AFTER JOHN B HAD GOTTEN RELEASED FROM THE HOSPITAL, WARD DROVE HIM, SARAH AND TALIA BACK HOME. She was ecstatic when Ward had said yes to her proposition. Talia knew her own mother wouldn't allow it, her daughter's delinquent boyfriend living under her roof, and that he was a Pogue no less. Ward had always been like a second father to the girl, and became more of one after her father left. He didn't hide his feelings and told the girl her father was a major ass for leaving her, her mother, and her brother like that, and always checked up on her whenever he saw her. Talia's father and Ward had been friends since they were children, and watching their own grow up so closely made Ward think of Talia as a daughter. It hurt him as well to see one of his oldest friends leave his family in the dust with no explanation, and he mourned with Talia, almost understanding her grief.
When Talia got home, she passed out for a few hours, she didn't get much sleep when she was at the hospital waiting for John B. After she awoke, Talia pulled on a bikini, blue tank top, and jean shorts, her outfit being mostly the same during the summer. You never knew when you would be getting in the water, so wearing a bathing suit was the culture in the Outer Banks during the summer months.
She walked out the back door of her house, narrowly missing her mother in the kitchen. Stepping into the grass and across the gravel of the Cameron driveway, she made the way to the guest bedroom window. Talia had been in the house so many times growing up, she knew it almost as well as her own. Peering in the window, she could see John B looking over the maps she had given him the night before. Talia smiled and did a light tap on the window, causing him to turn his head, spotting the girl at in one of the many windows in the room. She motioned for him to come out, and he folded up the map, following her command and coming outside.
"Hey Routledge, or should I say Cameron now?" She smiled as he walked out the french doors, slinging his backpack over his shoulders and closing the door softly. He chuckled and shook his head.
"Routledge is just fine." He said to the girl, who nodded as he pulled her in close. "Did I ever say thank you for doing all of this?" He gestured towards the house, and Talia smiled at him and only shook her head.
"You don't need to. I called in a favor with Sarah, and Ward likes you. It wasn't very hard to convince him." She told him, running her hands over the sides of his arms, stopping at his cast. He watched her do this lovingly, and noticed a dark bruise on her wrist. He stopped her and gently grabbed her hand, inspecting her wrist more.
"What's this from?" He asked her concerned. She rolled her eyes, not even noticing the mark before.
"Oh, from my mother's death grip before our grand exit from Midsummers last night. It doesn't hurt, I'm sure it'll go away in a few days." She assured him, while he shook his head, softly tracing the mark with his thumb. He let go of her, and idea popping in his head. He untied the blue bandana from around his neck and tied it around her wrist, hiding her bruise.
"In addition to your shirts, I get your famous bandana too? Don't I feel special." Talia joked, inspecting her new accessory. He smiled, intertwining his hand with hers.
"And as the same with my shirts, it looks better on you anyways. Come on, I told the crew we would meet them at the Wreck before it opens." He pulled her towards his beat up van, which he had gone and gotten before returning to the Cameron house.
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"I'm sorry, you're staying where?" Kiara asked after John B and Talia arrived at the restaurant, walking behind him as he leaned against the counter. Talia was sat with JJ and Pope at a table, fiddling with her new bandana.
"Tannyhill." He answered nonchalantly, causing Kiara to scoff.
"So you're living with Sarah Cameron." She concluded, taking a tray of drinks over to the table where the other were sat.
"Okay, look, the only reason I'm living there is because her dad bailed me out, okay?"
"And who's idea was that?" Kiara asked, setting down the tray and turning to Talia.
"Hey, so do you have a membership to the clubs now?" Pope asked, changing the subject. John B rolled his eyes and said he didn't know.
"What about those little golf carts they drive around, you get one of them?" JJ chimed in, flicking his lighter on and off.
"Does it come with a sweater vest, or do you have to buy one of your own?" Pope asked, causing Talia to let out a light chuckle.
"Look, you promised. You said you wouldn't bring her into this." Kiara turned to her best friend, who threw her hands up.
