And not just alive. In-a-movie alive, which is far superior in every way.

“I know,” Maddy says. “I’ve always known. Right until the end.”

The man standing with her remains frozen in time, still unknowable with his turned back, bowed head, hand cupped around the lighter’s flame. Charlie knows that even if she steps closer, like a director entering the frame, she won’t be able to see what he looks like. He’ll be a shadow no matter how close she gets.

So it’s Maddy she looks at, sparkling in the spotlight. She’s so bright that the shadowy figure in the fedora fades away. Darkness banished by light.

Maddy stands alone now, ridiculously tall in her high heels and clutching a Virginia Slim.

“Do you miss me?” she says.

Charlie nods, holding back a tear in the process. “Of course.”

“Then stay.”

Charlie would like that. If she could, she’d live in this movie for as long as possible. But she knows she can’t.

“You’re not real,” she says to Maddy. “You’re just a movie in my mind.”

“But isn’t that better than real life?”

“It is. But I need to live in the real world.”

“Even if it’s scary?” Maddy says.

“Especially if it’s scary.”

Right now, she needs complete knowledge of her surroundings. Not only where she is but who might be nearby.

Clarity.

That’s what the situation requires. Her life depends on it.

“But this might be the last time you ever see me,” Maddy says.

Charlie feels more tears coming. She keeps them at bay, determined to make this make-believe goodbye the complete opposite of the real-life version.

No anger.

No tears.

Only love and joy and appreciation.

“Then make it memorable,” she says.

Maddy strikes a pose, standing in profile, one hand on her hip, the other elegantly extended as the smoke curls from the cigarette between her fingers. It is, Charlie thinks, perfect.

“What a dump!” Maddy says.

Charlie smiles and closes her eyes, knowing that when she opens them, Maddy will be gone for good.

“I think I adore you,” she says.

EXT. LODGE VERANDA—NIGHT

Just as she suspected, Maddy is gone when Charlie opens her eyes. Instead of in the alley, she finds herself on a stone walkway outside the Mountain Oasis Lodge. Cold night air slaps her face, bringing much-needed clarity.

The movies in her mind are over.

Possibly for good.

Because of the fieldstone beneath her feet, Charlie suspects she’s near the veranda behind the lodge. She saw a similar walkway earlier when trying to escape through the French doors in the lobby. Further cementing her theory are dark plumes of smoke drifting toward her from around a corner of the building. With them are the snap, crackle, and pop of something burning.

She rushes down the walkway and rounds the corner, the smoke getting thicker and the sound of burning louder. Soon Charlie’s at the same pool area she spotted earlier, although now it looks much different.

Smoke rolls through the area, streaming in from the nearby lobby. Through the throat-choking haze, Charlie gets undulating glimpses of the wall of windows. Just behind them, large tongues of flame lick at the air. From what she can see, she thinks the blaze has expanded to the rest of the lobby. Flames crawl along the front desk and scale the support timbers rising to the ceiling. Inside, a piece of the roof breaks free and crashes to the floor, sending up a cloud of sparks. A wall of heat hits her, making Charlie take several steps back.

That’s when she notices the French doors.

They’re not just broken, like most of the windows.

They’ve been opened.

And while Charlie hopes it was Josh who did it, she suspects it was someone else.

Marge.

Outside.

With her.

Charlie moves backward through the smoke, her sneakers shuffling over the stone walkway until, suddenly, it drops away.

She spends a moment teetering on the lip of a concrete ledge, her arms pinwheeling in a desperate fight to keep balance.

One of her feet slips, flying out from under her.

A scream escapes Charlie’s lips as she topples, clawing at the air, falling into what she now realizes is the empty swimming pool. She closes her eyes, bracing for impact against the bottom, but instead of her body slamming against cold concrete, Charlie lands in several feet of rainwater that’s gathered at the bottom of the pool. The water—black with dirt, slick with algae—consumes her.

