Hide and Seek: The Mad Girl Sees All novel Chapter 44

Chapter 44

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Now used to her new body, Lyra moved southeast. That stretch was close to water where Lydia was holding position, and also where another treasure chest had dropped.

She worked her roots along the ground in an alternating crawl, picking up real speed. The whole route was streaked with blood. In this forest, humans had become the most fragile supply on the menu.

The further southeast she went, the wetter the air. Soon Lyra spotted the pond. She paused at the edge of the woods and swept the area with her ice-tree senses.

The water was cold, cold enough to mask body heat. At the center, two reed stalks broke the surface; two people were submerged below. In the reeds along the shore, another figure lay flat. Lydia.

Her head was caked in mud. Most of her body was sunk into the shallows, with only her eyes and nose above the water.

Seeing an “ice tree” approach, Lydia held her breath and slowly let herself sink lower, burying her nose and eyes too. Not a sliver of skin showed.

Lyra kept crawling forward. In this form, every step rustled loudly-a lot of noise. Combined with the gray bark, the spike- covered limbs, and the corpses still dangling from her branches, the effect was crushing.

The two at the bottom of the pond heard it. Even the reed stalks were shaking, and they couldn’t help sinking a little deeper.

Lydia held her breath. She didn’t dare move. The oxygen in her lungs was burning fast. She prayed silently-go, go, just go.

But the Wraiths weren’t taking requests. Several thick branches dropped down and drove straight into the water, aimed right at Lydia. She shrank lower. The branches didn’t pause-they parted the duckweed with perfect precision.

Heat was blocked by the water. How was this monster locking onto her?

Lydia ground her teeth and shoved a hand into her pocket, gripping a dark red book. The item she’d grabbed earlier. [Book of True Names].

Open the book, silently speak the Wraith’s name, and you could force it to obey one command-provided the name was right.

The barbs grazed the water beside her cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed names in her head. Tree. Ice Tree. Monster Tree. Wraith Tree. Gray-Bark Tree. Big Tree. Man-Eater. Nothing.

A branch coiled around her waist. Lydia was hauled, mud and all, up out of the water. Air rushed back into her nose. She coughed violently and clawed at the gray branch cinching her ribs.

Her fingernails ripped back; blood seeped into the wood grain. It wouldn’t tear. She couldn’t break it.

The two players hiding in the deeper water tilted their heads up through gaps in the reeds. Above them, the surviving girl I was dangling upside down, three mangled corpses strung along the trunk-the camouflage Lyra had snagged along the way.

Now another live one had joined the collection. The reed stalks of the two below trembled, sending out rings of ripples; bubbles broke the surface, breathing rhythms falling apart.

The gray tree onshore didn’t linger. Its roots flipped over, carrying Lydia, and it turned to leave.

The sound of crushed leaves slowly receded. The two underwater broke the surface together, sucking air into their lungs. They traded one look and scrambled into the rock pile at the bottom of the pond.

Terrifying. Before, the Wraiths had left anything in the water alone. Now they were dragging people out of it too.

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Chapter 44

Lydia hung in midair. She wasn’t pierced. Her waist wasn’t bleeding. The branch around her had pulled in all its barbs and was carrying her along smoothly.

She stared at the gray bark inches from her face, then dropped her gaze lower. Below, the three corpses were swinging in the air as the roots crawled.

The spikes had punched clean through every one of those dead bodies-yet she alone had been wrapped on the safe side of the branch, untouched. This tree wasn’t trying to kill her. Why?

She thought back to the last round. The girl in black from Draconia who had walked out with a scythe several yards long and, in front of every player, turned into a Wraith and rampaged.

A thought sparked. She opened her mouth, testing. “Lyra?”

The rustling crawl didn’t stop. The massive trunk gave a tremor. A very thin gray branch peeled away from the main trunk, eased around the barbed sections, and patted the top of her head.

Once. Twice.

Lydia’s eyes went wide. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She turned her head, spat out a mouthful of muddy water, and let her limbs go completely slack in the air, letting this giant haul her through the woods however it pleased.

Back at Lina’s hiding spot, the four mud-covered pits sat in perfect silence.

Lyra stopped at the edge of the pit. The branch loosened, and Lydia dropped lightly onto the pile of leaves. The instant her feet hit the ground, she lunged for the next pit, hands tearing at the branches piled on top.

“Lina. Get out!” Lydia called out in Ursarian.

The disguise on the pit was thrown wide open. Lina crawled out, hair caked with mud, and saw Lydia standing at the edge. soaked and filthy-and then, six feet behind her, an enormous gray ice tree, three mangled corpses swinging from its trunk.

The scream caught in her throat. Her eyes rolled back, and she started to topple backward.

Lydia’s hand shot out, caught her by the collar, hauled her up out of the pit, and jabbed a finger toward the ice tree.

Lydia said, “Lyra.”

Lina followed the finger. The ice tree lifted its thickest branch and bent it down in midair, waving hello. Lina’s mouth hung half-open. “L… Lyra?”

The other pit behind them stirred too. Sergei pushed up through the dead leaves, caught sight of the massive ice-tree trunk. and froze for a beat himself.

Lydia didn’t give either of them time to recover. She rattled off a string of Ursarian, the words tumbling out one on top of the other.

Lina stood there slapping the mud off her head, then quickly turned to Lyra.

Lina translated, “Lyra, Lydia says that when you scooped her up earlier, she nearly suffocated at the bottom of the pond.”

The ice tree’s branches gave a small sway in the air.

Lydia pulled the dark red book from her pocket and strode up to the ice tree. Ursarian came clattering out of her again, and Lina kept tugging at her own hair as she listened, flipping languages on the fly.

Lina translated, “She says she grabbed a treasure-chest item at the edge of the pond.

“It’s called the Book of True Names.

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Chapter 44

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