Hide and Seek: The Mad Girl Sees All novel Chapter 49

Chapter 49

The moment the lid popped open, Lyra’s hanging branches shot in first.

A butterfly rested inside the box.

Its wings were a burst of vivid colors, with delicate veins and a barely-there glow along the edges. It was pinned to a palm- sized piece of black velvet.

A specimen.

Lyra’s branches coiled around it, but before she could even check the stats, a rustling sound came from the pile of leaves beneath her roots.

Buzzcut Guy burst out from behind the tree roots, hunched over, moving low and fast as he dashed straight for the treasure chest.

Tall Guy came right after, but stayed cautious, moving half a beat slower and making sure Buzzcut Guy stayed between him and Lyra the whole time.

Lyra didn’t pull her branches back, and her trunk stayed put. In her heat vision, two red blobs were closing in fast.

Thirty feet.

Twenty-six feet.

Sixteen feet.

Buzzcut Guy stopped.

He crouched sixteen feet away, sweat rolling down his temples, staring at the ice tree as it handled the box, not moving a muscle.

Tall Guy crouched down behind him, muttering under his breath.

“Go!”

“You go first. I’ll watch your back!”

“You bastard!” Buzzcut Guy shot him a glare. “I’m still not done with you for shoving me last time!”

“Quit stalling! It’s not doing anything! Look!” Tall Guy pointed at Lyra.

Lyra really wasn’t reacting. She was just wildly swinging her branches at the open, empty box, the butterfly specimen already stashed deep inside her tree hollow.

The box was still giving off heat, so all Lyra had to do was keep playing the part of a mindless, violent Wraith.

Buzzcut Guy swallowed hard, then crawled forward on all fours, moving two steps closer.

Ten feet.

The ice tree didn’t react.

He crept forward another step.

Six feet.

Chapter 19

The branches kept smashing the box, splinters flying everywhere-some even landed on Buzzcut Guy’s sleeve. You could see his fingers shaking.

“Is it moving?” Tall Guy leaned forward from behind.

“No!” Buzzcut Guy’s voice was shaky. “It’s totally ignoring me.”

Tall Guy’s breathing got heavier.

“The Nation’s intel was spot on. Wraiths just chase heat-since the box is hotter than us, it’s not even gonna bother attacking Looks like the game’s actually giving us a lifeline here,” Tall Guy said.

Buzzcut Guy stretched his neck out, squinting and trying to get a look inside the box through the mess of the ice tree’s branches.

“Hey, you see anything in there?” Tall Guy asked.

“Nope! Can’t see a damn thing-those branches are blocking everything!”

Lyra listened to their conversation, deliberately slowing down the rhythm of her branch swings. She shifted a little to the side, letting them see inside the box.

It was empty.

Time to make myself scarce, Lyra thought.

Buzzcut Guy stretched his neck out for a peek, his face drained of color. “It’s empty!”

“No way!” Tall Guy didn’t buy it.

“See for yourself!”

Tall Guy got up on his tiptoes, peering through the gaps in Lyra’s branches. The bottom of the box was clean as a whistle- just wood chips, not a thing left inside.

“Shit!” Tall Guy cursed.

“Did it fall out?” Buzzcut Guy sounded panicked. “Or is it stuck under that Wraith?”

Tall Guy stood there stunned for a couple seconds, then looked up at Lyra, who was still smashing the box. Three mangled corpses were hanging from the ice tree’s branches, swaying in the air.

He took a step back. “Let’s get out of here. The box is empty now, it’s not worth it. Don’t—”

Before he could finish, Lyra’s senses picked up another ice tree speeding in from the northeast. The rustling was getting louder, creeping out from the distant woods.

She couldn’t let that second ice tree show up and catch two people just hanging out in front of her without getting attacked. If that happened, her cover would be blown instantly.

Lyra didn’t hesitate. Two thick branches came crashing down from either side, wrapping tight around their waists.

“Fuck!” Buzzcut Guy cursed.

Buzzcut Guy didn’t even get a chance to scream before he was yanked off the ground.

