “And we need to use up all the tomatoes before they go bad. So… how about a burger and bruschetta night?”

There was a beat of silence. Then, slowly, a few people perked up.

“That sounds really good,” Tamsin said. “Hopefully the guys are back by the time we’re done cooking.”

For a little while, the tension eased as people moved around more, helping in the kitchen. By the time the food was ready, the light outside had started to fade again, the sky slipping into that muted grey-blue that made everything feel a little more uncertain.

Jasmine caught my eye across the room and tilted her head toward the door. I nodded.

We moved casually, grabbing a couple of burgers and wrapping them quickly before anyone paid too much attention. Then we slipped out, timing it between conversations so it didn’t look like we were making a coordinated exit.

When we reached the groundskeeper’s cabin, Jasmine rapped lightly on the door. Nothing.

She waited a second, then knocked again, a little louder this time.

Still nothing.

I frowned. “Maybe he’s napping?”

“Or in the shower,” she said, shrugging.

“Yeah.”

We both stood there for another few seconds, listening. No movement. No sound.

A flicker of unease curled low in my stomach, but I forced it down. There were plenty of normal explanations. There had to be.

“We really can’t hang around this time,” Jasmine muttered. “If someone notices we’ve suddenly disappeared before dinner…”

I sighed. “I know.”

I crouched, setting the wrapped food down beside the door, tucking it slightly out of sight. “He’ll see it,” I said, more to reassure myself than anything else.

“Yeah.” Jasmine nodded. “Come on.”

We turned and headed back the way we’d come, a little faster this time.

I didn’t look back, but I still felt a creeping mix of guilt and unease, slipping in under everything else.