[ xxix. renegades ]

➸➸➸

LATER THAT NIGHT, WILLA Deveraux and JJ Maybank took turns swigging back shots of Tennessee whiskey in the warm and crackling, orange light of the pogues' small bonfire.

It was well past midnight now and though her tired and drunken spirit should have been well on its way to crashing into oblivion, Willa had never felt more awake; never more alive. The stupor of rage and confusion and betrayal that had threatened to pull her under in the depths of Midsummers had subsided to a stronger feeling of pure elation. No longer did Willa feel the need to watch over her shoulder when she was tucked warmly into JJ's side as they swayed childishly back and forth along the edge of the fire.

Sitting in front of them, though he tried his best to hide it, Pope was grinning. "Be careful, you two," He warned. Always the father figure, that boy.

Willa's smile had only widened at Pope's playful calling, and she reached forward to brush back the fallen strands of hair that had drifted into her eyes. While the boys had been busy tending to the fire, Kiara had attempted to braid the dark, stringy mess that was the rest of her straightened hair, and it helped to keep her cool in the humid North Carolinian night, but there was nothing that could really be done for the curly baby hairs that framed her face in a chaotic whirlwind of frizz. She blamed the sporadic running for the current state of her hair, but she did not regret it. No, Willa was certain that there was nothing in the whole entire world that could ever make her regret running away from Midsummers and into the night with a group of pogues.

"Okay, okay, okay. I want to say something," Willa said boldly. Her right hand—the one holding the heavy bottle of whiskey—fell limply to her side and her left arm curled tighter around JJ's waist, stabilizing herself as she took a daunting step closer to the fire, hoping that the light was enough to illuminate the genuine expression of love on her face. Silence fell over the crooning crowd. Kiara, Pope, and John B. all looked back at her expectantly and she could feel JJ's fierce, blue eyes staring into the side of her head. "I want to thank you all for not leaving me behind."

JJ, who was now nearly as drunk as Willa, gone off the whiskey and the smokes and the exhilaration of a runaway thrill, smirked. "You're welcome, sunshine," He said.

Willa almost laughed again at how easy his response came. But there was still a hesitance in her reply as she thought back to that looming make-or-break moment, lost within the shadows of the Island Club's garden. Had there ever been a chance that they might have left without her? Had they been forced to stop because one of them abruptly remembered her? Or was it unanimous? Had they always expected her to follow?

"I thought . . ." She trailed off. "I thought you were going to leave me." The sharpened wit and excitedness of the night were rapidly draining from her and she did not like the tired emptiness that was pooling within her stomach. She needed to stop reflecting on only the sadness of this night, for there was good that happened, too. She was here. Nothing else mattered. Like she had said before, she could not go back.

"That was never an option, Willa," Pope assured her.

"I was waiting for you to follow me, and it took you long enough," Kiara snickered, causing Willa's smile to return. The Carrera girl looked beautiful in the dying firelight. "I thought I might have to go back and drag you off the porch myself."

"You're one of us now," John B. promised.

Willa's gaze then flickered towards familiar hickory. She only heard five words, but her heart swelled with five hundred. He was smiling at her the very same way he had on that first night at the Boneyard. In all the chaos since then, it was nice to see an expression so familiar and genuine. For a brief moment, she had thought that she might not see his same smile again. She had yet to ask him where he had vanished off to in those few days since the discovery of the empty Royal Merchant and he had yet to ask about the bruises and cuts on her hands. But that could all wait for another night.

"Well," Willa exhaled with finality. She looked around the small bonfire, to each of the youthful faces that beamed back at her. One week ago, she might not have spared any of them a second glance. She would not know them the way she does now. "I just wanted to say thank you." Did she ever think that she would be here, a renegade on her own island? No. But she was glad that she was. "I've never had someone to look out for me the way that you all have."

"That's what we do. Welcome to the pogue life, baby," Kiara laughed.

"P for L!" JJ whooped.

