Page 113 of Hide and Seek
“Yeah. What else did he say?”
“Not much. After he asked about that Jacob guy, he said you told him about some deepfakes you were looking for and asked again if you’d said anything about them. Then he told me not to tell you he asked because he was worried you’d be angry at him for mentioning any of this to me.”
I sit there, stunned, trying to process everything she just said.
“What the hell is going on?” she asks, her voice tight and full of distress.
“I don’t know?—”
The room is plunged into darkness as the lights and my computer both blink off at the same instant.
“Echo?” I ask, looking around the nearly pitch-black room. Was there a power failure? “Are you there?”
The silence on the other end of the line is expected, and I pull my headphones off and grope on my desk for my phone.
I closed my curtains since Jax was going to be away for the weekend, and there’s almost no ambient light in the room.
My hand closes around my phone, and I turn on the flashlight. Now that I can see, I make my way over to my window and pull back the curtain.
Just as I’m expecting, the lights around Boone House are dark, so whatever happened to the power didn’t just affect the building, but the entire system.
I’m just turning away from the window when I hear something strange. Like a key being slipped into a lock.
My lock.
The soft clink of a metal on metal follows, then the doorknob twists.
My blood turns to ice water in my veins as I stare at my door in horror, too terrified to do more than stand there as I’m paralyzed with fear.
That’s not Jax. He’d never turn the power off in the whole building just to sneak into my room. He’s all about stealth and surprise. And he’d never use a key, either, especially for the original lock and not for the new one he installed.
Whoever is trying to break into my room doesn’t know about the upgraded lock Jax installed, which means they’re not anyone I want to be alone in the dark with.
Finally breaking free of my ice sculpture impression, I unlock my phone and open my contacts, but pause, my thumb hovering over the screen. Who the hell am I going to text? Jax and Jace left to go take care of some business with their dad hours ago. Xave, Killian, and Felix are still on campus, but Killian and Xaveare busy with frat business tonight, and Felix is hanging out with his best friend.
Hastily, I pull up Killian’s contact, but my hesitation cost me precious seconds, and I’ve only managed to type a few letters when my door is forced open with a resounding crash.
It’s too dark to see more than shadows and shapes as figures stream into my room, but based on the sheer number of heavy footsteps, there are a lot of them, and they’re moving fast and with purpose.
I still have the flashlight on my camera on, and the thin beam of light lands on a man dressed all in black with what looks like tactical gear on, including night vision goggles, rushing toward me.
My mind stutters and skips like the old CD player my parents used to have in their ancient van when I was a kid as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.
Out of pure instinct, I raise the flashlight and illuminate his face as he closes in on me.
“Aaaaaargh!” He falls to his knees and tears off his goggles so he can cover his eyes with gloved hands.
My relief at having a way to fight back is short-lived as a guy in the same all-black clothes and tactical gear, but with his goggles down and bouncing around his neck, seems to almost melt out of the darkness and smashes into me.
The impact is enough to throw me into my dresser, and I hit it hard, the breath whooshing from my lungs as I tumble to the floor and land in a heap on the smooth wood.
My phone falls from my hand and skitters across the floor as pieces of my chess set rain down on me, the delicate glass shattering and breaking as they hit the floor.
My phone landed face up, and the loss of the only source of light in the room is almost as disorienting and terrifying ashaving the wind knocked out of me by masked men in tactical gear.
I lay on the ground, stunned and gasping as I desperately try to draw in a full breath as they surround me. It’s so dark I can only see the black outlines of their bodies against the nearly black of the room, and panic claws at my tight chest as several of them grab me.
I’m still too winded to fight back as they haul me to my feet and roughly shove me between them like they’re playing a game of keep away with me. I stumble and trip as they manhandle me, but my mind goes absolutely blank with terror when one of them puts a plastic gag in my mouth and snaps a band around my head to secure it in place. Seconds later, something slides over my face and head.
