Page 24 of Hide and Seek
He stopped those guys from hurting and possibly killing me. But why? That’s the part I can’t wrap my head around, and maybe looking through the reports will help me figure that out.
Thanks to the time differences between where we live, both Echo and Cipher are offline, and a pang of guilt mixes with my relief. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to them about this; I just don’t know how to without putting them in danger. I have no idea how far the people after me will go to hurt me or try to manipulate me, and my friends don’t have any of the same protections my family and I do.
I also have no idea how I’m supposed to tell them that instead of being terrified when I watched a guy who’s probably been stalking me effortlessly beat the shit out of three guys, I was almost awestruck by him. Or that I popped wood when he threw a knife to disarm that guy with the gun like some sort of secret agent. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I got even more happy in the pants when he helped me up and told me to get out of there.
How the fuck am I supposed to explainthatto my friends without them thinking I’ve gone completely off the rails? I can’t, and it’s easier to just avoid them than it is to lie or pretend everything is fine. They know me, and they’d see through me in an instant.
It doesn’t take long to get into the school’s security system, and even less time to find the file about the attack.
My heart rate speeds up as I open it but relaxes when I see that the three guys who attacked me aren’t dead. It’s counterintuitive to be glad that they’re still alive and could theoretically come after me again, but the thought of them being killed doesn’t sit right with me.
Not because I don’t think they deserve it, but because I don’t like the idea of my hooded friend being responsible for their deaths. My concern isn’t for any moral or altruistic reasons, like I don’t want that on his conscious or I don’t like the idea of someone killing for me. It’s because I don’t want that hanging over his head.
A lot of fucked-up shit happens at this school, and theft, destruction of property, drug and weapons offenses, and beatings are routinely swept under the rug. And even more serious things like murder, torture, and extortion happen, and no one bats an eye.
My hooded friend wouldn’t necessarily get in trouble if he had killed those guys, but depending on who they are and who he is, there’s a chance he could, and as messed up as it is, I don’t want that.
Pushing those thoughts out of my head, I focus on the report. My chest tightens when I see that all three assailants are junior members of the Kings, but some of my tension eases when I read that they all told campus LEO that they were attacked while dealing with some house business. They didn’t say what the business was, and based on the rest of the report, it doesn’t seemlike anyone is all that eager to get answers. And I don’t have to worry about them until the new semester starts since the school sent them home to recover.
There’s almost no mention of my hooded friend other than he was there and beat the shit out of them, and there’s a note at the end of the file that says unless another victim comes forward, the case is considered dealt with.
That’s good news, sort of. It doesn’t give me any real answers because I already assumed they were Kings, but at least I don’t have to worry about being ambushed by campus law enforcement.
Making sure to cover any tracks I might have left, I leave the school’s system and lean back in my chair.
I’m really no closer to figuring out what’s going on now than I was before I looked at the report. The only thing I know for sure is that the Kings are involved in it, but I already suspected they were. I’m tempted to break into their system and poke around, but there’s no point.
The Kings’ cybersecurity is good, but it’s not nearly as good as it could be, and that’s part of what got me into this mess in the first place.
I’ve been in it dozens of times, both before and after Jacob started blackmailing me, and I’ve mapped out every inch of it. I know where they store their most secret documents and files, and pretty much everything else I felt like looking up.
The only thing I’ve never been able to find is anything related to me or Jacob Fisher. The only information I found is that he was hired last summer to be part of the house maintenance crew. Everything else I’ve learned came from digging around and following breadcrumbs outside of the school.
Even with the info I was able to suss out, I still can’t make sense of what’s going on. On paper, Jacob was a regular guy who got a job at a fancy school and ended up dead, but the storychanges the deeper I dig because Jacob Fisher didn’t even exist until a year ago.
I’ve done everything I can think of to figure out who he really is, but I keep coming up empty-handed.
The other man involved in blackmailing me definitely existed, but I can’t find any connection between him and Jacob, or him and the Kings. His connection to the student I was forced to try to help him kill is as obvious as why he did it, but that’s where all of this stops making sense.
Another prickle of unease moves through me, and a shiver dances up my spine. That feeling of being watched is getting stronger, but is that because someone isactuallywatching me or because I’m so paranoid about everything else going on that it just feels like someone is?
I haven’t seen even a trace of my hooded friend since he saved me, and a part of me is legit worried that he isn’t watching me anymore. That whatever happened a few nights ago was enough for him to be like,Yeah, I’m out, and I’ll have to deal with whatever the fuck is going on alone.
The fact that I’m even thinking like this at all is fucked up. I’m upset that my maybe stalker might not be stalking me anymore and won’t be there to potentially save me again if something else happens.
How sad is it that the only person in the world I feel even remotely safe around right now is someone who is an objectively dangerous person? Why the hell am I hoping my stalker is real and that he’ll protect me like some sort of antihero instead of being freaked out by the fact that I might have a stalker in the first place?
A green light on my screen catches my attention, and I reflexively set my status to offline. Guilt churns in my gut as a message from Echo pops up in our chat window.
Echo: Did I miss you? Are you still around?
Echo: I just need proof of life
She adds some praying hands to her message.
Echo: you only go dark like this when you have shit going on and I’m worried about you
The line of hearts she adds to her message makes my heart ache.
