CHAPTER SIX ✹
Doglike Girl.

  𝕸ARITIME headquarters were swarmed, but Iris could've told her friends that herself if they were as receptive to pessimism as she was. Alas, they live on the edge of reason and desperate longing, so she kept her mouth shut the entire boat ride to the coastguard office—knowing full well, that in the wake of the storm, it was going to be thronged by islanders complaining about missing belongings and lost pets.

  John B and JJ braved the mob inside, and Iris hung back on the dock with Pope and Kiara. The town shops still had their grimy windows boarded up, roof-shingles scattered across the ground. A pair of sunkissed pogues sat on the office's outdoor steps, listening to Burning Spear on a portable radio, casually polishing their skateboards—bruised knees and bandaged elbows on show. Even from outside, Iris could hear the jostling—a dog-owner bellyaching about her diabetic briard, a boat-owner debating tax politics, and the crackled static of a seaman's walkie-talkie.

  "This isn't going to work," Iris sighed, kicking her foot against the dock pillar behind her, arms folded restlessly.

  "Ye of little faith, Iris," Pope teased smoothly.

  Kiara must've caught the deepening scowl on Iris's face, because she moved closer and draped an arm over her stiff shoulders with a soft, reproachful coo. "C'mon, Irie, this isn't like you—this could be free money!"

  "I have a bad feeling, s'all," Iris muttered, kicking her worn converse against the uneven timbers of the marina. "Like, let's think, right—with John B and JJ not here, the three of us, think. You saw that boat. And Pope, you saw the surge," she said supplementarily. "What if, whoever's boat that was, we're putting our nose into some dead guy's life right now? Well. Lack of."

  "Then..." Kiara frowned sharply, like she hadn't considered that yet, "...then, Pope finally gets to see a dead body, and we can get this guy, I don't know, justice?"

  Iris blinked. "Justice."

  "Yeah," said Kiara, a little more confidently, "justice!"

  "Against...Agatha?"

  "You're grumpy today," Pope observed, taunting and fond as he looked back over his shoulder to her. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing's wrong!" Iris snapped. "I'm just—I don't know." She was irritable, restless. Belligerent. Tired. A bad person, probably. An even worse daughter. What wasn't wrong? "Forget it. Ignore me. I'm being stupid."

  Pope and Kie exchanged a long, concerned, but Iris remained silent, absently playing with the whelk charm dangling from her bracelet.

  Pope didn't let it go. Without warning, he crowded into her space and wrapped his arm around her. "Hey," he said, his voice firm yet awkward in his attempt at comforting her, "you're not—you aren't stupid, Iris."

  "Yeah," said Kiara earnestly, "you're level-headed. Realistic. It's good. We need you for it. If you want to drop it, then—"

  "No," Iris cut in, shaking her head, "no, it practically fell in our lap."

  "Right! Like we were meant to find it—"

  Pope nodded a little too enthusiastically, pointing. "Exactly."

  "So," said Kie with an emphasis, "we're all good, Irie."

  Iris loved them. Clumped together near the door, they were singularly laconic around hysterical adults. Both of them had their arms around her, Kiara's nails bite tender and firm into the bare skin of Iris's bicep, a silent reassurance, and Pope's fingers barely touched her. Their reassurance fell upon her like soft rain, and she wanted to bury them under skin like sunshine, where nobody could take them from her.

  Heads hung in defeat, John B and JJ emerged from the mob inside, tonguing their cheek, an unspoken "bust" hanging in the air.

  "That went well," said Pope impudently as he let his arm slip from Iris's shoulder.

  JJ handed her a fancy ballpoint with a self-satisfied grin. "Got you a pen."

  Iris blinked at him. "A pen. Thanks, J."

  "You're welcome," he said with a mock salute.

  "What's the plan now?" Pope demanded, looking between John B and JJ.

  "I think I know how we can find out who owns that boat," said John B, dangling the motel key from his index finger with a shit-eating grin.

  "We don't know whose room that is," protested Pope.

  JJ snatched the keys off of John B and tossed them to Kiara, who caught them with a teasing smile in Pope's direction.

  "That's what makes it interesting," she goaded. "C'mon, we'll be lookout."

