xxvi.
Four Hands Bloody
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Blair had the faith of their operation in her hand. She punched her little sister's number in the keypad of the old phone and nervously handed it to the older girl, then ran her hands through her hair with a heavy breath.
It was Sarah's idea to contact Wheezie and get her to find out their father's plan regarding the gold, and Blair had reluctantly agreed, almost scared to get in contact with her little sister. It wasn't fright as much as it was embarrassment, and regret that she left her with the murdering men in their family. So she sat back, head buried in her hands, while Sarah waited for her to answer after dialing for the second time; Wheezie probably hung up thinking it was spam.
John B placed a hand on her shoulder, a meek attempt at reassurance, and she could feel the weight of it burn past her flesh. She wore a sleeveless-top, her shoulders bare, and she swore the tanner-than-usual, sweat-sticky flesh had bubbled, a warm sear, under his blistered fingers.
The seconds were longer than they were supposed to, almost as though they were back in a classroom with a teacher giving an endless lecture at the board. Suddenly, her brain wasn't registering anything anymore. Sarah was talking, a wide grin plastered on her face, but all Blair could hear was loud ringing that buzzed in the back of her brain and spread all the way to the bridge of her nose, which she pinched with shaky hands.
It was only when the reassuring shoulder pat from John B turned into a focused nudge that she snapped back from reality, only to find Sarah holding the phone towards her with a tearful smile, eyes glassed over. "Wheez wants to talk to you," she said. Blair slowly grabbed the phone from her hand.
"Wheezie?" she whispered.
A laugh echoed on the other line, and she could hear an undertone of sadness that broke her heart. "Blair!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad you and Sarah are alive. I love you so much, Bee," Wheezie sniffled.
"I love you, too, sweetheart," Blair smiled, feeling an indescribably heavy weight roll of her shoulders. To know that her sister wasn't mad at her for leaving, for everything she put her through, gave her a certain sense of hope that, one day, everything could go back to normal.
"I heard Dad say he was gonna fly to Nassau for a meeting and I'm gonna find out when it is, okay?" Wheezie told her older sister. She was sitting on her bed, knees brought up to her chest, a wide grin plastered on her face, smushing her eyes and cheeks. Blair thanked her, bitting her bottom lip to try and stop herself from crying. "Did you tell JJ?" Wheezie suddenly asked. "That you're alive, I mean. Oh, you should've seen him, Bee, he was devastated. He misses you."
Blair's face fell and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "I'll see you soon, okay? We'll be back home before you know it," was all she managed to say. "I love you."
Once again, Wheezie told her that she loved her, too, then hung up the phone with a laugh of relief.
Sarah grabbed her hand, smiling softly. "See? I told you she doesn't hate us."
"She should. I would," Blair sighed. "We left her and then made her think we were dead. If I was her, I'd call me every name in the book."
She was sat between John B and Cleo on the couch, and the girl had been spinning that same knife in the palm of her hand. "Don't think it's possible to hate you, pretty," she smiled, though it was lopsided and more of a smirk. Blair chuckled unconsciously, and Cleo's features brightened almost victoriously.
"All right, I'm gonna leave you kids with this." Terrance threw his hands up and jumped out his seat. They watched him as he walked away, leaving the four in the room, jumping whenever a sound echoed, thinking it was the phone beeping with the meeting's coordinates and hour.
Blair looked up at Cleo with a small frown. "Are you gonna leave, too?" she wondered.
"Yep," she grinned, jumping off the couch's arm. "And you're coming with me. I've got somethin' to show you." The Nassau native held her hand out, but Blair hesitated to take it. When she did, she was stopped by John B immediately grabbing her arm with wide eyes.
"Bee," he warned.
Bee. It left a bitter taste on her tongue. They were family now, not friends anymore. He was the love of her sister's life and she was the lover of his brother in all but blood. So, yes, he was worried about her. Worried about how she hadn't slept well in days, how she saw her ghosts whenever she blinked, how she hadn't even paid attention to her bruised knuckles and focused on a dirty spot in the wall ahead while Sarah called their little sister. He and his girlfriend were worried both about her taking the girl's hand and using it to prop herself up, careless.
