Nobody moved.

"Gabriel," Elijah whispered. "Gabriel, grab the gun."

I felt Gabriel shift, and then he rose to his feet. I did too. I don't know why. I just didn't want him to go alone. I followed him, keeping one hand on his back. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and realized Elijah was doing the same.

I needed to know whoever—whatever—was on the other side of that door.

"Who is it?" Gabriel asked, his voice loud and clear. I couldn't see much, but I knew he was holding the gun outstretched. I could picture it in my mind, his finger on the trigger. The tendons in his forearm pulsing. Ready.

The knock sounded again, and I jumped. Gabriel didn't though.

I heard the lock jiggle.

"Did you do that?" I whispered. I waited for him to say yes. But there was only silence.

"Go back," Gabriel said beneath his breath. "All of you. Lock yourself in the bathroom."

"What—No."

"Sierra," Cadence cried. "Come on!"

Elijah's hand didn't move. We were both staying. I wanted to hide in the bathroom. Of course I did. But I couldn't sit and wait for some horrific fate to find me. I knew if I left to hide, I'd succumb to my fear again, and that was more terrifying than whatever could be waiting for us on the other side of the door.

There was another knock. I could see the shadow of Gabriel lifting his gun.

But before the wood gave way, there was a slow hum. And then light.

The room exploded with brightness, and when my eyes adjusted, I realized the power was back on. The footsteps ran away from the door in heavy thumps.

"Oh my god," Elijah said, his voice strained.

Cadence and the others returned from the hall, running to see what had happened. But nothing had happened, except the power returning. I let my hand drop from Gabriel's shoulder blade. My knees gave way and I fell to the floor.

"What just happened?" Lucas asked.

"I have no idea," Gabriel replied. He'd lowered the gun, placing it back at his hip.

And then I saw it. From my kneeling position I could make out the peeling sheet of baking paper beneath the door.

I pushed my fingertips beneath the wood, wincing as the bottom of the door scraped against my nailbeds. My heart flatlined as I pictured someone grabbing them from the other end, or crushing them beneath their foot. I could barely get my fingers to close around the edge, pulling the piece of paper back onto our side.

The writing was still there. Nothing had changed. Only, the sheet was now stained in a rotting black blood.

"We're going to die. We're going to die, we're going to die, we're definitely going to die."

I had to put my hands over my ears to drown out the sound of Cadence as she rocked in the corner, flaking pink nails clasped around flaking pink nails as she held her knees to her chest.

"We're going to die. Oh my god, we're going to die."

Gabriel looked at me from the other end of the sofa, and I met his eyes. He then glared toward Cadence, and then looked back to me, as if trying to have a silent conversation about how annoying she was. I rolled my eyes in reply.

Sun had started filtering through the room, strands of gold peeking across the horizon. Cadence sat against the wall by the balcony door. Annie and Lucas were nestled in one another's arms, I occasionally heard them whispering. Elijah was standing next to the door, as if on guard.

"We're going to die."

"Cadence," I whispered. "You don't have to keep saying it."

She glared at me, eyes red-rimmed and shadowed with grey. "I don't have to stop, either. Don't you realise, Sierra? This is some fucked up horror movie. We're fucking trapped in here. Some crazy guy is out there playing games. And we're going to fucking die."

"Wow, hey now," Elijah said. He looked pale all over, like he was already dead. But I knew I probably looked the same. The blood had pooled from all of us, as if it was ours that had been shed onto the note. "You're going to fucking die and all you're doing is sitting there crying about it."

"We're going to be okay, we're going to be okay." I could barely make out Lucas whispering in Annie's ear.

"And what are you doing, standing by the door waiting to be the next to go?" Cadence laughed a sick laugh.

"That's enough," Gabriel said. His voice was solid, maybe the only solid thing in the room. And we needed something solid right now. I did.

"Whatever," Cadence said. "I'm sick of this shit. I'm going to change."

One of us was supposed to go after her. I looked between us all. Nobody wanted to.

I counted on my breath, deciding I'd follow her if she wasn't back in five minutes. Sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three—

She returned after barely a minute, wearing her new dress that she'd been boasting about before we came. Flowers and swirls and a tie around the waist. "Sierra, take my photo. If I'm going to die, I'm going to leave one hell of a legacy."

I watched her. She was wearing a straw hat, twisting it around the crown of her head and examining her angles.

"Cadence—"

"Grab your camera."

I sighed heavily. Gabriel watched me as I rose to my feet, and it made me wish I wasn't caving to her like I always did. Not in front of him.

"Where do you want it?"

"Outside. In front of the sunrise."

She opened the screen door to a flood of ice-cold morning air. The sea was slapping the rocks below, the waves capping in rolling foam.

"Here, take a test shot."

I grimaced as I brought the view-finder to my eye, squinting. The lens was filmed in dust. I poked my thumb behind my sleeve and wiped it.

"C'mon, it's cold out here."

"Cadence..." I watched as she ignored the warning in my tone, spinning again. The wind was catching the end of her dress, the material dancing around her.

