“Amaya?” I called into the dark house, my voice sounding unfamiliar, haunting. “Josh?”
I used the flashlight on my phone to illuminate the room. There was no sign of anyone here. I crossed the living space, toward the hall, heading closer to the place where I’d seen the light flashing in the window.
“Hello?” I called again. I found a lamp in the living room, turned it on, and a dim yellow glow lit up the room.
The door to the bedroom down the hall was also open. I shone my torch around, taking in the unmade bed, Amaya’s luggage on the floor.
A light flashed just beside the window, a blue glow reflecting in the glass. I crossed the room to get a closer look—it was Amaya’s phone, lighting up with notifications. It flashed again, and I noticed a missed call from Oliver, texts from Brody, from Hollis.
Hold on
I’m on my way
I’m coming
Her message, just like Clara’s, must’ve gone out to all of us.
This time, we would all come for her.
“Amaya?” I called, louder this time. I started moving faster, no longer worried about trespassing, about invading her space.
I exited out the back door, the sound of wind chimes like rain falling on a tin roof growing louder.
“Josh!” I called, but my voice was swallowed up by the sound of the wind and the river.
I stepped deeper into the yard, flashlight illuminating the trees ahead of me. Eventually I came to a path: a series of rock steps built into the side of the ravine, leading down, down, down. I called their names again, listened to my voice echo back.
At the back of the property, there was also a shed, glass windows where I thought I caught a sign of movement. But then the glare of headlights shone on the glass instead. Another car, turning into the driveway.
I crossed back through the house.
From just inside the entryway, the first person I saw was Grace, stepping out of the passenger side, staring back at me.
“Grace!” I called.
I took a step outside.
“Cassidy?” she called in return. As if she was confused to see me here.
And then Brody exited the driver’s side. “Where’s Amaya?” he asked, striding across the drive.
“I don’t know. She’s not in the house.”
Brody opened his trunk, pulled out the high-powered flashlight he stored for emergencies, and lit up the front yard in a way that I could not.
Another car pulled in right behind them, as if they’d come in a caravan. Oliver and Hollis, and that was all of us.
Of course we all came.
“Josh is here?” Oliver asked.
“He came last night,” I said. “He was trying to find her. Before. But I can’t find him either.”
Brody frowned, then stepped inside the house. In the halo of his flashlight, I could see the source of the noise—the papers I’d assumed had scattered across the room.
But it was a deck of cards. I felt the moment Brody registered it. A pause in his movement, in the beam of the light arcing across the space.
I heard the echo of Ian’s plea: Please, stop this—it’s torment—
Russ had been pushing at all of us. Amaya, with the note in our room; Brody, with the deck of cards; Josh, missing his medication, sending him into his own insomnia-triggered spiral. And me, with Clara’s necklace. Every memory, everything I believed, taking on a twisted, disturbing meaning instead.
I wondered if Russ had sent a letter to each of them, detailing their own moments of horror—things he must’ve learned from my journals. I wondered what moment Brody’s must’ve detailed. I closed my eyes, could imagine it well enough: the cards; the way we’d almost dragged him into the river. The way, I was sure, he would never forgive us.
A chill ran through the room—I imagined it running through all of us.
Wind chimes resounded with the breeze, drawing our attention to the back of the house. And there, a silhouette stood in the doorway. Skinny and small, curly hair. Brody shone the light on her, arm out to block the glare.
She was alive, big brown eyes, hollows underneath, slightly unsteady and unfocused.
“Amaya?” I said.
Her gaze sought mine. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” Her words picked up speed. “I tried to come back, but it was too late… he was there.”
I started moving toward her, drawn like a magnet, relief flooding through my veins. “It’s okay, I’m just so glad you’re okay—”
But her expression had hardened, and she turned her head very slowly, toward something we hadn’t noticed just yet.
Then she jolted forward, like she’d tripped, or been pushed.
Russ came in behind her, Brody’s light catching on the object in his hand. “Whoa, whoa, what the hell,” Brody said, already stepping back.
I heard Oliver curse beside me. Time stilled.
Of course, he had a gun. You could do whatever you wanted when you had a weapon.
My hand instinctively went to my bag, to the knife. I sought it out, making contact, and slowly pulled it out.
Russ looked so different to me than he had a week ago. Now I could see only the common features to Clara. The color of his sandy blond hair, the smile that could light up a room.
He froze when his eyes met mine.
My stomach hollowed out. This man, who I believed would choose me, save me—instead would rather see me suffer.