  A little too thrilled to test the law, Kiara skipped along the jagged length of the skiff, flanked by JJ and John B. Iris lingered behind with a reluctant-looking Pope, and not for the first time since he started slumming with them, she was grateful to have another sobering presence around, who wasn't as eager to break into motel rooms. They had more to lose, she supposed. Pope had his scholarship, his bright future. Iris had Phoebe, her sister's bright future.

  "Finder's fee, just saying," John B said over his shoulder slapping Pope's chest. "And, hey," he added as he walked backwards along the wharf, "at least you'll only be an accomplice."

  "Only a...—" muttered under his breath, Pope's blown eyes raked over to Iris in disbelief. "I'm gonna lose my merit scholarship if we get caught."

  "I won't let that happen," Iris said immediately. She kicked off from the dock's beam and gave his arm a gentle shake. "Let's go. They'll die without us."

  "We'll die with them," he mumbled grouchily, but he took her hand in his anyway.

  It didn't take long for them to determine that the key was for a room at the Summerwinds Motel, the tiny sticker on it scrawled with the street name Breezeway—an offshoot of a southside cal-de-sac that was reputably where dealers lay low, or marriages go to die in a starched-sheet affair. The HMS idled to the ravaged dock of the motel, and they all sat in a marinating silence as they looked upon what had to be the worst of the hurricane's wreckage. It looked as though Agatha's sawtooth jaw had taken chunks from the shingles of the motel's roof, and spat it back out again on the uncut lawn, strewn with debris and shattered furniture. Its walls sagged, windows cracked, and the rot seeped from every corner; none of this did anything for that bad feeling in Iris's stomach.

  JJ whistled, squinting at it through sunbeams. "I thought the Chateau looked bad."

  "This place is a shitshow," John B agreed.

  "Motel or meth lab...?" said Kiara diffidently.

  "You be the judge," Pope mused at the helm.

  John B sized it up apprehensively. "Doesn't look like a place that someone with a Grady White would stay."

  "No," Pope concurred doggedly, "it looks like a place someone with a Grady White would get killed."

  "It's like you read my mind, Pius," Iris muttered, eyes narrowed.

  "It's like he's possessed your mind," quipped JJ as he jumped off the boat, mooring it with heavy footsteps. "Why are you so boring today, Mariano? What's Jekyll done to you?"

  Iris scowled at him nastily. "Don't be a dick. Are you seriously gonna tell me you don't have a bad feeling about this?"

  She gestured behind him to the rundown motel, but JJ barely glanced back at it before lifting it in an indifferent shrug. "Not really. Neither would you—usually."

  "Here goes nothing," John B cut in animatedly, sensing a tension that he didn't want to linger around for.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Iris challenged JJ regardless, a sharp feeling in her chest that she didn't want to sit with as he went pilfering through a stranger's motel room.

  JJ shrugged again, somehow even more lacklustre than before. "Dunno. S'fine, if you wanna be boring, Iris, you stay here. I'm sure Ward would be real proud of ya; his sensible, favourite daughter—"

  "You manipulative little—fine. I'll come. Dick. Fucking..." JJ, grinning smugly, reached out a hand for her, and she snatched it aggressively, "hate you, by the way." Her feet crash against the grass unsteadily, and JJ lifted his chin at Iris, almost sizing her up, all arrogant and bullheadedly him. "You didn't have to get so personal about it."

  "You've been acting weird all day," he countered, "so, yeah, I kinda had to get personal."

  "Hey," Pope interjected, getting them both to look at him, but he was pointing at John B, "don't let them do anything stupid."

  "Oh, we will," said JJ insolently, his arm lazy as it hung over Iris's shoulders.

  "Yeah," John B grimaced, "not making any promises."

  Iris smiled at him apologetically. "We'll try not to get caught though, Pontifex. Kie'll keep you safe."

  They all look to Kiara, half-expecting her to play along, but she's got her eyes on John B, pupils dilated with something that made them all uneasy. She handed the motel key over to him, and their fingers grazed, the touch lingering and solemn.

  "Be careful," she told him quietly, just for him. Her head tilted in an earnest dip, "I mean it."

  Iris, JJ, and Pope all shared a glance, lips pursed in repressed laughs.

  John B faltered, his chuckle weak. "Uh, yeah. We will."

  The conversation didn't breach further than small-talk until they reached the second-floor of the motel, John B mumbling offhanded questions about the beached mattresses in an attempt to distract Iris and JJ from his weird interaction with Kie. Still, he knew his best friends—they were ruthless dogs with a bone, at the best of times. They weren't going to let this go any time soon, and JJ was the first to dig his teeth into the flesh of it.

