Madison hopped onto the gently swaying wooden dock and looped the end of the thick rope around the metal post. She stretched her hand out to Chris, who stood on the motor boat staring transfixed at the gap between the boat and dock.

A thickset man wearing a white hard hat and navy coveralls, approached them holding a clipboard, his steel-toed boots making loud thudding sounds on the wooden boards. Madison felt the subtle movement of the newly built dock under her feet as he approached.

She held Chris's elbow with both hands as Chris carefully hoisted herself up beside her. Chris laughed as if happy once more to be on secure ground and Madison smiled back at her. She felt bad that Chris' fear of water had developed a year ago after her nighttime crossing in rough waters, but hey, if that was the only consequence of that night, they were golden.

"What are you girls doing here?" the man asked, his voice low and rumbly. "Everyone knows the island is off-limits to locals."

"I know," Madison said stepping forward as she tilted her head to her side, and offered her best girl-next-door smile. "My friend and I used to live on the island..."

"It's under construction now, girls," he interrupted gruffly, his hand going up to stroke his unkempt gray beard.

"We won't stay long, I promise, but we saw that our cottages haven't been demolished yet and we just wanted to take a few pictures."

"We won't go anywhere near the machinery," Chris added, nodding her head towards the bulldozers and diggers. "Our cottages are way on the other side where you haven't started working yet.

The man hesitated, his gaze going first to Chris and then back to Madison.

Madison saw themselves in the photo he was taking with his eyes. Two young women, with long, gleaming blonde ponytails, in summer dresses - one yellow, one pink - with the lake behind, the sun just starting to make its way downwards, casting a copper glow on the water.

"You won't be long?" he asked. "You aren't going to make me search the island for you?"

"No," they both said in unison, with Chris adding a girlish laugh for good measure.

Madison saw the moment he gave in, his eyes warming as they rested on Chris. She had that effect on people; outside she looked soft and lovable, inside she was hard and cautious. "Fifteen minutes. Go on," he said stepping aside so they could pass along the narrow dock to the shore. "Young people and their pictures," they heard him say behind them.

They held their phones up to eye level and feigned snapping shots of the construction site, and the lake until they saw him turn around and walk towards the pile of wood that was once Nelson's cottage. They didn't wait but slipped quietly into the treeline. They had no desire to visit their cottages but had come instead one more time to see another place.

In the quiet shadows of the forest, they walked slowly up towards the summit, moving branches aside as they watched for tangled roots under their feet, pausing only when the sound of a bird's loud call, distracted them. Finally, they arrived and stood side by side on the bedrock that made up the top of the bluff. They walked to the edge and looked down to the large sharp boulders jutting out from below the surface of the water, and watched as the waves lapped over them.

They became very quiet and still as each fell into their own thoughts.

Madison remembered another time she had stood here and the circumstances around them. She mostly tried not to think of the night a year ago, but today was different. Today marked the one-year anniversary of the completion of their plan. The universe had been out of whack and together they had rebalanced it, and in the process, saved themselves too. The plan had been simple on paper: get invited to the cottage, confirm Darren was responsible, and lure him to the bluff. At least for Madison, that had been the plan – for Chris, the middle part hadn't been necessary.

Madison let her mind drift back to the night of the cottage.

When the yawn escaped her mouth and the slow-moving fog started to creep into her brain, Madison realized that the drug was still in her system despite her having thrown up. She was a night owl and it was too early for her to feel tired, let alone start yawning.

When they separated for the night and she remained seated on the sofa, Madison stared hard at the window knowing she had to leave the cottage. The patter of rain against the glass had lessened and she sensed from the absence of new bouts of thunder or lightning that the storm was moving off.

If she was about to lose consciousness, she'd rather do it under a deck somewhere, or in an abandoned shed, anywhere far from this sofa where soon she would be unconscious and vulnerable. Already, she could feel her blood becoming sluggish, making her limbs feel heavy and oddly disconnected.

Her eyes widened when a soft scratching sound at the window filtered her fog-filled mind. She stood up cautiously, the quickening of her heart, pushing new energy through her as she crossed the floor to the front door.

She didn't believe in ghosts. The humans in the house with her were infinitely more dangerous. She slipped quietly outside and felt the wind whip rain in her face. She moved to the edge of the porch, and softly asked the night, "Chris?... Chris Is that you?"

A small figure in black appeared then, stepping out of the shadows, and her relief at seeing her friend made her want to cry out. She put her hand to her mouth to stop herself and breathed rapidly, jumping down onto the wet grass to pull her into a hug.