The blonde boy threw his head back and Willa leaned with him, crying out into the night. They screamed loudly with no fear of being overheard. They were safe here to party, to cheer, to rejoice in the fact that the night had turned in their favor. As the nearly empty whiskey bottle was passed around once more, the two pairs of eager eyes from Willa and JJ followed it. Drunken and playful, they still held onto one another, and just as Willa turned to begin teasingly serenading JJ with the lyrics of Tennessee Whiskey, they stumbled together once more, nearly stepping right into the flames at their bare feet.

Both John B. and Pope lurched forward to try stopping them, but it was JJ's hold that held Willa steady. His arm curled tighter around her waist. "Easy, easy!"

Willa was now practically glued to his side, not that she had not been already, and her painted lips curled coyly as she grinned devilishly up at the tall Maybank. "Whoa, getting a little handsy there, J," She cackled.

"Please," He scoffed, and her smile only grew wider when she noticed the flush grow on his cheeks. "I let go," JJ warned, "and you're going headfirst into the fire."

"We'll see about that," Willa challenged. Before JJ could say another word, before he could even secure another arm around her, she was ducking under his elbow and pulling free of his grasp. With a loud and drunken huff, she crashed down beside Kiara on a soft patch of grass and leaned her head affectionately on her shoulder.

Kiara lifted a hand to the side of Willa's head and patted her cheek. "Got any more of those airplane shots?" She wondered.

"No." Willa frowned. "Titanic over there took the last one."

She pointed a finger in JJ's direction and the latter's blonde brows furrowed in confusion, "What did you just call me?" Somehow, his cheeks only grew redder at the new nickname, and Willa's laugh only grew louder. Now, all the teenagers were laughing, and JJ shook his head in disbelief. "Good one, kook bait."

"Thank you, thank you. I know I'm a genius."

"I think you meant to say 'idiot'."

"No, I—"

"That's okay. I know what you meant."

Willa rolled her eyes but otherwise held her tongue, knowing that he was only joking. Meanwhile, JJ had already seemed to forget about the nickname and had moved on to his next victim to torment. With another loud cry, he practically scooped John B. up in a bear hug and shook him around playfully. The two boys went back-and-forth like brothers, pushing and pulling, and nearly toppled back into the fire all over again, before a quiet sigh from Pope pulled them away from their playfight.

"As fun as this is . . ." He hesitated. "My dad's going to kill me."

Willa lifted her head from Kiara's shoulder and felt her lips twitch downward. Since that moment on the Island Club's back porch, she had not given her parents another thought. Now, however, she wondered where they might be. Were they still at the party? Or had her mother demanded that they all go home immediately after the fallout to avoid the prying questions of the kook elites? Frankly, Willa did not know, and that uncertainty terrified her. Either way, she was grounded for the rest of her life.

"So much for ending the night on a high note," Willa muttered distastefully.

"Yeah, well, it's the truth," Pope defended.

"Look, we're all dead once we go home," Kiara reminded them. "Let's not let that," she motioned out behind them, into the darkness of the night, before turning back to the flames, "ruin this."

Pope only shook his head. "You said this was a mandatory meeting," He reiterated as he looked back towards John B. and JJ. "What about?"

John B. looked closely at JJ who in return gave him an encouraging nod. The former then looked back to the trio still sitting on the opposite side of the bonfire. "You ready for this?" Willa simply nodded, trying to hold her focus on the Routledge boy even as her mind slowly spun. She was drunk, she knew that much, and she was already starting to regret it—especially if the night was going to go out like this. "So, the gold never went down with the Royal Merchant—"

"Oh, my God," Pope groaned, cutting him off. "Here we go again with this."

"No, wait," JJ insisted. "Hear him out, all right?"

Willa spared another cautious glance between John B. and JJ, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. What the hell had they really been doing at the Island Club tonight?

"The gold's been here the whole time," John B. explained. "It's on the island."