He opened his mouth, and for a moment I thought he might apologize, try to explain things, tell me something I could believe. But instead he said, “This is how I know someone hurt my sister. You all came.”
We’d been lured here—a test, a trap.
“Did you act as a group? Was that it? Part of this pact?” he asked, voice rising. As if he believed we had converged on Clara as a group, forced her over the edge, into the river—
But we were still down a number. “Where’s Josh?” I asked.
Amaya made her eyes go wider, just as Russ frowned. “He was less than forthcoming.”
A shudder rolled through my body, and I thought I was going to be sick again.
Russ made a face, like he didn’t understand my reaction. “He’s fine,” he said. “I’m not a monster.”
Not a monster. As if he wasn’t tormenting each of us, one by one. As if he hadn’t betrayed me in the worst way possible.
But all I could say, voice scratching against my throat, was “You’re holding a gun.” How could he claim he wasn’t a monster right now?
“Amaya,” he said, ignoring me, “you can go get him now.”
She disappeared out the back door, like she was compelled to obey him. And maybe she was. He had a gun pointed in our direction, vaguely drifting from person to person. It didn’t take much more than that implicit threat to our safety.
“Come right back,” he called, gesturing the gun toward us a little more assertively.
We waited in silence, hearing the wind chimes, the river, the sound of footsteps in the grass.
Finally, Josh emerged into the room, blinking slowly. He looked like he had when I’d pulled him out of the river. Shocked, slow to react. Hunched over, as if he wasn’t sure entirely where he was hurt. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“They’re here to decide on some things,” Russ said.
I felt another chill.
“I know what you did.” My voice wavered, just as my grip tightened on the knife. “You killed Ian,” I said.
I felt everyone’s attention turn my way.
“I… what?” He shook his head. “I didn’t touch Ian.” And then he gestured at the people beside him. “I didn’t hurt Amaya. Didn’t hurt Josh.”
“You locked me in a fucking shed,” Josh said. And he did look hurt, from the way he was holding on to his arm, and the series of scratches along his wrists, his hands. As if he’d been trying to fight his way out of there too. I closed my eyes, imagined him inside the van, fighting and fighting—
“Yeah, well, I didn’t leave anyone behind to die, did I?” Russ said.
Hollis flinched, and Oliver looked down. It had never been spoken aloud like that. Never directed at us, in accusation.
“You and Ian, it’s on tape,” I said. Sometimes, you had to lie. You had to bluff. “He set up a camera in that house, to expose you.”
Was this it? The one way out?
But Russ only smiled, a knowing, cruel grin. “I did not hurt him. And if you had it on camera, like you claimed, you would see that. You think I wanted him to die?” He shook his head. “He was a fucking mess, I know that. He was in a bad place, and it only got worse. I told him to take a minute, get a grip on himself… but when I came back, I found him out back, exactly where I’d left him. He had fucking overdosed.”
“You tried to frame Oliver.” At the very least, he had done that.
A bark of laughter. “No, I definitely didn’t do that either. I brought Ian inside, contacted Oliver—it was his house. I thought Oliver would call it in when he found him. My god, Oliver, really? What is wrong with you all? Oliver knew Ian was supposed to be there, it was in his email. I thought he’d call for help.”
I heard the echo of what he’d told Ian: They’re all very bad people.
Even then, maybe he underestimated just how callous and terrible we were, that Oliver would move Ian’s body. That he would tell no one. That each of us, in our way, would bury the past so willingly and efficiently.
We’d had a decade of practice. Burying the truth somewhere deep, and never, never looking back. You did it the same way you escaped.
“You lied to me,” I said, with more force than I’d managed before. Because wasn’t that the worst of it? I’d trusted him, and he’d used me, used all of us.
“I did what I had to do,” he said, as if he was appealing to something deep inside all of us.
“No, you didn’t have to do that.”
His gaze turned hard, unfamiliar. “Ian said you wrote the journals. That you trusted him—that he was the only one you trusted. That you had been together.” A twitch of his lips, as if I could see the pieces lining up. A pattern he would follow. “If you didn’t have them still, I figured you could at least tell me what was in them. I needed you to trust me, Cassidy.”
The sting of betrayal, the rush of shame. What must Russ have learned about me? What must he have seen? How transparent I must’ve been. Such an easy mark.
But I thought of what I saw on the camera, the way he had been tormenting Ian, and thought he was motivated by something else. “No, you just wanted to hurt us in the worst way possible.”
