THE NEXT DAY, THE POGUES DECIDED IT WAS TIME TO DROP THE DRONE AND LOOK FOR THE ROYAL MERCHANT. Talia and Kiara were responsible for keeping track of how far deep the drone was in the water, Pope and John B were directing the drone, while JJ drove the boat. They drove Pope's dad's boat out into the open water, which was seemingly calm. Once they had been driving for about a half hour, John B shouted for JJ to stop.
"Roger that! X marks the spot." JJ said as he slowed down. Kiara and Talia went to the edge of the boat as John B walked next to them with the drone ready to drop into the water.
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, to going full Kook." He dropped the device into the water, which immediately sent the group into cheering. They all silently watched the drone sink further, Kiara keeping track of the depth with a piece of chalk. John B and Pope stood over the tablet, while the wind blew through Talia's hair as she kneeled, feeding the tether into the water.
"Alright JJ, we're right over it. Ten seconds northwest." John B directed, which JJ responded and moved the boat accordingly.
"100 feet!" Kiara yelled, seeing the orange tape her and Talia had placed on the tether every ten feet.
"And to quote The Hobbit, 'down, down, to Goblin Town. Down, down, down, my lad.'" Pope mumbled, his eyes still glued to the screen. Talia let out a light laugh, that in the most stressful situations Pope still had a nerdy joke in his head somewhere.
"400 feet!" Kiara yelled, placing a mark on the side of the boat. Talia looked behind her, seeing storm clouds forming and hearing a clap of thunder.
"I'm not liking the look of those clouds, John B." Talia told him, but he didn't respond, his eyes still on the. tablet screen.
"The tide's turning!"
"JJ? Ten seconds easy, south-southeast, alright?"
"Copy that!" He moved the boat in a half circle, grunting as he turned the wheel fast. The wind picked up and the water become choppier, hitting Talia's arms and face as she fed the tether into the water.
"JJ, twenty seconds mid-speed, south." John B directed again, earning an 'aye, aye' from JJ. Talia looked up, the clouds in front of her almost black.
"Keep the tether out of the prop." John B told her, moving her attention back to the task she was doing.
"I'm trying." She grunted, pulling the tether father away from the back of the boat.
"700 feet!" Kiara yelled over the wind. They all looked to the weathervane on top of the boat, which was spinning wildly. The boat began to rock in the waves, and Talia pushed herself farther back from the edge, not wanting the force of the boat ricking to push her off. Thunder crashed again as Talia moved the tether faster, wanting to get this done quicker so they could get out of the storm.
"JJ! Hold steady!" John B yelled to his friend, who did his best to keep the boat in the same position.
"Okay, 900!" Kiara yelled, not even bothering to tally the depth anymore.
"JJ, we're gonna turtle in this storm, man!"
"920!"
"Crank it north by northwest, ten seconds!" John B yelled, the wind howling in all their ears.
"Almost there." Pope muttered, impatiently tapping on the side of the computer.
"John B, there's too much current, we're gonna lose it." Kiara yelled as she and Talia both pulled on the tether, trying to keep it steady.
"South southwest, JJ, hard!" John B ignored the girls and called to JJ, who turned the wheel as hard as he could. "Half speed, steady at this bearing!" He added, to which he nodded. Beeping sounded from the tablet and John B ran next to Pope.
"What do you got, Pope? Come on, man. What do you see?" John B asked desperately.
"Nothin'. A whole lot of nothin'." Pope said defeated, ready to close up the laptop.
"You should be right above it, brother." John B told him as they both looked at the screen, silently praying to see anything.
"Kiara, Talia!" Pope yelled to the girls, who were still feeding the tether into the ocean.
"960, 970!" Kiara yelled as Talia could hear the ending of the wire come off of the holder.
"980!" Talia yelled, trying to keep the tether from completely unraveling.
"I'm at the bottom, I'm at the bottom!" Pope finally yelled. The girls clamped the tether and ran over to Pope and John B, who yelled at JJ to stay steady.
"You should be seeing something, man."
"I know, I know, wait." Pope moved the camera around, hoping to find something, and they did. What was left of a wooden ship sat on the ocean floor, a golden angel sitting at the bow. All the teens sighed in disbelief.
"Oh, good god." Pope muttered, stepping back slightly from the computer.
"See anything?" JJ yelled from inside the boat, but the group was too fixated on the screen to answer.
John B only chuckled. "It's the Royal Merchant." Talia shook her head, a smile finding it's way to her face.
"Holy shit, we did it." She whispered, grabbing Kiara's hand for support. They all leaned closer to look for what they really wanted to find: the gold. Pope moved the drone around more, finding nothing that resembled gold.
"It's not there. Look, just pull the drone up." John B sighed in defeat, running a stressed hand through his hair.
"We can do another pass, recharge the battery. We can go back down." Pope offered as John B walked towards the stern.
"Guys, we've been through it three times, there's nothing there." JJ told them, as the rest of the group yelled at him to shut up.
"The gold could be buried, we don't know." Kiara yelled at him, trying to hold onto any hope of them finding the gold.
