Jessie once more sets the oars on the boat’s chipped wooden rails, puts her face into her hands, and cries.

THE NIGHT CONTINUES TO PASS without event, or progress.

Jessie, cramped from sitting on the hard bench, does her best to stretch out her legs, her back. She spends hours shivering in the cold, hugging her knees to her chest in a vain effort to steal her own body’s warmth.

Brad and Tom, it seems, have worked out a system to get some rest while also keeping her afloat, and trapped.

After their little stalemate had gone another hour or so, Brad went to the house and started up the other ATV, drove it down near the dock. Great, now they both have one, she’d thought, furiously pushing the fog of exhaustion away so she could come up with a plan. Now that they both had their motorized toys, Brad would lay out on the dock, supposedly shutting his eyes for a power nap—while Tom continued to monitor Jessie from whatever part of the shore her little boat had floated closest to.

It’s during one of these times that Tom decides to strike up a conversation. “Wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he says, as the late night tilts into early morning. “You and Blake, I mean. You guys are really making this hard.”

“Geez, Tom, I’m so sorry we inconvenienced you,” she yells back, seething. “I’m sure Blake would apologize but, you know, you murdered her and all, you sick fuck.”

Tom nods, as if in agreement. “Yeah, what a mess.”

Bored despite herself, Jessie wonders just what the hell is going on. Given the shock of all that’s happened, she’s only now able to find the mental capacity to wonder what—what exactly—these two men are hoping will happen.

And an even worse thought: how many times have they done this?

“So … what?” she says. “You and Brad coerce college girls up here, pretending to be their friends, then drug them, rape them, kill them? Is that pretty much the deal?”

Tom laughs from the shore, kicks at the dirt, as if embarrassed.

“Seems that simple, doesn’t it?”

Simple?

“But no … no. You got it all wrong. We don’t … well, I don’t, anyway … you know, touch the girls.”

“Well bully for you,” Jessie says, part of her trying to figure out just what the hell he’s talking about. Don’t touch the girls? “You’re more the murdering type, I guess.”

Tom nods again, as if reflecting on the idea. “Yeah, you could say that. I dunno … it’s complicated.”

“I’m sure it is,” Jessie mumbles, feeling suddenly more tired than she’s ever felt in her life. She refuses to cry again, refuses to give either of them the satisfaction.

“You can’t stay out there forever, you know,” Tom says. “We weren’t pulling your leg about a deal. I mean, look, you’ve got us by the balls here, Jessie. We just want this to be over.”

She’s too tired, too scared, to have further conversation. She huddles into herself, and waits.

HAZY PINK DAYLIGHT BREAKS OVER the trees.

Jessie’s skin is wet with dew, her legs and arms dimpled with cold. Her teeth chatter as she hugs herself, praying for the sun to rise already and warm the air. Her ankle, now that she can see it more clearly, is swollen and discolored, but she doesn’t think it’s broken.

Her captors took turns napping over what remained of the night and are now taking coffee together on the house’s patio, engaged in light conversation, their eyes never leaving the lake. Both ATVs rest nearby. Just in case.

As if they’re daring me.

Brad sees Jessie watching him and hoists his cup in mock salute. Tom’s tired laughter ripples in the air of the new day, tainting it.

Brad yells, “Want some?”

Having expelled what remained of the cheeseburger and chips she’d had the evening before, Jessie’s stomach grumbles with hunger. Her mouth is pasty, her lips dry. Leaning over the side of the boat, she lowers a hand into the lake and scoops the fresh, ice-cold water into her mouth, splashes some across her face. Forcing herself to stay alert, she does some basic arm and back stretches; doing whatever she can to stay loose, to stay ready, in case an opening for escape miraculously appears.

As the day wears on, however, no such window opens.

The men continue to tag team what Jessie assumes are bathroom breaks, nap breaks, or something else. But they’re never gone long, and whoever remains guard straddles an ATV while doing so, watching her, ready to fire it up and intercept her wherever she thinks of landing.

In the late afternoon sun her body finally warms, but not overly so. The July day is breezy and cool, the temperature likely never reaching the 70s.

Jessie recalls packing with Blake, how they’d decided to pack mostly warm clothes after checking the weather app. As far as Jessie can recall, their whole vacation in the Catskills will never be especially warm, the temperature dropping severely at night.

Hooray, she thinks miserably.

Her eyes want to close, her mind and body stretched too far with the strain of what she’s been through, but knows falling asleep could mean capture. Could mean death. Annoyed at doing nothing, however, she debates another break to shore (to at least make the assholes work a little).

Before she can lower the oar handles, however, Brad reappears, something large hoisted over one shoulder.

Jessie realizes what he’s carrying and can’t control the sob that breaks from her lips. She slaps a hand to her mouth, eyes burning, and in doing so nearly loses one of the oars as it rattles in the oarlock, slipping through into the water. “Shit.”

She grabs it at the last second, pulling it toward her and bringing it back into the boat.

Hoisted over Brad’s shoulder is Blake’s lifeless body.

She’s wrapped in a sheet—likely the very sheet she died on—but Jessie can plainly see long blonde hair falling from one end of the makeshift cocoon, pale feet protruding from the other.

Jessie is shocked at how brazen he is. Even here, far away from anyone, for him to just waltz out the back door with a dead woman over his shoulder…it sickens her. Worse, it breaks something in her mind. In her logic, her way of thinking. Her sense of what’s real, and of what’s impossible.

There is her best friend, who was horribly murdered in front of her eyes, being carried like a sack of worthless meat over her killer’s shoulder.

Tom and Brad talk for a few moments, and then, seemingly, come up with a plan.

Jessie watches in horror as Tom runs to a shed at the side of the house. After several minutes he returns with what appears to be a small tarp. Brad drops Blake to the ground and the two of them begin working on the tarp. Taking turns ….

Sweet Jesus. They’re inflating it. It’s a fucking raft.

After ten minutes or so, the old, crappy one-person raft—an ugly mustard color so dirty Jessie wonders how many years it’s been since it was actually used—is relatively inflated. Brad strips to nothing, unfazed by the cool day and, to Jessie’s eternal disgust, moderately erect. He drags the body toward the lake, walks into the shallow water. Together, the two men manage to settle Blake’s body on top of the raft and slowly, carefully, Brad begins swimming from the shore, pulling the floating corpse behind him.

Jessie watches all this, so stunned by the scene that it takes her a few moments to realize this could be her best chance for escape.

If he keeps swimming, it’ll just be Tom. And if it’s just Tom meeting me—one-on-one—at the other end of the lake, it may be my only shot of living through this. Yes, he’s a killer, and my odds aren’t great. But how much longer can I wait?

Thinking through her options, Jessie watches Brad goes closer … closer. Not wanting to draw Tom’s attention, she slowly moves her hands to the oar handles, grips them tight. She takes stock of her surroundings, realizes she’s pretty much in the middle of the lake. She’ll need Brad to swim farther if she wants the timing to work.

She can’t help but watch as Brad swims twenty, thirty, forty feet from the shore.