“Tell me something,” the Reverend continues, flexing his fist open and closed as he collects his rage into something more sensible. “I’ve given you the longest leash out of any staff member here. You could’ve taken this boy whenever you wanted. But you denied his review eight times. All you had to do was approve him, get on the boat, and we’d never see either of you again. But you denied him over and over. You denied him last week! You must’ve fed him some real promises. Were you EVER going to take him home?”

Wheezing and trapped on the ground, Briggs can’t speak the answer. But he doesn’t have to. He wanted Drew as his secret island boyfriend, with all the strings of a jailer and his prisoner attached. Maybe he worried that out in the real world, without his leverage, he would lose such a beautiful young model’s attention to scores of other hungry men. Ricky Hannigan’s voice from the Expulsion tape echoes in my memory: “How could you ever be anyone’s boyfriend? You’re just an idiot kid.” But in this scenario, Briggs is the kid.

“I think Drew realized you were trapping him here,” the Reverend says, tutting his head. “So…YOU did this, Ben.”

Briggs and me both. We pushed Drew to the edge, to a place where his thoughts had nowhere left to run.

Briggs, ignoring this harshest of truths, resumes his crawl toward Drew. “I love you,” he tells the body. “Can you hear me? If you can hear me, I love you. I’m ready to say it now…”

As Briggs dissolves in front of us like the Wicked Witch—my beautiful wickedness—no one can look at each other. We can’t believe we’re finally seeing Briggs broken and humiliated and no one can even enjoy it.

“Take. The. Wall,” the Reverend growls.

“W-w-where?” Briggs asks between shuddering breaths.

“The bunker.” Darcy and I turn briefly to each other. With Briggs there, what semblance of a bunker plan do we have now?

“I can’t leave him,” Briggs whines, clambering to his knees, bits of gravel clinging to his forearms.

“Mr. Briggs, I’m not asking.”

Back on his feet, Briggs’s muscled back hunches like a shamed dog. He can’t lift his eyes to anyone, not even the Reverend. “Don’t leave him alone. He doesn’t like being alone.”

Without another sound, without another glance back at Drew, Briggs retreats one painful step at a time down the Coral Road—toward the lake, the cabins, the clifftop, and Karaoke Bill’s infamous bunker—to take the wall.