"I didn't bring her into this. John B needed an out with DCS and I used my resources, okay? It's better that he's here with us than in foster care, right?" Talia argued, to which Kiara rolled her eyes and walked away.
"If you wanna hang out with her, that's fine. But I'm letting you know that I'm not doing anything with Sarah." Kiara told the girl, who rolled her eyes and bit the inside of her mouth. Talia around to JJ and Pope, who were zoned out. She then looked to John B for support, and he nodded, pulling out the map.
"Do you guys see her here? No, right. A little focus would be fantastic. We got the map, right?" John B interrupted, placing the map on the table for the group to see. They all leaned closer to the old paper, trying to get a better look at it.
"Well, it's a little out of whack cause the guy was ganja'd when he drew it." JJ told the group, to which they only shook their heads.
"It's cause the coast has changed." Kiara informed him, shaking her head.
"So we just have to look for the landmarks that haven't changed." Pope told them, looking over the map intently.
"What about the old forts?" John B added, and Talia nodded pointing to a spot in the map.
"Battery Jasper."
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"Okay, so the road should split over here." Pope told John B, still looking over the map. The group had gone to the battery, which looked over almost the whole island. They had concluded that where they were looking was somewhere northeast of where they were, hidden by an old stone wall.
John B took a hard left, causing Talia, JJ, and Kiara to tumble around in the open back. Once they sat back up, they looked out the window to see a stone wall, which is exactly what they needed.
"That looks like a stone wall to me." JJ pointed out the obvious, and John B stopped the van. The crew looked out there respective windows past the wall to the house that sat behind it, knowing it all too well.
"Not the Crain house." John B muttered, opening up his door and climbing out, the rest of the group following him past the wall and towards the house.
"Are you kidding me?"
"Worst case scenario."
"Why did it have to be here?"
"Just looking at this place gives me the creeps." Were all responses that came from the group as they stopped at the gate, just staring towards the all peak of the house.
"I heard that Mrs. Crain buried her husband's head on the property." JJ told them all, causing goosebumps to rise on Talia's arms. She had always heard terrifying tales of this house and Mrs. Crain and she never really believed them, but now, looking at the house, it made Talia's heart race slightly. They slowly made their way through the overgrown yard towards the dilapidated home.
"You guys know who's house this is, right?" Kiara assured, turning back towards the boys and Talia. They all agreed they knew before John B spoke up.
"Honestly, I don't believe the stories of this place." John B said, to which Pope shushed him. Kiara and JJ went ahead from the group slightly, having their own conversation. Talia sighed, looking up to the house to see a bird fly out of the chimney.
"We used to come here as kids at night to fuck around, and I never believed the stories either. But seeing it in the day makes it, like, a thousand times more creepy." Talia told Pope and John B, who only shrugged and continued walking.
"Kie, it's not funny because it's all true, I swear. I swear to God, guys, this is all real. I knew Hollis." JJ's slightly raised voice pulled them all towards him.
"Wait, you knew Hollis Crain?" Pope asked the boy in disbelief, and he nodded. The group stopped, JJ beginning to tell the story he heard.
"Yeah, dude, she was my babysitter. She told me all about it, the truth, that her mother killed her father. When she was a kid, she heard all the stories about her mother, that she was a murderer and all. Hollis didn't believe it. Til that night."
"What night?" John B asked, and JJ told them the story about when Hollis was six, she heard her parents arguing downstairs, and the next day her father was gone. Her mother said that he had left, but she kept going into the parlor, with plastic bags. When she used the outhouse, she found her father's head staring back at her. The story creeped Talia out, but she rolled her eyes after JJ told it so dramatically.
"God, you are so full of shit." John B told him, pushing past and walking towards the house.
"Did she call the police?" Pope asked, and JJ shook his head.
"She didn't have time-"
"JJ, she was probably just saying that to scare you." Talia said to him. He ignored her comment and ran towards John B, who was still forging ahead towards the house.
"You sure you wanna do this? She's an axe murderer, and you got a cast on." He reminded his friends, who just pshed him off.