"If it was there, it would have been found on the metal detector, okay? Someone beat us to it." John B told his friends, looking out the back of the boat out to the open ocean.
"Or it was never there." JJ mumbled, and an idea popped into Talia's head.
"It could be somewhere on land. Look, if someone would have found the gold, it would be documented. Maybe, somehow, it got off the boat and onto land somewhere." Talia told her friends. They ignored her as they cleaned up, trying to the drone out of the water before it started to storm. They all moved into the cabin with the drone equipment as it started to rain. JJ drove, Kiara and Pope sat on a bench, and John B stood by the window, watching the storm move closer to them as they drove back to shore. Talia moved next to him and lightly gripped his hand.
"Hey, we are gonna find this, you know." She told the boy, who looked down at her and squeezed her hand.
"I hope so." She leant her head against his arm as they drove back to the island. She turned around to look at her friends, to find JJ still driving, Pope passed out, and Kiara already looking at her. She winked at the girl and gestured towards her hand that was in John B's. Talia mouthed 'I'll tell you later' and joined John B's gaze towards where they had just been, watching the storm wreak havoc on the open water.
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When Talia returned home to Figure 8, she immediately saw the sheriff's department truck parked in her driveway. She took a deep breath and prepared herself to be faced with handcuffs as she entered the door, arrested for the second time in two days. If this was about the drone, they had probably already gotten her friends. She hopped off her skateboard and kicked it into the grass, gripping the straps of her backpack tighter as he walked up the porch. She slowly opened the door to find only her brother standing in the kitchen, a glass of scotch sitting in front of him. His head shot up when he saw her enter, immediately moving to meet her at the door.
"Which one of your Poguie friends did it, huh?" He asked her, stepping in front of her so she couldn't move past him. She looked at him confused, crossing her arms over her chest.
"What are you on about now, Topper?"
"My boat. Someone pulled the plug and sank it." He told the girl, and she moved to the back of the house to see her mother out on the dock talking to the sheriff. She truly had no idea who did this, so if it was one of her friends, she couldn't defend them.
"My friends aren't the only people on this island who hate you, Topper. Someone else could have easily done this." She reminded him, and he shook his head, moving closer to his sister.
"So you admit they hate me and have a grudge against me! All the more reason to sink my brand new boat." Talia scoffed and pushed past him, making her way towards the stairs. Before she could even climb the first step, he grabbed her wrist tightly, causing her to turn around.
She sighed, "I never said that they have a grudge against you. Do not put words in my mouth, Topper. And did you ever think that it could have been revenge from your girlfriend after you called her those horrible things the other night? Did that ever cross your tiny, small brain?" She hated that she threw Sarah under the bus, but she wanted to get suspicion off her friends. Talia ripped her arm out his grip and ran upstairs to her bedroom.
She slammed the door and pushed her back against it, sighing and running a hand through her hair. If it was one of her friends, it couldn't have been John B, she was with him all day yesterday. Kiara was at work and then hanging out with them, so it couldn't have been her either. That left JJ and Pope, who as far as she knew, were out doing deliveries all day for Heyward's. If they did it, Pope would probably lose his scholarship and JJ's dad would find out, which is a whole other problem. She was about to walk back out her door and find them when her mother called for her, to which she rolled her eyes and walked back to the kitchen.
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Maria Thornton had somehow conned her daughter into grocery shopping, saying that she didn't have time to because she was having some of her friends over from the club. Talia reluctantly agreed, but once her mother handed her daughter her personal credit card, Talia became more compliant. She walked out of the store, bags full of groceries and a smoothie in her hand. What her mother didn't know wouldn't hurt her, and she was almost done with it anyways. She was walking back to her mom's car, which she had borrowed, when she saw a body fly over a chain and onto the road. She whipped her head and ran to the person, seeing it was John B.
"Are you kidding, JB? I thought you were more agile than that." She told him as she bent down to help him. She noticed a red spot on his shirt and picked it up to reveal and road rash.
"Oh, that's not ideal." He groaned, picking his head up off of the pavement to look at his wound. Talia shook her head and grabbed his hand, ready to pull him up
"Could you take me to the hospital?" He asked her, to which Talia nodded, helping him off the ground. He looked around, almost as if someone was following him. She led him to her car and he got in the passenger seat, pushing it down so he was almost flat on his back. Talia climbed in and was about to start the car before he stopped her.
"Hey, do you see a car? L-Like a cop SUV, blue and white maybe?" John B asked Talia, who looked behind her to see a deputy with a woman in a pantsuit get out of the Kildare County Sheriff's Department vehicle. Talia turned back and slouched in her seat.
"Yes, there is a blue and white cop SUV." Talia told him and he nodded, wincing from the pain of his gash.
"Shit. Do you see a guy with no neck?" He asked again, which made her roll her eyes and turn around again, seeing an angry deputy looking up and down the street.
"There is a guy. He, in fact, does not have a neck. He looks angry, and there is an equally angry looking woman with him." She explained to John B, who's eyes went wide.
"W-What are they doing?"
"They're just looking around." Talia told him as she pulled out of her parking spot, keeping an eye on the the adults as she backed up. "They are stopped at the dead bike." She drove down the road as John B writhed in pain in her passenger seat. They sat in a few minutes of silence before Talia asked what was going on.