She wasn't afraid of Cleo. To be frank, after her brother and father, she wasn't afraid of many people. "I'll be fine," she dismissed them. Her eyes found Sarah's, solemn. "Call me the second you get news from Wheez, okay?"
The eldest Cameron sister glared at the grinning dark-skinned girl who was holding Blair's hand. "Be careful," she told her, and Blair nodded softly.
Cleo led them out of the house and down the street, onto a dock where there wasn't a single soul roaming around. The waves crashed against the wood pillars holding it up to the sound of a sweet melody that burned itself into Blair's brain, her hands stuffed in her pockets, dragging her feet. Her shorts were still sticking to her skin; shirt suffocating her like two hands around her neck, even though the collar was v-shaped and didn't even reach her goddamn collarbones.
That dock would look a lot like the one behind the Château if it wasn't for the sea. She could lean down, reach out, and touch it. So many memories that had washed away, so many people who lost themselves in the mass that was the ocean, begging for a bottle that would return their memories to their rightful owners. Memories like laying on her back, the sun just barely peaking from behind the horizon, hair over her face, breathing softly. And there would be a boy besides her who would drape an arm over her stomach and smile, watching her as though there wasn't an entity in the planet as gorgeous as her. Her, Blair Cameron. And she suddenly couldn't get JJ Maybank out of her head.
She wondered what he was doing sometimes, when the adrenaline settled in. Was he suffering, too? Did he spent all his free time thinking about her? Maybe he, too, was suffocating at the thought of her being gone. He could've found someone else to drown his sorrows with. Another hand to hold when midnight struck, under the dirty table at The Wreck with his friends dancing around him.
He was sitting down where she used to, near the sandbanks at the beach, his head in his hands, thanking anyone who would listen for keeping her alive. JJ couldn't know that she almost didn't make it out. And she couldn't phantom the degree of his soul's ache for her, that girl.
It was the feeling of eyes piercing into the back of her head, burning, that snapped her back to reality. Blair turned around to find Cleo watching her as she reached into a cooler tucked under a chair in a shed at the edge of the dock, one she could tell was built by her. She pulled out a bottle of water, with droplets of cold condensation dripping down her fingertips and onto her wrist, and held it out for her with a smile that had softened considerably since they left.
"Figured you were thirsty," she told the American teenager with that heavy accent of hers, one that made Blair's head spin.
She took it, though reluctant. "Do you enjoy this?" she asked, forcing the bottle open. Cleo raised a brow and she scoffed bitterly. "You kidnap my sister, force me and my friend into your truck, threaten to turn him in if we don't pay you and leave us behind to get arrested. And now you're thinking about my well-being?"
The girl sighed and plopped down on the edge of the dock, the soles of her shoes just barely hovering over the sparkly water. "It's not me. I can't get outta that deal with the Captain, you know. I didn't choose this."
"Why don't you run away?" Blair asked, feeling like a hypocrite. She remembered all the times JJ would ask her that question, except it was only then that she couldn't find an answer. She brought the cold bottle to her lips and her eyes fluttered shut for a second.
"Run away? Like you, you mean?" she frowned.
Blair shook her head, looking out at the horizon. Maybe she hoped she could see the North Carolinian if she focused hard enough, but she was running out of faith. "I didn't want this. I just want to go home," she whispered.
"Why? Don't like the fugitive life, pretty girl?" Cleo raised a brow, joking to try and ease the mood. But it hadn't worked, and Blair was still refusing to look at her. "Is someone waiting for you back home?" she finally asked, but her hard, comedic composure had fallen by then.
A small smile twitched on the blonde's face. "My best friends," she said. "And my boyfriend."
Cleo frowned. "You have a boyfriend?" She scoffed, "of course you have a boyfriend. Pretty girl like you can't possibly be single."