He blinked slowly, not quite denying it. Maybe he wasn’t sure himself. “I just want the truth,” he said. “That’s all I ever wanted. And finally, I found it.” He smiled then, something harsh and knowing. “Want to tell them how I know so much about them, Cassidy?”
I shook my head. Couldn’t look at them. “I made it up,” I said. I looked at each of them, terrified. I remembered how quickly they’d turned on Ben. How quickly they’d turned on Brody. You want to be on the right side of the numbers. You want to be inside the pact.
“It was just an exercise my therapist suggested,” I said desperately. “A way to cope.”
“What the fuck, Cassidy? Journals?” Brody said, just as Josh mumbled, “I knew it. I knew it was you.”
“No,” I said. “No, I didn’t mean to. It was something I wrote, for myself.” I pointed at Russ, ignoring the gun pointing back. “I had no idea who he was. He pretended to be someone he’s not, sneaking into my life. Sneaking through my life… He stole them.”
“You wrote it down?” Grace asked. “What, exactly, did you say, Cassidy?”
I looked at each of them, desperately wanting them to understand. Hollis averted her eyes; everything was shifting. “Please, I just wanted to understand. I needed to try to make sense of what happened that night.”
Amaya was staring back at me, stoically. And I wondered if she knew more than she’d ever said too.
“She knows everything about you,” Russ said to the others. “Every one of you. But you know what I noticed? In your journals, there’s nothing at all about you, Cassidy.”
I paused, felt the silence falling around the room.
“I’m there,” I said.
I was in the shadows, in the background.
“Cassidy,” Oliver said, quietly, tentatively. “What did you do?”
“Yes, Cassidy, what did you do,” Russ repeated. And then, slowly, he asked, “What’s that in your hand?” The piece of evidence he’d been looking for, from the start.
“Ian had it,” I said, feeling the weight of it in my palm. The power of it.
I felt Grace reaching for it, darkness seeking dark, but I tightened my grip. This was the only proof left, and Ian had kept it safe.
“So now I’ll give you all a choice,” Russ said. “Tell me who killed Ben, and I’ll destroy Cassidy’s fine work. We’ll never speak of it again.” He gestured to the floor. “You can draw cards, for all I care. But one of you is going to pay. For Clara.”
But we were a vault, a pact of silence, even now.
“Russ, listen to me, nobody did anything to Clara,” Grace said, speaking to him for the first time. I had expected her therapist voice, something calming and rational. But she sounded panicked, desperate.
“Yes, Grace, someone did. Clara was going to tell, and then she died. So many of you were there with her that day. I saw the picture from the one-year anniversary at the memorial. So I’m just trying to find out, which one of you had the most to lose, that you were willing to hurt my sister before she told?” He stared at us, one by one. And then, “Or was it all of you?”
I waited, again, as the silence stretched. Remembered the moment when Ian and I pulled Hollis from the water. When we turned around and saw Ben on the ground, hands pressed to his stomach, in surprise—
“Brody,” Grace said, and at first I thought she was calling on him to answer. But his name was a complete sentence. The answer itself. A name given so quickly and readily, as if she’d been waiting all this time.
My head whipped to her, just as Brody said, “No.”
“He was so upset. He was so angry at Ben…”
“Grace,” Amaya said, “what the hell are you doing?”
“Stop this,” Brody said, but his voice was wavering. I pictured him as he was that night, drawing the lowest card, a circle of bodies closing in on him, while he scrambled desperately for an exit.
Russ smiled wide, nothing like the man I thought I knew. “But you told them that Ben was responsible for the crash, Grace,” he said. “So I’d say it was at least partly your fault.”
She flinched, clearly surprised. She probably hadn’t yet received the letter that was waiting for her. Had no idea the extent of what Russ knew.
“Yes,” she conceded, eyes cutting to me. As if she understood now that I was the only one to blame. “And like I said, Brody was very upset.”
“Grace, I said stop!” Brody yelled. Like he had that night, as we closed in on him.
“Ian said you were wrong, Grace,” Russ interjected. “He said that Ben didn’t cause the accident. That there was no reason for him to be killed.”
I couldn’t imagine the things Russ and Ian might’ve talked about, before meeting at The Shallows. The things they might’ve discussed out back, on the patio, when they left the range of the camera. I couldn’t imagine what things Ian might’ve told Russ. The confessions he made.
