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She needs me. I get back behind the wheel and hit it.

I drive like the crazy devil I know I can be.

The road becomes a thin line, poorly illuminated until I reach my destination.

It’s a side road with barely any gravel on it, but it dead ends near the cabin.

From there, I’ll grab a flashlight and make my way up and through the woods.

According to the map, this is where I’m supposed to be. I’ve studied all the possible routes, but this one gives me a slight advantage. I keep a gun in my glove compartment. There was never a need for it, though I fear that will change tonight.

Checking that it’s loaded and that the safety is on, I slip it in the back of my jeans, grab my flashlight and take a deep breath. Just as I’m about to step into the woods, I get a text from Rita—it’s a single word.

Hazing.

I pause, heart pounding. I remember running through these woods, dodging pellets, getting hit. Those pellets burned like a bitch—but how much worse would it have been for me if the bullets were real?

I’ve made the right calls. Our friends, Noelle, and Ithaca emergency responders all know where I’m headed—and where Maddie is being held.

I could wait for them—but what if they come in loud, guns blazing, and the kidnapper panics?

He’d kill her. What if he gets bored while I’m waiting and does something even worse?

That thought turns my stomach, and before I’ve even made a conscious decision, I start moving. Low and quiet, I stick to the shadows.

It’s a quick trek up to the cabin, provided one knows that there is, in fact, a cabin less than a mile north-east of the service road.

I move slowly and carefully. The closer I get, the lighter my boots become.

I don’t want anyone to see me coming—and with Rita’s last message, I’m sure they want me to come.

I was lured out here and I know it’s a trap—but I can’t just walk away, and I can’t stand around like a useless lump and wait.

A branch cracks above my head and I hear the retort a second later. Fuck. I drop and roll into bushes, then out the other side as leaves and twigs fly off under a shower of bullets. With my gun in hand, I book it through the woods, up a creek bed, toward the cabin.

Tiny explosions seek me out, in the earth behind my ankles, in the trees above my head.

A skirt of roots beckons me into its inky shadow and I dive, then focus on breathing absolutely silently.

It’s not easy. My heart is thundering so hard I’m sure my pursuer can hear it, and it’s sucking the oxygen from my lungs.

I desperately want to gasp and gulp the air—and I know that’s the worst possible thing I can do.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

Mackenzie? What the fuck?

“Oh, Rhue! Where are you, my little bouncing bunny? Don’t you want to play?”

A bullet claps off the flat stones in the creek bed three feet from where I’m hiding.

“You know you forfeit if you don’t play the game,” she says. She sounds pouty, like a spoiled, disappointed child. She fires again, taking the top off of a vaguely man-sized bush across the way from me. She’s in the right general area, which is not ideal. Not even a little bit.

“Ugh, my God! Why do you assholes have to make everything so hard?”

Can I record her without revealing myself with the light on my phone?

I fumble for a moment, but eventually I get it.

As long as I don’t accidentally turn the flash on or something, I’ll be fine.

I just don’t know if it’ll pick up what she’s saying through the distance and the roots and—okay, just the roots.

I hold my breath as crumbs of earth rattle down over me. She’s standing inches over my head.

“You know, I’d say it was a family thing—gotta chase Julian down for payment, gotta chase Rhue through the damn woods over and over and over again—but then I realized, it’s not genetic!

It’s just the kinds of people who happen to put up with you, Rhue.

The kind who make you chase them. Like Madison!

That fucking bitch. She almost killed me with that stunt she pulled!

Slamming on the brakes right before a curve, sending me careening toward the lake, swear to god if I didn’t have to play this stupid game I would have killed her myself. ”

My heart sinks. Madison—she’s not dead. Is she? Is Mackenzie pissed that she’s alive, or pissed that she wasn’t the one to kill her? My mind is racing. Fuck, where is everybody? I knew I’d get here first, but I didn’t think it would take them this long.

“Oh my God Rhue! What is even so hard about this? Just fucking die!”

Bullets explode in a semi-circle around my hiding spot. There’s a gap between the roots right above me—I can see the heel of her left boot. If I aim right, I could—

What am I thinking? Am I really going to kill Mackenzie in cold blood?

Let’s be honest, though—there’s nothing cold about my blood.

Not right now. I’m boiling, simmering. But I’m also shaking.

Adrenaline and the unending horrors of the day have got me trembling, and I could miss.

If I miss, she’ll have the advantage, and she won’t hesitate.

Every shot fired makes my heart skip—then the shots stop, replaced by frantic metallic clicking.

“God damn it! Rhue, you asshole, you better be dying somewhere. Ammo’s not free, you know.”

She jumps down into the creek, right in front of me.

It’s my only chance. She’s got more ammo somewhere, and if I give her the chance to grab it, I’m done for.

I’ve been firing guns for sport since I was eight, and I know I’ll hit exactly what I aim for.

I guess sometimes you have to ask yourself the important questions: am I a killer?

Hating myself with every fiber of my being, I aim and pull the trigger.