“Because we are not alone out here,” he murmurs, the words a cold exhale against the night, “and I don’t want you to see whoever is watching.”
The sound comes again—closer this time, and unmistakably human. My pulse spikes. His back tenses, but in a single moment, everything changes.
Zack swings his leg over the motorcycle with a fluid urgency, starting the engine in a burst of noise that shatters the silence like a warning shot. I scramble on behind him, my arms locking around his waist, my cheek pressed against the rough fabric of his jacket.
He looks back at me once, his eyes fierce and bright in the darkness.
“We’re going to keep looking,” he says, his voice steady despite the fear threading the air around us. “Because if Leylaand Cameron are out there—alive—we’re the only ones who won’t stop until we find them.”
My breath hitches, the chill of the night seeping deeper than any cold this spring day could begin to give us. “And the people watching us?” I ask.
“We can’t let them get to us first.”
Then he twists the throttle and the motorcycle lunges forward, kicking dirt behind us as the night stretches open and swallows us whole. The world narrows to speed, wind, and the unshakeable certainty that whatever moves in the darkness behind us does not want us finding the truth.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I FOUND
ZACK
The forest swallows the road behind us, erasing it like a secret we were never meant to remember. The motorcycle engine dies beneath me in a slow, rumbling shudder, leaving behind a silence so thick it sinks into my skin. Out here, away from the city—away from the glow of Hazel’s abandoned car at that damn Airbnb—the night feels predatory. Alive. Watching.
Hazel slips off the back of the bike. Her legs tremble—not just from the ride, but from everything we’ve outrun in the past hour. The pictures. The message. The figure in the trees. The truth we’re closer to than anyone wants us to be. I don’t quite know what I was thinking. I was jealous and petty, and now I’ve dragged her into my mess.
Her best friend.
Leyla.
My best friend.
Cameron.
Two ghosts the world swears are dead. Two people Hazel and I refuse to bury. Two names that shouldn’t be lighting up phones, or sending encrypted messages, or pulling us deeper into the kind of danger you don’t walk away from.
Hazel takes off her helmet, exposing her hair that matted against itself. She puts it into a bun, shaking her head. She looks terrified. Angry at herself for it. And too goddamn brave for someone thrown into the dark with me.
I should tell her to run. Honestly, I should’ve told her that before any of this.
But she’s here now. There’s no “before” that’s left. I brought her into this mess, and the sooner I figure that out the better.
“You okay?” I ask.
She lets out a breathy, bitter laugh. “Define okay.”
I don’t. I can’t. There’s no version of okay left for either of us.
I scan the tree line. Shadows stretch between the trunks like tendrils trying to reach us. I swear I can feel eyes on my back—the same way I felt them when that branch snapped earlier. Whoever stood in the dark was watching us, but they didn’t follow because they didn’t need to. People like that only move when they’re ready to strike, and I think they got their point across.
“Zack,” Hazel says gently, pulling my attention back to her, “what if we’re being stupid? What if we’re risking our lives over a glitch? A prank? A number that shouldn’t exist anymore?”
Her voice breaks around the edges of Leyla’s name without saying it.
Leyla, the girl who braided flowers into Hazel’s hair at beach bonfires.
Leyla, the girl who once showed up at Hazel’s door at 2:00 a.m. with snacks and glitter because “sadness is allergic to sparkles.”
Leyla, the girl Hazel cried for when the report came through.
