Page 2 of Hide And Seek

He slowly tilted his head, regarding me with something that might’ve been curiosity. Then he reached up and took the mask off.

The face beneath it was one I knew very well. One I'd seen across the dining hall every day. One I’d worked with several times. One I’d wanted and despised at the same time.

Dark hair pushed back from his forehead. Square jaw. Eyes that caught the moonlight the same way the ax blade did; flat and silvery-blue, giving nothing away. He was soaked in blood so dark it almost looked black.

He started walking toward me again. Slow. Steady. Ax swinging loose in his grip.

“I knew it,” I said, voice shaking. “Iknewit was you.”

He said nothing.

Then the ax came up, and he swung it right at me.

1

Ten daysearlier

Someone was watching me.I could feel it.

I resisted the urge to look around and kept my eyes forward, taking in the sun-streaked path ahead as Jasmine, the counselor tasked with showing me around, led me deeper into the heart of Camp Blackpine. The back of my neck was still prickling with that crawling awareness of being observed.

Relax.I gave myself a quick mental shake.You're the new girl. Of course people are going to look.

That was all it was. New counselor, unfamiliar face, bound to attract some curious glances. Nothing weird about it.

“—so those orange markers you can see on the shoreline," Jasmine was saying, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the lake glittering through the tree line to our left, “that section of the lake's completely off limits this year. Kayaking, canoeing, and paddleboarding are still available, just not in that zone. And swimming's been pulled entirely.”

I lifted a brow. “How come?”

Jasmine's expression flickered briefly. “There was a drowning last year. A girl. She was only twelve.”

“Oh, shit. That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, it was awful.” Jasmine sighed. “She sneaked out in the middle of the night to go swimming, and…” She trailed off, pressing her lips together. “Someone found her in the morning.”

I processed that for a moment, watching the orange markers in the distance bob gently at the waterline. “I'm surprised the camp was able to reopen after that,” I said carefully. “Especially given the camp's clientele. I mean… rich Manhattanites are known for being pretty litigious, right?”

“Normally, yes.” Jasmine tucked a loose copper-red braid behind her ear. "But the death was ruled an accident. The kid broke the rules and sneaked out alone at night. So there was no counselor negligence involved. Nobody had anything solid to sue over.”

“Still, the PR alone…” I slowly shook my head. “It must’ve been a nightmare keeping something like that out of the media.”

I was probably being too heavy-handed with my questioning, which was the exact opposite of what I was meant to be doing at Camp Blackpine, but thankfully Jasmine didn’t seem to notice.

“Let me put it this way. The kid that died wasn't one of the wealthy ones.” She said it flatly, the way people say things they find distasteful but true. “She was a full-ride scholarship kid at some private Upper East Side academy, and her best friend’s parents paid for her to attend camp here every year so they could be together over the summer. Nice of them, I guess, although it was probably just a drop in the bucket for them.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, her parents got a fat compensation payout, and that was more or less the end of it. But if she'd been one of the other Blackpine kids…” Jasmine made a small, bleak gesturewith her hand that finished the sentence better than words could have.

I didn't say anything to that. There wasn't really anything to say.

Jasmine seemed to agree, because she cleared her throat and visibly moved on. “Okay, so, important question. Are you a Dirtbag or a Legacy?”

I blinked at her. “Sorry?”

“Dirtbag or Legacy.” She said it like it was obvious, then caught my expression. “Right, sorry, you just got here.”

I let out a weak laugh. “Yeah, I’m still pretty clueless about the terminology here.”