She couldn't hold in her laughter, though it came out as more of a snort, which made Cleo smile though she found the situation quite bitter. When Blair looked at her again, she finally felt okay with smiling, even if it was just a little. And she brought the bottle to her lips again, the pressed it against her thigh and let the cold numb her skin.
"You know . . ." the dark-haired girl trailed off, looking at her hands, folded clumsily in her lap. Blair didn't know why she wasn't playing with the knife anymore, maybe because she didn't feel like she needed to look more threatening in front of her. "I kinda thought you liked girls."
Blair's head snapped up, neck craning to look at her. For the first time, Cleo could see her teeth without her expression being an angry snarl. "I do, too," she smiled, amused.
"Ah," Cleo bit her tongue. She didn't blush easily, and it wasn't very visible on that glistening dark skin of hers, but Blair saw it and shook her head amusedly. "Is he rich then? Are you with your boy 'cause he's rich?" she pressed. "'Cause he can't be prettier than me."
"Oh, he is not rich at all," Blair snorted, running a hand through her hair. He was, in fact, as poor as they came. However, she couldn't possibly care less. "But he does have a pretty face, I'll be honest."
Cleo pursed her lips. "Well, good for him."
Her phone vibrated before Blair could comment, yet her cheeks smushed into a soft smile as she looked out the horizon. The Nassau native stared at her profile for a few seconds, inhaled deeply, then grabbed her phone and unlocked it with a swift hand.
"It's Sarah," she said. Blair's eyes immediately snapped to her, watching her jump to her feet before grabbing the hand she was extending towards her to help her up. "Your little sister pulled through."
"Of course she did," Blair smiled fondly, squeezing her hand for a second. She was proud of her little sister, wether she would've gotten the meeting's time or not.
The pair walked back towards the house, bumping into Terrance on their way in. He gave Cleo a curious look that titled slightly towards a glare, but she ignored it and brushed past him carelessly instead.
They talked over the plan with the coordinates Wheezie had sent Sarah, and it all felt like a fever dream to Blair all of a sudden.
Oddly, stealing gold with the Pogues had been just fine. But now that it was with strangers, people that were promised such a heavy slice of the fortune, she suddenly wasn't so confident with the prospect. As they explained to Terrance and his crew how the gold would be moved according to their little sister's intel, Blair felt her stomach churn and flip, angry. She didn't know why she felt like things were so violently off, like that mission would only end up with one of them hurt or worse. But she had been having that feeling a lot since they arrived to Nassau, and so she swept it under the carpet, harshly swallowing it, and hoped her gut hadn't been right the whole goddamn time.
The plan they came up with was fairly simple: they would intercept the gold on the road, then take the truck to the cane fields where they'd transfer the cargo from car to the other and carry on as though nothing happened.
Blair and John B were taken by Terrance to those infamous cane fields, and they shared a pair of binoculars as they looked over their surroundings, trying to get the lay of the land in their burnt-out brains. Sarah and Cleo were working on finding a distraction, and Blair, the golden girl, was trying to get used to the weight in her hand that nearly made her skin sizzle. A gun, she clenched her jaw and flipped it from one palm to the other. She'd have to point it at whoever would be driving the truck, probably one of Ward's employees, and it wouldn't matter much because her face would be covered and he wouldn't recognize her, or would not even know her in the first place. So she wasn't worried. Or, at least, that was what she had told John B when he placed a hand on her shoulder and inhaled deeply.
They didn't converse much with the captain, and didn't dare to speak in front of him, either. Cleo slipped a piece of paper in her pocket before she left with Sarah, warning her not to trust the man no matter how sweet he could look sometimes, like he had nothing but her well-being in mind. The boy and her sat in the back of the truck, quiet, exchanging looks that said a lot more than words ever could. They were so worried about each other it invaded all of their features and could be seen in the tired lines of their faces.
It was only when they were alone, reunited with Sarah in a vacant room inside the worn-down house, that Blair finally found it in her to breathe again. Basked in blueish moonlight, with her sister sound asleep in John B's arms, she was sitting in the corner of the room with the back of her head pressed against the wall, telling herself over and over again that everything would be just fine.