"I don't give a shit if she's an axe murderer, okay? I got nothin' to lose, right? You comin' or what?" He asked the rest of his friends, who reluctantly followed him. They slowly crept through the yard, bending down slightly. John B motioned the group over to him.
"So, here's the plan. We need to look for the wheat near the water like it said in Denmark's letter." John B whispered.
"Okay, like, what kind of water? Pond water?"
"Bong water?" JJ interjected jokingly, the rest of the group looking at him incredulously.
"No. All it said was to look for water, okay?" He told his friends.
"That's the shittiest secret message ever." Kiara spat, pushing past him and Talia.
"You wanna complain a little more, Kie? Nobody said it was gonna be easy." He followed her, lightly grabbing Talia's hand and pulling her along. Talia and John B lost Kiara and made their own way, getting slightly startled by birds and the other animals that clearly weren't used to visitors. They stopped and at the front of the house, looking up and actually seeing it up close.
"It must have been nice, you know, when it didn't look like this." Talia said, and John B nodded, pulling her along. He pushed past some tree and continued walking. Talia looked around, and an open area on the side of the house caught her eye. She pulled on John B's shirt and gestured towards it. He pulled it open just as Kiara made her way around the corner, meeting the two.
"Hey, come on. It's the only place we haven't looked." John B said as Talia pushed open the little door, crawling into what she could assume was the basement. She could immediately smell the dust and mildew that had been accumulating over time, the scent hitting her face like a truck. She scrunched up her nose as the others filed it, all shining their flashlights around the room.
"Mm. Homey." Talia joked, her friends having the same look of disgust over their faces. JJ began singing a song about Mrs. Crain was coming down to chop off all their heads, but Pope told him to stop. Kiara sighed and shined her flashlight around, looking for any sign of water.
"You see any water?" She asked, swatting away a mosquito. "Another dead end?" She continued, crossing her arms over her chest and huffing.
"There's not even water in the pipes." JJ concluded, tapping the pipes to hear the hollow sound that came from them.
"There's no water down here."
"Not a dropamino."
"Know why we didn't find it? Bad karma. We had a good thing going. And then you decide to rope in Barbie, now the trail's gone dry. Coincidence? Probably not." Kiara told Talia, who only rolled her eyes.
"This is why I didn't want to tell you about Sarah. What the hell is wrong with you two? You never told me what really happened with you guys." Kiara and Sarah had a falling out right before they started high school. Talia, Kiara, and Sarah were very close, until one day, Kiara shut them out just before the first day of high school. Talia had no idea why, and neither of them wanted to tell her. Once school actually started, Talia slowly drifted away from Sarah and her group of friends, not wanting to have to interact with the pompous, shallow Kooks she had been forced to be with her whole life. She found comfort with Kiara in being outcasts, and it made the two grow even closer.
"Nothing, nothing's going on."
"Clearly something is. Is it because I actually have a life outside of this group and have other friends besides you guys?" Talia shot back, and Kiara's hand collided with her face in a hard slap. Talia's mouth hung open a looked at the girl with wide eyes. The boys looked a the shocked, never seeing them get into a fight before.
"Stop treating me like I'm some little girl that you picked up on the side of the road and saved, instead of your best friend who's trying to look out for you." Kiara told the girl.
"Did you seriously just hit me right now?" Talia asked her, and Kiara held up her hand, showing a smashed bug in her palm. "Skeeter." Talia rose her hand and slapped Kiara in the face, earning another shocked noise from the boys.
"Where's your proof?" She asked, and Talia held up her hand and smiled, showing the dead bug to her friend. The girls began slapping each other, half joking and half serious. John B tried to get them to stop, while JJ wandered off to look around at Mrs. Crain's things. The girls laughed as they slapped each other until Pope quietly yelled for them to stop. He began pushing things off of a raised wood platform, making lots of crashing sounds. He asked for them to help move all of the crap off and once they did, they lifted the piece if wood to reveal a well, which was, in fact, full of water.
"Well, well, well." Pope said, shining his light into the stone well. Talia let out a light chuckle.
"That was a good dad joke." John B said, bending down to inspect it closer.
"They built this part of the house right over it." Kiara breathed out, and Talia nodded.
