I turned away from his light, because I didn’t want him examining my face anymore. I swung my flashlight back to the ground, and in the snow piled near the trunk of a fat oak, I saw Jay’s trail again. It was quickly being erased by the wind. Soon the path would be lost altogether.

“Come on, we need to hurry.”

I moved as quickly as I could through the snow. Ben followed behind me. We were very close to the lake. Even in the darkness, I could see the paler light of a clearing not far away. The inlet was there, washing in from the deeper water, the trees ringing the shore. That’s where Jay’s footsteps led. Years ago, I’d been the one standing there by the lake, scratching my mosquito bites under the monster’s moon, listening to the warning of the owl and having no idea what was waiting for me in the woods.

The footsteps headed straight to the shore.

“Jay?” I called. “Jay, are you there? It’s Rebecca Colder.”

I stumbled forward to where the trees ended, my flashlight bobbing because I was practically running. The wind, with nothing to slow it down in the open, intensified to a roar, whipping the snow into a hurricane. The soft ground became a rocky beach under my feet. In some places, the snow was two feet deep, and in others, it had been blown clean down to the rough stones. There was no dark water in front of me, just a thick white bed of winter ice.

The cone of my light lit up a tiny piece of the inlet. There was Jay. He stood on the ice, snow swirling around him. A solitary teenager, overwhelmed by the cruelty of the world.

“Jay!” I called to him over the wind. “It’s okay. I’m not here to arrest you. I just want you safe.”

I motioned for Ben to stay where he was. I drew closer, walking down to the dividing line where the solidness of the land gave way to the solidness of the ice. Jay was about twenty feet away, buffeted by fierce gales. His hands were buried in his pockets, and his body shook. He looked cold. He’d been crying, but the tears had frozen to his cheeks. In the starkness of the light, his face looked haunted, almost like the hollow bones of a skull.

“Come on, Jay. Let me take you away from here.”

I took a step onto the ice, but then I stopped in horror. Jay took a hand out of his pocket and put a gun to the side of his head.

“No!” I screamed. “Jay, don’t! Put it down. You don’t want to do this.”

The teenager’s arm trembled, and so did the barrel of the gun. “Did you see Will? Did you see what they did to him?”