THIRTY TRUST HIM
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The day without John B was weird, but not unbearable. After the previous night, he definitely felt more like part of the group than he had before. Even then, he never minded hanging out with just them. He mainly felt bad for the other boy because he would probably shoot himself if he had to spend a whole day with his dad.
"How's it feeling?" Pope asked as Kiara sat in the contraption they had made to lower them into the well to get the rest of the gold. Norman was honestly impressed with how quickly they had been able to figure out a safer way to get down there considering how dangerous and unreliable it had been the first time. It didn't help that they were being shot at by some psycho old lady, but Norman was just glad they made it out of there alive.
Kie shrugged from her position, "Yeah, yeah, it's good."
"All right, taking you down," Pope nodded as he got to work on getting Kie back to ground level. Norman admired how smart the boy was, knowing his brain was never quite wired like that. He had good grades, sure, but he could never think of stuff like this. It just wasn't his thing.
"John B pullin' a Houdini," JJ sighed and Norman frowned as he looked at the time on his phone. He hadn't even realized it was past the time the boy was supposed to meet them. "Rocky, shouldn't you know where he is?"
"I'm his boyfriend, not his keeper," Norman scoffed, trying to mask the worry that was starting to form in the pit of his stomach. "If he had said something to me, I would have said something to y'all."
Pope shrugged, "Yeah, he should definitely be here by now. I got my scholarship interview tomorrow, we gotta get this done!"
As if on cue, the boy came around to where they were, but he looked a little worse for wear.
"Speak of the devil, hey!" JJ exclaimed, "Dude, I set up an entire winch to pull up the gold and everything!"
"No, he did not," Pope argued since JJ had, in fact, done absolutely nothing. "I did that!"
"Hey," Kie called out, noticing that John B hadn't said one word to them and was walking right past them, "Hey!"
He went into the house without a word, all of them looking at each other in confusion. They all looked to Norman, but he wasn't paying attention considering he was already jogging inside to find out what was wrong. Entering the home, he saw John B rifling around his household items frantically as if he was looking for something.
"John B, what's wrong?" Norman asked gently, but nothing seemed to deter him.
"What's up man?" asked Pope, who had filed in after him with the others as well. Norman had never seen John B like this, the last time he remembered him being upset like this about something it had been after he heard the voice recording of his dad. That, however, had been non-stop tears, but this was something different. John B almost looked... numb.
"What are you looking for?" Kiara questioned, but they didn't get any answers as the boy walked away and kept searching.
The group was getting fed up as JJ shouted, "Bro, what's going on?" It was then that John B found what he was looking for. The gun. "Dude, what do you need the gun for?"
"What are you gonna do with that?" Norman's voice was quivering just seeing the weapon in his boyfriend's hand, but he was doing his best to cover it up. He watched as JJ went to deter John B, but instead the boy was thrown aside. The rest of them called out as Pope tried to stop him. As a last resort, Norman stood in the doorway with his arms crossed to block the boy, "Hey, what are you going to do with that?"
"Move," John B spat and Norman didn't think he had ever seen him this angry. "I'm serious, Norman."
"I'm serious, too," he shot back, his voice clear and his expression unfaltering, "I can stand here all day. You wanna push me like you pushed them? Go ahead. I'll push you back just as hard. Try it."
John B, unfortunately, followed through with this and tried to push Norman out of the way and failed. Norman had more height and muscle than him so he really didn't know what the boy was thinking. So, Norman did the most reasonable thing he could think of in that moment (which, in the heat of the moment, was never actually reasonable) and grabbed him by the shoulders, slamming him against the doorframe. If he wasn't so pissed and confused, this would have been hot. However, there's a time and a place and this was neither of those things.
"I don't have to tell you shit," John B seethed, his grip tight on the gun.
"When it involves a gun, yes the fuck you do," Norman's voice was taut and tense as he chose his words carefully. He didn't want to piss off the boy anymore than he already was considering he was holding a loaded weapon, but to be honest, he was pretty sure John B didn't even know how to use that thing. Still, a gun is a gun.
"Fuck. Off," the boy spat, managing to wrench free of his boyfriend's grip as he took off out the door, narrowly avoiding elbowing Norman in the face.
They chased after him, coming down the stairs of the porch as Kie yelled, "John B, what the hell?"
"Ward knows about the gold," John B finally decided to explain something as he hopped on the back of the dirtbike, "He killed my dad."
Everyone froze in their tracks. That was unexpected, but Norman wondered if that could have been the reason Ward decided to take John B in. Guilt. Unfortunately, the shock that made them stop gave John B enough time to get started and drive off. They ran after him, but it was no use. He was gone.
"Shit, shit, shit," Norman muttered as soon as the boy was out of their line of vision, "I don't like this, I don't fucking like this."
"Yeah, no shit!" JJ exclaimed, sounding angry and exasperated like the rest of them, "Do you think Ward like... confessed while they were fishing? What kind of father-son talk is that? "Hey, sorry I killed your dad!" What even?"
"I did not see this one coming," Kiara sighed, "Holy shit. Should we call Peterkin or something? Tell her to warn Ward? I mean, he should be in prison if he really did kill Big John, but are we really going to let John B..." She drifted off, too afraid to say what everyone was really worried about.
Norman wondered if John B was capable of such a thing. Murder. Revenge was a powerful motivator. He couldn't imagine if someone killed the only parent he had, how lonely life would become, how angry he would be at the person who did it. However, there was no way he was about to let his boyfriend become a murderer.
"Is there anything we can do?" Pope asked, but judging by the way it fell in the air it seemed to be more rhetorical than intended.
"I'm gonna call Sarah," Norman got the idea, pulling out his phone and dialing the number, his heart beating faster and faster as the line kept ringing. After a moment, it went to voicemail. "Shit, voicemail. Do you think she's okay?"
"There's no way he would kill Sarah," the blond tried to speak casually, but the fear was evident in his voice, "Right?"
"Guys, guys!" the girl exclaimed, "This is John B we're talking about! Sure, he can be angry now, but do we really think he'll go through with it? It's John B. Yeah, he's an asshole sometimes, but a murderer? Seriously? I think... I think we're getting ahead of ourselves."
Norman shook his head, wanting to listen to her, but he didn't know what to believe. "I've never seen him that angry. I mean, that boy has never laid hands on me like that, not even when we hated each other. I've never seen him treat any of you like that, either. It was... fucked up, to say the least."
"We just... have to trust him," Kie decided, but Norman didn't know how to feel about this. He could see on the girl's face that she was already close to tears. "We need to trust him to make the right decision."
"We can't, we can't just sit here and hope he doesn't kill Ward motherfucking Cameron!" Pope yelled, his voice outlandish and wild with fear, "Are you serious?"
Norman sighed, knowing that even though it sucked, Kiara was right. Even if they left now, they wouldn't get to the Cameron house in time. They had to play the waiting game. The worst game known to mankind.
Before he could even register the words leaving his mouth, he asked, "What other choice do we have?"
The breeze carried through the trees and waves could be heard in the distance with how quiet it was. No one answered his question. So, they waited.
Sorry I haven't been updating every day as much anymore I had a really busy week but I'm not too busy coming up so I might be able to get back to daily updating and hopefully as we near the end of the book, longer chapters! We're about halfway through episode eight now, so I can't see this book being much longer than forty chapters!