Kiara's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?"

"How is that possible?" Willa asked.

Pope's hand shot up into the air. "I'd like to voice my skepticism."

"I'm sure you would, Pope, but can I please present you with my evidence, sir?"

A baited moment from a hesitant Pope, and then—with a dramatic huff—he complied, "Proceed . . ."

"All right. So, in my backpack," John B. pulled out a worn and yellowed, folded piece of paper and held it high for the whole group to see. "I have a letter from Denmark Tanny."

"Who the hell is that?"

"Denmark Tanny was a slave that survived the Royal Merchant wreck. Here, check this out." John B. inched closer to where Kiara and Willa sat on the grass and passed the piece of paper over to the former. In the firelight, Willa could just barely make out the hastily written orders, finalized by Tanny's signature. "Slaves weren't mentioned as crew members on the ship," He continued, "but my dad, he found the complete manifest. That was his big discovery. So Tanny used the gold from the Merchant to buy his freedom. After that, he bought his farm."

"Let me guess," Willa hummed sarcastically. With hands that were no longer gloved, she passed the paper to Pope and looked back up to John B. with a playful and knowing smirk. "The farm—"

"Please, Willa," John B. interrupted her with a smile of his own. He knew, even in her drunk state, that the gears in her head were turning, that she had already put the puzzle together. "Let me finish. JJ, drumroll."

"On it, boss," JJ chirped, already rattling his palms against his bare knees.

John B. cleared his throat and readjusted the imaginary tie at his collar. "Denmark Tanny's farm is . . . Tannyhill Plantation."

"Tannyhill?" Kiara gasped.

Willa lifted both of her hands. "And the crowd goes wild!"

"Indeed, it does," John B.'s grin was only growing with every bated second of excitement that passed. "And after that, he used his money to free even more slaves, and then he sold a shit-ton of rice, which pisses off all the white planters, and then they decide to lynch him." Suddenly, his expression turned somber, more serious, as he pointed back to the piece of paper now held tightly in Pope's hands. "So, on the day they were coming to get him, he writes a letter to his son as a farewell, and in the last line of that letter, he leaves a coded message about where to find the gold."

"Where?" Kiara whispered excitedly.

"Harvest the wheat in parcel nine, near the water," John B. recounted. "Except . . . there's no wheat. You see, wheat is code for gold. Check this out." He leaned over Pope's shoulder and pointed down to a specific section of the paper that neither Willa nor Kiara could see. "The gold is in parcel nine, near the water. All we need is an original survey map of the property, and we've found the gold."

"Holy shit," Pope said, his jaw dipped in awe. "So, this might have a small chance of being actually true."

"Dude, it's like King Tut," Kiara gaped.

"This is the best lead we've had since that first day on the marsh," Willa murmured. "Oh, my God, we're so fucking close now!"

"I know, I know, I'm a genius," John B. laughed.

"Hell yeah, you are!" JJ exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around his best friend once more and swung him around. He tried to take a step further by hoisting John B. onto his shoulders, but they both simply fell over in the dried brush, laughing like idiots as they rolled around in the dirt. "I'm so proud of you right now, bubba."

John B. planted a sloppy, drunken kiss on JJ's cheek. "Thanks, brother."

Willa's smile only grew as she watched them interact. The buzz she had once only felt in her head was now spreading to her entire body and filling her with a warmth that she had not felt in so very long. She was not certain she had ever seen any of them so happy; not even when they were all dancing their night away at Kiara's father's restaurant. This level of elation was new territory to them all.

"I think we're going to need another bottle for all this celebrating," Willa teased as she leaned her head back down on Kiara's shoulder.

"Um, we need to make sure we make it back home tonight alive," Pope reminded them from across the fire.

"Pope, I'm not going to drop dead from alcohol poisoning."

"No, but you might drop dead into that fire if another drop of alcohol goes into you."

"Ouch," Willa wrinkled her nose. "I think your words are the only thing that's burning me tonight."

