PART TWO
TIME CATCHES UP
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NAMELESS
HAZEL
The night has a way of swallowing sound out here, like the darkness itself is listening, absorbing every breath we dare to take and every fear we don’t speak aloud. When Zack kills the engine of the motorcycle and the vibrating metal beneath us finally goes still, the quiet feels almost unnatural—too deep to be anything but deliberate. We’re miles away from the Airbnb, from the soft yellow porch light we left flickering over the gravel driveway, from my car that sits abandoned like an accusation we don’t have the luxury of answering. Out here, with nothing but endless trees and a thin ribbon of road stretching off into shadows, it feels as if the world has narrowed down to just him, me, and the unspoken truth hovering between us.
I slide off the back of the bike, my legs trembling slightly—not just from the ride or the cold biting at my skin, but from the lingering shock of that message. The one that tore a hole through the fragile little bubble of normalcy we were pretending stillexisted. The dirt beneath my boots shifts as I steady myself, and I notice how even the wind seems hesitant, brushing through the branches with a restrained, whispering caution.
Zack pulls off his helmet slowly—almost reverently—as if the motion requires more care than it should. His hair falls slightly into his eyes, and the moonlight catches on the lines of ink crawling up his arms and neck—tattoos that make him look like he carries constellations of old pain across his skin. He doesn’t speak immediately, which is somehow worse than if he’d barked an order or snapped at me. Silence from Zack is like a warning siren—subtle, but unmistakable.
“Hazel,” he finally says. My name leaves his mouth in a voice that’s low and threaded with an exhaustion I’ve never quite heard from him before. “We need to talk.”
The words settle with a heavy finality in the small space between us. Of course, we need to talk. I’ve been holding a thousand questions inside me since we fled the Airbnb, since he practically dragged me onto the motorcycle, since he left my car behind without even giving me time to process what that meant.
“That’s an understatement,” I say, trying and failing to keep the tremor out of my voice. “We should absolutely talk—preferably about why someone sent us pictures of the Airbnb and of the road outside it, and ofus, and why you acted like the world was ending the moment you saw them.”
He doesn’t flinch at my sharpness, which only makes the dread twisting inside me coil tighter. His eyes flick over the tree line, scanning the darkness, as if expecting it to peel itself open and reveal a threat at any second. “We didn’t run for no reason.”
“Then tell me why,” I push, stepping closer, feeling the cold seep into my bones. “Tell me what we’re running from.”
Zack swallows once, a visible movement under the moonlight, and when he finally meets my eyes, something raw flickers in his. “We’re getting too close.”
The words hit me like a physical shove. “Too close to what?”
“Too close to the truth,” he says, the syllables slow and heavy, each one anchoring deeper into the pit of my stomach. “About Leyla and Cameron.”
“We were told they were dead,” I whisper, as if saying it too loudly might summon something neither of us want to see. I know we’ve already had this conversation, but part of me is almost wanting to believe that they’re gone.
“We were,” Zack agrees. His voice is steady, but beneath the surface there’s a tension so sharp it might cut open every lie we’ve been fed. “The official story was airtight. In my opinion, too airtight. Every report lined up perfectly. Every timeline matched. Every contact insisted on the same thing.”
He shakes his head, looking away toward the dark horizon as his breath fogs in the air. “But nothing about it feltreal. Nothing about it felt like them. Even though now we’ve read Cameron’s journal, it really doesn’t fucking add up.”
“And now?” I press.
“And now,” he says, turning back to me with a gaze that flickers like a storm about to break, “I’m really starting to believe they never died at all. I don’t think they’re even faking their own death. I think they were taken.”
The ground seems to sway beneath me, as if the earth itself is reacting. “Because of the message.”
“Yes.” His voice is more certain now. “Because that number hasn’t been used by anyone else. Because those pictures were taken by someone who knew exactly how Cameron used to track his targets—same angles, same habits, the same attention to detail that made him impossible to hide from.”
“And if it isn’t them?” My whisper barely makes it past the cold. “If someone else used her number…if someone is trying to get us to stop looking?—”
“Then we’re already in danger,” he finishes for me, his tone quiet and devastatingly calm. “Because either way, someone knows we’re chasing the truth. And that someone wants us off the trail.”
A rustle of movement shivers through the trees. Not the aimless brush of wind—something heavier, more deliberate, a weight shifting between branches.
I stiffen, instinctively stepping closer to Zack, as if proximity could make the fear less sharp. He notices. His expression goes tight, calculating, eyes scanning the shadows with the precision of someone who has been hunted before.
“Zack…” I barely breathe the word.
“I need you to put your helmet back on,” he says softly, without looking away from the trees.
“Why?” My fingers, already numb with adrenaline, move toward the helmet, putting it on as I look at him with pure fear in my eyes.
