The cabin that Kenny selected is beautiful. It's an angular building with a pointed top entirely made out of wood for the structure. A large glass window goes across the front of the room revealing a large fireplace and lots of furniture surrounding it.

A large wooden staircase is seen on the farthest side of the stone fireplace, and a long hall that leads to the various rooms we will be staying in.

The view of the mountain looks incredible. We're almost at the top, having had to drive around several winding roads to arrive at the cabin itself. No one more onlookers, no judgemental parents, and no scary stalker killer going to take us out. Because he's dead, and we are finally free of the nightmare that we have had to endure the past week of being back in Grover.

Kenny grips my hand and gives me a wicked smile. I feel my stomach erupt with the same butterflies that I felt when we first got together last year. In just a few days we will be exploring an entirely different continent together.

But this getaway with friends is nice. Something special.

"It's beautiful, Ken," I whisper to him as he tugs me toward the front door of the cabin.

"No, you," he says with a wink. I ignore the squeal from Diana behind me as he says that.

Kenny unlocks the door to the cabin and everyone gasps. "Kenny this must have cost a fortune!" Diana says walking in shocked. "You have to let us chip in something."

"I got an amazing deal," Kenny says nodding his head. "Don't worry about it. Seriously. Just enjoy the two days we have up here."

He leads us up the stairs and indicates where everyone will be sleeping. The log cabin is huge with six bedrooms in total. Briar and Declan pick one at the end of the hallway, and Diana looks over at me with an eyebrow raised.

"What?" I ask her confused.

"I'm not being in the middle of a couple on vacation room selection," Diana says. "You guys pick where you want to go and I'll decide from there," She winks at me, and I roll my eyes and lead Kenny to a room that's on the opposite side of the hall from Briar and Declan. Diana nods and picks the room in the middle, directly across from the room between Briar and Declan and Kenny and myself.

"Meet in the living room in a couple of hours for dinner," Diana calls to the group. "I'm going to take a nap until then!"

Kenny leads me into the room and quickly closes the door behind us. He wraps his arms around me in a tight bear hug and I fall into the embrace. It feels familiar. It feels like home. I've always felt safe with Kenny. Something that I never realized I wanted or needed before being with him.

"So what do you want to do for the next couple of hours?" I ask into his chest. Not wanting to break apart.

"I can think of a few things to do," He says with a smirk.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wake up to the sound of a loud crack of lightning. Kenny lays next to me wide awake. He's scrolling on his phone. It's dark out, and rain is falling hard outside the cabin. When he notices I'm awake he looks down and smiles.

"Hey," he says. He leans down and kisses my forehead. "How are you sleepy? Guess we should have looked at the weather, huh?"

"What time is it?"

"8," Kenny says with a smile. I texted them and told them I hadn't seen you sleep this hard in a while. They agreed to let you have some time."

"Kenny, we came to the room around 3!" I gasp. I chuckle and shake my head. I am not going to sleep tonight."

I sit up and stretch, feeling each part of my back crack as I stretch it out. Kenny lays back and watches me with a smile. His eyes are warm as he gets up from the bed and holds his hand out to me. "Ready to go see the others?"

This was the first time I felt relaxed in the last week. The first time I closed my eyes and wasn't fearful a masked assailant was going to be standing over me when I opened them next. The truth was, I do want to spend time with my friends, but right now I just want to live in this bubble a little longer.

But that would waste the very little time we have in this cabin. So I reluctantly lift my hand to reach his as he helps me off the bed. "There will be plenty of time for relaxation later," he says as if reading my mind. Europe. The world."

"Europe and the world," I say smiling as he opens up our bedroom door.

We can hear the faint sound of the television, and when we walk down the hallway, and down the stairs we see Briar, Declan, and Diana watching the news. Briar looks pale as she listens to yet another newscast about her dead ex-fiance. She's wrapped tightly in Declan's arms, and Diana sits on her other side.

"Well glad you decided to join us," says Diana.

Briar perks up when she sees me and instantly turns off the television. "Was beginning to think you were going into hibernation, dude," Declan teases.

"It's been a while since I got my beauty rest," I walk over to one of the various armchairs in the living room and sit down. My stomach instantly starts to grumble and I look around. "Did anyone bring food?"

"I figured we could just order?" Kenny says, sitting next to me in an adjacent chair.

"Not with this weather and being in the mountains," says Briar. "Only stupid people try and make this drive-"

She freezes and looks at the others. My heart instantly starts to pick up as I remember our own time of trying to drive from the mountains in bad weather. I clear my throat and she shakes her head and smiles. "So I guess we're waiting until the weather clears out."

"That could take all night!" Diana whines. "My stomach needs sustenance now. You guys wanna know what happens when I don't get food and get hungry? Bad things. Very bad things are going to happen if we don't get food soon."

