Page 114 of Hide From Me

“Well fuckinglook harder!” Cordelia snaps, her voice like ice cracking through the room. Her stare burns into the side of Laura’s face, sharp enough to draw blood if it could.

Sam’s gaze shifts to Jasmine—just a glance—and it shatters her. She crumples, falling to her knees, face buried in her hands. Sam doesn’t hesitate. He crawls to her, blood smearing beneath him as he pulls her close, trying to steady her even as everything’s falling apart.

Andme?

I just curl in on myself. My arms wrapped tight around my stomach like I can hold in the scream clawing up my throat.

Why are they all going still?My head jerks around the room, searching for the next burst of chaos, the next sound, the next proof that this isn’t really happening. But the only movement is Laura’s—precise, focused, hands working like this is just another day at the job.

Maybe… maybe he didn’t lie about who he is. Maybe this—this wreckage—is who he is without the mask. And that’s what I saw. The real man.And God help me, that’s the thing I cling to, the one thing keeping me from breaking entirely. Because there’s no way someone truly evil leaves this kind of gaping hole in so many people.

The sound of the chopper blades starts up outside—a loud, rhythmic wheeling that grows closer, louder. But it’s like I’ve gone numb. All I can do is replay every crooked grin, every whispered promise, every stupid little thing that built this love I can’t stop feeling.

How am I supposed to walk into the diner and not expect to smell pancakes? How am I supposed to look at my car without hearing him bitch about what a piece of shit it is? How am I supposed to go home and not feel the ghost of him in every room?

I was right to call him my monster because he’s created a nightmare around me.

“Come on, Ray! Wake up—we gotta go if you want to be with him!” a voice yells, sharp and urgent, slicing through the fog like a blade.

The words barely register before adrenaline jolts through me like lightning. I gasp, sitting bolt upright. My heart punches against my ribs, wild and too fast, like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest. My limbs feel like dead weight, and my head spins with a nauseating twist. The room tilts—off-balance, off-center—and I suck in air like I’ve been drowning.

There’s light. Too much of it. A penlight flares in my eyes, white-hot and blinding, and I flinch, blinking hard as my vision struggles to keep up. My cheeks are wet, streaked with tears I don’t remember crying.

“I swear to fucking God, if something happens to him, I’ll kill you myself!” Caspian’s voice slams into me, more brutal than the light. It’s not the calm, sardonic Caspian I’ve come to expect. This is raw. Unhinged. A cornered animal with blood on its claws and nothing left to lose.

“I didn’t know the kid would pull a stunt like that!” someone fires back, voice raised in defense, brittle and fraying. It takes me a second to recognize it—Jonathan. But before I can make sense of what he’s even doing here, Laura cuts through the noise like a lifeline.

“Raylen—you’re in shock.” She’s crouched in front of me, her face inches from mine, eyes hard with urgency but soft with something that feels like care. “You passed out. I’ve stabilized him for now, but if you’re coming, wehaveto move—now.”

I blink at her, stunned. Stabilized. Passed out.Coming.That means—

Moe.

Moe!

Everything slams back into me in a rush—his blood, his hands reaching for me, the things he said, the way he collapsed. I let out a small, fractured sound that I don’t even recognize as mine and try to stand, but my knees nearly buckle.

Her hands are under my arms in an instant, trying to lift me up.

“The kid?” Caspian’s voice turns, and something in it goes lethal. The grief is still there, yes, but it’s buried under steel now. Something cold. Final. “Try saying yourfuckingkid.”

His voice echoes like a gunshot, causing the entire room to go still. Even the dull thump of the chopper outside seems to stall—like the world holds its breath for this moment.

Jonathan stops mid-step, the blood draining from his face so fast it looks like his soul is trying to retreat. His mouth opens—but no words come. He stares at Caspian, stunned, blinking like he heard the words but hasn’t fully absorbed them yet.

“What…?” he says finally, low and cracking. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Caspian doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t blink. He’s still drenched in Moe’s blood—his hands stained, his clothes soaked, the front of his shirt glued to his chest with red. He looks like a man who’s been carved in war and reassembled with only rage.

“Yourkid,” he spits, stalking forward, barely restraining himself. “The son you didn’t know you had. The one who nearly died—died, Jonathan—trying to live up to the name younevergave him.”

Jonathan takes a step back like the words physically hit him. He’s shaking his head now, repeating “no” under his breath like denial might rewrite the past. “No. That’s—no, that’s not possible. Caspian, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Ido,” Caspian snarls. “I’ve watched that boy break himself over a legacy he thought he had to carry. I’ve watched him dig his fingers into the dirt of everymistake our family ever made, thinking it was all he came from. He nearly bled out trying to prove he wasmore.”

“Move!” Laura’s voice cuts in sharp and loud, shoving the moment forward before it can explode.

Caspian grabs Moe’s upper body, Sam lifts his legs, and together they move—quick, careful, desperate. Moe’s head lolls back, his face pale as marble, lips parted, a smear of dried blood running from the corner of his mouth.

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