Carefree || JJ Maybank

Chapter Seventy-Six

The plane quickly started to fill with water. Everyone was coughing and getting back up. "Is everybody good?" Pope asks. No one answers but JJ is leaning back against the plane.

Everleigh hold his head, "JJ, wake up." She tells him, tears were threatening to spill but his eyes quickly opened. "Oh thank god." She sighs in relief, but she looks back and sees Jimmy, unconscious at the front. "Get out of the plane, I'm right behind you, it's gonna sink."

She pulls JJ infront of her as John B kicks open the door. And they all start to climb out. "Ev, come on you've gotta get out of there." John B shouts into the sinking plane.

"Everleigh, come on." JJ yells, the entire group swimming around him. "Let's go. Go to the pier."

They all start swimming away, thinking Everleigh as behind them. But she goes further into the plane, trying to wake up Portis. When he doesn't move, she uses all of her strength to pull him from his seat, and to the beach. She crawls onto the beach, and people immediately rush to help.

She kneels and stares at the man she just saved. "Thank you." He gasps.

Everleigh wasn't going to let him off that easily. It was in that moment, she was back to normal. He'd put all of her friends, her boyfriend, and her brother in danger. "You lied to us. Who are you?" She interrogates him, but he looks over to a quad making its way towards her.

"You should get out of here." Is all Jimmy Portis said to her.

"Shit." Everleigh whispers under her breath, running for the beach, but a group of quads follow her. She didn't know where her friends were, but she figured that they were elsewhere because there was no commotion. She ducks beneath a boat, hiding from the men who were after her.

A man comes near her hiding spot, and she ducks in the darkness of the shade that the boat and barrels were providing. When he peaks his head in and finds her, she kicks him square in the nose, making him fall back.

"She's over here!" He alarms his crew, but Everleigh was already on the move again, trying to find her next spot.

Once she stood up, she ran into yet another man. And when she turned, she was grabbed around the waist, and then held back. She screamed at them and tried to hit them. Doing anything in her power to get herself free.

They threw her in the back of a truck, and she looked around, looking for a way to run. Everywhere she looked, someone was watching.

Then, Portis approaches her in the back of the truck, and anger courses through her body. "I saved your life." She seethes.

"I know. I know. I'm sorry. I'm gonna try and help you, okay? I swear, I didn't know it was gonna be like this." He looked terrified. And she couldn't really tell if he was lying. "If you don't fight. And as long as you do what they say... they probably... probably won't hurt you."

"What did Ward promise you?" She asks. She needed to know because deep down inside, she knew that Ward would do something like this.

"Who?" Was all Portis could say. Confusion was written all over his face and she could tell he really didn't know. "Just take my advice. Do what they say. Good luck."

Everleigh just looked down at the dirty bed of the truck. She was soaked from the ocean and her hair was a mess. A large man in a bulletproof vest then climbed in with her, and stared her down.

"What do you want an autograph or something?" She asked the man who continued staring and didn't respond. Everyone had guns and they all wore bullet proof protection.

They drove for a while, and all she could do was sit there as the wind blew through her hair and not be able to help but wonder where her friends might be.

They were out front of a mansion when they finally stopped. The driver came around as she got out of the truck and grabbed her by the arm. Once they make it in the front gate. She pulls her arm from his grip. He goes to grab her again, but she speaks, "Calm down. I'm going with you."

The man leads her to the large doors and she looks at them nervously. But a maiden opens the door, and they make their way in. The entrance is full of treasures in showcases and she couldn't help but look at all of them. "Take her upstairs. The Orinoco Room." The maid tells the guard in front of them.

"This way." The guard orders, grabbing her harm and pulling her to the stairs. "Up."

He rushes her up the stairs and into a bedroom, telling her to go inside. "Why am I here? Who are you working for?" Everleigh asks him, looking him dead in the eye.

"Dinner at eight. I'd clean up." Was all the guard said to her.

"Just tell me what they want." She started to raise her voice. But he slammed the door in her face. Leaving her in the room alone. She grabbed the door handle and began to try and twist it, but it was locked.

"You've got to be joking me." She groans. She makes her way to the window, but there were guards and security dogs flooding the entire property. She turned around and saw a closet, with red dresses and a note that read 'choose your size'.

She figured it was better to just listen. Maybe she'd find more information. She grabbed the dress in her size and sighed before putting it on, she found a mirror hanging on the wall and used it to fix her hair. Then she spun around and a full body mirror was set up.

She made her way over to it. The maroon dress fell perfectly around her body and she couldn't help but remember the midsummers party. It felt like years ago but really it was just a few months.

The horrors of midsummers came first. The fight, the kiss, and then John B nearly dying later that night. But then the dress brought back the good memories. The maroon red dress she'd worn to midsummers looked so similar to the one she was being forced to wear now. She remembered how JJ's eyes had lit up, and how he was at a loss of words the first second he saw her. She needed to know that he was okay, along with the rest of her friends.

A tear slipped down her cheek at the thought of being with JJ. In his arms, or maybe her fingers laced in his hair.

She walked to the bed and flopped backwards, now just awaiting her next instruction. 'Listen to what they say, and you'll see JJ again'. It repeated through her head for what felt like hours, until she jumped at the door of the bedroom being abruptly opened.