"This is where she hid the bodies." JJ said, and the group told him to stop.
"She probably doesn't even know it's here." Talia told him. Pope looked at the group and smiled.
"We found water."
"We're gonna need a really big rope."
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Talia and John B rolled up to the Cameron house, going to pick up Sarah. They knew the rest of the group would not like thats he was there, but she was apart of this now, whether they liked it or not. When they stopped and were about to get out of the car, she could see Sarah and Topper arguing loudly on the porch. They both stopped and looked at each other.
"I'm gonna stay here." John B told the girl, closing his door. He didn't feel comfortable around Topper yet, which she completely understood. She really didn't either. She nodded and gave him a small smile, before swinging open her door and getting out. She walked towards the house slowly, before swinging open the door to the porch. Sarah and Topper didn't even notice her, so she yelled over top of them.
"Sarah! You ready to go?" She screamed, causing both of them to look at her. She kept her eyes on Sarah, who nodded and began to pack the stuff she had on the table into a bag. Topper's eyes softened at the sight of his sister and began to walk towards her.
"Talia, is he okay? You know I didn't mean to do that, right? I barely touched him, the wood must have been rotted-"
"Don't even look at me, you fucking psychopath. Sarah, you ready?" She held her hand up to stop her brother from getting too close to her, not making eye contact with him.
"You have no idea how ready I am." Sarah mumbled, pushing past Topper and following Talia out the door, leaving him standing there in disbelief.
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"So you found the gold, but under an axe murderer's house." Sarah clarified as John B drove them back towards the Chateau, as Talia sat backwards the passenger's seat while she explained their discovery from this morning. Talia sighed and nodded, looking over to John B's who's eyes were focused on the road.
"The only thing is the well is super deep, and we're gonna need a super long rope." John B told Sarah, who nodded.
"Kinda wish I was there with you guys."
"You'll be there tonight, so don't worry." Talia told the girl, who looked around at the van, taking in her surroundings. She looked at the girl, who's eyebrows were raised after she said that sentence.
"Is it okay?" She looked at the two teens in front of her, who looked at each other.
"Of course it is. We couldn't have found the gold without the map you provided, so now you're stuck with us." John B said, turning down the dirt road that led to his house.
"No, I mean, with the others." Sarah said, and Talia fiddled with the bandana again.
"Yes, everything will be fine." Talia assured, a tight lipped smile finding it's way to her face. Sarah rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her hair.
"Kiara said something, didn't she?" She asked, and Talia threw her head back and sighed.
"Look, if she's gonna get territorial over you guys-"
"No, Sarah, listen. She can deal with it, all right? You're apart of this now too." Talia assured the girl, looking over for John B for support.
"Once we get with everyone, they're gonna be excited." John B agreed, and Sarah looked at the two skeptically.
"Whatever."
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"No effing way! You brought her here? So what, she's in on this now?" Kiara asked angrily as she paced the screened in porch of the Chateau, not yelling at anyone, but directing her comments towards Talia. Talia looked towards Pope and JJ, who shrugged and wouldn't make eye contact.
"Look, all I care about is her cut comes out of your share." JJ pointed towards Talia, who rolled her eyes.
"That's fine!"
"You know, I don't remember taking a vote. This is our thing, a Pogue thing." Kiara spat out, looking between Sarah and Talia.
"I gotta say, I'm just a tad bit uncomfortable with all of this." Pope spoke up, standing from where he was sitting next to JJ.
"When are you not uncomfortable?" John B asked him, defending Talia. Pope shook his head.
"I don't know, I rode over here on the back of JJ's bike pretty comfortably."
"It's true, most relaxed I've ever seen him." JJ joked, and Talia rolled her eyes.
"Cute, guys. Thanks for the support."
"You know, we were all extremely comfortable until you brought her here." Kiara concluded, and Talia rubbed her palm over her forehead, trying to stop the headache from all of this coming on.
"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" Sarah spoke up, and Kiara let out a scoff.
"Then leave!" Sarah rolled her eyes and turned her head towards Talia, who was biting the inside of her mouth.
