The girl Hazel is terrified to hope for.
And Cameron…
Fuck. Cameron.
I swallow the memories down—the laughter, the fights, the stupid bets, the way he’d kick the back of my chair in every class he had, just to piss me off. The way he’d drag me out of my own head when I spiraled. The way he said,“If anything ever happens to me, you find Leyla and keep her safe. Hazel, too. You don’t leave them.”
Hazel doesn’t know that part. She doesn’t know how deep all of this goes.
Not yet.
“Hazel,” I say, my voice low. “There’s nothing stupid about this. That message came from her number. Leyla’s. Nobody else ever used her codes. Nobody elsecould.And the photos were taken the exact way Cameron used to track his targets. The angles. The timing. The pattern.”
Her breath catches.
“And if it’s not them?” she whispers.
“Then someone took them,” I say. “Someone knew we were looking. Someone wants this buried.”
A chill crawls up Hazel’s spine, and she steps closer without realizing it.
“Zack…who do you think was in the woods?”
My pulse spikes. The forest feels like it’s inhaling.
“I think,” I answer slowly, “that whoever took Cameron and Leyla is watching us now. I think they’ve been watching since the moment we started asking questions.”
Her lips part, panic flashing across her face.
“And they followed us?”
“They don’t need to follow,” I explain. “They already know where we’re going. They know who we care about. And that makes you a target now.”
Hazel’s breath stutters. “So, what do we do?”
The question hits harder than it should, probably because I’ve been asking myself the same damn thing for months with no answer that doesn’t end in blood shed.
I start pacing, restless, wired, ready to punch through a tree if it means I can think straight. “Hazel, if I take you somewhere safe, hidden, underground?—”
“No.”
“Yes,” I snap.
“No!” she fires back, stepping toward me with a fierceness that shocks even her. “I’m not letting you run off alone. I’m not sitting in a hole while you chase ghosts and get yourself killed! Leyla is my best friend, Zack. My family. You think I’m going to hide while she’s out there somewhere?”
My breath catches.
She’s shaking, but she doesn’t back down.
“Hazel,” I murmur, “this is different. This isn’t a missing person case. This is…whatever took them—whatever killed their story—these people don’t leave loose ends.”
Her eyes shine with something raw. “Then we don’t let them erase them.”
I stare at her for a long moment. Longer than I should.
“You’re in this,” I finally say. “Whether I want you here or not.”
Her chin lifts. “Yeah. I’m in it.”
