𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐑，𝗃𝗃 𝗆𝖺𝗒𝖻𝖺𝗇𝗄

𝖿𝗈𝗎𝗋

𝐈 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 the back of the Maybank boys house to find him practising shooting his gun, "Hey, J." I greeted.

"Hey, pretty girl." He brought me into his strong arms, kissing the top of my head. He made me feel safe. "Where have you been?"

I shrugged, "Just my mom. I heard the gold wasn't there."

He nodded sadly, "Knew it was too good to be true."

I sighed in response speaking, "Did John B tell you that Sarah Cameron showed up at his house to talk to him about their little argument?"

"What?" He frowned in disbelief.

I nodded in response when I noticed Pope approaching. "JJ! They know."

"Chill bro, all right." He tried to calm his friend. "They don't know shit."

The Heyward boy must have seen my lost face. "Topper knows I sunk his boat."

I couldn't help the smile that came across my face. "You sunk Topper's boat? Who are you?" I asked in disbelief.

"Badass, apparently." JJ matched my face, holding onto the boy's shoulders. "How do you know they know?"

The dark-skinned boy started pacing, "Rafe and Topper posted outside of Heyward's and mad dogged me."

"Will you calm down and get a grip, man? They don't know shit." JJ tried to soothe him.

I shook my head, "There's no way they could know it's you."

"They have cameras. They could have seen me." He panicked.

Me and JJ both frowned, there was no electricity after the hurricane. "There was no power, Pope. How could they have seen you?"

The boy started to pace even more. "It's Figure Eight. They have generators. They don't give scholarships to kids who vengefully sink boats. It's not a good look on my transcript."

The blonde boy stood up from his seat. "Enough of the regret, bro! They caved your face in."

"What?" I yelled, this was the first I had heard of it. However, I was ignored.

"They hit us, we hit them. It's the law of the jungle." JJ carried on. "Now, if any Kooks come up to you and ask if you had anything to do with it, you walk up to them, look them right in the eye and-"

"Deny the living shit out of it." Pope finished. Deny, deny, deny. Another thing that worked for getting out of jail.

"But just for safety, we don't go anywhere without protection." The boy spoke as he pointed to his gun.

𝐊𝐈𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐃 JJ, Pope and I to the OBX Outdoor Movie Theatre. None of us knew where John B was.

"I'm so glad they're still doing this." Kiara smiled. "Keep calm. Carry on. Back to OBX life. Aren't you glad I made you come?"

"Ecstatic," Pope said sarcastically, sitting down in the chair he had set up.

JJ sat down also and I splayed my legs over his. "My couch was pretty comfy." The blonde spoke.

"I agree," I said, holding one arm up. At this point, the curly-haired girl had already walked off to get us some more drinks.

"We're out of the green zone." Pope panicked to me and JJ. "We're in the middle of Kooklandia. This is the last place I wanted to be."

"Shut up." I put my finger to his lips. "Relax."

"Just saw Rafe," Kie announced, handing the boys their drinks. "He said and I quote, 'Tell your boy that we know what he did.' What is that?"

At the statement, I could practically see Pope shaking. "Where is he?" JJ asked.

Kie looked behind her and nodded. "Right there."

"Great, the whole death squad." The Heyward boy muttered sarcastically.

"Don't stare at them." I seethed at the two idiotic boys. How could they be so stupid?

"Just warning you. If they corner me, I'm coming out swinging, okay? Slice and dicing. I'm on edge right now." Pope nodded along to JJ's words. "If that doesn't work, I got this right here." He motioned to the gun he kept in his backpack.

"Yeah. So we just got to stay in the group." He muttered. "They can't come get us in the group. Like a school of fish. Stay in the school. Can't leave the school."

"JJ, please tell me that you did not bring a gun here." Kiara scolded. "There are kids."

"I didn't bring the gun." He lied.

"That's really convincing, JJ. Founding principle. No secrets amongst Pogues. What is Rafe talking about?" She continued.

Eventually, Pope put his hand on her shoulder, "Kie, it might go down tonight."

"What does that mean?" However, she was ignored.

The whole time, everyone was tense and the sun was starting to set.

"Where are you going?" I asked as JJ and Pope rose from their spot.