John B must have had heard her at one point, because she heard him stir and a body plopped besides her, offering her a soft smile. "What're you thinking about?" he asked softly, careful not to wake up his girlfriend. He had placed her comfortably on the wobbly sofa-bed, her face nuzzled in the rugged pillows. Blair shook her head and knocked on the wall with the back of it, jaw clenched. "Blair," he sighed tiredly, "you can tell me."
"I'm scared," she whispered, sniffling as a reflex. She wanted to cry so bad, roll herself up in a tiny ball and rock herself to sleep; there were so many things she was desperate for, like the warmth of her bed or the arms of the boy she loved. But it didn't matter then, she wasn't thinking about JJ. "What if something goes wrong? What if something happens? I know I said I'd go to the end of the line with you to get the gold, John, but I'm fucking scared."
A moment passed, heavy. He leaned his head against the wall, too. "Truth? I'm scared, too," he said. She looked at him with a slight frown, clearly not having expected that reply. "More than you, I'm sure. The gold doesn't even matter at this point if it puts you and Sarah's lives in danger. But . . ." he trailed off, unsure of what to say.
"Yeah." Blair didn't even need him to finish. "Can you just . . . Can you tell me everything's gonna be okay? Can you tell me we're gonna go home soon? Please."
"We're gonna be okay. We're gonna go home soon," he repeated, though there was a slight reluctance in his voice, like he wasn't sure. "You'll see JJ again," he added with a light smile, and she snorted as he bumped her shoulder with his. Uncontrollably, she hissed softly. "Hey," he frowned, "does it still hurt?"
Blair grabbed the bottom of her top and lifted it over her ribs, revealing a mixture of bluish purple and red that made John B's eyes double in size. "I think they're bruised," she shrugged nonchalantly.
His eyes teared up, and he wiped his nose with the back of his palm, sniffling. "I'm sorry," he strained through gritted teeth, avoiding her glance.
"Hey," she drew her attention back to her, smiling softly, as if she had been trying to reassure him. "It's not your fault. I went on that boat myself, I chose to come with you guys. Truth is, I couldn't face Dad and Rafe back home. I took the coward's way out, but it was worth it."
"Yeah," John B nodded, and wrapped an arm around her amicably. "You're my best friend, Blair. You know that."
She smiled and leaned against him, eyes fluttering shut slowly. She was dreaming of the next day, of every little detail the trio had discussed and put together, of everything that might happen. She was dreaming of the gold and running away with it. Yet, when she finally fell asleep, her mind had turned to a breathless black, mind buzzing with emptiness.
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They were awoken by an amused Sarah long before the sun rose. She wished they could have slept for longer, knowing they were not very well rested and could do with a few more hours of quiet.
But there was no going back now.
They boarded the back of the truck and made it to the point on the map they had agreed with Cleo and Terrance that they would watch over. Dressed in getaway clothes, Blair felt like her body was overheating. Her shirt was sticking to her skin and the bandanna wrapped around her neck, pooling under her mouth; her hair was uncomfortable stuck against her shoulders, and she wished she could chop it all off.
Still blue, she was sure the sky would swallow them all whole. The Nassau natives had set up an intersection of bright orange cones and waving neon flags in hopes of stopping the truck long enough for the North Carolinian trio to drive it far, far from the eyes of her father. Ward fucking Cameron; Blair was not all at ready to encounter him. She wanted so bad to remove her face cover and make him recognize her, just so he could simmer in self-guilt and feel the insides of his stomach churn violently. She wanted to see the self-hate in his eyes. But she was also scared of what that would make of her.
Her sister had a phone to her ear. She looked at Blair with a soft frown as the buzzed words of someone on the other end of the line caught her attention. "But just my dad in the truck with the gold, right?"
"It's two in the truck," he said as Sarah put him on speaker.
"Two?" John B repeated hesitantly.
Blair's hand rushed to her stomach. She felt as though she was going to be sick, all of a sudden. Hidden amongst these tall plants, rising sun dawning upon her and burning her scalp since she had refused to wear a hat. Truth was, she wasn't sure whom had spoken his name, her or Sarah, but she felt her stomach flip all the same. "Rafe."
