Liar, Liar (Book 2 in the Hide and Secret Series)

(6) Taylor's POV

"Jill? Can I ask why you're here?"

I heard Jill tentatively get out from her hiding spot. I didn't breathe for a moment, until I heard Jill speak in disgust. "Oh. It's you."

"Um, yeah. It's me." The voice sounded annoyed, but Jill didn't sound frightened, which meant that it probably wasn't a psycho.

Wait. I knew that voice.

I cautiously peeked out from my hiding spot, and there was Zach himself, standing right in front of Jill and looking baffled at why she was here.

When I peeked out, Zach turned to look at me. His face was an expression of confusion. "Taylor? You're here, too?"

A loud, sudden crash was heard from behind us. We all whipped around to see Serena holding the broken shards of a vase and looking like a deer caught in headlights. "Sorry!" she squeaked.

Zach looked at her impassively. "That was my mother's favorite vase," he said flatly. Then, he looked around at all of us. "Um, can I get a little bit of information here? What's going on?"

Serena, Jill, and I exchanged a look. Zach groaned, and Jill narrowed her eyes into slits. "What?" she spat out venomously. She really didn't like Zach, it seemed. They were both very different people, and seemed unable to simply tolerate each other.

"What did you do?" Zach asked to all of us.

"Why do you think we did something?" I asked him, trying to appear innocent even though I was really the opposite.

"Because I know that look. It means that something's going on and that if you told me you would have to kill me." Zach said this with a bored tone, as though he was simply reeling things off a list he'd heard multiple times.

I bit my lip, feeling sheepish at the fact that he had us pretty much pinpointed. I supposed Jill, Serena, and I weren't as crafty as we thought. I wasn't sure about me, but I knew that if Serena played poker, you would be able to tell her cards by just looking at her face. Jill had a good poker face, but she got annoyed easily, and you could tell if she was annoyed from a mile away.

"We have to tell him," Serena insisted.

Jill shook her head vigorously. "No!" she barked. "He doesn't need to know."

While the two of them continued to bicker about whether or not to tell Zach, I took matters into my own hands. I turned to Zach. "The sender's back. And we got a note from the sender giving us a clue to come here."

"Why did you tell him?" Jill admonished.

"So he didn't think we were trespassing in his house just for fun," I answered flatly.

Apparently done with me, Jill turned to Zach. "And why are you here, anyway? Planning to leave us a little note yourself?" she accused.

Zach snorted. Now that he knew what was going on, he seemed to find Jill's little interrogation very humorous. "Not a chance. I was actually here because I needed to get away. When your parents are constantly berating you about every little thing, you kind of need a place to go in order to keep your sanity intact."

There was an awkward silence as no one knew what to say. I had known that Zach's home life had been less than ideal, it was one of the many things he had opened up to me about when we were friends. I hadn't been aware that the issues were still going on.

My feet were rooted to the ground. I wanted to comfort Zach, but I wasn't so sure about what I would say. I wasn't so good in the comforting skill. Everything I ended up saying sounded scripted. But Serena, being Serena, went to go hug him. She knew instinctively how to make someone happier. A hug from Serena had this weird power to make you automatically feel better. It was like she had some magic touch to heal.