Chapter 27
Rhys turned and crossed the room before dragging one of the chairs away from the table. He spun it around and sat astride it a couple of feet from me, forearms resting across the back as he studied me.
“It’s a long story,” he said, one brow lifting slightly. “You don’t have anywhere else you need to be right now, do you?”
“Don’t be an asshole,” I said in a low voice. “Just tell me what you know.”
For once, he didn’t answer immediately. Instead he hesitated, gaze drifting briefly toward the window like he was trying to figure out where the story actually started.
“I knew something was off with the other Legacies after last summer,” he finally said. “They were all acting weird. At first I figured they were just shaken up, which seemed fair enough considering a twelve-year-old girl drowned here. But after a while I realized it was more than grief or shock.”
“How?”
He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “You know the camp group chat?”
“The Legacy-only one, you mean?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “That chat used to be nonstop. It was basically the main way we all stayed in touch during the off-season. People sent memes, made plans, posted pictures, bitched about classes, drunk-texted at three in the morning. Whatever. There were probably thirty or forty messages a day in there.”
“And that changed?”
“Yeah. Suddenly there were barely any messages.” His brows furrowed. “Not dead silence, but enough that it stood out. Maybe three or four messages a day. Sometimes less. And it stayed like that for months.”
I nodded slowly.
“The people I was closest to still talked to me one-on-one, so I didn’t think I was being iced out of the group,” Rhys continued.
“I figured maybe everyone was just busy, seeing as most of us were in our final year at college. But then one day I was hanging out with some of the guys, and I happened to glance at Knox’s phone screen. ”
He paused, mouth flattening slightly.
“That’s when I saw another group chat I wasn’t part of,” he said. “Blackpine 2.0.”
I raised a brow. “So you were being iced out.”
“That’s what it looked like,” he said. “Except none of them actually seemed to have a problem with me. Nobody was acting hostile. And it hadn’t escaped my attention that this weird shit only started after that night.”
“The night Carly died.”
Rhys nodded. “Yeah. So I knew their weird behavior had something to do with that. Not me.”
“And you’re not exactly the type to let something go once it gets under your skin,” I muttered, eyes rolling upward. “Ask me how I know.”
A faint smirk tugged at his mouth. “I needed access to one of their phones for longer than thirty seconds,” he said. “So I went with the easiest option and asked Sutton out to dinner.”
“Why her?” I asked, brows dipping in a slight frown.
“Because she’s wanted me for as long as I can remember,” he said bluntly. “I knew she’d jump at the chance.”
“So you never actually dated her before?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
“No,” he said. Then one brow lifted. “But why do you care?”
“I don’t,” I mumbled, waving a dismissive hand. “Go on.”
His smirk deepened slightly, like he knew perfectly well I was lying.
“I picked a restaurant where we were guaranteed to run into people we knew. That way she’d get distracted talking,” he said. “When some mutual friends stopped at the table, I excused myself to the bathroom and took her phone with me. Then I cloned it onto another device.”
I frowned. “Doesn’t that take a while?”
“About ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”
“And she didn’t notice her phone was missing for any of that?”
“Oh, she noticed, and I figured she would. So when I got back, I handed it right to her and told her I’d accidentally grabbed it off the table thinking it was mine. She had no reason to suspect I was lying.”
I nodded slowly. “So after that, you had access to the new chat.”
“Yup. Every single message.”
“And that’s how you found out what they did to Carly?”
“No.” He shook his head. “They never outright said it, because they didn’t have to. Everybody in that chat was there that night, so they all knew what happened.”
“Oh. Right.”
His expression darkened, and he went on.
“Still, it was obvious that the chat existed because of Carly. Her name came up constantly, and there were all these comments about ‘sticking to the pact’, ‘having each other’s backs’ and ‘staying strong’.
Also, people would freak out every now and then and start spiraling about whether somebody knew something.
” He paused briefly. “There was a bit of guilt in there too. Zach made more than a few comments about wanting to turn himself in, but the others always talked him down.”
I felt my stomach tighten. “So even if they never explicitly stated it, you knew they had something to do with what happened to Carly that night.”
“Yeah. After that, it was just a matter of figuring out the easiest one to crack,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “It was a tossup between Grace, Delia, and Genevieve, because the three of them were always pretty emotionally fragile. But I went with Gen in the end, because she always liked hiking.”
“What does hiking have to do with it?”
Rhys didn’t reply for a minute. He just pulled out his phone and started tapping on the screen.
“My family has a vacation house up in the Hudson Highlands. Really close to Storm King Mountain,” he finally said.
“I told Gen I was staying up there for a few days and suggested she drive up to meet me at one of the trails.”
“Um… okay?” I said, still not having any clue as to why he was talking about this.
He tapped something on his phone again. Then he handed it to me. “Press play.”
A still frame filled the screen. A mountain trail. Green pines. A timestamp in the corner. The video was twenty-four minutes long.
“You want me to watch this whole thing?” I asked.
“Every second,” he said. “Trust me.”
I pressed play.
The footage was shaky in the casual way phone videos always were, clearly filmed by Rhys himself as he walked along a narrow mountain trail behind a girl in black leggings and a pale blue athletic top.
Her dark ponytail swung back and forth between her shoulders as she moved ahead of him, sunlight flashing through the trees around them.
“This is Gen?” I asked, glancing up for a second.
Rhys nodded, and I returned my attention back to the screen.
Gen glanced over her shoulder, slightly breathless. “You were right about this trail. It’s way harder than the other one.”
“It’s worth it,” Rhys said from behind the camera. “You’re gonna love the view at the end.”
“How much farther?”
“We’re basically there.”