Rafe! What the fuck was her brother doing there? She shook her head rigorously and tugged at Sarah's sleeve in panic. "No, no, no, no," she breathlessly exclaimed, "he can't be here. I can't see him."
"Two defenders, front and back," their eyes in front of the Cameron Residence on Paradise Island added. Blair imagined thick, black, armed trucks and chewed on her lip nervously. John B asked if they were armed, to which he answered: "to the teeth."
"Pistols?" Terrance questioned, chiming in.
"AKs," Stubbs corrected.
"Great!" the younger Cameron hissed under her break and ran her shaky hands through her hair. There was a muffled comment from Terrance, but she ignored it. The hollow pain in her muscles was beginning to act up and she felt the bruise on her ribs turn into burning pools of flesh.
John B was armed, too; a gun that reminded her in some way of JJ. He made sure it was loaded and looked at it hesitantly, unsurely. Sarah looked at her sister with a sigh. "It's gonna be okay, Bee. He won't see us," she told her.
It was then that they received the notification. A little kid who was fishing on the coast, watching the trucks vanish in the city. The trio shared a look, readying themselves for what would shortly follow. They had most of the children of the island on their sides, eyes peeled and careful, reporting the brigade following the gold's every move. Blair took a step forward amongst the tall greenery and Sarah grabbed her hand cautiously. There was nothing on the road but Cleo's truck yet and she was itching to get the gold.
When she received the notification that they were there, she felt every bone in her body light ablaze. Sarah grabbed her hand tightly and they both raised the bandana over their faces simultaneously as they watched Cleo put a knife to Rafe's throat and Terrance, a gun to their father's head. He made them move out the signs and barrels they had scattered everywhere on the road, their truck with the jackpot unattended for. The road was clear and they were on the ground; she inhaled deeply and took a hesitant step forward.
"Okay," John B breathed, just as afraid as they were. "It's time to go."
They ran to the truck at Terrance's signal. As usual, Blair was ahead, but her steps died as soon as she caught sight of her brother's back from behind Cleo's figure. Then her father called her name, staring right into her eyes while her sister was ushering her to run, pulling her towards the truck, and she felt her knees buckle.
She had ruined everything, there it was. Blair was too fucking weak for she would always be her father's little girl. She felt it in the way her breath got caught in her chest and she found herself itching to yell out to him. He called for Sarah once she tugged the bandanna off her face after Blair had done so, a hand on the handle of the truck door and the other clasping her sister's wrist tightly. She felt her being thrown off balance and was ready to jump forward and grab her before she hit the concrete, feeling all too much like that bloody, cursed afternoon on the airstrip.
"Sarah, Blair! You're alive! Blair!" he cried, tears bubbling in his eyes, struggling to keep in a sob. "Baby, you're alive! My girls, please."
When her father slipped out Terrance's grasp, Rafe looked back with a disbelieved frown, only for his whole face to crumble at the sight of her. "Blair?" he whispered, voice barely making it to her ears. He wanted so badly to believe that it wasn't her, that she was just an illusion his grieving brain was forcing him to see, but he knew it was all too real when she spoke his name right back to him.
"Stay back," John B firmly threatened as Ward jumped to his feet. He pushed Blair behind him and she gasped, caught off guard.
Cleo repeatedly told him not to talk to the girls, but her grip loosened around Rafe when he hadn't stopped. Terrance caught ahold of his collar from the back and kept the gun to his head, but that hadn't stopped him from screaming for his daughters. Then, Rafe jumped to his feed and was flung back full force when she brought a hand to her chest, and he saw that she was still wearing the bracelet they shared, the one he brought her for her eighth birthday. What was she now, nothing but a back stabber?
"I love you, baby! I can't believe you're alive! Blair, Sarah!" wailed Ward, holding his hands out in surrender towards them. Shakily, John B held up his gun and Blair, in shock, tried to take a step forward, but was pulled back by her panicked sister.