"You get used to it, kook bait," JJ snickered.

"Titanic's not wrong," Kiara piped under her breath to Willa. "Pope's not called 'Mama Pope' for no reason."

"Hilarious, Kie."

"Just speaking for the people, Pope."

Pope rolled his eyes but chose to let the banter die. He knew better than to get the only two females riled up—and he especially knew that if Willa and JJ were pairing up that he stood no chance in his logic at all. So, rather than take three drunken hotheads on, he turned to the only other teenager that was not making him regret having abandoned the Island Club in the first place. "What's the plan, John B.?"

"Good question," John B. replied briskly. "Sarah Cameron's coming tonight. She's going to bring an original survey map—"

Willa immediately felt Kiara stiffen beside her, and any lingering laughter from the girl died away. "Wait, wait. Hold on," The latter cut off sharply. "Sarah? Why Sarah?"

Though Willa held her own tongue, the very same question had ripped through her brain, too, quick as a whip. The mention of Sarah Cameron's name made her skin crawl. She still was bitter about their interaction earlier in the week, after the visit at Bonnie's. All that that girl cared about was a party and her reputation. What the hell kind of kook privilege could Sarah Cameron provide that Willa, herself, could not?

"Um . . . Well . . ."

"This is going to be good," JJ muttered cheekily.

Suddenly, as if just remembering his existence, Willa's head snapped in the blonde boy's direction. "Is that why you were dancing with her tonight?" She questioned. As the puzzle pieces clicked together, she wondered if JJ saw the ferocity that she now felt. Even more so, she wondered why did this revelation spark and hurt so bad? Sarah Cameron just had to worm her way into every piece of Willa's personal life, didn't she? "You weren't trying to sabotage her. You were trying to recruit her."

"Well—"

So, JJ had not come to the Island Club to simply cause chaos. He had not come to the Island Club to see Pope or Kiara or even her. When he had accidentally stumbled across Willa on the balcony, had he been disappointed by the sight of her? The uncertainty in that truth made her stomach churn, but her jaw clenched tighter.

"It's a simple statement, JJ," Willa growled. "Am I right, or am I right?"

JJ's eyes narrowed defensively. "What's with the attitude, sunshine?"

"Don't call me that."

"Guys, guys, stop. Just listen to me for a second," John B. pleaded, desperate to cut the building, alcohol-induced tension before it hardened around them all like an unbreakable cement barricade. "Kie, look, Sarah got me into the archives in Chapel Hill yesterday, and that's where I got the letter about the gold."

"You were in Chapel Hill with Sarah Cameron?" Kiara demanded angrily.

"Yeah, um—"

"He was mackin' on her," JJ piped in.

John B.'s expression dropped, and he wiped a hand over his face. "I wasn't macking," He protested.

"Man, you were totally macking Sarah Cameron!"

Willa's stomach had stopped churning and completely dropped altogether. She was frozen and silent where she sat beside Kiara, but her eyes were still locked with John B.'s. A part of her felt sick then; as if the alcohol coursing throughout the night had finally caught up to her, but a larger part of herself only felt sad now. Empty. Defeated. Betrayed, almost.

But how could she be betrayed? How could she mark this emotion that she felt so deeply within herself as jealousy when she had been the one that had pushed him away first? She had told John B. no after their kiss. It had not been the other way around. Still, somehow, she understood the anger that Kiara so openly expressed beside her. The sparking ferocity that she had felt for JJ only seconds prior had all but diminished beneath the molten fury that she now felt simmering for the Routledge boy that stood above her, pleading with his warm hickory gaze for her to listen to him, to understand him, to forgive him for an action that had never been wrong to begin with.

So, Willa simply dropped her eyes and looked away. That was all she could do to keep the tears from forming and be seen making even more of a fool of herself.

Crying over a boy? She inwardly chided. She shook her head at herself and her whole body trembled, too. Pathetic.