I get up and go to the kitchen. It's a large space with dark brown wooden cabinets lining the wall. The countertops are all dark black marble, and in the center of the room, there is a kitchen island made from the same wood and marble as the cabinets and counters. A stainless steel oven, stove, and microwave all sit on top of each other across from the kitchen sink, and wedged in the very back corner is a pantry.

I walk over to the pantry and open it. There's nothing but a box of microwavable popcorn on the middle shelf. "There's popcorn in here, Diana," I call to the living room.

"Give me!" she calls back.

I chuckle as I walk over to the microwave. I put the bag in, and watch as the popcorn begins to pop. This was always my least favorite thing to do as a kid. Ideally, a microwave makes cooking go faster, but something about the anticipation of waiting for the timer to hit zero makes me anxious. Like the two minutes that I have to wait for the timer to ding is longer than the two minutes of me scrolling on my phone or watching a commercial during a television show.

I watch as the numbers slowly fall closer to zero.

Ten seconds.

Five seconds.

Right as the timer was about to ding, the power went out.

A loud crash of thunder sounds from outside. Lightning flashes across the night sky, and the darkroom is briefly illuminated by the natural light.

"Well this is a flop guys," Kenny says. "I'm sorry."

"This is just fine, Kenny," Declan says. "We all grew up in Grover. We know how to have a good time with next to nothing."

I walk back into the living room and toss the bag of popcorn to Diana. She opens it hastily and begins to eat it and then stretches her arm out to hand me some.

"I'm good for now," I say.

"Shouldn't we go check the breaker?" Briar says. "I'm not going to lie, I have no idea what that really is, but I see it in the movies, and if there's a chance that we can get the power back on it could be worth it. Especially because we don't have a phone signal up here without wifi."

"Might be a good thing for you, sweetie," says Diana with a sympathetic tone. "Taking a social media break right now could be beneficial."

"I was just thinking in case we had to get ahold of the detectives, or vice versa."

Briar swallows hard and leans back into the couch. She wraps her legs up to her chest, and Kenny clears his throat. "I think I saw it on the side of the house when we were coming up this afternoon," he says. "I'll get my rain jacket and go check it out."

"Kenny, no," I say. "We can just wait it out for a minute-" I begin to say.

"Ez, it's fine," he says with a smile. "A little rain never hurt anyone."

"Want help, dude?" Declan asks from the couch.

"I'm sure I can manage," Kenny says as he disappears upstairs. He returns moments later holding his silver rain jacket. He puts it on and walks to the front door of the cabin.

Anxiety begins to fill my chest. I'm unsure why, but the same tension that you feel when you're waiting for the microwave to ding starts to slam down on me with an intense force. As if something in the mountain air is brewing, and warning us something is about to happen.

The metaphorical ding.

"Please be careful," I call to him before he opens the door.

"It's okay, Ez," he says with a smirk. "Cute that you're so worried about me though."

He disappears into the rainy night, and I turn to face Briar. I can't help but feel a bit annoyed. "Why couldn't Declan go out there instead?" I ask.

"I offered to go?" Declan says confused. "Ezra, what's wrong?"

"Something just feels off," I say. I lean my head on the back of the chair and close my eyes. "I feel like this weird tension I can't explain. Like something bad is going to happen, and I can't shake it. I'm sorry. It's just making me nervous."

Seconds later the lights in the house turn back on, and the tension that I was feeling goes to a boiling point as I anxiously watch the door and wait for Kenny to return.

One minute passes.

Two minutes pass.

Three minutes pass.

Then we hear a scream.

"Kenny!"

I jump up from the armchair and run over to the front door. The others are calling me back to the living room, but I don't hear them as I throw the door open and run around to the side of the house.

Cold rain splashes on my body, but I don't notice the frigid water as I sprint to where I heard the sound of the man I love. When I get to the side of the house with the breaker, I see Kenny lying on the ground in front of it.

"Kenny!" I scream.

I run over to him and get on my knees. Water is crowding my eyes, but I feel my blood run cold as I look at him.

A large knife sticks out from the center of his chest.

Just like Joel.

"No," I whisper. "NO!"

This was supposed to be over. Darren is dead! That Valerie bitch is dead! It's supposed to be done. We won!

But he's lying on the floor with a knife sticking out of him. Because Briar was right. Darren didn't do this. He was framed.

Which means we must have played directly into a trap.

Kenny's eyes are permanently widened in shock. The last thing he saw was whoever stabbed him in the chest. All because he came to turn on the breaker.

I scream into the sky and throw myself onto his stomach. Sobbing as his lifeless body lies under me. My Kenny. The man who's made me feel safe. The man who I was supposed to travel around Europe with just next week.

He's never going to see the world like he wanted. He was robbed of a happy ending. Robbed because of something I did when I was eighteen years old. I sob loudly. I hear my friends screaming from inside the house, but I don't look at them. There's nothing right now but Kenny. Kenny the man that I love.

Kenny the man that's dead.

A corpse.

Sloshing footsteps sound behind me. I turn my body to see someone standing in the rain about ten feet away. They're wearing a new mask this time, though. This one is shaped like the sad face from that mask you see on theater fliers. It's metallic, and shining in the light of the rainy night.