"Dad," she whispered. "Rafe?"
"Blair," her brother countered, then barely breathed in imperceptible relief. "You're not dead."
Ward shook his head, weeping. "No, no, you're not. My baby, I love you, I love you!" He wouldn't stay back and a frightened John B yelled for him to stop as he hovered his finger over the trigger, jaw clenched.
Then Rafe pulled out a gun and her vision went red. Blair could not believe that they were back to her, John B and Sarah against her brother and her father. She did not believe that they would fall right back into that hole, not when they were both armed and each angrier than the other. John B, for his father, Rafe . . . he was angry that the boy took his sisters, especially her.
"Rafe!" she scram, but he had already shot. It echoed all over the field and she was forcefully pulled back as she felt something rip the flesh on her side, and then a sudden coldness overtaking the patch of skin. She heard her sister gasp from behind her and she nearly felt forward if it wasn't for her pulling her back and into the truck, with John B rushing in the driver's seat, knowing Blair wasn't in the right mental space to drive.
No, she was too busy watching her father get punched down. Her brother looked at her with wide eyes and fell forward on his knees, scabbing his palms as the gun fell to his side. He hit her, he knew it. He shot Sarah, but he hit her and they both could see the blood running down her thigh, smudged on the seat of the truck as she pulled herself in between John B and Sarah with a gasp. And when they drove away, all breathing heavily with their hearts beating out of their chests, Rafe fought the urge to jump to his feet and run after them, drag her out of that truck and never let her out of his sight ever again.
"Traitor!" he bellowed; he had the last word.
The escorts were following them on Ward's order. John B was yelling profanities as he vehicle swelled in speed. He continuously was looking back, but Blair's eyes were stuck forward. When he almost swerved them off the road, she yelled and took the steering wheel in her own hands. "This is why I'm the fucking getaway driver!" she yelled angrily.
"It's not me!" he protested defensively. His girlfriend looked back but hadn't uttered a word. Her breath was caught in her chest; Blair hadn't noticed in the heat of the moment. "It's that gold. It's the gold, it's too heavy. It's too heavy, it's weighting us down."
"Is there any way to make this thing go faster?" Sarah chimed in, just as scandalized and afraid as the rest of them.
"I'm going as fast as this shit of shit can go," John B gritted his teeth.
"What do we do?" Sarah yelled.
"I dont know!"
Blair gasped. "John B, into the cane fields!" she said. She probably hadn't noticed that she shouted it. He looked at her as though she had found a cure to cancer or resolved world hunger. "Now!"
"Okay, hold on!" he agreed, grunting as he swerved the truck as fast and as sharp as it could. They hovered on a side for a second, before they thumped onto the ground with both sister gasping breathlessly, holding onto each other for dear life. They continued down a small road before he finally drove them right into the cane fields and shut off the engine.
For a moment, everything was quiet. Blair pressed her hand over her side and felt the blood seeping through it almost calmly, as though it had settled down just for her. It was burning but barely, and she knew she would be in horrible pain just as the adrenaline piped down. But for the moment, she would look back with John B and melt at the sight of the crates of gold in the trunk. The gold was in their possession; it was theirs, for real this time.
He locked eyes with her and his grin spread from ear to ear as he breathed out his girlfriend's name. "Sarah, we got the gold," he said excitedly. "Sarah, Blair, we did it. We did it. Oh my God."
"S?" Blair frowned when her sister hadn't answered. She twisted her body back around painfully only to find her looking down at her lap, looking pale as a sheet.
Then she pulled her fingers away from where she had pressed them against her hip. They were coated in blood.
"I'm shot," she gasped.
A scream-like gasp echoed, but it did not come from the wounded girl. Blair's face crumbled and she held onto the dashboard suddenly as though she had been electrocuted. Everything rushed to her brain in mere seconds and she could taste blood in her mouth from where she had violently but down on her cheek in shock. Suddenly, she felt her heartbeat where the bullet had grazed her . . .
Only to lodge itself right in her sister.