Hide and Seek: The Mad Girl Sees All novel Chapter 24

Chapter 24

564

Lyra sprinted toward the bamboo grove, bare feet on stone, no slap of soles to give her away Ten Wraiths closed in from every side, the scrape of their hook-scythes weaving together.

She didn’t panic.

She kicked off, planted a foot on the rockery at the bamboo’s edge, vaulted up, hooked her fingers over the top of the wall, and pressed flat against it.

The instant she crested it, the first hook-scythe slammed into the rockery. Stone exploded; dust flew in her face.

Lydia was east, so Lyra ran west along the wall, toes gripping the tiles, body low. The second strike landed ten feet behind her, shearing off a chunk of wall. Tiles fell.

“Clack.”

The crack of breaking tile snapped every Wraith’s focus to the ground. All ten attacks crashed down

at once.

But Lyra was on the wall.

She used that one-second window to leap from the wall onto the loft’s eaves. Her feet caught the corner; her body tipped forward. She crouched, jammed two fingers into the tile seams, and steadied herself.

In the command center, everyone was on their feet. Garrett stared at the screen, voice tight. “Wraiths at the wall. She jumped onto the loft-”

“If she doesn’t make a sound, can she ride this round out?” Lana whispered, half a prayer.

On screen, Lyra didn’t stop. She ran three steps along the loft’s ridge, then leapt onto the trunk of a pine tree beside it.

The branch sagged under her weight, needles brushing her face. She caught a limb above, swung once, and flew across to land on the roof of the next corridor.

The corridor roof was flat, about six feet lower than the loft. She landed with one hand braced and a knee on the tiles, without an extra sound.

Behind her, the Wraiths had already reached the base of the loft. Two charged inside. Three started circling the walls. The remaining five stood still, ears turning.

They heard nothing new.

Lyra lay flat on the corridor roof, motionless.

15

36 am

and rustled through the bamboo, the soft hush of leaves covering her breathing.

Five seconds. Ten.

Inside the loft, the two Wraiths began searching floor by floor, shoving open one window after another and slashing their scythes out through each opening.

The three circling the walls reached the broken section, found nothing, and stopped. Ears kept turning.

Lyra slowly slid her hand into her pocket and found her last two pebbles. She closed her fist around them and started studying the layout of the corridor.

The corridor ran forward to a pavilion, with a cluster of rockeries beside it. Past the rockeries was the lotus pond.

Lina was there. She couldn’t draw them that way.

She turned the other direction. The corridor’s far end opened onto a moon gate, but she couldn’t see what lay beyond it.

“Thud.”

A second-floor window of the loft swung open. A Wraith leaned half its body out, ear angled toward the corridor.

Lyra pressed herself flat.

The Wraith swung its hook-scythe and sliced off a length of branch outside the window. The branch dropped onto the corridor roof. Less than three feet from her.

It pulled the scythe back and turned away.

Lyra stared at the broken branch, then glanced toward the moon gate. She reached out, picked it up, and weighed it in her hand.

Then, like throwing a javelin, she hurled the branch toward the moon gate.

The branch spun through the air, sailed through the moon gate, and clattered onto the flagstones beyond.

“Clack.”

Not loud. But enough.

The five Wraiths still planted in place swung their ears toward the moon gate in unison

The lead one raised its hook-scythe and charged. The other four followed.

215

9:36 am

IR MU

The two inside the loft heard it too, vaulted out through the windows, and tore off in the same direction.

Of the three circling the wall, two changed direction. One didn’t move.

Nine gone. One left.

That Wraith stood right below the corridor, ears turning slowly.

Lyra was flattened on the roof barely ten feet above its head. She didn’t move. Neither did it.

A breeze drifted across the corridor roof, and a single bamboo leaf settled on the tiles.

“Rustle.”

The Wraith’s ears snapped upward, half a rotation.

Lyra’s fingers tightened.

One second.

Its ears swiveled back.

A leaf landing hadn’t drawn its attention. Lyra mentally flipped through everything the Wraiths had done so far, and an idea flashed past, the kind she barely managed to grab by the tail.

Ooh, looked like another pattern.

The Wraith stood there a few more seconds, then lifted a foot and started walking toward the moon

gate.

Lyra counted its footsteps.

Ten.

Twenty.

Cone.

She rolled onto her back on the corridor roof, chest rising and falling, forehead slick with sweat

The card was digging into her chest. She reached in and pulled it out.

[Transform Card]

[Effect: When used, transforms the user into a random Wraith form.]

[Uses: 10]

35

136 am

Nule Alter transformation, the user retains the Wraith form until detected by another Wrath |

Lyra stared at the card for three seconds. The corner of her mouth slowly curled up

She almost chuckled. That fit her idea perfectly.

She tucked the card back into her shirt and patted it.

In the Draconia stream, the chat exploded.

LyraMyIdol: [A Transform Card?! Tell me this wasn’t custom-made for this round!]

NeverAteVeggies: [Lyra’s luck is insane. Or do chest rewards always match the current mission?]

LuckyKoi: [Either way, with that thing, she’s got an extra life for the final stretch.]

BornToCuss: [Wait, don’t you guys think it’s weird? The first chest opened silent, this one rang out loud. Is the game doing it on purpose?]

AnotherDayAlive: [Of course it’s on purpose. Nobody went for the chest last round, so the game didn’t bother warning anyone. This round someone grabbed it, plus the Wraiths track sound, so yeah, instant alert.]

LyraForeverGoddess: [Lyra shook nine Wraiths off with one branch. Didn’t burn a single pebble. The resource management is unreal.]

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify