Slater liked to think she lived a pretty non-confrontational existence.
She didn't go out of her way to get people to notice her. She didn't spread rumors at school. She didn't make drastic changes. She was plenty comfortable just going with the flow.
She avoided conflicts like the plague.
But the pogues? The pogues attracted conflict. They were like confrontation magnets.
So as they ran down a dirt road in the middle of the Cut, having just watched their friend nearly crash a plane with his hippie van, Slater found herself reminiscing. Between ragged breaths as she ran as fast as she could -- she'd never been much of a runner, and it seemed the pogues were always on the run -- she found herself wondering how every careful decision she'd ever made had brought her here.
She then asked herself if she regretted anything; it was easy to say that she did not.
She looked over at the blond boy beside her, who had slowed his running pace to match hers, just so that she wouldn't get left behind, and her heart clenched in her chest. She had no regrets. None at all.
He glanced over at her, catching her gaze, and a smirk filled his face. "Still a fan of the pogue life, Cambry?"
She grinned and replied, "P4L."
"P4L, baby."
They made it back to the Heywards, taking shelter in one of Pope's father's sheds as they caught their breath. As Slater waited for her heart to stop pounding, she heard the telltale sign of a plane overhead, one that sounded far too close to be doing anything other than taking off or landing. The pogues reluctantly turned to the sky, seeing the same plane from the airstrip flying overhead.
"There goes the gold," Pope said through gritted teeth, marching off into the shed. He picked up a box from the ground and chucked it across the shed, while JJ kicked a broken chair, sending it into splintering pieces.
Kiara and Slater exchanged a look, for only a second, before Pope had somehow procured a baseball bat, a baseball bat he was using to beat the shit out of the old junk in the shed.
Slater watched with wide eyes, stunned silent as the Heyward boy take out his anger. Even JJ stood motionless beside her, watching his friend's uncharacteristic display of rage.
"Pope!" Kiara interjected, walking over to the boy as he collapsed into a chair, breathing deeply. She sat next to him, attempting to put an arm around his shoulder, but he shrugged her off.
"About time this happened," JJ said, walking over to the boy with his weed pen in hand. "Here you go, chief."
"JJ ..." Slater began, but Pope had already grabbed the device and was bringing it to his mouth.
"Since when do you smoke?" Kiara asked, standing with her arms crossed. "What is that going to help?"
"I lost my scholarship. We lost the gold. It's all gone. All of it. Nothing matters. So who cares if I smoke a little weed, right?"
"Pope," Kiara said, frowning.
"He's right, Kie. It doesn't matter anymore. We lost, just like we always do," JJ said.
"You don't have to do that," Kiara pushed.
"What do you care?" Pope spat, his eyes narrowed on the Carrera girl.
Just as Kiara was about to reply, John B rounded the corner, looking disheveled and upset. It took a moment for Slater to realize that his shirt and hands were covered in blood.
"Oh my God," she hissed, and the other pogues turned around, noticing their friend.
"Dude!" JJ rushed to John B's side, his hands shakily going to the bloodied bandana on his best friend's arm. "Is this yours?" he asked, nodding to the blood.
"What happened? Whose blood is that?" Kiara asked.
Sirens approached in the distance as John B stared blankly at them, his lips moving faintly as he stuttered for the right words to say. John B had gotten away, but he was covered in blood, and Sarah was nowhere to be seen. Slater looked at the boy's face again, his skin pale and his eyes shell-shocked. Her stomach twisted and her knees suddenly felt weak.
"Where's Sarah?" Slater asked. "Is she okay? Is this her blood?"
"Guys, we have to go," Pope said, nodding to the distance, where a Kildare County squad raced past. Slater briefly wondered if her father was behind the wheel, but the thought was pushed away as JJ grabbed her arm, pulling her behind a pile of equipment.
"John B, what happened?" Kiara finally asked, once the sirens had died down and there were no more police cars coming. They were all headed in the direction of the airstrip, along with an ambulance and a paramedic's car. Whatever had gone down, it wasn't good.
"Peterkin," John B gasped out, allowing JJ and Pope to help him to a chair. "She's ... Rafe shot Peterkin."
Slater felt her blood run cold as John B's words echoed in her head.
Rafe shot Peterkin.
"What?" JJ questioned, running a hand through his hair. "What do you mean, JB? Rafe wasn't even with Ward and Sarah, and neither was Peterkin."
"She ... she came," John B said slowly. "She came to the airstrip, and she was about to arrest Ward. She had her gun aimed at him, and then ... a shot rang out, and she collapsed. The blood just started ... pooling from her body."
Sheriff Peterkin, her father's boss, mentor, and longtime colleague.
"And Rafe shot her?" Slater asked, her voice suddenly unfamiliar inside her own body. Her heart was racing in her head, and the sound of it pumping was almost too loud to hear what John B was saying.
"He came out of nowhere."
"Oh my God," she spat out, her head spinning. If Peterkin was down, who was next? "We have to go to the police. You have to tell them what you saw."
"They're never going to believe that Rafe Cameron shot the sheriff," JJ said with a shake of his head.
"John B is an eyewitness! They're not going to fuck around, not about Peterkin," she said, her voice catching as she said the woman's name.
Sheriff Peterkin was undoubtedly the best cop in the county. Not just because she was the sheriff, but because she took the job for all the right reasons, and none of the wrong reasons so many people seemed to go into law enforcement for. She was dignified, respectful, hardworking, and just. So many of the deputies were corrupt, but Pete ...
"Ward's never going to let his son go down for this, even if he did it," JJ argued.
"If Peterkin was already going to arrest Ward, then certainly someone else knew about it," Kiara said. "Slater's right, John B. We have to go to the police. You have to go to the police."
John B nodded. "Alright. Let's go."
With the Twinkie out of commission on the airstrip, the pogues trudged through the Cut and to Figure Eight, where they hopped into Kiara's car. She drove them to the police station, Slater wedged between JJ and Pope, the latter of whom had taken ownership of the weed pen and was using it enthusiastically.
"Pope, don't you think you should take a break from that for a while?" Slater offered, to which the boy promptly ignored her. She tried to look at JJ, but the blond's gaze was locked outside the window, his jaw clenched firmly.
"John B, are you sure this is a good idea?" JJ asked, leaning over the front seat.
"JJ, someone has to tell them what happened, and I saw it with my own two eyes," John B replied.
JJ sighed and shook his head. "Look, man. You might end up in the lion's den, but you don't go there on purpose, okay? This is the lion's den of all lions, and you, my friend, are an antelope. Just like my old man always said, never trust the police."
"Your old man is an abusive liar," Kiara interjected.
"I agree with JJ," Pope said, frowning. "Fuck the police. When have they ever helped us out?"
"Who's going to tell them the truth if John B doesn't?" Slater asked.
"Since when do they care about the truth?" JJ replied.
"Peterkin looked out for me, okay? I have to do right by her." John B raised his voice, cutting off the others. "They need to know."
"Okay," JJ said, sliding back into his seat, his hands up. "Your funeral."
The other pogues remained tense and quiet as John B exited the vehicle and walked inside the office, through the doors Slater had walked through hundreds of times, all to see her father. The doors suddenly looked different to her. No longer a fun trip to see her dad while he was working, but something different. JJ was right. It did look like a lion's den.
Her heart lurched at the thought of her father. She'd yelled at him the last time they'd spoken, and she hadn't seen him for days. Was he okay? What if Rafe had gone after him too? What if the last words she'd ever spoken to him had been in anger?
She couldn't mull over the thoughts for long, because the doors to the sheriff's station were flying open, and John B was running out of them, his arms waving wildly.
"Start the car, Kie!"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ author's note ✫・゜・。.
we're so close, people!
i've noticed this story has been getting a lot of attention again recently, so thank you for that! i haven't updated in a while, but i've been getting some more writing done, slowly but surely.
ps: shameless self promo -- if you like this book, you should check out my other two OBX fics, "turning violet" and "hopelessly devoted."
okay, that's all i have to say right now! thanks for reading :)
xx,
madi