  "Just be so careful, John B," he crooned, grabbing John B's jaw passionately.

  Next, Iris looped her arm with his, cradling it and swooning. "I mean it, John B, be safe—"

  He shoved them both off unceremoniously. "You're both so weird."

  "No, seriously, dude," said JJ, laughing, "what the fuck was that about?"

  "I don't know. Maybe she wants us to be careful."

  "Not me," Iris commented drolly.

  "Nah, neither."

  "God," John B scoffed, rolling his eyes at them both, "as if you two aren't the exact same—worst, actually," he added righteously, wagging a finger.

  "That's different," said JJ, "everyone knows Iris and I will probably fuck at some point, it's, like—preordained, bro."

  Iris blinked at him. "Preordained?"

  "Pope."

  "Ah."

  "Seriously, dude, since Kie heard you're being threatened with exile, she's just been, like—" JJ then started to massage John B's shoulders, "Oh, be so careful John B..."

  "Get off," said John B boyishly, smacking him.

  "...Oh, give me that John D already," JJ imitated sultrily. Iris laughed at that, only narrowly avoiding tripping over a shattered lampshade. "When are you gonna swoop on that, man?"

  "Bro, you know the rule. No pogue-on-pogue macking," Routledge delivered, hitting him in the chest. "Besides, you're the one who's always hitting on her."

  "Of course, I'm hitting on her!" he exclaimed. "She's a super-hot, rich, hippie chick slumming with us. Why? I can't figure it out, either. But—who cares? I know that door's locked because I've tried it. Have you?"

  John B sent him a wry glare. "You have a serious problem. Two friends of the opposite sex you have. Two," he put up his index and middle finger, "and in the space of, what, a minute, you've said you tried it on with them both."

  "He'll fuck anything with legs, Bee, you know that," Iris taunted.

  "He needs help. Not even a little bit of help—a lot of help," he insisted. "It's like every girl who just has a heartbeat, you're like..." John B mimicked shoving his tongue down somebody's throat.

  JJ frowned at them. "What? It's not a big deal. I'm a romantic."

  "You're a satyriasis," drawled Iris pointedly.

  "A—a what? That sounds deadly."

  "It is. I give you, like, four years?"

  "Ha, ha, real funny, sunshine—"

  "Shut up, both of you." John B crouched to read the door number in front of him. "This is it. Two-two-nine."

  JJ nodded, suddenly serious. "Okay." He moved forward, rapping his knuckles against the chipped oak in a quick succession. Then, high-pitched, "House-keeping."

  "Moron," Iris said under her breath.

  Ignoring her, he knocked again, and then moved to check the window.

  "No persona aqui," she said when he signalled that no one was in.

  "Should we try it?" asked John B, already slipping the key in.

  Rolling his shoulder, JJ turned and flipped the surveillance camera the finger. "No power. No security cameras. No one's gonna know."

  Sarcastic, John B looked over his shoulder at them, feigning a tremble in the hand that held the key. "I want to, but I'm afraid."

  "If you walk through this door," said Iris, pausing for dramatic effect, "you're walking into a world of trouble."

  "She's right," said JJ solemnly. "This is gonna change everything, John B. Your whole life is about to—"

  "Yeah, no. That's enough. Turn the fucking key, Bee," she interjected.

  The room was swollen with darkness and the heavy, lung-irritating taste of dust. Iris coughed upon entry, and shut the door behind the three of them, putting her back flush against it as her eyes attempted to reach every crevice it without moving too far. The shades were pulled, and the twin beds were both made. A black duffel sat upon the mattress closest to the door—whoever this room belonged to, they were expecting to return to it.

  "Hey, look. That's where they were fishing."

  JJ hovered over a nautical map on the nightstand, raking the pale light of his torch over pencilled coordinates. John B and Iris each peered over one of his shoulders, looking at it.

  Routledge's head tilted. "No, that's off the continental shelf. That's Big Swell—nobody fishes there."

  "Ya never know," said Iris, resting her tailbone against the corner of the nightstand, "he had a kooky boat—maybe he didn't know a thing about the good fishing spots."

  "Kooky boat, pogue as fuck motel room," said John B, rummaging through the duffel. He listed off belongings; clothes, New Balances, no form of identification. About right.

