Page 2 of Hide and Seek

“And you’re damn lucky you do,” she says.

“Yes, ma’am,” I agree. “The luckiest.”

“Damn straight you are.”

Echo’s obsession with clean eating started a few years ago, and we’ve been playing this game with her ever since.

Unlike Cipher, I usually try to eat well and drink enough water, but today was an off day with traveling and getting distracted by my assignment. I like snacks as much as the next guy, but I’m also a long-distance runner, so I understand nutrition and moderation. It’s just more fun to tease Echo than it is to dogpile on Cipher and his horrible food habits.

Cipher laughs. “There’s nothing straight about any of us.”

“True story,” Echo says on a snicker.

Both Cipher and Echo are gay, while I’m bi. Being queer, or questioning in my case, was one of the things we bonded over when we met playing an MMRPG five years ago. They’re the only people in the world who know about me while both of them are out and have been for years.

Being queer and gaming are only two of the reasons we’ve stayed close all these years, and even though I’ve never met them in person, they’re my best friends.

“So, any news or gossip to share?” Cipher asks.

“I’ve been back for less than four hours, and the only person I’ve talked to was the guard at the main gate,” I tell them.

“You need to get a social life so we can get more stories,” Echo says. “Our lives are so boring compared to yours.”

“Mine’s pretty boring too,” I tell them. “I go to class and talk to you guys. That’s literally my entire life this year.”

My chest tightens a bit at my words. They might be my best friends, but I haven’t been completely honest with them the past few months. I’ve had some stuff going on, but it’s not the kind of thing I can tell them—or anyone.

Cipher asks about a new game patch that just came out, but I’m distracted as the check I ran on my code finishes, and I quickly scan the summary as they chat about the patch.

Everything looks good, and the code is ready to be sent off. Easy peasy, as usual.

I’m just about to upload it to the private server for my class when my screens go black and my headphones go quiet.

“What the fuck?” I say to the empty room as my main screen flickers and a paused black and white video appears on it.

Is someone in my system? What the hell?

I’m so stunned by the fact that someone seems to have breached my security that I don’t immediately try to boot them the fuck out and instead stare at the video.

I recognize the background. It’s one of the campus security cams, and from what I can tell, it’s one of the ones near the woods on the western side of the school. The really weird part is how there seems to be something on the ground, like a sheet or a curtain of some sort.

Before I can decide what to do, the video starts playing.

I watch as two men in dark clothes and hoods drag a third into the frame, then toss him onto the sheet or whatever it is. He’s obviously been beaten, and my stomach roils as one of the men pulls a gun out of his waistband and levels it at the man’s head.

He puts up his hands and struggles to his knees. There’s no audio, but I don’t need sound to know he’s begging for his life.

The man with the gun doesn’t even flinch as he fires two bullets into the man’s torso. His victim falls forward and face-plants on the ground as a dark pool spreads out under him.

The gunman calmly puts his weapon back in his waistband, and he and his partner quickly roll up the man they shot in what I now see is a tarp and drag the body and the evidence of their crime out of frame.

What the ever-loving fuck did I just watch? And why the hell did someone want me to see it?

A little circle appears over the time stamp on the paused video. It was taken just after midnight four days ago.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around what I just saw when the video disappears and what looks like a police report pops up in its stead. Still confused as all hell, I scan the page.

Wait. Am I reading what I think I am?