"Why are the cops after you? Is it about the drone?" She asked him, wondering if the salvage yard employees noticed their missing piece of equipment.
"No, no. They were with DCS. Cheryl showed up at the Chateau and tried to take me to the mainland." He told the girl, who's eyes went wide as she slammed on the brakes.
"Ow, god! What the hell, Tal?" He groaned in pain, placing a hand over his wound. She pulled into a random driveway and turned around, now going the opposite direction of the hospital. He looked at her confused, sitting up slightly.
"W-Wait, where-where are we going? This isn't the way to the hospital." He asked her, as she rolled her eyes and turned a corner.
"Yeah, no shit. If I take you to the hospital, they have to report it and DCS will find you again. So that doesn't happen, I'm taking you to my house." She sped as fast as she could towards Figure 8, as John B nodded in understanding. She looked over at the boy quickly, trying to keep her eyes on the road.
"And John B? Please try not to bleed all over my mother's car."
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The two teens pulled into the driveway of Talia's house, and Talia groaned as she realized her mother had her country club friends over. She turned off her car and quietly closed the door, and John B did the same. They snuck up to the back entrance of her house, trying to avoid Maria and her friends in the kitchen.
"I don't think your mom would be happy if the delinquent she just bailed out of jail was bleeding all over her house." John B whispered as Talia quietly opened the door, pushing the boy in front of her and locking it, as if no one had entered in the first place.
"She only know that you're here of you keep talking. Now, go into that room and be quiet, I'm going to get a first aid kit." She pointed her father's study, and John B nodded and closed the door behind him. Talia quickly ran upstairs and grabbed all of the things from her bathroom that could disinfect a room that she could. She quickly but quietly made her way back downstairs and into the study, to find John B looking around at the many books shelved in the room. Her father was a man of few words, but he did love his books. He was reading them constantly, his favorite subject being history. Many first edition books littered the room, and Talia could only wonder how much they would be worth if she sold them.
"Sit down." She instructed John B, as he laid down of the expensive leather couch. She lifted up his shirt and softly touched the scarred area, John B letting out a wince of pain. Talia turned and poured rubbing alcohol onto a cotton pad, John B's eyes widening.
"Is that rubbing alcohol?" He asked, fear in his voice.
"Yeah, only thing I had that could disinfect that. This is gonna hurt, but be quiet, the walls are thin." Talia warned him, and she pressed the gauze pad to his wound. He let out a yell, causing Talia to clam a hand over his mouth. She gave him an alarmed look as she wiped his wound.
"Jesus christ, what did I just say?" She told him, and he muttered out a small sorry and continued to look around the room, his eyes landing on the portrait that sat above the desk.
"Who's the dude on the wall?" He asked, his voice strained from the pain. Talia looked behind her to the picture she had seen many times before.
"Denmark Tanny, founder of Tannyhill. Sarah's dad has an identical picture in his office, I believe." She told the boy, her knowledge of history coming out. Her father had mentioned many times the story of Denmark Tanny to her and her brother, as they lived on the plantation he founded. Out of the many stories her father told her, that one stuck with her. She continued to clean John B's wound as he asked more questions.
"How did a slave found a cotton plantation?"
"He was a free man. Kind of an enigma, he showed up out of nowhere one day and paid for the land in-" Talia stopped herself, remembering the rest of the story. How could she not have thought of this before? John B looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to finish her sentence.
"He paid for it in gold." She finished, both of their eyes wide at her discovery. John B launched from his position, despite Talia not being finished cleaning his road rash. He went to his backpack and pulled out a stack of folded up papers.
"Denmark Tanny. I recognize that name." He told the girl, who joined him at his side, looking at what looked to be a list of passengers on the Royal Merchant.
"He was on the Royal Merchant." He muttered, looking at the girl.
"I thought there were no survivors." She said, and he shook his head in disbelief. This was a huge discovery for them.
"What else do you know about this guy?" He asked her frantically. She scrunched up her nose as she thought back to the stories her dad told her about the founder of their home.
"Um, at the Cameron's, when they moved in their was an almanac and a diary. Here, there were just a bunch of papers." She told the boy, who couldn't help but think they way she scrunched up her nose when she thought hard about something was adorable. He shook his head slightly and focused back on the conversation.
"Can you show me?"
"No, Ward donated his stuff to the archives at Chapel Hill and we did the same when my dad left." She told John B, who picked up his backpack and zipped it up.
"Can I go see that?" He asked Talia as she walked across the room to pick up the things she used to clean him up. As she turned back to face him, a smirk fell onto her face.
"Hell yeah. But I have the trustee pass you need, so I'm going with you." She told the boy, who smiled at her as she grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the room, and off to the ferry.
hi! sorry this was a boring chapter. this was kind of a filler update. if i had the rest of this episode in this chapter, it would be vErY long, so i thought this was a good place to stop. i also wanted to update something for you guys since i haven't in a few days. next update will be soon! leave comments please, i love reading your guys' thoughts!
-brooke :)