We huddled around Grant.

"Aaron," Grant confirmed. "We found him."

Our mouths dropped. Cal gripped my upper arm.

"He’s at a cabin - surprise, I know, another cabin! - but we think Dean and Gina stay there most of the time. More of their stuff was there and there’s much better furniture and stuff like that. They’re holding Aaron there," Grant spoke quickly.

"Sorry, but shouldn’t we leave from here? In case more guys come?" Beth’s shaking voice interrupted.

"She’s right," I admitted. "We shouldn’t be here."

"We have nowhere else to go," Grant sighed. "Plus, we need to all sit down and create a strategy. We can get Aaron. But we’ll have to be careful and do it right."

"So what are you saying?" Cal asked him. "You want us to stay here?"

Grant looked at Will. "How bad is it down there?" He motioned downstairs.

Will shrugged. "There’s a dead body on the floor, so...Do you mean on a scale from one to ten, or..?"

Grant looked at me. I shook my head. "I really don’t want to go back down there."

"Alright, look," Grant said softly. "If we put something heavy against the door, we can stay up here. For now. We don’t have to stay here all night. I was thinking maybe we should go try to rescue Aaron when it gets dark outside anyway."

"How far is that cabin and what exactly do we have to do?" Cal asked.

Will whispered something to Grant, and he nodded in agreement.

"One sec," Grant told Cal.

Will opened the hatch and Grant followed him as they ducked into the stairs.

"What are you doing?" I shouted down to them.

We heard them grunting and making noise, but none of us wanted to peek down to see what they were doing. I grew impatient and was about to yell down to them again when Grant’s butt came out of the hatch.

"Whoa!" Cal jumped back.

Grant slowly inched his way out of the stairway backwards. He was clutching one end of the couch, tugging at it. Will was at the other end, trying to shove it up the stairs. Cal and I both stood near Beth, out of the way, watching them. Their faces were flushed red as they finally got the couch all the way up. It landed with a loud thud and once Will was back upstairs, he shut the hatch and they pushed the couch in front of the door. They collapsed onto the cushions.

"Seriously?" Cal asked, standing in front of them with her arms folded.

Grant took a sip of water. "Okay, so, as I was saying..."

He pulled the pencil and folded paper out of his pocket. Will reached over and dragged the table over so it sat in front of them. Beth was still sitting on the chair, her eyes watching as the table scraped against the floor moving away from her.

Grant placed the paper on the table and I walked over to see what he had scribbled all over it. He was still sitting low on the couch.

"Comfy?" I asked sarcastically.

He smiled a toothy grin and I shook my head, trying not to laugh.

"Okay," he said and sat up straighter. "This spot here is us now." He drew a tiny square on the paper.

"And this," he continued. "This is where Aaron is. The cabin has two floors, not including a basement or anything underground. Dean and Gina sleep on the second floor. Aaron is being held on the first floor. The front door is too obvious and I don’t trust it."

He scanned our faces to see if we were following him so far.

"There are a few windows on the side of the cabin, here." He marked each with an ’X’.

Will scooted up from his seat on the couch to get a better look.

"We can sneak Aaron out the window," Grant said proudly.

Cal gave him a look. "That’s your plan?"

"Yeah, that’s my plan," he confirmed.

"You guys were gone all that time and that’s what you came up with?" she shrieked.

Grant’s smile deteriorated from his face. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

"Yes, Cal. That’s what we came up with. What’s wrong with this plan?" He leaned back against the couch cushion.

"I don’t know, but just showing up and sneaking through a window..." Cal sighed deeply.

I agreed that it didn’t sound like the best plan, but I honestly couldn’t think of anything better.  

"Or we can do my plan," Will blurted. "Just leave Aaron there."

Cal shook her head and looked away.

"What about Beth?" Cal spun around to face Grant. "Is she supposed to limp through the woods at night? And Ryleigh? She just killed a guy - sorry, Ryleigh - but don’t you think that’s enough for her for one day?"

"I’m okay," I whispered.

"We can go tonight or wait and go tomorrow in the daylight. Maybe Dean and Gina will leave the cabin and then we go get him," Grant suggested.

No one said anything. We were all exhausted and scared, not knowing what to do or where to go.

"After we get Aaron, where do we go?" I asked.

Grant and Will exchanged looks.

"Well, our plan was to come back here, but..." Grant looked at me.

I sighed and folded my arms over my chest.

"There’s a dead body downstairs!" I said bluntly.

"Yes, which is why we would just stay up here," Grant replied.

I looked at Cal and she just shook her head.

"Fine," I sighed. "I’ll do whatever gets us off this island the fastest, okay? But I think someone should stay here with Beth, and I think we should go tonight. Let’s just get this over with."

Will glanced over at Cal and then so did Grant. She looked up and stopped when she saw them staring at her.

"What?" she spat. "Why are they looking at me like that?"

She faced me.

"I’m guessing it’s their weird way of asking you to stay here with Beth?" I suggested.

Cal shrugged. "Depends. Will, you got the deck of cards from downstairs?"

Will nodded.

"Great. Leave them here. I guess I’m staying," Cal said quietly.

I bent down next to Grant and took another look at his paper.

"Draw me a picture of the house with details. Let’s really make sure we know what we’re doing," I told him.

We spent the next hour going over every possible outcome we could think of. Splitting the last of the granola bars, we were all huddled close together in the tiny cabin waiting for sundown.

As soon as the sun began to set, my stomach was doing flips. I was scared of running into Gina or Dean. I probably wasn’t in the best condition to be going with them. I’m sure I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I didn’t want to think about the fact that I had killed someone. His body was still lying on the floor downstairs. I had to push the thoughts out of my head. I kept thinking that this guy had parents or maybe siblings. Just like my parents were expecting me to return home, was there someone expecting him? What would happen when he never came home? Every time I thought about it, my eyes filled with tears. The only thing that kept me from fully breaking down was remembering Beth’s face when he attacked her. She was terrified and I knew that had I not been there, she never would have been the same, if she had survived at all. I looked over at Beth as she sat quietly, staring at nothing in particular, lost in thought. I had to focus on her, reminding myself that she deserved better than this. We all did.

She blinked and glanced up and caught me staring at her. She smiled sweetly and as I smiled back, I thought to myself, Do whatever you need to do to get off this island.

Next Chapter: Twenty Two