I should run. I should try and get up and get back to the cabin. I know I should. But Kenny shouldn't be left alone in the rain. Left alone outside.

"Leave!" I scream at the person in the mask. "You've done enough! Leave!"

They hold another knife up and shake it as if they're shaking their finger at me. The shining silver mocks me from ten feet away. My friends are screaming, and I turn around to see them pressed up against the window looking out at me. "The door is blocked! We can't get out!" Diana screams.

I hear the loud crash of glass, but before I can get up and run to the front of the house, a large body flies against me. The air leaves my body as I crash to the floor. I look up at the metallic face and shuffle underneath their body to break away from them. Their firm body holds me in place as they tsk their tongue at me. They shake their head no, and raise the knife above their head.

Diana said it was a man.

I put all my strength into my legs as I lift up my right knee and jam it into the killer's groin. They groan and fall off of me, and I'm on my feet in seconds, running away from the maniac with a knife. I sprint toward the front of the house. The long wooden frame of the house whizzes by me, and I think I'm about to make it back to the front door when a body once again slams into me.

I fall to the ground, the gravel from the mountain digging into my skin, scraping my knees and hands as I brace my impact as best I can. The wind is knocked out of me, and I'm struggling to breathe as I'm brutally lifted up by my hair when I hear another thud. I quickly throw myself around and see Declan is on top of the killer. He reaches for the mask when I see the most horrifying thing I've ever seen.

From inside of the house runs another masked assailant. This one has the happy face of the theater covering their face.

There are two of them!

They run at Declan with ferocity and stab him directly in the shoulder. Briar screams from inside the house, and Declan swings around uses his good arm, and slams it into the happy face.

They fall to the ground and I watch as the frown face lifts his knife up behind Declan's back.

I scream and run toward Declan and tackle him out of the way, but feel the sharp blade from the knife crash into my stomach. I feel the blade jerk down from the initial stab wound, slicing my torso and forming a big gash. Blood splatters onto the ground in front of me, and I scream in pain and grasp my stomach. The hole in my body is very large. Blood is pooling on the ground around me, and I begin to instantly feel lightheaded.

Declan falls to the ground, and Diana and Briar run out into the rain directly at the happy face. They punch Briar in the face, and she instantly goes down to the ground. I try to get up, but my torso feels like it's on fire as the stab wound continues to bleed heavily. "Dec," I call out loudly. "Declan, get up, please! She needs you!"

Using all my strength, I crawl over to Declan to try and get his attention. He is on the ground with his eyes closed. The side of his head is directly on a rock the size of a baseball.

I tackled him onto a fucking rock and knocked him out cold.

I watch in horror as the two assailants descend on Diana. They swarm her. Each of them grabbing onto her. She's a fighter. She swings and thrashes, and refuses to go down without a fight. I can't let her fight them alone.

I reach over and take the rock from under Declan's head. I watch in horror as the blood from his head washes in the rain. I only have one shot to help her. I have to help her. She's my best friend.

I take a deep breath and hurl the rock in the direction of the killers. It hits the frowny-face killer directly in the head, and he instantly goes down. Diana uses this opportunity to break away and run into the house away from the happy-face killer.

"Fucking useless son of a bitch!" the happy-face screams at the frown.

Why do I know that voice?

They turn toward me and slowly walk toward me. The knife that sliced my stomach in their hand. They shake their head at me and straddle on top of me. I try to thrash my body, but I've lost too much blood. Everything is weak.

"Ezra, you've really fucked up my plans," they say. "This is putting a whole damper on my grand finale, and now I have to go off-book! That's what you're causing me to do. I've planned this for six goddamn years, and in a matter of seconds you've completely dismantled everything."

Why the fuck do they sound familiar.

I use the last of my strength to reach up and grab at their mask. They hauntingly pull away from my grasp and chuckle as they swing the knife over my chest back and forth like a pendulum.

"I didn't stab your boyfriend," they say as they raise the knife above their head. "I just gave the order for him to go. He isn't a part of this. He doesn't need to be here. Kill that spare and all that good shit, right?"

Another maniacal laugh and my blood runs cold.

"Show me who you are," I say.

I know full well I'm going to die at this moment. If it's not from their knife, it will at least be from the blood loss from the stab wound. They sit up straight, and sigh. "Fine, Ezra, I guess you deserve to know the truth."

They remove their mask and my eyes widen in shock.

"What the fuc-"

Their knife digs into my chest and I feel blood sputter up into my throat. I cough and taste the metallic flavor of my own blood as I start to see the world begin to fade around me. The rain starts to disappear. I don't feel the cold water on me anymore. I'm warm.

A sweet sensation falls over me. A welcoming one. Inviting me to close my eyes.

"Go to sleep, Ezra," says the killer as I blink my last few seconds on this earth. Their face is the last thing I see before the darkness overtakes me.