𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐁𝐈𝐃𝐃𝐄𝐍 ᯓ outer banks

chapter seventy-three

She falls back, trying to catch her breath. "Is everyone okay?" John B asks.

"I think so," Sarah says weakly.

"Never better," JJ replies.

Brooklyn reaches a hand up and feels the blood trickling down the side of her face. "Shit."

"Bee, you're bleeding," John B says, moving slightly to get a better look. "Anyone got a tissue? Or—"

"I'm fine, John. I'm fine." She pushes open the door to get some air.

"That is the last time you drive, Pope."

Kiara climbs out the car and rushes around to see the damage. "My dad's truck! No!"

"Kie, one word. Totalled."

"My parents are gonna kill me," she says it like they weren't going to before. "for real this time."

"Yeah. Well, weren't they going to that anyway?"

"Helpful. Thank you."

"We're gonna have to walk the rest of the way," Pope says, ignoring the look on everyone's faces. "I'm going to get my cross."

Brooklyn placed a hand on the tree to keep her balance. She felt as if she could collapse, perhaps she was concussed which wasn't great. She shut her eyes for a second only to open them and feel as if the world was spinning.

JJ's hand was on her back, trying to relax her but she really felt like she was going to faint.

"Hey, relax for a second," John B tells Pope, trying to push him back.

"Get off of me."

"No. I'm trying to help. We just crashed the car. Brooklyn can hardly move," he says, looking over to see her head hung low. "I'm trying to watch out for you." John B chased after him as he stumbled off.

"Pope! Move!"

"There's a truck coming."

"Get off of me!"

"You're gonna get hit my a car!"

Sat in that truck was Rafe Cameron and that guy who does work for Limbrey. The two men stared at the group as they drove on by. Pope kept his eyes fixated on them as they waved to the boy before driving out of his view.

Great, they had already lost it.

"We gotta get back to the church!" Pope yells.

"But, Brooklyn—"

"No, I'll be fine." She slips her hand into JJ's and the six of them begin to race down the road and towards the church.

Brooklyn had said before that she hated running but there hadn't been a time where she hated it more than she did right now. Her head was pulsating, her hands were sweating, her eyes were filling with water and blood continued to pour out of the same spot at the side of her face.

She could barely keep her eyes focused on the road in front of her. She kept stumbling into JJ who tried to pick her back up and keep her running. She didn't want to hold the group down so she kept pushing herself to go faster, she could run off the pain she was feeling.

And when they arrived, she fell to the floor to bury her head into her knees. The other five stepped into the church and by the sounds of things, the cross had been taken. It was gone.

Brooklyn pushed open the door and tried to listen i but she could barely pick herself up off the ground.

What she did hear was JJ's awful plan, "All right, here's what we do. We'll grab some kerosene tanks from the Chat, then we... we go to my dad's shop and grab some dynamite. And then we drive down to Charleston and tell this lady who she's messing with! Because this is some bullshit, y'all!"

Ok, that might be the worst plan he's ever come up with.

"That's not gonna help," Sarah tells him.

"Well, what is, Sarah?"

"I'm thinking, okay? We can't just go blow shit up, JJ," John B says.

"Pope, I'm sorry."

"Denmark would've stood right here..." Pope steps up to the front of the church. "...preaching to everyone he set free. A slave, the sole survivor of the Royal Merchant, he got the gold and the cross, and he brought them both to shore and used it to free every person who walked through those doors. He made a church, a family, a congregation... a home. And the Limbreys took everything from him. The sicced dogs on his wife and his kids, and when he tried to get her remains, the hung him. Well, I'm done. I'm tired of that shit. This is not how this is gonna end. We need a freaking win, guys. I'm going to get my family's cross."

He stepped past his friends and made his way to the door that was already open. He looked down at Brooklyn and held out his hand to help her up. "That was so speech, Pope," she says.

"I'm sorry about your head..." He turns to his friends and says, "You guys coming?"

"Well, if you put it that way..."

"Maybe we should think about it, you know?"

"Pros and cons?"

"Pros and cons list." JJ pulls his bag over his shoulder. "Hell, yeah we're coming Pope."

John B throws his arm around JJ's shoulders and Pope throws his arm around Brooklyn's. They make their way over to their van that they left here when they needed to take Pope to get his shot.

Brooklyn felt like driving and despite feeling slightly dizzy and ill she drove pretty perfectly. John B sat besides her incase she drove off the road and killed everyone but hopefully that wouldn't happen again.

As they were driving up the road that Pope had crashed the car, they noticed police cars were there. "Oh, shit! They found the truck."

"Chill, chill, chill, chill."

"Just relax, guys." 

Brooklyn stopped in front of the cars and waited while Shoupe began to walk towards them. "Good evening, Officer," she says.

"Sheriff. Yeah."

"Sheriff. Yeah, that's right."

"Speed kills, huh?" John B says as Shoupe uses a torch to look inside the van.

"I pulled the tags, and I know whose truck that is," he says. He pointed his torch in the direction of Kiara who was crouched behind John B's seat. "Hey! Kie, you drop your weed pen back there?"

"Found it," she says, holding her thumbs up.

"Sheriff, I just wanna say that this is all my fault. She had nothing to do with this. I take one hundred percent responsibility," Pope says, trying to stop Kiara from getting taken.

"Nothing to do with it? Uh-huh. You wanna try that again?" He looked back over at Kiara. "Your parents reported the truck missing four hours ago, and the keys were missing from the house. I'm taking you home. Or I could pull you all in for leaving the scene of an accident."

"Okay," Kiara says.

"Good. Plumb." Plumb opens up the door for Kiara to get out.

"I gotta deal," she says. "Hit me up later and make sure I'm still alive."

The door closes and Kiara begins to walk away with the officers. Brooklyn's head hits the steering wheel until she realises that she probably just damaged her head even more. "Shit!"

"You're bleeding, Brooklyn, you need to get that sorted," Shoupe said to her. "Here." He handed her a pack of tissues.

"Thanks. Can we go now?"

"Yep. Stay out of trouble."