Page 55 of Hide and Seek
One thing I will give Myles is that he figured out my clues way faster than I thought he would. It’s been two days, and he found the cameras in the statue and the puzzle within about ten minutes of each other. And that means I’ve been looking at two blocked camera feeds for hours.
Not being able to see him is frustrating, but it’s telling that he only covered the cameras and didn’t get rid of them.
After he found them, I watched in real time as he packed up a gym bag and raced out of his room. Knowing he’d be gone for a while, I made a quick trip over to Boone House and moved another chess piece on his board.
I didn’t touch the cameras or anything else in his room, just the chess piece. I know he found it because I was watching through the window when he came back to his room after his workout, and his reaction was everything I hoped it would be.
He’d barely closed the door behind him when his gaze locked on the chessboard. Instead of freaking out, he marched across the room to inspect it, and I couldn’t stop my smile as he picked up the piece and looked at it like he was waiting for it to come to life and tell him what happened.
After a few seconds of having a staring contest with the piece, he put it back in the spot I moved it to and stared at the boardfor about a minute, his expression shifting from surprised to pleased to confused before finally settling on determined as he moved one of the black pieces in a counter move.
The little smile he gave the board, and the triumphant nod that looked like he was sayingGame on, fucker,told me everything I need to know.
He wants to keep playing too.
I finish skimming the article in front of me and close my tablet down. Just like every other article or source I’ve read over the past few days, there’s nothing new in it.
I probably should try to catch up with Jace and take a break from my sleuthing, but I’m not in the mood to hang out with Xave right now. He’s my cousin, and I’d take a bullet for him, but he and Jace together are a lot. They play off each other, and they love to hype each other up and act like morons. Usually I just let them do their thing and laugh at whatever they fuck up, but I’m not in the right headspace to deal with that tonight.
I could go climbing. It’s almost eleven, so the woods would be pitch dark, but that’s never stopped me before when I’ve gotten the urge to climb at night.
But that isn’t a good idea either because the cliffs are close to Boone House, and I’d just end up in Myles's tree and watching through the window.
Sometimes I wish I were more like my brother and didn’t keep such a tight lid on myself. I don’t hook up because before Myles, no one at school could offer me even a taste of what I wanted, and putting in the effort to have mediocre sex with some debutante who wants me to play the part of the gentle suitor who coaxes her into giving it up is about as much of a turn-on as jerking off with a handful of glass.
Jace, on the other hand, has no problems playing whatever part people want him to. He sees it as a challenge, and he’s perfected his game to the point where he has just as muchsuccess convincing the straightest of straight guys to drop to their knees or bend over for him as he does getting girls to happily do the same.
And when he isn’t being a fuckboy, my brother gives zero fucks about pretty much anything and does whatever the hell he wants.
Our mom once said that I’m the calm to Jace’s chaos, and we’re two halves of the same soul that was put in different bodies. Most people wouldn’t understand what she meant, but Jace and I have known that’s the case since we were toddlers, and her confirming it was the same as her telling us that we have gray eyes or that we’re still twins if we have different hairstyles. As an identical twin herself, she understands us on a level that others can’t, and she and our dad never once tried to separate us. Not even when pretty much everyone in their lives was telling them we’re codependent, and they were enabling us by not forcing us to be independent from each other.
Sometimes I hate being the calm one, but it’s necessary because, unlike my brother, I can’t regulate myself. Once I give in to that side of myself, I’m all in, and the results are never pretty.
Blowing out a frustrated sigh, I toss my tablet onto my bed and stand. My back is tight from being hunched over and reading for the last hour, and I take a second to raise my arms above my head and stretch.
When everything feels nice and loose, I drop my arms and scrub my hand through my hair so I can flip the long strands over to the side.
Fuck it. I’m going to drive myself crazy if I stay in this room much longer. I need to move and stretch my legs, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, I also need to see Myles.
I’ll head over to Boone House, see what he’s up to, then go for a walk or go to the cliffs. Hopefully that will help me calmthe fuck down and stop obsessing about a guy who’s supposed to mean nothing to me.
I’m just grabbing my sweater when my phone pings with a notification. The alert is distinct, and I’m way too eager as I pull my phone out of my pocket and open the app that controls the cameras in Myles’s room. Both of the cameras I planted have motion sensors in them, and I turned them on after he covered the feeds so I’d know when he uncovers them.
The camera in his statue isn’t facing the wall anymore, and I watch intently as he carries it over to his bed and sits on the edge, holding it so the camera is facing him.
“Hello?” he asks, his expression a mix of shyness and apprehension that tickles something deep in my chest. “Can you hear me through this?”
Even though I know it’s a bad idea, I tap the panic button on the screen. It sounds dramatic, but all the button does is cause a little flash of red light to appear in a tiny hole in the bottom corner of the camera shell. It’s there to communicate when speaking would be too dangerous or isn’t feasible, but it works the same when nothing’s wrong.
“Was that you?” he asks, his face lighting up before settling back into one of caution.
I tap the button again.
“Can you talk through it?” he asks tentatively. “I saw the specs, and there’s a two-way microphone in this model.” He bites his lip. “I think I figured out the clue with the clock, but I’m not sure.”
I’m already crossing the room to sit at my desk before he finishes his sentence. It takes a few seconds to get the program running and get my headphones on, then I turn on the outgoing microphone.
“What did you figure out?” I ask.