"Thank god, you're here," she mumbled gathering the soaking wet girl towards her. She spoke into the damp purple cloth band she wore to cover her thinning hair. "Oh my god."

"It's okay," Chris whispered, hugging her back. "You're okay."

"How did you get here?" she asked, her voice muffled against the cloth.

"I left before you did," Chris answered into her shoulder. "I didn't want to chance them seeing me in the kayak if I followed after. I waited at my cottage, until it got dark and then headed out here. I almost showed myself earlier when I saw the light in the window, but then you all came out onto the porch."

"I've been drugged," Madison said pulling back so she could see Chris' wet face.

"What?!"

"I know. I should have known better."

"No. This is not on you. Who does shit like that?" Chris said, scowling.

"We need to do it tonight," Madison insisted.

"But we can't..."

"No buts..." she interrupted. "Just be ready."

Madison hadn't needed to fake the disorientation she felt. It was as if the fragile connection between her mind and muscles had been cut by a sharp pair of scissors – scissors held by Darren. She struggled to stay awake on the sofa, waiting for him, knowing that at some point he'd come out to her, wearing the same smug smile she'd caught in the mirror during the game. The only thing that kept her calm was the knowledge that Chris was there, somewhere, ready to barge in if she did fail them by succumbing to sleep.

Later she stumbled along in the dark, swaying to a sound only her body heard, knowing he was following her in something that too closely resembled the nightmares she'd had every night for months.

When she reached the bluff, she forced her eyes to remain open, but it wasn't hard to pretend that she was losing consciousness, not when she had to keep shaking herself awake. Her body stiffened for a moment when he picked her up but then softened again, leaning heavily against his chest as her eyes gave in to the heaviness of her lids.

When she woke moments later to feel him removing her bra, she was too far gone to fight. Even the swiss army knife she'd stolen from him was of no use, lost in a pocket of a pair of shorts she no longer wore. Tears slipped from her eyes at the sheer helplessness of her limbs, and their inability to push against him the way she needed to as his hands moved over her.

When she saw Chris step out from the trees with the chloroform-soaked cloth in her hand, her heart began to thud against her chest, so hard, she feared he might notice and turn around.

But he didn't hear Chris' silent steps until the last second, and even then, he only had time to twist his neck before a rough hand covered his mouth and tightened. He stiffened, jerking his body away from her, but Chris followed, throwing herself at his back and holding tight, as she wrapped one bent arm around his neck, preventing him from moving away until he sagged under the cloth, his body collapsing heavily on Madison.

Madison scrambled out from under him, her elbows scraping the rough rock beneath her. She felt blindly for her clothes and dressed quickly in the dark against the feeling of heaviness in her limbs. The sight of Chris had given her body a shot of adrenaline and for the moment, she could get her fingers to fasten the button of her shorts.

She moved to stand beside Chris and stood with her looking down at Darren's unconscious body, fighting the uneasiness inside her at what needed to be done next. Through the waves of exhaustion, she forced herself to remember that this man had killed Chris' brother, Evan, and her stepsister, Mandie.

Then, together they knelt as one on the hard bedrock and did what she saw in her nightmare every night. Only instead of Mandie, they rolled Darren's heavy body to the edge of the bluff and over. They watched as his body descended lifelessly down, down, down, until it hit the boulders below the surface of the water with a bone-cracking thud.

They sat there on their heels for some time afterward, and watched until the heavy waves pulled at his body, each wave tugging at it until it loosened and began to float away towards the bay and ultimately the ocean.

As they stood on the cliffside now, Chris sighed, reminding Madison that she wasn't alone. "You okay?" she asked taking her hand in her own.

"Yeah." Madison looked across at Chris. "How about you?"

Chris nodded. "I feel at peace with this decision. I think this is what they wanted from us."

They were murderers now, but it didn't feel that way to her. The seizures had ended and so had the nightmares, so that in the end it felt not like they had been the ones to roll Darren over, but instead Evan and Mandie.

"It's over now," Chris said, expelling a long pent-up breath. "It's finally over."

Madison stayed quiet, remembering the one thing she hadn't told Chris.

"Go now," Madison said, struggling to her feet and pushing Chris towards the trees. It's stopped raining. Leave the island, now, in the dark before someone sees you."

"The water is still too rough," Chris protested.

"You have to go in the dark, before morning when you might be spotted."

"But you're unwell. What if you don't make it back?

"I will," Madison insisted, knowing that whether it was true or not, everything depended on Chris getting off the island.