"I told you." Sarah said, and Talia shook her head.
"Told her what, exactly? That you're a liar?"
"No, that you're a shit-talking bitch." Everyone in the group erupted, John B standing from his seat, putting his hands behind his head. Pope and JJ exchanged money, betting to see who would win in a fight. Talia ran her hands through her hair, rolling her eyes, knowing she would have to mediate the situation.
"Everyone shut up!" She screamed. They all looked towards her, surprised by her sudden outburst. She walked towards Sarah and Kiara, standing in between them.
"Okay, I don't know exactly what went down between you two, but can you just put it aside like adults for a while so we can find this gold? We need the both of you to do this, I need the both of you." Talia told the two girls, and Kiara rolled her eyes at the heartfelt comment.
"What was all that talk about using her for information? Get a map, cut her loose." Kiara brought up, and Talia groaned internally. She had completely forgotten she said that.
"You said you were using me?" Sarah asked Talia, a hurt look in her eyes.
"Look, you both are very valuable assets to this. We need you both to do this. I'm not gonna deny what I said, but I think we can all agree that without either of you guys, we wouldn't have gotten this far." She told the both of them. She looked around to the rest of the group, who looked at the girls, waiting for something to happen.
"Cut the bullshit, Tal. If she's in, I'm out." Kiara said finally, and Talia rolled her eyes.
"Kie, I'm not gonna do that-"
"You are gonna decide. I'm very interested, actually. Me or her?" She asked her friend, who looked between the two girls.
"Both." Talia said confidently, earning a laugh from JJ and Pope.
"Ooooo. Went for the Hail Mary." JJ whispered to Pope, earning a scoff from Talia. Kiara huffed as she pushed her way past Talia and out the door, making her way towards the dock. Talia crossed her arms as she looked to Sarah, who had an 'I told you' look on her face.
"It'll be cool, right?" Sarah asked, while nodding as Talia didn't respond.
"I'm gonna leave, let y'all chat. Let me know." Sarah told them, picking up her bag and walking out the opposite door, leaving the rest of the group standing, not really knowing what to do.
"I'd just like to say, you handled that beautifully." JJ told the girl, who flipped him off as she walked into the house.
"Shut your trap, JJ." She walked into the kitchen, placing her hands on the sink and looking out the window above it, trying to figure out how to fix this. She could hear footsteps behind her and a gentle hand was placed her her back, rubbing soft circles.
"You were trying to do the right thing. You're good." John B whispered to her as he pulled her into his chest. Her arms wrapped around his waist and his around her shoulders, his hand gently patting the back of her head.
After a few minutes, JJ trickled into the house, saying that Pope went to talk to Kiara. The three of them stood in silence until Pope came into the door, sighing as he saw Talia rubbing her temples.
"How is she?" Talia asked, as John B threw a water bottle at him as he entered.
"She's pissed at you, says that you're an idiot." Pope informed her, making Talia sighed in distress. She hated fighting with her friends, especially Kiara. They had helped each other through so much, and she didn't want one little fight to ruin their whole friendship.
"It's a no brainer, you're picking Kie." JJ told the girl, reaching into the fridge to grab a beer. Talia rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"I'm not picking anyone. Look, I'm gonna go home and take some time to think. I think we all need to do that." Talia told the boys as she walked out of the kitchen towards the door. She could hear John B reach for his keys, and she turned around to stop him.
"No, I'm gonna walk home."
"Tal, you shouldn't be alone right now-"
"Look, I'm not in the mood for another fight right now, John B, so let me just walk home. I'll see you later." She told him, stepping out of the house and onto the porch. She looked to her right and saw Kiara sitting on the edge of the dock, looking out onto the horizon. Talia sighed and began her long walk home, thoughts already swirling in her head before she even left John B's property.
hi everyone! sorry for waiting a few days to update, i wasn't sure how i wanted this episode to play out, but i got it now. y'all may hate me for tal's storyline with sarah, but it will get better, i promise. thanks for all the reads, votes, and comments, reading your guys' reaction makes my day. love you all and the next update will be soon
- brooke :)