  "It's weird," she murmured, mostly to herself. She glanced over to the ajar bathroom door, where JJ just disappeared through. "Find anything?"

  "A really awesome Dopp kit that you won't let me steal," he called to her.

  "Yeah, she won't—'cause we're not stealing shit," John B reprimanded.

  "Iris?"

  "Don't be a dick, JJ."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  She heard the unmistakable rustling of him tucking something into the waistband of his shorts and rolled her eyes; they landed on John B, knelt on the stained carpet and jabbing random numbers into a safe.

  "Oh, jackpot," gasped Iris, walking over and lowering herself into a crouch. "Try, erm, 1-2-3-4. It's a classic."

  "Punching shit in at random," JJ mumbled, strolling out of the bathroom, "that'll work, sunshine."

  "Bite me."

  "Where?"

  "Wait a sec!" John B scrambled to his feet, rushing back over to the nightstand. He was kneeling next to Iris again in a blink, grasping a scrap of paper and showcasing it to her—a messy scrawl of a sequence. She gestured madly for him to try it, and he thumbed the numbers in. Behind them, JJ was muttering nonsense to himself, but neither of them paid him any mind as the tiny light rewarded them with a green flash and a fruitful buzz. John B yanked it open, and Iris's stomach sank at the contents.

  First, she saw the money. A fat stack of bills, rubber-banded and calling out for her to grab it, stash it, and run. But then, she saw the gun—nothing too ornate, a simple handgun; crowning a mass of Benjamin Franklin's. It knotted her stomach up enough for Iris to slip out of her crouch and onto her backside in a slump.

  "Uh...JJ?" said John B, flashing his torchlight deeper into the safe. "You're gonna want to see this."

  "Ain't no fucking...—" JJ's fingers ghost along the money first, and then he snatched the handgun. Iris recoiled, jumping back up to her feet and away from him. "Dude, this is a SIG Sauer Elite."

  "Put it back!" John B seethed, backhanding his bicep.

  Iris stared at JJ in horror as he started to pose with it. "J, seriously, before I shoot you with it myself."

  "This is a speedy gatt, Mariano—retails for twelve hundo."

  "Oh, does it? Twelve hundred, really, are you—put it fucking down!"

  "Listen to her, JJ," hissed John B, "seriously. We're not stealing anything."

  JJ was briefly about to listen, but remember—a bad dog; a rabid one. Ravenous, disobedient, feral-eyed. He couldn't help himself. Iris, resentfully, was sure he got that from his dad, just like she got all of her hunger from Ward. But JJ took it to a new extreme. He was back on his knees, right at her feet, and she stared at him with a hollow chest as he snatched two sheaths of bills and buried them in his pockets, still refusing to return the gun.

  "C'mon, sunshine," he said, flashing her a grin that did nothing but make her lip curl maliciously, "take a pic."

  "Yeah, let's just create our own incriminating evidence," John B snapped, "real smart, JJ."

  "I thought girls were into this shit!" JJ exclaimed, aiming the barrel of the gun square between Iris's eyes. "The thrill of danger, all that—"

  "You know nothing about girls! Or anything, really!" she yelled neurotically. "Please, JJ, I'm begging you—"

  "Begging—"

  "Put it back."

  "Wait. Wait." John B shoved past JJ and over to the mirror, snatching back the blinds and looking down. "It's Pope and Kie."

  Iris panicked. "What? Are they all right?"

  Ignoring her, he leapt onto the bed nearest to the window, kicking off the duvet as he peered through the shades. "Shit. Cops."

  "Cops?" she demanded. "Yeah. Great. Great. Is it at least Gary?"

  "Shoupe."

  "Shoupe?"

  Iris made a split for the window above the nightstand, and JJ was at her side in an instant, the two of them lifting it open as quickly as they could with the resistance of the brittle hinges. He crawled out onto the ledge first, heavy-breathing as he offered out his hand for Iris. She hesitated, looking between the handgun stuffed in his left pocket and the second window out to the balcony, all hairs on the nape of her neck standing up as the deputy's knuckles rapped against the motel door behind them.

  "Iris," said John B impetuously, "not the time. Go."

