birds of a feather, obx

005. home attack

JJ has Cora on his back, his hands hooked under her legs to keep her up.

"Why can't we come with you, though?" Cora asks.

"Because it's big brother business. No little sisters allowed." JJ says, walking up to the chateau.

"That's no fun." Cora grumbles.

"You'll live." JJ tells her. He walks up to the door, finding a summons notice from DCS on the door.

"What does it say?" Cora asks. She hasn't learned to read much yet since she isn't going into kindergarten until August and nobody reads to her very much. Pope has been able to teach her a little bit, but she hates reading so not much progress has been made.

"Don't worry about it." JJ tells her.

JJ crouches, making Cora get off his back. He stands up and bangs his hand on the door. JJ bangs his hand on the door.

"DCS! I know you're in there!" JJ shouts. He waits a moment before jumping in front of the window, his hands slamming against the glass, scaring John B who is on the couch.

"Whoa." John B flinches and JJ laughs.

"Gotcha, slick." He wheezes. "You should have seen your face. Your face was like..."

~ ~ ~

"Okay, so there-- you know, there's some Goldfish. Uh, water, you know... substance." John B says.

"Where are you guys going?" Rosie asks.

"We're gonna go talk to somebody, but we'll be back, okay?" John B assures, ruffling her hair.

"Yeah, be good. Don't burn the house down or anything." JJ orders, patting Cora on the head.

+++

Cora and Rosie are inside the house and playing Uno. The four teenagers are on the porch while JJ recounts what happened at Lana Grubb's house. The main door is open allowing for the two kids to hear the conversation.

"And then we were right outside like this." JJ says. "And all we hear is just, "Bam! Bam! Bam!" Knocking paint off the wall, G! From the inside. All right? And I'm just looking at them, like-- wait, first off, look at this shit."

"Look at it." JJ says.

"That's dandruff. Disgusting." Kie mutters.

"Okay, thank you." Pope says making JJ stop.

"Look at all that. All right? That's paint." JJ states. "At that point, I was just like... I'm waiting for death."

"Okay, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?" Pope asks.

"Yeah." JJ nods.

"Um, did you get a good description of them?" Pope asks. "What'd they look like?"

"Yeah. Anything. Anything's helpful." Kie says.

"Anything we can bring to a police report?" Pope asks.

"Yeah." Kie agrees.

"Burly." JJ says.

"You meanie." Rosie glares at Cora after she puts down a draw four card. Cora giggles, an evil glint in her eyes. Rosie grumbles under her breath, drawing four cards.

"Dude! I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time, man! I was under duress, okay?!" JJ exclaims, his voice raising a couple octaves.

"He's in a bad mood." Cora mumbles.

"No kidding." Rosie whispers.

"But I can tell you..." JJ pauses to catch his breath. "I can tell you by the way that Ms. Lana was screaming... that these guys are serious, serious hombres, man." JJ says. "It's a heavy vibe right now, okay? I'm not liking this very much."