"I wasn't macking on her, okay?" John B. insisted. Willa kept her head down, but she still felt his eyes on her, as if speaking only to her. It only made her skin crawl more. "I was using her for access."

"Did you tell her about the treasure?" Kiara questioned through guarded eyes.

"I was just trying to get into the archives!"

"Is that a yes?!"

"I—I," John B. stammered beneath the burning gazes of the two kook daughters settled before him. "I left out key details."

"Are you serious?" Kiara practically screamed. "You let a Cameron in on our secret?"

"I was just using her for information, Kie. That's it."

"Bullshit," The Deveraux daughter abruptly snapped, and the sharp coldness in her tone shocked even herself for a moment. A sober Willa would have never spoken to John B. like that. But Willa's drunk self did not care. But hell. At least her drunk self was self-aware, too. "My name will open more doors than hers ever will."

"A name that you hate!" John B. shouted back at her, seemingly exploding in his own defending rage. The anger was uncharacteristic of him, too. "At least Sarah isn't afraid of hers."

Willa paused. "You think I'm afraid?"

John B. must have been able to see the hurt flash on her face, no matter how quickly she tried to hide it. "Willa—Willa, come on," He said, his voice already softening drastically. "I didn't mean—You took it the wrong way—"

"I don't think there's a right way to take it."

"Look." He exhaled a long, composing breath. "I'm just trying to make us filthy rich here."

"And clearly we weren't good enough," Kiara muttered.

"No, you weren't," John B. deadpanned. "And I wasn't, either. We didn't have enough with just the five of us. That's why I got us help," He attempted to explain. "Sarah is how we get the gold. Once we get the gold, we can pay off a boat, or open a record label, or buy a stupid koi pond in a flower shop or send Pope off to autopsy school to study dead bodies for God's sake. Come on, guys, you know me. Do I look like the type of person to fall for Sarah Cameron?"

"Do you want us to answer that, or—"

"Shut up, Pope."

"Look, you don't know her yet, but I do," Kiara argued. "You can't trust her."

"Any more than we could trust kook bait at the start?"

Willa's glare shifted towards JJ, but Kiara was quicker to defend her. "That's different, and you know it, JJ."

"How so?" The Maybank boy challenged.

Kiara threw her hands up exasperatedly. "Because all of the Cameron's are fucking crazy!"

"Her brother did hit me in the head with a golf club," Pope agreed.

"Rafe and Sarah are different human beings," John B. defended. "You don't see anyone comparing Willa and Ace, do you?"

"In case you forgot, John B., I'm adopted," Willa pointed out. "That argument doesn't actually work."

"You know what I mean."

"No, I don't think I do."

Elsewhere, JJ was still looking confusedly at Kiara. "What did Sarah even do to you exactly, Kie?" He wondered.

"She's like a spitting cobra!" Kiara emphasized. It was then, with that insult, that Willa realized Kie might be as drunk as her. "First, she blinds you, and then—"

"This is a bad analogy," Pope muttered.

"Shut up, Pope! John B., just listen to me. Whatever we get, she's going to try to take."

"She's not wrong," Willa added. "You don't think that as soon as we find out where the gold is that she's going to go right to Ward and tell him? He's in fucking real estate and construction! He has more than enough power to take this all away from us."

"He's not going to find out," John B. denied.

"How are you so sure?"

"Because I trust Sarah."

Willa merely scoffed. "Believe me when I say that Sarah's involvement is going to mean the end of this treasure hunt." More venom waited carelessly on the edge of her teeth, but instead, she swallowed the embers that threatened to engulf her. Without another word, she stood up and turned away from the flames at licked at her dress.

John B. called out to her just as she began to walk, "Where are you going?"

"I'm either leaving," She said, "or I'm getting another bottle."

"You can't drive."

"Well, I'm perfectly fine walking."

"Barefoot," John B. challenged, "through the woods?"