  With his hand on the small of her back and JJ's snatching her wrist, Iris crawled through the small space and out onto the ledge. John B was close behind, slamming the window shut and pushing his body flush against the old concrete. Keeping low, Iris only stood back up when she was out of the way from the glass, grimacing as her tailbone hit a drainpipe. Her right foot was about five inches away from slipping off the edge of the gutter, and JJ had nowhere else to go other than right in front of her, his front smothering hers—a heavy, warm weight that she didn't expect to be so grounding, and yet she moved her left foot the tiniest bit outwards to let him stand in between her legs.

  "You're a fucking idiot," she told him breathily. The adrenaline felt good, she realised—a visceral pang in her stomach, a thrill in her blood, the beat of it in her ear, like the filth of the island she was. Iris Mariano could act the a tortured daughter all she wanted—wounded animal, lamb in the slaughterhouse, the big sister who cared—but, like calls to like, and JJ knew that she lived for this kind of thing. She spent so much of her life moving along like the inner eye of a tornado, stoic and dull, that she only felt alive with the threat of a bullet in her mouth. She held it between her teeth now like a hound's favourite treat. "A gun, JJ."

  "Shh!" He slapped a hand over her mouth. "Shoupe's a'coming."

  Him and John B were craning their necks to get a better look into the room, as well as they could without getting caught. Caged between concrete and JJ's chest, Iris could only gaze over his shoulder at the HMS Pogue, still beached at the motel's wrecked dock. Kiara and Pope were gesturing up at them maniacally, mouthing nonsense that Iris couldn't read from a height. Heat crawling up her spine, she let her head tilt back until it thudded against the drainpipe behind her. A ribbon of sweat beaded along the column of her neck, pooling in the basin of her collarbone like a cool reality-check.

  "What's happening?" she whispered to the eavesdropping boys.

  "Shoupe's giving Plumb half the safe money," John B told her, his voice a quiet hiss. "There's...—I don't know, an envelope, a photograph...—?"

  JJ tried to lean even further forward, only to completely lose his footing. Yelping, Iris reached both of her hands out to grab his forearms, wrenching him back into her. The sudden jerk of his body regaining balance sent the gun, already loosely hanging from his pocket, falling, and it landed on the roof of a dumpster below with an alarming clatter.

  "Shit," he cursed, entirely covering Iris now as he let his forehead press against the wall.

  Her hands didn't let go of his forearms; in fact, her fingers curl more roughly, until her nails sink into flesh. She might've drawn blood, but neither cared. She kind of felt like a monster in his image, all the filth dredged up from the most reckless bits of him. Shakily, Iris's head sunk until it was against his sternum—the very heart of him against her; hard, fast, an organ of fire. An aching, hungry part of him loved this, too. She existed on this line of not really knowing if she hated or adored him for it, her best friend, the boy who would surely one day end up getting her killed.

  They waited for Kiara and Pope's signal that the cops were gone before crawling back into the motel room. The safe empty, duffel taken as evidence, and Iris almost wished she snatched a wad of the cash, kicking herself over it the entire way back down to the HMS. Pope wasted no time gunning the engine and cruising them away from Summerwinds, salting the earth behind them. Iris sought the comfort only a girl could really give her and buried herself under Kiara's good wing as she drank deeply from a stale can of beer to take the edge off. It did nothing, of course, but she stomached the bad taste, the sickening warmth, and tried her best not to meet JJ's wild, blown eyes—she hated the idea of him thinking that she enjoyed the danger of it all. It would nurse the ego in him, even more than the gun he salvaged from the overgrown weeds around the motel, hidden in his waistband as John B told the others about what they saw.

  "...Well, that was fun!" JJ said brightly, sunbathing on the deck with a complacent grin, arms behind his head. "Could've warned us a little sooner, but—"

  "We would have," teased Kiara, "except Pope was on the math team."

  John B turned to him with a mocking expression. "You were on the math team?"

  "The cops had everything tagged, like it was from a crime scene," Pope briefed, ignoring him. "Did you guys find anything?"

  "Don't," Iris chewed out, slanting a sharp glare at JJ, who only winked at her.

  "Did we find anything...—" he mimicked, insolently sitting himself back up and reaching his hands into the back of his shorts, "no, I don't think so—oh, yeah." He brandished the handgun in one hand, and a wad of cash in the other. "We did."

  "What the hell?" Pope exclaimed, jumping to his feet in horror.

  Kiara's arm fell from around Iris, appalled. "What?"