Tall Guy got snatched up by another branch, his legs kicking wildly in the air, his face ghost-white.

Lyra’s roots surged, spinning her trunk in a half-circle. At the highest point, she released both branches at once.

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Chapter 19

The two guys were flung through the air, launched straight toward the southwest.

‘Good luck, guys, Lyra thought.

8

Their bodies carved two arcs through the air, weaving between the treetops, and landed hard in a thicket over a hundred feet away.

Thud!

Crash!

The bushes got flattened, dead branches and leaves went flying everywhere.

No doubt it hurt like hell, but at least it wasn’t fatal.

Lyra checked her branches-no blood, so she pulled them back and kept up the act, smashing the box like nothing had happened.

Five seconds later, the second ice tree burst out of the bushes.

It spotted Lyra smashing the box and didn’t waste a second-its roots dug in, and it jumped right in, getting in on the action

The two ice trees squeezed together, hammering away at the box that was already falling apart, smashing it to bits.

The dull thuds merged into a steady, rumbling rhythm.

Over a hundred feet away, in the thicket.

Tall Guy crawled out from the mess of broken branches and leaves, two nasty cuts slashed across his right cheek, blood mixed with mud dripping down his chin.

Buzzcut Guy lay sprawled out nearby, his back aching from crashing into a chunk of broken wood. He gritted his teeth, pushed himself up with his hands, and it took him a while to finally sit up.

Both of them were gasping for air, exchanging a look.

“Fuck, I seriously thought I was dead,” Buzzcut Guy muttered, wiping the mud off his face with the back of his hand.

Tall Guy grabbed onto a tree trunk and hauled himself up, glancing back in the direction they’d just been thrown.

Through the gaps in the trees, the beam of light was still shining in the distance. Underneath it, the two ice trees were crowded together, their branches flailing wildly as they smashed the box like they’d lost their minds.

“Let’s get out of here,” Buzzcut Guy said, already moving in the opposite direction.

Tall Guy stayed put. “Did you see it?”

Buzzcut Guy stopped. “See what?”

Tall Guy turned to him, his eyes bloodshot. “When that tree tossed us, it didn’t have any thorns out.”

Buzzcut Guy opened his mouth, but couldn’t find any words.

“When the branch wrapped around my waist, all the thorns pulled back-it was just a smooth branch,” Tall Guy said. swallowing hard. “How about you?”

Buzzcut Guy glanced down at his waist. The branch had left a ring of wrinkles in his clothes, but the fabric was fine. Just

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some bruises-no stab marks, no holes.

His face went pale. “It wasn’t even trying to kill us?”

“Yeah!” Tall Guy clenched his fists. “All its aggression was aimed at the chest! We got within six feet and it didn’t even care’ Even when it threw us, it kept the thorns in! The intel checks out!”

Buzzcut Guy frowned, gears turning in his head-something was off, he could feel it. He shot another look at the beam of light-those two trees were still going nuts on the box, the heat twisting the air into a shimmering haze.

“Less than two minutes left,” Tall Guy said, making a quick gesture.

“If we can’t pull it off, we bail. This is our last shot.”

Buzzcut Guy grabbed his arm. “Are you crazy?”

“There was just one before, now there are two. Even if you manage to snatch it, where are you gonna run after? Withyboth of them chasing you, do you really think you can outrun them?”

Tall Guy shook off his hand. “They don’t kill people!”

“Then what about those three corpses hanging from the tree? Were they just props or something?” Buzzcut Guy shot him a glare.

Tall Guy froze. The two of them just stood there in the thicket, silence hanging heavy for three long seconds.

Buzzcut Guy spun around and stomped off. “Suit yourself. I’m not sticking around to get killed.”

He didn’t even glance back, just hunched over and slipped into the dense woods behind him, his footsteps fading away.

Tall Guy stood there, his lips set in a hard line, fists clenching and relaxing over and over. He stared at the beam of light in the distance for a solid five seconds.

“One last try. This is it!”

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