Brother's Best Friend - Book Two

Episode 4 S2. Homecoming | 8

Julianne Bailey Routledge

"Damn, that house is huge. Who even lives there?" My face was smushed against the window as I gazed at the house. Half of them were bigger than Sarah Cameron's, which was really saying something.

"I dunno, but wait to you see the Limbreys."

"How are they that loaded?"

"Well, they're a bunch of fancy people. They've had, like, three governors in the family. They've run Charleston for, like, 300 years."

JJ leaned over me to see the houses better, "These Kooks make our Kooks look like Pogues." Pope stopped in front of a massive home, "You sure this is the place, Pope?"

"Pretty sure."

"All right." JJ didn't hesitate before jumping out of the car, dragging me along with him.

We gazed at the tall, sharp fence that blocked the driveway, "Damn, talk about home security."

"Are those spikes to keep people out?"

"No." Kie replied.

"The slave quarters are over there." Pope continued, "The spikes were to keep people in."

Damn. People really fucking sucked. Pope grabbed the little fancy metal-thingy and knocked three times.

"You think that was loud enough?"

I nodded, "They definitely heard it."

"Maybe nobody's home." Kie suggested.

When Pope went to knock again, the door opened and a man who looked in his late twenty's opened the door. He looked around at us.

He then smiled, "You must be Pope."

"Umm." Pope looked back at us for support, "Are you Mr. Limbrey?"

"Ms. Limbrey was expecting you yesterday."

"Oh, I'm sorry. My car broke down on the way up here-"

JJ cut him off, "Carburetor blew up in the middle of Nowheresville." The man stared at JJ, "Sorry 'bout that."

"Yeah, she was, uh, real upset when you didn't show up."

I moved closer to JJ and grabbed his hand, the man watching my movements. I didn't like him. I didn't like how he watched us, how he spoke, any of it. God, please just let one thing go right for us.

"We tried to call but there was no number on the invitation." Kie told him. Something told me that her saying that was making things worse rather than better, "We got here as fast as we could."

The man ignored her and looked back at Pope, "She also expected you to come alone."

"I mean, these are my friends. They helped find the Royal Merchant too. I-"

"Yeah, the instructions were explicit. Your friends can stay outside.

JJ stepped towards him and put his arm on Pope's shoulder, "Well, we're kind of a package deal, man."

"JJ." Pope stopped him, "It's okay. I got this. I'll be good." He reassured us.

"Yeah. We'll be right here." Kie gave him a kind smile.

"Keep the car running."

"Yep."

The two had a moment and I admired the house during this time. Not in an awing kind of way, but a holy shit this place is massive way. When they went inside, the three of us went back to the car, where Kie was stressing about what was happening inside.

I set a hand on her shoulder, "Think about it this way, if Limbrey's legit, then Ward gets arrested, and maybe Sarah will get the gold."

Pope and the weird guy came into view, well, it was just Pope being dragged by him.

"Does that look voluntary?" Kie asked, leaning forward.

JJ shook his head, "That would be a negative."

Kie was about to get out of the car, but JJ stopped her, pointing out that they were going around back and we needed to go into the alley way.

JJ began blabbling about some humanoid stuff, but I set a hand on his arm, "JJ, honey, you need to focus. You're not making any sense right now."

"Right, right. Nope, got it. Sorry."

I gave him a comforting smile and went back to assisting Kie in finding Pope through the brush.

"I see them!" Kie shouted and JJ stopped the car in his tracks. Pope was hanging over a wall, but in an obvious struggle, he fell.

"Go! Go! Come on!"

We jumped out of the car, leaving it in the street and jumped the wall, finding both boys struggling on the ground. JJ kicked a taser on the ground, Kie picking it up and rushing us out. Pope sent one more fist into the guys face and we sprinted back to the car and sped the hell away.

"He's following us!" Kie shouted.

"This is a one way, JJ!"

"Turn! Turn!"

People were in front of us, "Oh, my god!"

This was the moment we die. Then, as if things couldn't get worse, the car was smoking again.

"No! Damnit!"

"I thought it got fixed?"

We had to resort to running because the man was back on our trails. Man, I was out of shape. We were barely 10 feet from the car and I was already struggling to breathe.

"Guys, I think he has a gun!"

"Get down!" JJ grabbed my wrist while we were running, hitting people on the way. This was fucked. We're fucked.

"He's gaining!"

"Keep up!"

We turned out of an alley way and came to a dead stop, two familiar faces on a bike in front of us. I swear to god I could hear happy-sappy music playing at the sight of my supposedly dead twin brother right in front of me.

This felt like one of those weird ass movie moments where time literally stops and the only sound is sad/happy music playing while they just stare at each other. If I didn't know any better, I would think our life was some kind of T.V. show.

The moment was ruined by us panicking and jumping into the back of the bike before we could even process anything. We screamed as the weird guy fell and gave up on us. John B lead us to the boat that hey had gotten and here we were, telling each other what we missed and lots and lots of hugs.