THE REDHEAD ☾ jj maybank

9 | lana's house

"Great, now I have two people saying different things." John B mumbles under his breath before glancing between them. "Why am I even taking advice from you dipshits anyway?"

"Because we're your best friends." Delilah reminds, ruffling his messy brown hair.

After many minutes that consist of driving along narrow roads filled with potholes, the campervan finally pulls up in front of a white house that appears to be their destination. The two boys jump out of the vehicle as Delilah reaches forwards for the door, but JJ is quicker and beats her to it. He slides the door sideways before kindly offering his hand out to the girl, helping her out of the vehicle.

"Thank you, kind sir." Delilah says, putting on a posh accent before laughing at herself.

"Anything for you, princess." JJ replies, bowing down as a joke.

The pair then make their way towards the house as the hurry to catch up to John B, not wanting to fall too far behind. However, the sudden sound of hard objects being thrown around in a violent manner causes them to all stop in their tracks. This is only followed by shouting and screaming coming from within, making the situation even worse.

"Maybe we should come back later. It's a little too soon." JJ suggests, nerves and fear peaking out from in his voice.

"No, no." John B refuses.

"Tell me where it is or I'll fuck you up!" A man demands. "I'll sink you in the fucking—"

The shouting from the male voice is abruptly cut off by an even louder crash as something is thrown against the wall once again. This is followed by the screams of a petrified woman, which can only belong to Lana since this is her house. JJ only hesitates at these sounds filling his ears, making Delilah feel bad since it's reminding him of his own household.

"Where the fuck is it, you bitch?" The man shouts, followed by the sound of a slap.

"I don't know!" Lana cries out through sobs.

John B walks forwards despite listening to the chaos coming from within the house. Delilah and JJ just continue to follow closely behind him as they all hide behind one of the walls of the house, trying not to get themselves caught by the aggravated men inside of the house. Though, JJ is quick to reach out and grab onto the Ly's arm where he pulls her back against his body in a protective manner.

"The compass wasn't in the boat! Where is it, Lana? Answer me!" The man yells in a demanding tone.

"I don't know!" Lana repeats.

"Don't listen." JJ whispers to his friends, not wanting them to experience this.

Glass is suddenly smashed just above the teenagers and chips at the white paint on the walls, causing it to come sprinkling down onto their heads. The blond boy, who Delilah is still in the arms of, removes one of his arms from around the girls waist to ruffle the paint out of her silky ginger hair with his hand.

"We should just go—" JJ begins.

"Shut up." John B interrupts.

The loud crashing sounds soon come to end and is replaced by a boats engine roaring to life. Delilah glances over towards the only body of water near them, which is by the docks, to see two males that have come from inside of the house are now driving away from the area. She takes a closer look at the boat as she finds some familiarity with it, unsure of where she may have seen it before. Realisation crosses over her, and apparently over JJ too.

"Those were the dudes that shot at us." JJ states.

"I know." Delilah replies.

John B ignores the two friends that he dragged along with him and proceeds to make his way into the house itself. JJ curses under his breath at the boy for not keeping himself hidden and judging the situation before entering. Delilah just begins to silently follow behind John B as she slips her hand into the blonds, hoping to help provide some form of comfort.

Sobs are heard echoing throughout the house as the noise bounces off of the wall, making it appear much louder than the woman had hoped for. The three just walk from room to room in a desperate attempt to find Lana as soon as possible. They need to know if she's okay, especially after hearing what's she has just experienced with those violent men.

Eventually, the teenagers find the weeping adult slumped against one of the walls in the bathroom as a stream of salty tears roll down her cheeks. A single lantern sits on the ground as the only current source of light in the house. Fresh cuts are covering her face as bruises already begin to form and take their place on her weak body.

"Hey, hey." John B whispers as he carefully crouches down in front of her. "It's okay."

"Dude, she's tweaking, come on." JJ urges, trying to get them all to leave as soon as possible.

"Do you need a doctor?" Delilah asks, concerned for the woman that's crying uncontrollably.

"Lets call the sheriff's department." John B suggests as he casts a glance over at the two.

"No, no, no. No cops, please." Lana begs.

"Okay, yeah, that's not good." JJ states, tugging at Ly's hand. "Come on, guys. Let's just go."

"You shouldn't be here." Lana tells them as more tears roll down her cheeks.

"That's enough for me. Come on." JJ insists.

John B shakes his head. "No. Wait, wait."

Delilah turns around to face JJ where she places a gentle hand upon his chest, slowly pushing him away from John B questioning Lana. She carefully directs him into another room with knowledge that he feels uncomfortable about the situation they're currently in due to the fact it's something he can unfortunately relate to. JJ just keeps his blue eyes locked onto her green ones, eyebrows furrowing slightly in confusion to her sudden actions.

"It's okay, JJ. They're not going to come back and hurt us." Delilah reassures, softly.

"You don't know that, Ly." JJ tells her, trying to hide the hurt that's filling his voice but failing.

"They're done questioning and abusing her, okay? We're fine." Delilah continues as she calmly stares into his eyes. "Plus, we've put up with them once, we can do it again."

"Delilah—" JJ begins.

"No, listen to me." Delilah interrupts, keeping her voice gentle to comfort him. "Nothing is going to happen while we're here. We'll hear the engine if they come back and that will give us enough time to slip out the back. Alright?"

JJ weakly nods in response, unable to bring himself to speak up and say anything in response due to the amount of negative emotions running through his body. He just silently agrees to the plan that Delilah had only just made up on the spot, knowing that she would stick to it despite it only just being created for his own sake. The boy trusts her with his life, and he knows that she won't betray that.

Delilah leans forwards and engulfs him into a warm hug, feeling him instantly wrap his arms around her smaller frame in return. Seeing JJ panic about the sound of grown adults abusing people makes the redhead extremely worried about his home life. She knows about his abusive father already, but it's not like she can stand up against his own legal parent. The teenage girl can do nothing but continue to be there by his side to comfort and reassure him that everything's going to be fine.

Eventually, though after sometime, John B appears from around the corner where he was just talking to the broken woman in the bathroom. He didn't say much about the information that may have been provided towards them. Instead, he goes straight to ushering them out of the room immediately without an explanation as to why.