I feel Mason stop moving beneath me, pulling away slightly as his body stiffens. I lean back, looking up at him in concern, only to see him looking at something behind me.

I watch as beams of light dart over the trees and the forest floor, followed by the sound of heavy footfalls. A group of officers breaks free from the woods and steps into the clearing, flashlights in hand and guns at the ready.

“Everybody, hands up!” one of them shouts. “Now!”

“Shit,” James mumbles.

Mason reluctantly takes a step away from me, lifting his hands and squinting at the bright lights. I follow suit, heart pounding persistently in my chest.

James does the same, but it takes Zoe longer, too caught up in her grief to realize what’s happening around her. The cops rush in, wasting no time before wrestling the boys’ hands into cuffs. An officer comes up behind me, doing the same, and it’s hard to understand them through all the shouting and screaming. My arms ache as they’re twisted behind me, the metal cool against my wrists.

Before I’m ushered down the hill, I catch sight of a familiar face.

Officer Edwards watches me, a complicated expression on his harsh features. It’s a mixture of guilt and remorse, and it gives me a sick sense of satisfaction as I’m carted away to the back of a police car.

The Pender Falls Police Station is a familiar place.

Months back, I used to spend a lot of time here for various misdemeanors, usually with Zoe in tow. I’d sit next to her, my arms folded, my lips curled in a smug smirk to match hers, knowing that between her father and my mother, they would be able to pull some strings to get us out of facing punishment for whatever we’d just done. It was a strange, addicting kind of power, and back then, I was always searching for power. Even though I despised the girl, at the best of times, we could put it all aside to be partners in crime, the world at our fingertips.

Now Damien is dead, and I’m back in the interrogation room. I sit across from Officer Edwards, burning a hole in his desk with my dismal stare.

I’ve repeated the events that transpired what must be a million times by now, my voice steady and monotonous, beginning with my arrival and ending with Damien falling to his death. It took even longer to explain all of the context—my tumultuous relationship with Zoe and the truth about what happened to Jacob Griffin. For a lot of it, Edwards appeared to be speechless, sitting back in his chair, shaking his head and running a hand across his face.