“Ian didn’t know everything,” Grace said unconvincingly. She’d been caught off guard, was scrambling to keep up now.
“Maybe not. But he seemed pretty clear on that point. Pretty sure of it. All this death, and for what? Some stupid crush on your teacher?”
All these secrets Grace thought she was keeping. But she raised her voice instead, in defense. “You don’t understand. Brody thought Hollis was dead in the other van, and he and Ben got in a fight.”
“Grace!” Brody shouted, as if he had any hope of stopping her now.
Hollis turned to stare at Brody, like she was finally understanding something about that night. While she’d been finding her way to safety, he thought she was dead. He thought she was dead until she came upon him, standing over Ben’s body—until he finally registered her presence. Turning around, surprised, like he was seeing a ghost.
“We got in a fight, yes,” Brody said, “but I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t. I never had the knife.”
I remembered the way he leaned over Ben’s body, his blank expression.
“I swear,” he continued, “I only pushed him, and the next thing I know, he was bleeding out on the ground. It was so dark. I don’t know how it happened, only that it wasn’t me.”
The last person I saw with the knife that night was Clara, after they got Ben out of the van as it drifted away. But she had adored Ben Weaver.
What had Clara known? Was she, then, the one who knew the truth?
I looked, suddenly, to Grace, eyes locking, darkness seeking dark.
Brody and I must’ve come to the realization at the same time. Grace was the only person willing to throw out a name.
She had killed Ben. Not just in her lack of action, but with that knife in her hand.
She’d broken the pact, to protect herself.
“What did you do?” I said. In an echo of what she said that night, to Ben.
What did you do, that night. What did you do, when Clara was going to come forward. What did you do, that made your parents cut you out of their lives. What did you do what did you do what did you do—
Russ seemed to understand at the same time. His gaze turned to Grace.
“What did you do to my sister, Grace?” Russ asked.
But she just tilted her head, like she was looking deep into his heart, his soul.
“I didn’t do anything to her. She did it to herself,” Grace answered.
“She was going to the police. She was going to the lawyers,” Russ said.
“Yes, yes, she couldn’t take it. I know, I was there. We saved her, and for what? For what?” Grace asked, arms out, beseeching us.
“You were with her that night,” Russ said. “I know she wouldn’t have done that.”
Things were spiraling out of control, they were moving too fast, just like they had that night, with no time to think things through.
“But see, that’s where you’re wrong,” Grace said. “I was with her, yes. Which is how I know what happened. I watched her do it.”
A chill worked its way from the base of my skull down my spine.
“I made it out there,” she said, “just in time. Just like you all ran here. Except that time, I was the only one.” An accusation, to deflect from the reality.
“What did you do?” Russ asked, a layer of horror creeping into his voice.
“I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know the right things, the right way to convince her… to help her. She said she’d gone to the law firm, and instead of helping her, they asked her what she needed.”
Amaya sucked in a breath, eyes fixed on Grace.
“She was so upset,” Grace continued. “That nothing was happening, that nothing would change. That they would just bury the truth. She didn’t understand.”
Russ took a step closer, gun trained clearly on Grace. “I’m going to ask you one more time. What did you do to my sister, Grace?”
I saw her throat move as she swallowed, but she held his gaze. Held strong to the moment. Maybe, this time, she would know the right things to say. The right things to do. “Nothing, Russ. I did absolutely nothing.”
We stood in silence, shocked. Appalled.
She peered around the circle of us, staring at her in open horror. “Oh, you’re all just as guilty. None of you stopped her either.”
“We weren’t there!” Oliver said.
“I know,” Grace said, venom in her voice. “I noticed.” She narrowed her eyes then. “And so did Clara.”
Clara, Ian. We hadn’t made it in time for either of them. Had missed the calls for help. Had thought only of ourselves.
“You know the worst of it?” Grace asked, turning things on us instead, doubling down. “Clara asked me to do something that night. She had the knife, you know. And when Ben and Brody were fighting, she begged me to do something. She gave it back to me. Said, Do something, Grace. It was an accident. I was just trying to get it to stop!”
Grace had killed Ben, and then she followed Clara to the river gorge. She didn’t stop her. She watched her die.
“And you never said anything?” Hollis asked.
“Say what, exactly?” Grace shook her head. “My parents knew I had been out that night. They didn’t even ask me, just told me I should go back to school immediately. If they didn’t believe me, what chance did I have?”
“You’re telling me the law firm knew?” Russ asked, incredulous. “Why the hell would they want to protect you?”