  "Why did you take that from a crime scene?" demanded Pope indignantly, shoving JJ away when he reached for him.

  "Better than the cops having it," he replied bluntly.

  "You serious?" Kie sneered at John B, who raised his hands in surrender.

  Pope looked right at Iris, blinking hard and fast, a mass of anxiety lodged in his throat. "I'm gonna lose my merit scholarship. Iris, you said—"

  "Hey, hey, hey," JJ cut in, leaning into snake an arm around Pope's shoulders, his hand falling steady and earnest on the sweaty nape of his neck, "sh, sh, sh. At least you have us, right?"

  Iris stared at them both, and an odd tenderness spilled through her. To keep it away, she tried to carve a protest into her tongue with her teeth, but the metal of blood only nursed it. It oozed down her throat like the guts of a strawberry—red and raw and ripe—until it found that tenderness and cradled it almost. Nurtured it. Whatever it was, it was here to stay.

  It took a few beats, but Pope finally shoved him off. "I'm living the nightmare." He stalked over to the starboard of the boat, sinking down next to Iris on the ledge. "You let him take a gun?"

  "Don't do this," JJ interjected, wagging the gun at them both, "nah, nope. Not happening."

  Iris squinted at him impatiently. "What now?"

  "That weird thing you two do—ganging up on me and shit. Nah, don't like it. Not today."

  "JJ," Pope sighed impatiently, "we don't—"

  "Mhm. You do. 'Doing it now, actually." JJ glanced back at John B and Kiara, who both pretended to not be listening. "See, they know it."

  "They know nothing. Neither do you," said Iris contemptuously. "Now, put that fucking gun down. You'll hurt yourself."

  A smirk twitched at the corners of Pope's mouth.

  "Screw you," JJ mumbled, stropping over to the stern and childishly tucking the gun away.

  They docked the HMS Pogue at the marina, barely. Coastguard vessels and swarmed yachts congested the basin, and Iris braced herself as soon as her feet hit the moulded dock. The air mingled with the smell of sea salt and fresh blood, sirens, and a woman's grief. The others slip between her fingers like water, hounding the locals for information, but they blur into one mass as Iris's converse carried her over to the port. She was convinced that death attracted her as much as she attracted it, the stench of it, the hollow and heavy hurt. She heard the woman's sobs, a paramedic lamenting no heartbeat, and was just about to round the corner to see the body—bloated, slimy, open-eyed, and green with sickness—when a rough hand clasped tight around her wrist and tore her back.

  "Hey, what—"

  Her brother. Alex was stood over her, tall and taunting, his eyes stoic as he stared upon the corpse on the stretcher and the woman wailing over it. Scowling, Iris went to turn back, to look for herself, and he yanked her again, more violently this time, enough for it to send a rattling pang through the joint of her shoulder.

  "Let me go!" she snarled, pathetically trying to shake him off. 

  "What the hell's wrong with you? The guy's dead. He's with his wife," Alex told her harshly.

  "I just wanted to see who—"

  "It's Scooter Grubbs," he said, cold-blooded. To her, he was the picture of apathy. Telling her this like it was nothing, fingers bruising into her wristbone, teeth gritted around a dead man's name. "Remember him? He works for dad."

  Iris wavered. "Dad." 

  "Mhm." Alex finally let her go, only to fold his arms over his chest and crane his neck over to where her friend were all crowded around a pogue's cracked phone, grimacing at whatever she was showing them. Iris could only assume the worst, and by the cruel snarl of Alex's mouth, her brother was the same. "They're saying he had a brand new Grady White. I didn't think Dad paid his workers that well, did you?"

  "What are you trying to say?" she challenged. 

  "That I think you should keep out of the marsh until this all blows over," he said bluntly, eyes falling back onto her.

  "He died in the storm, right? A wave overturned his boat, or something—he drowned. Why should I stay out of the marsh?"

  Alex's eyes narrowed. "I think you should stay away from this side of the island altogether. Them, included. Everyone's worried about you. Mom says you haven't even checked in."

  "Left my phone at the Chateau," Iris retorted heedlessly. "Signal's down, anyway."

  "You could've stayed at Tannyhill. Dad says he offered."

  "Oh, you've been all over the island today, haven't you? Mom says, Dad says—"

  "Fuck you, Iris," he spat, her name leaving a bad taste on his tongue.

  "Yeah, fuck you too."

