EPHEMERAL | JJ Maybank

12 • badass ninja warrior

"Pope, how are we doing?" John B asked.

"Almost there."

"There's too much current! We're gonna lose it!" Kie yelled, trying to hold onto the drone so they don't lose in the water. Melody ran to help her, grabbing onto the rope with her. They both slowly fed more of into the water.

"South, southwest, JJ! Hard! Half speed. Steady at this bearing, JJ!"

The monitor was beeping because they should be right above the treasure but nothing showed up on the monitor. "Kiara!" John B yelled.

"960. 970! 980!"

"I'm at the bottom! I'm at the bottom!" Pope yelled.

"Okay, steady here, JJ! Steady here. Quarter speed, all right?"

Melody moved from the rope to go back to the monitor.

"You should be seeing something, man." John B said.

"I know, I know! Wait, wait." Pope said just as something came in view of the monitor.

"Oh, good God."

"See anything, Mel?" JJ called out.

Melody breathed, smiling big. An old rusted ship slowly came into view. "It's the Royal Merchant!" She called out excitedly. "I knew Big John was right!"

The drive the drone through the ship multiple times, hoping to find the treasure but instead they came up empty handed. The group slowly lost faith.

John B sighed, running his hand over his face. "It's not there. Look, just... just pull the drone up." He sighed again. "Shit."

"Look, we can do another pass. recharge the battery. We can... we can go back down." Pope said, hopefully.

"We've done it three times. There's nothing there." JJ called out.

"Shut up!" Kie yelled at him. Melody snapped her head towards the other girl.

"What? It's true!"

"The gold could be buried. We don't know." Kie yelled back.

Melody rolled her eyes, irritated by her yelling at JJ. "If it was there, it would've been found on the metal detector." Melody stated.

"She's right." John B told them. "Somebody beat us to it."

"Or it was never there." JJ hissed, angry as he hurried set the boat off to go back to shore. Melody just knew that he was upset about all the opportunities that he now has to miss out on. All the dreams he started to have about finding the gold.

______

When they got back to land, they all split ways. Mostly to just do their own thing before they met back up later that night to go to outdoor movie festival the outerbanks does every year. Melody went to her house, sneaking in through her bedroom window because she saw her stepdads car parked in the yard. Melody saw how dirty she was when she looked at the mirror and decided to clean up so she went to the bathroom. When she got out of the shower, she stood in front of her mirror again.

Her eyes trailed over her body, looking at all of the marks covering it. She had yet another bruise on her cheek and bruising on her neck where you can almost tell exactly where Rafe's fingers were squeezing her neck. Her gaze traveled lower, down to her stomach and saw 2 huge bruises covering her hip and her stomach. The hickies from the night before were barely even recognizable now since they're blended in with the bruises.

When John B and Kie saw the damage on Melody, they demanded to know what happened and all she told them was that's her Stepdad was angry about her being gone all of the time. They seemed to believe it and didn't say too much else, which she was grateful for.