Page 159 of Hide And Seek

“No.” Rhys shook his head. “I know I couldn’t do that. But Icouldgo after your family. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Zach's jaw worked silently for a moment, the muscles in his face pulling tight with something caught between fury and despair. Finally, he shook his head. “I can’t do it,” he muttered. “I just can’t.”

Rhys sighed, like this was disappointing but not surprising. Then he glanced at me. “Oh well. I tried,” he said, lifting a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Guess I’m back to Plan A. I can write a suicide note on his phone. Not as clean, but it’ll work.”

He clicked off the safety and lowered the pistol toward Zach’s head.

Zach immediately started struggling against the cupboard. “Wait!” he said. “Just fucking wait!”

Rhys cocked a brow. “For what?”

“I’ll do it, okay? I’ll fucking do it! I’ll make the confession video!”

“What about afterwards? When I’m not around and you’re safe in custody. You’re not going to try and recant, are you?”

“No! I swear!”

Rhys kept the gun aimed at his head as he looked over at me. “What do you think, Alissa? Is he lying?”

I swallowed hard as I weighed up my response. I knew Zach was lying. Of course he was. If the cops actually showed up and took him somewhere safe, he'd take back every word of his coerced confession. Anyone in his position would.

But if I said that out loud, this whole thing would collapse, because Rhys wasn’t actually going to shoot Zach right now. And as soon as Zach realized that, the bluff would be broken, and then he’d never agree to make the confession tape.

“I think he’s telling the truth,” I said. “He’s going to keep his mouth shut about us.”

“Yes! Listen to her, man!” Zach said, eyes wide as he stared at the barrel of the gun. “Please!”

Rhys stayed silent for a long moment. Then he finally lowered the gun. “Fine,” he said. “But you better not be fucking with me.”

“I’m not.” Zach’s chest was heaving now. “I swear on my mother’s life.”

“Okay. Good. I’ve got a general script for you to follow, but you can put a lot of it in your own words.” Rhys pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Zach. “I’ll give you some time to learn it. Are you hungry?”

Zach nodded reluctantly.

Rhys glanced at me. “Could you grab some water and a protein bar from the table?”

I nodded and did as he asked. When I returned, Rhys was already crouched beside Zach again. He took the bar and brokeoff a piece, offering it to him carefully, one bite at a time. Then he tipped the bottle of water toward Zach’s mouth, just enough for him to drink without spilling.

The first run of the script was almost silent; just Zach’s lips moving as he read along, eyes flicking over each line in a way that made his distaste obvious. The second time was slower. He stopped a few times, frowned at certain sentences, then mouthed them again under his breath as if testing how they felt coming out of his mouth.

Finally, he looked up at us with hollow eyes and gave us a small, resigned nod. “I’ll do it now,” he muttered.

We set it up simply, with Zach sitting against the bathroom wall, wrists still bound behind him. Rhys positioned himself just out of frame, gun resting loosely in his hand where Zach could see it but the camera couldn't.

I steadied the phone with both hands and pressed record.

For a second, Zach didn’t speak. He just stared into the camera with bloodshot eyes, his shoulders resting against the bathroom wall. The silence stretched long enough that I wondered if he was going to refuse at the last second. Then he finally lifted his chin and exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled.

“My name is Zachary Etheridge,” he said. “I'm twenty-two years old, and I've been a counselor at Camp Blackpine for the last four summers. And… I’ve just spent the last week killing all my friends here.”

Hearing him say it out loud sent a chill through me, even though I knew every word was a lie.

“I planned on getting away with it, but Alissa Madsen and Rhys Usher caught me, and that’s how I wound up in this bathroom tied up like a fucking animal,” he went on, eyes narrowing slightly. “Anyway, I asked them to record this video before they call the cops on me, because I want my story outthere in my own words. I know what’s gonna happen otherwise. The media’s gonna make shit up. Lawyers are gonna twist everything around. Everybody’s gonna act confused about why this happened when the truth is actually really fucking simple.”

Rhys nodded approvingly and gestured for him to continue.

“Before I tell you what happened, I need you all to understand something first,” Zach said, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t fucking regret what I did. Not one bit. Every single person I killed deserved it. And this is why.”