  "Is everything all good here?" Pope. Iris felt like she could breathe again. "Hi, Alex."

  Alex looked at him, squinting, and back at Iris. There was so much hate there, now. Years of it, packed into one, mean glance. Bite the hand that loves you, all of that. The worst part of it was they were the exact same person, and neither of them could stomach the other—or themselves. Alex nursed all his open wounds by ripping new ones into the people around him. Iris did the same thing.

  "Just—text Mom, okay? Let her know that you're all right," he chewed out. "Think about someone other than yourself for once."

  "That's real fucking rich, Princeton. Fuck you—"

  "Iris. Iris, let it go." Pope's hands were on her shoulders. Alex was scoffing, walking away—like he always did. People were looking over, eyes flitting between rotting body and rotten family. Iris's chest heaved with it all. "Iris, hey. What the hell's going on with you two?"

  "Nothing. It's..." her next breath exited in a brittle wheeze, and Iris's head sagged until her cheek squished against the hand he had on her shoulder. "It's nothing. You know what they're like—always trying to parent."

  Sure, he knew. Just not in the same way. Magda wasn't as doglike as Alex. She parented Pope not for a lack of better role-models—their parents loved the very bones of their good-natured children. Magda just wanted better for Pope than she ever had. Shamelessly, she knew that she didn't do everything she could've to escape this island. Pope had to do better. He had to be better. 

  It's not the same.

  His hands slipped from her shoulders, down her arms, fingers barely touching hers, until they hang hollowly at his sides. "I guess. You two used to be so close, though. Before—"

  "Before he left." Iris hardened her jaw. "He left, Pope. I don't care if he comes back every summer—acting all big brother, Dad's little soldier, Mom's perfect son—he's dead to me."

  "Iris, he's your—"

  "No. Not doing this." Iris started for the others, Pope rushing after her. "The boat was Scooter Grubbs', by the way."

  "Yeah, we know, but—"

  "And he's dead."

  "Peeler showed us the body."

  "Bet you loved that."

  "Iris—"

  "It's fine, Pope," she interjected sternly. "I'm fine." 

  Pope deflated, frown sullen, eyes doe-like. He wouldn't let it go, she knew that. But for now, he mimicked zipping his mouth and tossing the key into the shallow water nearby, and that was enough for her to smile warmly at him. 

✹

  𝕭ack at the Chateau, John B held council on the porch. Iris found herself on the wicker chair in the corner, a cigarette pinched loosely between two fingers, and legs thrown on JJ's lap. He was laconic on the wingback next to her, tinkering with his zippo and untangling her shoelaces. On the longer sofa, Kiara sat with her legs curled underneath her as her teeth worried at the chapped skin of her lips and fingers picked ruthlessly at a bloodied hangnail. John B, about as aloof as JJ, was tossing an empty beer bottle in the air and catching it. Iris didn't know Pope's whereabouts for certain, but she was pretty sure he was having a mild to moderate breakdown at the waterfront.

  When he finally returned, it was with a light-hearted, trembly breath and frantic hands. "Okay. So, erm...—we didn't see anything. We don't know anything." He flopped back onto the sofa next to Kie, a puff of old dust exhaling from the cushions that made her retch. "We need to have total and complete amnesia."

  "I wish I had amnesia," Iris mumbled bitterly through a lengthy drag.

  "Actually, Pope's right for once," said JJ thoughtfully. Looking all astute, he lifted Iris's legs and let them drop onto his seat as he left it. "See, I agree with you sometimes. Deny, deny—"

  Drolly, John B and Iris met each other's eyes and mumbled the last one along with him, "Deny."

  "Guys, we can't keep that money," Kiara finally spoke up, remorseful. 

  "Okay, not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, Kiara," JJ remarked, stood at the porch railing now.

  She cut him a flinty glare. "We have to pass it off to Lana Grubbs. Otherwise, it's bad karma."

  "Oh, boy."

  "Don't think that money's gonna bring back her dead husband, Kie," said Iris dryly.

  "Did you know hear what I said, Irie? Bad karma—"

  "Bad karma to be implicated in a felony, too," chimed Pope. Then, reluctantly, "We gotta go dark."

  "If that means we get to keep the money, then I agree," JJ contended.