With her back still turned, she smiled into the shadows. "You underestimate me, John B.," She replied over her shoulder. Without ever looking back, she merely looked down to the only other female left. "Are you coming, Kie?"

Willa knew the answer before the Carrera girl even said it. "Fuck this," Kiara huffed as she tossed her flower crown in the flames. The three boys were silent as they watched her clamber to her feet, and grab Willa's extended hand. "Yeah, I'm right behind you, Wills."

➸➸➸

THOUGH THEY TRIED, THE two Midsummer princesses did not get very far.

Willa and Kiara had just barely slipped out of the light of the faraway bonfire before Pope Heyward was at their heels and guiding them back towards John B.'s rusty Volkswagen van. Neither argued against Pope as he was not responsible for their irritability, but neither exactly went willingly, either.

It was the promise of another twelve-pack that had reluctantly gotten them settled in their seats, but it was the later lie from John B. that sent them reeling once more. Because rather than take them to the local gas station that did not check IDs as was promised to the two girls, John B. took all five of the teenagers on a drive to the opposite side of the island, further up the Boneyard Beach, and to a parking lot on the outskirts of Kildare's Hawk Nest State Park.

John B. had quickly explained that this location was where he had planned and agreed to meet Sarah Cameron to receive the survey map. He had brought all four of his friends as reassurance, but when they began to climb from the vehicle, he had instructed Willa and the others to stay put; that he could handle this part of the 'mission' as he described it on his own.

Mission my ass, Willa had wanted to say.

But instead, she and Kiara had managed to hold their tongues at the bitterness that had built within them both. However, nothing could disguise JJ's sexualized expression as he sent John B. a cheeky thumbs up before he slipped off into the night.

It had been twenty minutes since that exchange. Twenty minutes since the Routledge boy had left the four teenagers to wait in silence as distant midnight thunder rumbled overhead. Willa was nearly convinced that John B. had abandoned them all over again; she no longer found that she could put the thought past him. Not after his secret escapade to Chapel Hill while the four of them had been left to fight his battles with the hungry kooks.

"Did you believe John B. when he said that nothing was going on between him and Sarah?"

Twice, before John B. had left the van, did Kiara demand for him to tell the truth regarding his relationship with the Cameron daughter. Twice, John B. swore that nothing was happening between them. Twice, did John B. lie directly to Kie's face, and every teenager in the van had known it—even the interrogator herself.

Which was why Willa barely reacted to Kiara's question. "No," She confirmed. "But what's that matter to us?"

The disappointed Carrera girl pursed her lips and fell quiet beside Willa. They were currently sitting on the floor in the back of the Twinkie, their bare feet dangling out the open sliding door. Meanwhile, Pope and JJ were sitting in the front and passenger seats—the latter trying to convince the former to take a hit off the half-smoked joint that was burning brightly in the dark.

"He's going to get hurt," Kiara murmured.

"Then he gets hurt," Willa retorted. "You tried to warn him. We both did. If he's going to—"

"Someone help! Please, somebody help! Help!"

Willa's angry words caught in her throat at the sudden and sharp cry that echoed off the trees around them. Through the open door of the Twinkie, the piercing shouts for help grew louder, more panicked. At the front of the van, a joint was hastily discarded as both boys kicked their feet off the dashboard and flung their doors open.

"Who is that?" Kiara questioned worriedly.

"Help! I need some help!"

Pope gulped. "It sounds like—"

"Sarah," Willa finished.

"That means—" JJ choked as realization crossed him. "John B.!"

Fear flashed across JJ's pale features as lightning flickered overhead. Then, without another word, he turned on his heel and sprinted into the dry forest in the direction that the screaming was coming from.

"JJ, slow down!" Kiara yelled after him.

"Wait, J!" Pope was quick to follow the sprinting boy, leaving Willa and Kiara scrambling out of the van after them. As soon as Willa's bare feet touched the dirt, she ran blindly into the dark, using the frantically pounding footsteps of JJ and Pope to guide her. Kiara was right at her heels, holding tightly to the bottom of her dress to keep from tripping over rocks and branches that covered the trodden path.

