Page 39 of Hide And Seek

Grace hesitated. “Yeah. Maybe,” she said, though she didn’t sound entirely convinced. “I’ll go check.”

She turned and headed off, silhouette slipping in and out of the shadows as she moved beyond the circle of firelight.

For the next few minutes, our conversation picked back up, until it was abruptly cut off by a scream full of raw, unfiltered terror.

Everything stopped for a second. Then the entire group jumped to their feet at once.

“That was Grace!” someone said, unnecessarily.

We were already running.

Twigs loudly snapped underfoot as we cut across the clearing and into the darker stretch of ground beyond, heading down the path that led toward the Snack Shed.

It finally came into view, and in the moonlight, we could see Grace standing just outside it. Or rather, she was trying to stand. One hand was clamped over her mouth, and her whole body was folded in on itself as if she might collapse at any second.

“What happened?” Olivia demanded, skidding to a stop beside her. “Are you okay?”

Grace didn’t answer. She just lifted a shaky hand and pointed.

I followed the direction of it, my gaze dragging slowly toward the side of the shed. That was when I saw her.

Delia.

For a second, my brain refused to process what I was looking at, the image too wrong to make sense of all at once. She was upright, her back against the wooden boards, her head tilted slightly to one side.

Then my eyes found the shaft.

A harpoon had been driven clean through her torso and into the wood behind her, pinning her there like a mounted trophy animal. Blood had soaked through the front of her shirt and spread outward, dripping slowly down the wall and pooling at her feet.

In that moment, any lingering doubts I’d had disappeared completely.

This wasn’t just a sick prank.

There was a killer at Camp Blackpine.

10

Everyone wassilent and motionless for a moment.

The scene in front of us was too gruesome, too terrifying, toofinalto properly process. Then someone finally screamed, and the spell shattered.

More screams followed. Someone stumbled backward into the person behind them in their desperation to get away from the sight of Delia pinned to the wall, and somewhere to my left, somebody started retching.

I didn't move.

My mind had detached itself from the panic unfolding around me and slipped into something colder instead; a quiet, clinical part of me that couldn't stop observing.

The position of Delia's body. The trajectory of the harpoon. The angle of impact. The rope pooling on the ground nearby.

My brain catalogued every detail automatically, journalistic instincts kicking in like a strange protective mechanism. I knew the horror of it would catch up to me eventually, as the shock wore off and the reality of what I was looking at sank in. But for now, I kept observing. I justhadto.

“Still think this is a fucking prank?”

The voice cut through the screaming with enough force to turn heads. It was Garrett, and he was looking directly at Rhys, eyes bright with fury.

“Huh?” he said, louder, stepping forward. “You want to tell us this is just corn syrup? Want to lick something and tell us it's fine?”

“Nobody said it was fine,” Rhys said in a stony voice.