[ iii. boneyard battlefield ]

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WILLA, THE RICH DEVERAUX kook, was rather surprised by how easily she kept the company of John B., the poor Routledge pogue.  Even after their bitter spouts of arguments and humble heart-to-hearts had come to an end, the two universally different sixteen-year-old's still spoke effortlessly to each other, swapping stories of their own idiotic youths back and forth, even if they were becoming a bit harder for the listener to understand. 

For as the night poured on, so did the drinks.  Once more, Willa had returned the bottle of Fireball whiskey to the tiny space between them on the shared driftwood log, and they took turns sipping shots under the fragile moon, its soft, milky lighting dissipating in and out of the thick bonfire smoke.  Between their stages of whiskey swings, Willa and John B. were laughing and choking on their own drunken drool as they watched another horrendously intoxicated teenager stumble past them—but not without the stumbler complimenting John B. on his party-throwing skills, of course.

Like the many before her, Willa could admit that John B. had thrown a rather successful party. Oh, hell, who was she kidding? It was a perfect party.  Even with the very noticeable divides that persisted amongst the crowds of kooks and pogues, Willa was having more fun tonight than she had the entire month prior.  And it all had to do with a crackling piece of dead wood, a warm swirling stomach of sizzling cinnamon, a summery-sweet balmy night, and the pure, childish banter of a boy and girl who could choose to put aside their destined labels for a tiny piece of paradise.  An ephemeral joy shared only between their two otherwise lost souls, together finding a tiny oasis in the eye of the Outer Banks endless storms.

"Wait, wait, wait!"  John B. exclaimed, hunched over on the log.  He was holding his side from laughing so hard, his dimples popping so ecstatically that Willa was certain they would still be ingrained into the depths of his cheeks the following morning, as if he were still smiling even while suffering through the midst of an impossibly painful hangover.  "Say that again," He pleaded breathlessly, grinning so brightly that even the moon above could have been jealous of his glow.

"No!" Willa cried back, her curly locks of hair spinning haphazardly around her rosy face as she stubbornly shook her head.  Her cheeks were wet with tears, but they were the best tears, the perfect tears, the ones where happiness was so profound it outdid even itself.  "It was horrifying enough saying it aloud the first time!"

Her response sent John B. keeling over once more and he was happy to feel himself lost in the playful bliss of Willa Deveraux's presence.  No one had ever expected Willa to be funny—snarky, maybe, but never in the current way she held herself.  "And you swear that's a true story?" He prodded.

Willa crossed a finger gently across her chest.  "Scout's honor," She promised.

What exactly were Willa and John B. talking about?  Neither of them would ever say; they had shaken on it, and even kooks and pogues knew better than to spew tales that could only come back to bite themselves in the end.  Granted, the only tales between Willa and John B. were stupid ones—practically unbelievable ones—and Willa honestly did not care who heard them, but it was still nice to believe that such a simple promise between a pogue and kook could be kept.

"Hey, strangers."

Willa and John B. suddenly both lifted their heavy heads, their shoulders still loose from the laughter locked in their now guarded systems and turned to the sight of none other than Kiara Carrera standing above them.  She was another one of Willa's classmates—and had once been her neighbor, too—but that was a bit of a long story, one that involved the dear thought of Maren Deveraux and Willa was most certainly not willing to open that door when she was nearly plastered out of her mind. 

Nonetheless in the short time that Willa and Kiera had once been neighbors, they had also been friends, close enough that it was not always so awkward whenever they were forced to interact during school events.  Most of those said events involved the debate club which, by no choice of her own, Willa had been forced to join at the start of her freshman year. 

Now, as awful as it seemed, debating was not all bad.  Willa liked to argue, she liked to make her point even if she was horrendously wrong.  And what she liked most about the debate club was that she was never the only one in her headstrong determination to make others see her way the right way.  Kiara Carrera was that way, too. 