I raised the camera to my eye again, adjusting the manual focus. The shutter fell and I adjusted my angle. Again. Again.

She turned, in her element, and I wondered if this was giving her the distraction she wanted.

"Okay, let me see!"

She stopped at the first, scowling. "Okay hang on. I need to tie this better."

I sighed, leaning against the wall as she adjusted the tie around her skinny waist. I looked out over the water. I looked for the boat in my dream. But the seas were empty.

"Go."

I kept shooting. Cadence liked it when I gave her lots to choose from. Although the camera was focusing on her poses, I wasn't. My mind felt as if it was fraying at the edges, a prickling, uncomfortable feeling eating me alive. Whoever—whatever was on the other side of that door could be watching us somehow, out here in the open space.

"Sierra!" Cadence noticed that my attention had fallen.

"I'm done," I muttered, letting the camera swing on its straps as I stormed inside. I couldn't take it anymore. Her, or being outside. Exposed.

Cadence came in eventually. I folded myself in the sheets on one of the smaller mattresses, burying my face to ignore her. We hadn't turned the lights off since the power came back on, almost like any degree of darkness was unbearable, and so I hid from the light instead. But whenever I closed my eyes I saw figures and creatures, cold wet hands prying at mine, black blood staining my skin.

I found sleep somewhere between nightmares. Living through them was different. In my nightmares the terrifying images were custom made to horrify me, except that's all they were. Images conjured in my brain. But outside, the footsteps down the hall and the blood on the baking paper, that was real.

"Sierra."

The whisper awoke me, and for a moment I thought it was another one of my nightmares—one of the twisted demons breathing in my ear. But it was Annie. In her palm was a bag of crisps, one we'd started eating in the car.

"What time is it?"

"Noon. I think."

Annie looked tired, hollows beneath her eyes and her lips peeling from the amount of times she'd been biting them.

"Thanks," I said, taking the bag. My stomach turned, but I did my best to eat one.

"Where are the guys?" I asked quickly. I couldn't spot Gabriel, Elijah or Lucas anywhere.

"They're searching the place. Trying to find any other hidey holes or ways out."

"And Cadence?"

Annie nodded in the direction of the crumpled shape in the sheets in the other mattress, straw coloured hair poking out of the blanket.

"I tried to wake her but she's sleeping deep."

I ate another crisp. Annie lowered to a sitting position beside me, her knees folding beneath her.

"How can she sleep?" I asked, watching Cadence's deep breathing as she continued her slumber.

"I don't know. Coping mechanism, maybe?"

I thought about the nightmares, of the way Cadence was so go-go-go, from rocking in the corner to getting me to do a damn photo shoot for her. Tossing the blanket from my lap, I leaned over so I could rub her shoulder.

"Cadence?"

She grunted. I repeated her name, this time with malice. "Cadence."

I could feel Annie's concerned gaze on me. Like she was biting something back. Even in this situation, she wanted to make sure we weren't fighting. But I was past that. I was tired, and scared, and I didn't want Cadence to sleep easy. A twisted part of me didn't want her to get the breezy way out while I suffered. While I was always suffering, and she was busy living the life of some influencer it-girl.

Cadence finally flipped her arm out of the blanket, her movement slow and lazy. "What?"

"Don't you want to know what's going on?"

She yawned. "Not particularly."

I ripped the blanket away.

"Hey!" Annie said. "Sierra—"

"Jeez," Cadence hissed. But she didn't bite with the normal Cadence sass she was so well known for.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Sierra—" Annie repeated.

But then Cadence sat up, and something fell from the pocket in her dress. It clunked to the floor, rattling as it rolled. A small bottle filled with pills.

And the next thing I knew I was straddling Cadence, pinning her hands to her sides. "I'm going to kill you!"

"Sierra!"

"Hey!" Gabriel's voice rang down the halls, but I barely registered it in my haze.

"You went through my bag!?"

Gabriel's hands pulled me off of her. I hadn't realised Annie had been trying to do so until his dug into my arms with enough force to startle me.

"You're crazy!" Cadence screamed. "You wanna kill me—go ahead!"

I was sitting between Gabriel's legs, his hands still on my arms while Annie pocketed the pills. My valium.

"Shit you girls are psycho," Elijah said, and I almost lunged at him too. It took all my might to contain myself.

"Let me go," I said.

"Wait—" Annie said. Her voice was high. "Where's Lucas?"

"Lucas?" Elijah called over his shoulder.

"He was right behind us..." Gabriel said.

"Lucas!" Annie fired off down the hallway after a minute of the realisation he wasn't responding. I blinked the fog from my eyes as Gabriel released me, running after her.

We stopped in the threshold of the smallest bedroom. The guys had upturned the furniture and the closet had been nearly torn apart—wooden panels discarded in the search for hidey-holes. But the room was empty of anyone. Instead, my eyes were drawn to the window.

Bold letters were drawn in blank ink, as if someone had dipped their fingers in paint and drawn the letters onto the glass.

You promised eight.