The ATV tears along the lakeshore, the headlight flittering as it moves behind trees on a hidden pathway.

Jessie recalls Brad’s words from their arrival:

There’s a wide trail that runs the circumference of the lake … it starts just behind the house and runs either direction ….

Jessie realizes the trap she’s in. If the path runs around the lake, there’s no way she can reach shore—anywhere—without Tom getting there first.

But you can take Tom!He’s not built like Brad. You’re stronger, faster. You can beat his ass and then ….

Jessie recalls Tom stabbing Blake’s naked torso. Stabbing and stabbing, then plunging the knife into her heart and she knows she’s lying to herself. She’s no murderer. She’s no savage—not even with her life on the line. What could she do against someone willing to murder in cold blood? Weaponless, and already feeling the first tendrils of exhaustion creeping into her muscles … what could she possibly do?

She watches as the shimmering headlight passes on the right, continues onward toward the opposite shore and the trailhead she was hoping to use for escape. He’d be there minutes before her. Waiting.

“Fuck!” After a few more hard, frustrated pulls, Jessie stops rowing. She tilts the oars out of the water, breathing heavily, needing to think. The boat glides onward, and she’s no more than twenty yards from the shoreline, but the ATV is already there, engine idling, headlight pointed at her like a beacon of death.

“Jessie!”

She looks up, now slick with sweat that’s already chilling in the night air, tears spilling down her cheeks. She grits her teeth in frustration and spots Brad, wearing nothing but his underwear, hands on hips, standing at the edge of the dock. He lifts a hand to his mouth, and she can almost see the goddamn smirk on his face. “There’s nowhere to go, Jessie,” he says, the words carrying to her easily over the water and the rumbling motor of the ATV behind her. “Nowhere to run. Why don’t you come back and we’ll talk about it.” He pauses, as if debating his next words. “You don’t have to die.”

“That’s right, Jess. He’s not lying.”

Jessie twists around to see Tom standing a few feet from the water’s edge. She’s drifted a lot closer toward his side than she’d realized, and quickly drops the oars in the water, pushes against the boat’s drift. She can’t get any closer.

“That stuff with Blake?” he says, close enough now that she sees him shrug, shake his head. “That was a mistake, you know? Shit got out of hand. But we like you, Jessie. Really. We’re pals, right? So, look. You come in, we dump Blake in the lake, coordinate our stories …

and hell, we all go home and live our lives. You got a bright future, and you beat us fair and square. I mean, respect, you know?”

Jessie shakes her head at just how amazingly stupid these assholes must think she is. Stupid enough that you came with them to a house in the middle of nowhere, you mean? That stupid?

“Shut up,” she mumbles to herself.

These weren’t strangers. These were her friends. She trusted them. Hell, she kinda loved them, as friends can grow to do. How could they be the same people she’d hung out with all those days and nights? Played games with? Got drunk with?

How long had they been planning this?

Since that first day in the bar? She and Blake were … what? Targets? Victims to be groomed over a period of months? To be raped and murdered ….

Oh God ….

Jessie feels acid surging up her throat and she has only a moment to throw her head to one side as she vomits into the water.

“Whoa! Man overboard,” Tom yells, then laughs hysterically.

Brad is laughing as well. She can hear him. Hear them both.

Jessie finishes, wipes her mouth, and slowly, doggedly, begins pushing backwards with the oars, stern first, toward the center of the lake. She doesn’t want to turn her back on Brad—he’s too fast a swimmer, too much of a danger. She needs to regroup, to think. To hope.

Maybe someone will come. A maid, or a gardener. Maybe a neighbor heard the screaming, the noise, and called the police. The ATV will run out of gas. Something ….

Another, more distant (and far more unsettling) hope clings to her mind as well.

They’ll need to get rid of Blake’s body. At some point they’ll need to eat, or shit, or deal with my dead, murdered friend. And then I’ll be ready. I’ll save my energy, and I’ll be ready.

Feeling she’s traveled a safe distance from any part of the shoreline, Jessie puts the ends of the oars up on the boat’s rail. She turns and sees Tom still standing there, but far enough away not to pose an immediate threat.

Her ankle is throbbing, so Jessie carefully lifts it up and over the boat’s edge, lowers it into the icy water of the lake. If they’re playing a waiting game, she’s going to use the time wisely. Heal up as best she can.

Because at some point she’ll have an opening, and then she’ll make her move.

She’ll get away from these assholes. She’ll survive.

She’ll win.

PART FOUR – THE RAFT

JESSIE IS FREEZING.

She has zero idea what time it is. Given that she’d woken at some random point in the night, drugged and bound, context was out the window. What she does know is that it’s getting colder. She guesses somewhere around fifty degrees, give or take. “Doesn’t this stupid state know it’s fucking summer?” she mumbles, lips trembling with cold. “Not that I’m really dressed for it, of course.”

The chilled breeze sweeping against her off the lake’s surface isn’t helping matters. Dressed in nothing but underwear and a tank top that’s been worn and washed so many times it’s practically gauze (pirate cat not withstanding), the cold had no issues finding every inch of her bare skin and gnashing it with tiny, icy teeth.

She doesn’t have a great idea of how long she’s been sitting in the boat, but she guesses a couple hours, at least. Brad and Tom are diligent, unfortunately. She’d perked up when Brad ran into the house through the patio door, wondering if maybe someone was out front ringing the doorbell. She’d screamed and screamed until her throat was raw, yelling “Help!” over and over until, a few minutes later, he’d sauntered back outside, now wearing jeans, shoes, and a down jacket. The fucker.

He’d smiled and waved. Behind her she heard Tom laugh, and she gave up the screaming, tried to remember just how many acres he’d said surrounded this nightmare of a house. Enough that no one would hear her, that was obvious.

Brad strolled onto the dock, hands nestled cozily inside coat pockets, and pretended to shiver. He cupped a hand to his mouth. “Chilly, isn’t it?”

Jessie gave him the bird, but it was half-hearted at best. She was scared, and cold, and wanted to go home. Wanted to be warm and safe.

While she’d been sitting there, helpless, she’d let her thoughts circle and circle, desperately trying to figure out some way out of this mess.

Finally, sick of being half-frozen and doing nothing, she figures she’ll try another shore. Maybe the ATV will hit a rut and flip over, and Tom will break his neck. Maybe it’ll run out of gas. Maybe Brad will have a fucking heart attack or be struck by lightning—whatever, she had to try something otherwise she’d just be sitting in this boat waiting for a miracle, one that most likely wasn’t coming.

After rolling her shoulders a few times, she grips the oars and dumps the paddled ends in the water. Starting with the right, she turns the boat until the bow is aimed toward a point along the shore about halfway between Brad and Tom’s positions. Hoping to catch them somewhat off guard, she throws herself into the oars and breaks for land.

From the corner of her eye, she sees Brad wave frantically toward Tom, then jog off the dock and along the shoreline. She turns to the right to see Tom already on the ATV, starting the engine (which doesn’t even sputter). She hears it rev louder and the headlight pops to life, already moving toward her destination, smooth and easy-like.

A good distance from the shore she stops, breathing heavy.

Well, at least I’m warm again.

Tom is already waiting at the shoreline, the ATV’s headlight facing her, a cycloptic monster from the woods.