"We gotta wring it out." The blonde replied.

Kie grimaced, "You gonna hold it for each other?" I laughed loudly at her comment. I started to get rising anxiety. What if Rafe and Topper had seen them leave?

I quickly looked behind me to see the group of boys had left their seats.

"Where are you going, Hayley?" My friend asked me, as I made my way in the direction I saw Pope and JJ go. I motioned for the girl to follow me, which she did.

"What the fuck?" I yelled, seeing Kelce have JJ in a chokehold and Rafe punching him repeatedly. As much as I shouted and tried to pull the boy away, it was no use. He was much stronger than me.

I glanced over to see that Kiara had set fire to the movie screen. The Kooks immediately let go of the two boys at the sight and left the scene. All I cared about in that moment, was JJ.

𝐏𝐎𝐏𝐄, 𝐉𝐉, 𝐊𝐈𝐄 and I were at Heywards helping out. The group were talking about the fight the night before, "Don't let it get in your head. There's three of them and two of us." The Maybank boy smirked, throwing his arm around my shoulder, "That's typical Kook shit right there. What was your thought process, using your head?"

The dark-skinned boy shook his head as he was panicking up groceries, "I don't know, man. I just kind of acted of instinct. I was a cornered animal."

"Hey, Pope." Heyward interrupted the conversation as he entered the building with Deputy Shoupe behind him. "There's someone here to see you." My heart began to race at the sight of the cop.

The boy's eyes went wide but I could tell he was trying his best to stay calm. "Evening, Officer."

"I have an arrest warrant for felony destruction of property." The Deputy told us, taking out his gun and headed toward Pope. If he got arrested what would happen to his scholarship? "Hands where I can see them."

The room was filled with protests and questions but Shoupe didn't seem to be listening. I didn't say a word. I knew that nothing I said would even make a difference. "Shoupe, what did he do?" Heyward asked, worried for his son.

The man cuffed the boy's hands behind his back, locking eyes with mine. I sent him a small nod, hoping to convince him that everything would be okay. "Look at the warrant." He told us.

"You're arresting him?" Kie yelled.

He seemed to drain out all the noise around him and pulled the young boy outside. "Everything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law. You have the right to an attorney."

JJ's arm unwrapped itself from around mine and banged repeatedly on the table in front of us. "How much did they pay you, man?" He asked.

All the voices drowned out as I followed everyone outside. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. I just wanted to help Pope but I couldn't.

"It wasn't him!" The blonde yelled from beside me. I snapped my head to face him but he wasn't looking in my direction. My eyes softened. I should have known that JJ would be stupid enough to try and take the fall for it. "It was me. He tried to talk me out of it, but I was mad because he'd just been beaten up. And I'm so sick of those assholes from Figure Eight that I lost my shit." He took a step closer to them with every word before looking at Pope, "I can't let you take the blame for something I did. You've got too much to lose."

"JJ, what are you doing?" Pope asked, tears pricking his eyes.

"I'm telling the truth." The blonde announced, "For once in my goddamn life, I'm gonna tell the truth." But he wasn't telling the truth. Far from it. "I took his old man's boat, too."

"What the hell?" Heyward questioned, betrayal written across his face.

Pope tried to step forward but was unfortunately pulled back. "JJ, come on."

"Just shut up, Pope." He yelled. "Just shut up. He's a good kid." He looked to the Deputy, "You know where I'm from. It was all me."

The older man nodded in response. I wanted to scream and tell him that he couldn't arrest JJ because he's from The Cut, but no words escaped me.

"That's the whole truth?" Shoupe asked Pope who looked conflicted. I couldn't blame him if he chose for the blonde to get arrested and not him. The Heyward boy was going to go to college and get far in life whereas JJ and I were probably going to end up running away from the Outer Banks and live on some deserted island somewhere.

The Maybank boy answered, "Whole truth, swear to God."

"I know what you think. I'm asking Pope." He raised his voice in frustration.

I locked eyes with him. I smiled, hoping that it would help with the decision. It was tough. "Yeah, that about covers it."

Those five words. Those five words made my heart drop. Tears welled in my eyes but I didn't dare to let them fall. I could only hope that JJ was going to be okay.

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄
xoxo