She watched Chris' small figure disappear into the trees and then began the slow descent herself. She felt dizzy, weak, ready to drop at any moment. The trees began to blur together and she stopped as she had before and leaned against one. She found herself sliding down the rough trunk and coming to a hard stop at the bottom. She knew she couldn't stay there; knew that if she was found there tomorrow morning there would be too many questions. But she couldn't lift her body up.

She drifted off but woke with a start again, feeling a bug crawling along her nose. She slapped it away and leaning against the tree for support, used a low-lying branch to hoist herself up to a standing position. Her shorts and t-shirt felt damp against her back as she made the slow careful descent back to the cottage.

She came up to the porch and immediately froze at the sight of a light scanning the darkness. After a moment of indecision, she stepped into it when it swung back her way.

Josh took a stumbling step back as she walked up the steps towards him, holding her hand to block out the light, until noticing her discomfort, he lowered the phone. The cottage door was closed behind him, as he stood there, clutching the phone with one hand, its flashlight forming a circle on the damp porch boards.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he examined her, his eyes running from her face down the length of her body and back again.

"I'm fine," she said, even though she wasn't - even though she knew this meant that everything would come out now. "I just needed fresh air...air..." her voice hitched on the last word as she saw that in his other hand, he held a long, sharp, and shiny hunting knife.

"Where's Darren?" he asked, his eyes scanning the darkness behind her. "He's not in his room."

She saw the way he tightened his fingers over the knife as he spoke his name and shuddered. "I don't know."

She took careful steps along the porch towards him, her eyes fixed on the knife, and eased past him, opening the door and sliding back inside. Josh followed her in, closing the door behind him. She made it to the sofa and watched as Josh stumbled behind her and settled on the chair opposite her, laying the knife on his lap.

When his lids drooped and began to close, she said firmly, "Josh, you need to go to bed now."

He paused, eyes opening and closing as if he was processing her words. "But, Darren..."

"I'm fine. I need you to go to bed."

He stared at her for some time, before he stood reluctantly.

"Put the knife away," she said. "You don't need that."

He looked down at his hands. She could almost see his mind hiccupping as it worked on understanding her words. Finally, he moved towards the closet and she twisted to watch as he stooped down and some moments later, stood and moved slowly towards the room, balancing himself against the wall.

Only then did she release the breath she held.

In the morning when Nelson asked her again if she'd seen Darren leave, she said no, even as she felt Josh's eyes resting on her. She'd never asked him why he'd taken out the knife and he'd never asked her what she did outside before he found her.

The police had questioned them on the mainland when they reported Darren missing later that day, pulling each of them into separate rooms to hear their versions. Madison had been asked why she had joined three strangers and had seen the look of disgust in the older officer's eyes when she said 'I thought it would be fun to explore the island together.' She'd listened to his lecture, nodding her head while doing her best to look both thoughtful and scared as he told her gruesome stories of girls who went off with guys they didn't know.

Nelson had helped by insisting that Darren probably tried to leave the island without them; telling them it was just the type of thing he would do. Madison wondered if he did so because he knew about the hot chocolate and didn't want it to come out and be tainted by Darren's plan for her.

Even Josh had been asked extensively about his fingerprints on the hunting knife in the closet, but after testing and not finding any sign of blood, they'd accepted his story that he'd found it and handled it, before then putting it back.

Only her Dad had looked at her strangely one morning when he'd come across the story in his news feed, raising tired blue eyes to her face. "Isn't this one of the boys from the island? The one you thought might be responsible for Mandie's death? The one you wanted to meet at the diner even though I said that was a terrible idea?"

He'd never been told the full plan; only the part about talking to Darren to find out more information about Mandie's and Evan's disappearances. Charles didn't know about the island and the night she'd spent there.

She glanced at the headline on the phone he held up to her. 'College boy, Darren Asher, still missing; presumed drowned.' She looked away, unable to think of it without the stirring of dread in her stomach. "I told you, dad. Chris and I decided against it."

"That's pretty odd, him disappearing that way, just like your step-sister and that little boy eight years ago." He paused as if waiting for her to speak.

"Um hmmm," Madison said, focusing on the plate of eggs in front of her.

She felt the uncomfortable stillness in the air and glanced back at him.

"I'm glad to hear you didn't go, Madison," he said his eyes fixed on her with the same quiet intensity she'd sensed in him since Mandie's death and the subsequent divorce from Mandie's mother. "There was no need to worry so much about it. No one ever gets away with murder. It's always just a matter of time."

Hearing his words, Madison shivered.

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