The trail curved sharply a few seconds later, and the trees suddenly fell away into an open rocky clearing perched high above a brutal drop. The mountains stretched for miles in the distance, layered in smoky blue beneath a sky streaked gold and pink by the sun.
Gen walked toward the edge before stopping a few feet back, laughing in disbelief. “Holy shit, this is insane.”
Rhys chuckled. “Told you.”
She turned toward him again, smiling wide enough that it reached her eyes. Then her expression shifted slightly. “Are you filming me?”
“Just getting ready to take some photos. I assumed you’d want some for Instagram.”
“Oh. Obviously.” She threw her hands out in an exaggerated pose, then abruptly dropped them. “Wait, I don’t look too sweaty, do I?”
“You look fine. But step back a little. Closer to the edge.”
Gen’s smile flickered. “Why?”
“The drop behind you is the whole point, so we really need to see it. Otherwise it's just a photo of a girl standing outside somewhere, and no one’s gonna care about that,” Rhys said. “Just be careful.”
“Okay.” She glanced behind her, then took three small steps back, loose gravel shifting under her shoes. “Better?”
“Perfect.”
She started posing again, brushing loose strands of hair out of her face as she shifted sideways for the camera. Then there was a sound. A zip, followed by the soft rustle of fabric.
Gen’s eyes dropped toward something out of frame, and the smile vanished from her face. “What’s that?” she asked, voice laced with trepidation.
The camera moved closer to her. Gravel crunched underfoot.
“It’s a hunting knife,” Rhys said. Every trace of warmth had disappeared from his voice.
Gen let out a nervous laugh that sounded painfully forced. “Okay…” she said. “Are we going hunting after this?”
“No.” The camera moved closer again. “I just think it’s a good way to get you talking.”
Her shoulders locked, and one hand lifted slightly, palm facing outward. “This really isn’t funny, Rhys. Can you put that thing away?”
“It’s not a joke.” He tilted the blade across the frame, sunlight flashing silver across it. “But I’m curious. Do you think killing little girls is a joke?”
Gen froze. “W-what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Carly Martin. I’m sure you remember her pretty well, seeing as you and the others killed her last summer.”
The color had completely drained from Gen’s face now, and for several long seconds, she didn’t say a word.
“Which one of them told you?” she finally asked, voice barely above a whisper. “Was it Zach?”
“Nobody told me anything,” Rhys said calmly. “It was a suspicion. One you just confirmed.”
Gen’s mouth parted soundlessly before snapping shut again. Both hands came up now, arms raised, the posture of someone suddenly and viscerally aware of exactly how close the drop was behind them.
“This can go one of two ways now,” Rhys went on. “You refuse to talk, and I shove you right off that edge. Everyone will think it was a tragic accident. Pretty ironic, considering what happened to Carly.”
The knife lifted slightly in frame, and Gen flinched so hard her foot scraped backward through loose gravel.
“Please, Rhys,” she said in a low, shaky voice. “Don’t do this.”
“Here’s the second option,” he said, sounding completely unfazed. “I’ll let you step away from the edge, and you can sit down and tell me everything that happened that night.”
Gen stared at him, breathing fast and shallow. “How do I know you won’t throw me off the cliff as soon as I’m done talking?”
“If you’re willing to tell me exactly what happened, I’m willing to be merciful,” Rhys said. “I’ll take you straight to the police afterwards, and I’ll let you confess properly, cooperate, and get ahead of this. I’ll even get you the best defense attorney in the state.”
She blinked slowly, like she genuinely couldn’t process what she was hearing. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I need your testimony to nail all the others,” he replied. “And that doesn't work if you're dead, does it?”
Gen swallowed hard. “I…” Her voice was shaking violently now. “No, I can’t.” Tears welled abruptly in her eyes. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I just can’t.”
“If you’re scared of prison, you really don’t need to be,” Rhys said. “The first person who flips always gets the best deal. You know that. Community service. Probation. A destroyed reputation, sure, but you’d still get your life.” His voice sharpened slightly. “Meanwhile the others rot.”
Gen shook her head harder now, tears spilling freely down her face. “You don’t understand,” she said. “Even if the others all go to prison, they’ll still find a way to hurt me for turning on them.”
“Listen to me, Gen,” Rhys said. His tone had turned slightly gentler now. “If you do this, I will personally ensure that none of the others ever touch a single hair on your head. That’s a promise. Help me and I help you.”
Gen’s breathing had turned ragged now, her chest rising and falling too fast as tears streaked down her blotchy red face. She kept darting glances around like she was still searching for a way out of the situation.
“Think fast,” Rhys said calmly. “The window for this offer is closing pretty fucking fast.”
The knife shifted slightly in frame again, just enough to remind Gen it was there.
She let out a broken sound and dragged both hands through her hair. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “Oh my god…”
Then, finally, she nodded. It was tiny at first. Barely visible. But Rhys obviously saw it.
“Okay,” he said. “Good choice.”
Gen squeezed her eyes shut for a second.
“Move over there,” Rhys said. As he spoke, the camera swung toward a huge flat-topped boulder near the center of the clearing. “Sit down.”
She obeyed immediately.
The camera jostled as Rhys followed her across the clearing, hiking boots grinding over stone and loose gravel. Gen lowered herself shakily onto the boulder, wiping her face with the sleeve of her athletic top.
Her eyes drifted toward the trail winding back into the trees.
“Don’t bother looking for other hikers,” Rhys said. “Hardly anyone knows about this trail. That’s why I picked it.”
The hope that had flickered in Gen’s face went out completely.
Rhys stepped closer, knife moving into the frame again. “Now,” he said. “Start talking.”