“You okay?” I ask Marcos, rubbing his back as he nods, sucking in long, deep breaths of his own. For Molly and me, this beach was yesterday. For lifers like Darcy and Marcos, it’s a moment they couldn’t even allow themselves to dream about, it was that impossible and painful.

Molly takes Darcy’s blade from her and chops the open-shelled patrol boat free of its bungee cords. With the smooth ease of a swing set, our vessel slides off the wooden ramp and onto the shoreline of the crescent-shaped bay. No one pauses for sentimentality—Molly and Darcy scramble up the back ladder first and straddle the transom as they scoop Drew’s body bag out of Briggs’s arms. “Careful please,” he mutters as they set Drew delicately on the deck and then accept Lacrishia, Owen, Anke, Christina, Alan, Vance, and Jack up the ladder next.

Marcos and I wade into the shore up to our ankles, and the gentle, lapping water soothes every ache. We keep our spears on Bill as Briggs climbs aboard next.

“Up you go, Bill,” he groans, reaching for him. “Finally leaving the island.”

“Is my son on board?” Bill asks in a dreamy haze. I confirm that Alan is still holding Ricky’s urn, but the boy is clearly itching to be rid of the thing and the continuous ghoulish stares from Bill. Briggs hoists Bill up to the deck with enormous difficulty as the old man, so vibrant this morning, has become brittle dead weight under the thrall of the taser.

As Marcos supervises the prisoner transfer, I keep my spear trained on the island’s tree line. I don’t trust Miss Manners, not even for a heartbeat. If she or any of the gray-shirts get a change of heart and come charging onto the shore, I’ll be ready to skewer them. Yet the tree line remains dark and ghostly quiet. Even if someone were watching us, I’d have no way of knowing. Our only light comes from the single torch we left behind in the sand, just beyond the entrance signpost:

I smirk at the message. I beat you.

Marcos taps me, and then he and I—the last survivors on the beach—ditch our spears and clutch each end of the hull to shove our escape vessel into the lapping surf. The boat is stubborn, but I’m scrappier. Marcos and I smile at each other through wet hair as we make headway, me wading up to my thighs (and Marcos up to his knees). Finally, the boat tears free of the rocky shallows, and the motor kicks alive. Fighting the surge of the splashing engine, Marcos lunges for the ladder and yanks his entire heft out of the bay. Gripping the ladder with one arm, he reaches for me in the waist-deep water. His bicep rippling in the moonlight, I gaze—a pile of goop—at his hand.