Page 102 of Between Love and War
Joshua chuckles and places a hand on my shoulder. “Knowing my sister, it’ll be something that requires energy.”
“Exactly!” Bon exclaims. “We’re playing hide and seek!”
“Wait,” I say, laughing. “Are we actually doing this?”
“Yes,” Kate says from somewhere in the dark. “Because clearly we’re not mature enough for adult games.”
“I resent that,” Ry says, tripping over someone’s abandoned corsage. “How do we play?”
Emily claps twice. “Okay! Rules are simple. We hide in pairs, we seek in pairs. I assume Bon already put our names on pieces of paper.”
At that moment, Bon appears with a bowl with folded papers. We all gather around as she holds the bowl out. I reach in, unfolding my slip of paper—and immediately feel my face fall. “Richard.”
He sidles up beside me, peering at the paper to confirm. “Geez, man. You could try to look happy.”
“Sorry,” I say, offering a sheepish half-smile. “Didn’t mean to crush your spirit.”
Richard adjusts his glasses and sighs, overly dramatic. “It’s fine. I just thought we had something.”
Once everyone has their pair—Bon with Joshua, Emily with Kate (which stings), Haley with Ryan—we begin arguing over who should be it.
“Not it!” Bon shouts before anyone even opens their mouth.
“Not it!” Haley echoes immediately.
Richard raises his hand slowly. “I volunteer as tribute.”
I blink. “Wait, what?”
“I just feel like this group needs strong moral examples,” he says.
“You just don’t wanna hide out in the dark for longer than thirty seconds,” Haley says with a laugh.
Before I can even protest, someone’s already declared it official: Richard and I are it.
Everyone cheers and immediately breaks apart, dashing into the darkness like overgrown children. There’s laughter echoing through the garden, footsteps pounding, the soft rustle of leaves as someone clearly faceplants into a hedge.
But just before the last of them vanishes into the night, Haley turns on her heel. “Wait!”
Everyone freezes mid-scatter.
She points to the edge of the lawn. “Boundaries are from this hall to the treehouse. Nobody goes past the fence. And Kate is banned from the chicken coop.”
“That was ONE TIME,” Kate shouts indignantly.
“What happened at the chicken coop?” I ask, curious about anything that has to do with Kate.
“Nothing,” she says.
Haley smirks. “She fell over the fence and injured a chick, then she tried to nurse it back to health but it died, so we all had a funeral and everything. She was so attached to it, she already—”
“Named it?” I ask, because I’m starting to realize that with Kate, of course she did.
“Yeah,” Haley says. “Bartholomew. He had a cardboard headstone and everything.”
“Rest in peace, little Bart,” Bon adds solemnly.
The group dissolves into laughter, and I do too. I’ve been learning all these little pieces of Kate Cruz like I’m being handed clues. Aside from the obvious fact that she’s good with children and amazing at baking, she also names inanimate objects, takes a puff when she’s stressed out, and she gives funerals to chickens.