  "I don't agree," said John B, lightly hitting Maybank's shoulder. They all turned to him, and he took the floor, Iris mentally preparing herself for a lengthy Routledge monologue. "Just, think about it. This is Scooter Grubbs we're talking about. Same dude that's buying individual cigarettes at the Porthole. Shit, one time I saw this dude begging for change in the Save-A-Lot parking lot because he needed gas. We're talking about a dirtbag marina rat, who's never had more than forty bucks in his pocket, and all of a sudden, he's got a Grady White? Just sayin'."

  Gnawing on her bottom lip, Iris reached down to mess with her seashell-charmed anklet. It hit her that she hadn't told them about Scooter Grubbs being employed by her father yet. It should be right there, on the tip of her tongue—but it felt like an implication. Peculiarly, it felt like something best kept buried. Instead of saying anything, she breathed in a deep drag, and ignored the brief sting in her lungs. 

  They didn't put this conversation to bed.

  It followed them even out to the wharf as Pope and JJ fished for redfish and spotted seatrout. By this time, Iris was on cigarette four—smoking for the sake of keeping her mouth busy.

  "All right, so think about it, Pope," John B was proposing, legs dangling off the edge of the dock. "How does a marina get a Grady White?"

  "Prostitution," Pope deadpanned. 

  Iris choked on smoke.

  "Hey, gimme some of that," said JJ, angling his head back at her as he wound in his tapering.

  "Get your own?"

  "Square groupers, bro," John B corrected Pope. "Okay, flying under the radar, no aerial surveillance. They don't do that stuff during a hurricane. What does that mean, JJ?"

  JJ, who was blindly trying to reach back and snatch Iris's cigarette off of her as he wrestled with a struggling redfish, absently called back, "He was straight smuggling." 

  "Smuggling," said John B, clapping Pope hard on the shoulder. "And I can guarantee there's a serious amount of contraband in that wreck."

  It followed them back into the Chateau, too. 

  Cigarette eight, but Iris honestly might've lost count. She was dangling off the edge of John B's bed, knocking ash into the ashtray she moulded for him in ceramic class in eighth grade. Pope's sat next to her, still the recipient of John B and JJ's ruthless negotiations, and Kiara was plucking the loose strings of a stolen ukulele.

  "For the record," supplied Pope, snatching the cash from JJ's greedy hands, and smacking him away when he reached for it again, "if that is a smuggling ship with illegal contraband on the inside of it—it probably belongs to someone else."

  Iris reckoned her lungs looked like twin lumps of blackened coal at this point.

  "Minor details," sung Kiara.

  Pope chided her with a strict look. "They could come looking for it. Taking it would be catastrophically stupid."

  "Right," said JJ, taking the wad of cash back and leaning forward, unfurling it right in front of them, "but stupid things have good outcomes all the time."

  The eye-contact he made with Pope made the boy roll his eyes and turn to Iris, who aggressively stubbed out her smoke and collapsed back into John B's flattened pillows.

  "Iris, a little help?"

  "Iris's sleeping."

  "All we need to do is figure out a way to get into the cargo-hold of that wreck," JJ insisted. "Until then, we just lay low. Just act normal."

  "Shoot me now," muttered Pope, falling back on the mattress next to Iris.

  "Don't give him any ideas," she teased.

  Kiara was warming to the idea. "If we get what we think's in there, we could pass some of it off to Lana Grubbs. We could get a lawyer for you, John B. We could fly Uncle T back and then you'll have a guardian for your DCS meeting—"

  "So, we can save John B's life and be good friends, and help grieving widows, or—" JJ knelt his weight onto the foot of the mattress, his shadow hanging over Pope and Iris, "we can be pussies with merit scholarships, and Ward Cameron's perfect, favourite daughter. Your choice." 

  Iris poked a single eye open, and Pope was already looking at her, an eyebrow slanted in question. A smirk tugged at her lips, and his eyes rolled up to the ceiling with a defeated grin of his own.

  "If we act too normal, everyone will know something's up," he noted.

  "Normal for us, then," John B offered facetiously.

  "Which is?" 

  "Kegger," suggested Kiara, tentative but hopeful.

  Iris reached for her Vogues. Kill her. Kill her now.

a/n: awful ending to an awful chapter. but im actually really looking forward to the next one - kegger time. pow pow. iris is reallll stressed btw and smokes when she doesn't know what do with her hands or what to say. she's just like me fr :( lemme know what u thought !! ps. alexmagda crumbs next chap ;)