Page 24 of Hide And Seek

“Like… he started leaving raw meat and bones outside overnight in specific patterns. And he'd go into the woods for hours and come back with his hands covered in dirt or blood. He'd never say where he'd been or what he'd been doing.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s really weird.”

“After the last time they saw him, they didn’t hear from him again,” Jesse went on. “They didn’t think anything of it at first, because like I said, he had a habit of disappearing every so often. But then the Lodge was raided after a tip-off to the police, and they found his body along with all the others.”

“What exactly happened to them?” I asked, brows rising. “I heard the cops never released that information to the public.”

He nodded. “That’s right, they didn’t. And honestly, I have no idea what happened to the other six victims. Only James,” he said. He paused to lower his voice. “He was found nailed to a tree with stuff carved into his skin. Symbols from that book Strake wrote.”

“Oh my god.” Wren’s face scrunched up. “That’s horrible.”

“Grandpa said one of the cops claimed it was a spell that Strake used to give himself the power to turn invisible. That’s supposedly how he escaped. He waited for the cops to open his cell once they realized he wasn’t in it anymore, and then he walked right past them through the open door, because none of them could see him.”

Tamsin snorted. “What a crock of shit.”

“Yeah, I think we all know what really happened,” Jasmine said, rolling her eyes. “One of the cops was incompetent and didn’t lock the cell properly.”

“Yeah, no shit. But it’s a good story, right?” Jesse said. “I mean… apart from the bit where one of my relatives was murdered.”

“Ooh, so maybeyou’rethe Woodsman,” Wren said, making spooky gestures at him with her fingers. “You roam the woods every night, looking for any descendants of Strake so you can finally have your revenge.”

Jesse lifted his palms in mock surrender. “Damn, you got me.”

“Did he have any descendants?” I asked, cocking my head. “Strake, that is.”

“Not that anyone’s aware of,” Jasmine replied. “But no one knows where he went or what he got up to after he escaped custody, so who knows?”

“Now there’s a creepy thought,” Wren said with a theatrical shiver. “He could’ve had a whole bunch of kids somewhere and kept the cult going through them.”

Jasmine shrugged. “I doubt it. Raising kids while you’re on the run would be way too hard.”

“Hey, you never know,” Wren said, lifting a brow.

I leaned forward again. “Do you know where the Lodge was?” I asked.

“Where the staff offices are now,” Jesse replied. “But it was totally demolished back in the day. All that’s left is old photos.”

“Which you have, apparently,” Wren said, playfully elbowing him. “I still can’t believe you didn’t tell us about this before!”

“Honestly, I forgot all about it until Alissa mentioned it.”

“Um,how?”

“Let’s just say my grandpa wasn’t the only one who drank too much that night,” Jesse replied, grinning. “I was—”

His sentence was cut off by Sutton’s arrival at our table. “Sorry to interrupt, guys,” she said, not sounding remotely sorry. “Have any of you seen Piper?”

We all shook our heads.

“Wasn’t she in bed all day nursing a hangover?” Jasmine asked.

“Yeah, she—” Sutton abruptly cut herself off, voice turning haughty. “I mean,no, she had period cramps. Like I said this morning.”

Tamsin and Wren quietly snickered.

“Anyway,” Sutton went on. “I thought she’d come out for dinner, but she didn’t, so Grace and I went to check her cabin,and she’s not there. We can’t find her anywhere, and she’s not answering her phone or replying to texts.”

Jasmine raised a brow. “Maybe she drove to Millhaven to get some painkillers for her cramps?”