For a moment, Charlie’s lost, unsure if she’s still falling or now floating. Her eyes are open, but all is dark. Caught mid-scream, her mouth is filled with water and slime and filth. Some trickles down her throat, choking her.

She stands, emerging from the swill, coughing up the parts of it that made it to her lungs.

Then she looks around.

She’s in the deep end, standing in about four feet of water. On the other side of the pool, a ladder clings to the concrete, rusted yet usable.

Charlie wades toward it, moving through water that’s akin to primordial ooze. Rotting leaves float on the surface. Nearby, a dead mouse does the same.

At the ladder, Charlie struggles to climb its rungs. Her hands are too wet and the soles of her shoes too slippery. Adding to the trouble is her wool coat, sodden with rancid water. It’s heavier now, like lead, weighing her down as she scales the ladder.

Still, she climbs.

Feet slipping off a rung once.

Hands screeching off the railing twice.

She keeps climbing until her eyes breach the edge of the pool, revealing the same stone walkway that had dropped out from under her earlier.

Charlie also sees smoke, drifting over the pool like lake mist.

And in that smoke, right at the top of the ladder, is a pair of white sneakers.

Although there’s no blood on them, like there was in her imagination, Charlie knows they belong to Marge and that this time it’s not a movie in her mind.

A second later, she feels the barrel of a pistol cold against her forehead.

“Keep climbing,” Marge says. “We’re not done yet.”

She backs off, giving Charlie just enough room to crest the ladder and step onto the walkway. The two of them stare at each other, Charlie drenched and streaming dirty water, Marge’s face darkened by smoke.

“Where’s Josh?” Charlie says.

“He’s safe.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Marge’s shoulders rise and fall. “I don’t care.”

Beside them, a low rumble rises from inside the lodge. Another chunk of roof—bigger than the first—crashes down. The walkway under their feet shakes. Smoke and sparks roll over them—a wave so dense it blots out Charlie’s vision and makes her head swim.

When it clears, she sees Marge still across from her, the pistol now aimed at her chest.

“And what about Maddy?” Charlie says, getting a flash of the most recent movie in her mind. Maddy in full glamour mode. “You care about her, right? She’d hate it if she saw us like this.”

Marge starts to speak, changes her mind, goes silent again. She can’t argue with Charlie’s reasoning. Both of them know it’s true. If she were here, Maddy would be sickened by what she saw.

“I can’t just let it go. I have to do something.” Marge keeps the pistol pointed at Charlie. “I swore—”

“That you’d get revenge? Hurting me won’t do that. It won’t bring Maddy back. She’s gone, and I hate that fact. It makes me sad and angry, but most of all, I just miss her. I miss her so much. Just like you do.”

“It hurts,” Marge says, her voice cracking. “Missing her—it hurts so bad.”

“I know,” Charlie says. “It hurts me, too.”

“And this uncertainty. I don’t know what to do with it. I need to know who killed my Maddy.”

Charlie does, too. But she also knows life doesn’t always work that way. It’s not the movies, where plots are often tied up in a tidy bow. In the real world, you may never learn what caused the crash that killed your parents or who murdered your best friend. It’s hard and it hurts and it’s so unfair that sometimes it makes Charlie want to scream. But it’s life, and everyone must go on living it.

“Let me go,” Charlie says. “Let me go and we can get through it together.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry, sweetie. I need to learn as much as I can. That all depends on you now. You can tell me what you saw—who you saw—right now. Or we can do it the hard way.”

Marge cocks the pistol.

Behind her, Charlie sees something flitting through the smoke. A lightness amid the dark.

Robbie.

Creeping through the smoke, a tire iron clutched in his hand.

Charlie’s eyes widen, tipping Marge off to the presence behind her.

As Marge spins around, Robbie lifts the tire iron and brings it down hard against her shoulder.

The gun goes off.

A horrible bang.

Robbie grunts and falters backward.

Marge collapses outright, crumbling to the ground, the pistol falling from her grip and skittering across the walkway.