Twice in one night, Willa found herself sprinting through the dark in a ballgown. The first time, she had never felt more alive. Now, she was fearful against every beat of her own heart. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

Willa gasped loudly for breath as she broke through the clearing of the trees and ran her way onto a small patch of sandy beach. Waves crashed loudly on her left, though she could not see them, and her hair whipped dangerously in her face. Between the distant flashes of lightning that crackled sporadically overhead, she could just make out a fallen figure on the sand.

Sarah Cameron was knelt over them, shaking and sobbing, but at the sound of new arrivals to the beach, her blonde head shot up in alarm. "P-Please help!" She screamed to Willa and the others. She was in hysterics; her cheeks wet with tears and snot, and her flower crown torn in two. "'I—I can't—I don't know—"

As Willa grew closer to the sobbing girl, she froze at the grotesque sight in Sarah Cameron's lap. "John B.!" She yelped. The boy's arm was bent at an unnatural angle, and there was fresh blood splattered amongst several pieces of freshly snapped wood that lay scattered beneath him. Above the Routledge boy's unmoving body, lodged high atop a grassy hill, the Hawk's Nest popular tourist lookout was now in splinters.

"What happened, Sarah?" Pope demanded as he dropped down on John B.'s other side. Both were shaking John B.'s shoulders, but there was no response. His limbs were stiff, his expression empty and cold.

Tears filled Willa's sage green eyes as horror engulfed her. Was he dead?

"T-Topper shoved him," Sarah Cameron blubbered.

"What?" JJ snarled. "Where the hell is he?"

JJ kept screaming and Sarah Cameron's wails only grew louder. Pope was speaking too fast. Kiara started yelling then, too, about someone needing to call an ambulance. But how could they? None of the teenagers had their phones on them—the summer storms took their services and landlines away. They were alone on the beach. No one was coming to help them.

Each voice, each shout, each cry was louder than the last and every deafening sound was ringing painfully in Willa's ears. Though madness and chaos were coiling around her, rage and terror battling for control of the bloodied beach, Willa could not stop staring at John B. Her eyes frantically searched his hollowed face, looking for hickory, but all she saw were black pits.

He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead.

Willa felt the sickness crawl its way back up her throat. The drink had finally caught up to her. He was dead.

She was looking at a dead body. John B.'s dead body. He was dead.

Suddenly, the world went sideways, and Willa Deveraux took a shaky step back. One of her bare arms was raised, her hand outstretched. She tried to grab onto something steady, something firm, but the universe was spinning dizzily behind her closed eyes.

She exhaled a tiny hiccup of breath. The sound was booming amongst the screams and cries of panic that flooded her failing system.

"Willa?"

Someone called her name again, but she could not register who the strained voice belonged to. She tried to respond to them. She felt her lips moving, her mouth opening and closing. Then, through teary eyes, she watched as the pale and cold sand rose up to reach her in the faraway place of her ricocheting mind. Somewhere, a strong hand grabbed her elbow, but she slipped through their grasp like water.

"Willa!"

The world went to black.

~~~~~~~~~~

i'm alive, y'all!

but is willa?

the good ole' fun and madness of midsummers had to end eventually, and its finally on a crash course to destruction... but, wow, we've survived midsummers!  i hope you all enjoyed this chapter and this section of chapters, really.  we had some happy willa and then some dangerous willa, but honestly could you expect anything less from our drunk little bean?

so, what are we thinking of this chapter? how are we feeling? i'd really love to know what you all are thinking! what are your thoughts on miss willa currently? is there any chance at redemption for willa and john b.? should there be redemption for them??

on a final note, i missed you all so, so much!  i took a nice little health break from writing, but man, it feels so good to be back and writing this story.  there's still so much more to come!

stay safe and stay well.

--B.