Chapter 15
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.
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 else could. 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.”
The night creaks around us, the same way it did right before the watcher moved. Time is thinning. The woods are listening.
“Then we move out before dawn,” I say. “Backroads only. No signals. No stopping unless I say so.”
“Okay.”
“And Hazel?”
“Yeah?”
I meet her eyes fully, letting her see the fear I never show anyone.
“If I tell you to run, you run. You don’t argue. You don’t look back. You go. Understand?”
Her throat bobs. “I understand.”
I exhale, slow and shaky in a way I hope she doesn’t notice. Because the truth is?
If things keep unfolding like this, I don’t know if either of us will get a chance to run.