I looked to Josh, who had his eyes fixed on Amaya instead.
Amaya, who hadn’t budged, but seemed to have become a different person, standing there. She must’ve understood the truth.
They wanted to protect Amaya.
“Clara was always so kind,” Grace said. “Even when she confessed, she was kind. Said that there was a group of us, fighting, before Ben ended up on the ground, bleeding from a knife wound. Me, yes. But also Brody, Amaya… and she didn’t know what happened.”
Amaya sucked in a breath. All eyes turned to her.
“It was an accident, Russ,” she said, words spilling out quickly. “I promise. I tried to pull him away from Brody. I jerked him back, and he fell into Grace. But I know how it looks. It looks like I’m an accessory.”
And her family had to protect her.
Somehow, I had always worried I was on the outside. That there was another pact within our group. But it went deeper than I imagined: a secret cover-up; a possible cold-blooded murder.
I still didn’t know if I believed Ben’s death was an accident. I wasn’t sure if Clara believed that either.
I could picture, just as easily, Grace following Clara to the river. Arguing, like I’d seen them do that night. Pushing her. The sway of her voice, the force behind her—
I imagined Russ could picture it just as readily.
Russ stepped forward, gestured with his weapon. “Outside,” he said.
Grace stared at the rest of us, as if we would stop this. As if we could.
Would we watch? Would we watch Russ take his revenge and then go on with our lives? Six of us, finally freed?
“Now,” he said.
She put her hands up, confused, eyes wide with shock.
“You wanted the truth, and I gave it to you,” she said, as if she were speaking to someone who thought and operated just like her.
Her eyes cut to each of us as she passed, as if we would come to her defense. As if she hadn’t thrown Brody’s name out there. As if she hadn’t been willing to let him take the fall in her place. She’d have done the same to any of us.
I followed them outside, felt the others doing the same. “Russ, stop,” I said. This had to stop.
He turned around, shrugged.
“Okay, fair enough,” he said. “Call the police. Tell them.” Confess.
Grace stared back at him, a twitch at the corner of her mouth.
“All this death, because of you. So call the police.” Russ waited again, the wind chimes rattling. “Tell them what happened because of you!”
Russ swung the gun out to the side, in a wild gesture. And in that moment, I watched as Grace took off, into the distance. Escape—the basest instinct.
She took off toward the path, the group of us scattering after her into the night.
I tried to keep my eyes on her, on Russ. I followed them into the night, into the trees. Saw him catch up with her just ahead, where the steps stretched down into the canyon.
I ran with my arms brushing against branches, the river growing louder. The sound of our escape that night, except this time we were racing toward it.
I slowed as I entered the clearing: they stood at the edge, together. Two shadows, intertwined, so I couldn’t tell who was who. Only that they were struggling.
I pictured Brody and Amaya and Grace and Ben in the dark, the chaos, the split-second decisions everyone made. The way nothing was fully clear in hindsight.
“Everyone’s dead because of you, Grace,” Russ shouted. “You think you don’t deserve this?”
But were we really so different? Didn’t we believe, at the core, that we were all killers? It was the thing we had in common, that bound us together, in ways big and small. Brody fighting with Ben, until Amaya, and then Grace, put an end to it. Hollis, who had been so desperate to look for the others, at the expense of those who had survived. Oliver, whose series of decisions ultimately led to Jason’s senseless death. Joshua, frozen and useless on the riverbank as the rest of his van was swept away. Amaya may have been the one to tell us to leave, but we had each agreed to it. We were all complicit, and we had made that pact because of it.
“It’s not her fault,” I yelled, over the sound of the wind, the water.
My presence threw something—or someone—off balance. Grace pushed him backward, or Russ lost his footing—I imagined Clara reeling back, arms desperate—and Russ reached an arm out for Grace as the gun went off, to take her with him.
The knife fell from my grip as I lunged for them—like reaching into the river, everything slow motion in the water, begging to connect with another hand. Please—
I had someone’s hand, in the dark. Felt Grace’s body fall on top of mine, both of us slumping to the earth. A scream echoed from below.
Grace pressed her hand to her side, staring up into the night sky. “Oh,” she said, as I rolled her onto the rocky earth.
I pressed my hand over hers. “Hold on,” I said.
Her panicked eyes sought mine in the night, and I thought she could see straight into the heart of me. All the things I’d done; all the things I’d failed to do.
Really, everything was my fault. Of course all of this was because of me.