It was through the debate club that Willa managed to briefly reconnect with Kiara—but only just.  While Kiara seemed to be relatively zen to the vaster Outer Banks society, she had a very, very aggressive social streak, and for love of all things holy, Willa always made sure to bring her noise-blocking headphones to the after school club whenever the topic of environmentalist issues was the selected debate of the day.  Kiara was all over that business, none of the other debaters ever stood a chance.

"Hey, Kie," John B. was the first to greet her.  "What do you have there?"

John B. nodded his head towards the large black garbage bag dangling from Kiara's skinny right arm, the elastic digging tightly into her tanned skin. The bag was large and bulging, dragging in the sand behind her, and even though it did not smell, her face twisted in disgust at the mention of it. "Kook trash," Kiara answered simply.  She gave the bag a soft rattle, and the clanking of empty beer bottles echoed in the dark, causing both Willa and John B. to nod their heads in understanding.  It was unsurprising to neither Willa nor John B. that Kiara was cleaning up the Boneyard beach in the party wreckers' wakes.  "The disposable kind, anyway," She added bitterly.

Willa frowned.  "What's that mean?"

Kiara shrugged, so perfectly carefree in her response, but poised to strike all the same.  "Kook bodies are harder to get rid of," She explained, distaste and irritation seeping from her tone, as if she truly wished she could discard of the spoiled, rich teenagers at the Boneyard party as easily as if they were only pieces of true trash.  Ironically, as Willa contemplated the small, angry girl still standing above her, would that not mean Kiara would have to eventually throw away herself, too?

"But . . . you're a kook."

"Yeah, and so are you. Your point?"

Truer words had never been spoken, whether either island girl liked hearing them aloud or not.  Like Willa, Kiara had also been raised up on the north side of the island, smacked dead-center in the Figure Eight—the area where the richest of the rich on the Outer Banks lived.  Both girls loathed to admit where their roots lied but unlike Willa, Kiara had long since been embraced with an easier acceptance amongst the pogues.  Why this was? Willa was not sure.  Maybe it truly did have a bit to do with her carefree, hippy, zen-like attitude that Willa most certainly did not have.

Willa Deveraux did not like to co-exist.  She wished that co-existing itself did not exist.  Why could people not just be allowed to be who they were without conflict or isolation, or cruelty?  Why did there have to be sides?  Why did there have to be a divide when they were all moving in the same direction?  They were all just teenagers, all just trying to leave their own footprints in the same sand.  How had the world been kinder to Kiara in that retrospect than it ever had to Willa?  Was she destined to feel so incredibly alone, so lost in her own world that she was unsure of where it begun, let alone where it dared to stop?

Despite the endless battle that was her attempting to uncover her own identity, Willa Deveraux was a kook.  Misguided, broken, and tainted, but a kook all the same.  She knew that.  The Outer Banks knew that, and Willa could not dare to change the minds of those around her, no matter how hard she tried.  It was scarred into her skin, into her blood, unchangeable. 

Perhaps convincing her own mind would be an easier task.  Was it possible to be kook and a pogue, all rolled into one?  To become the bests and worsts of both worlds, to balance that tight rope of uncertainty and hope, simply hope, that the sky would be there to hold her if she were ever to fall?

But maybe, one day, being a kook or a pogue or anything else in between would not be such a bad thing.  That was a blissful, poetic day that Willa longed for, dreamed for.  Where the Outer Banks either succumbed to its own cruel disasters and mistakes, or it finally learned from them, shifting and healing for the better, just as all living things did against even the harshest of disasters.

"No point, I guess," Willa finally complied, curling her hands in her lap, feeling the cold jewels of her rings dig into her sweaty palms.  "Look. You don't try to push me into the fire, and I won't push you in, either.  Deal?"

Kiara's lip tilted upwards just the slightest, her dark eyes gleaming with a playful glint as she stared down at her long-ago childhood friend.  Willa had never been her best friend, no, but she would always be the friend next door, the friend that could have been the best friend; a door that had been closed long ago, but never quite locked.  Never quite forgotten.  "Deal," Kiara replied sincerely.  Her eyes then briefly flickered to John B.'s, as if suddenly remembering why she had come over to them in the first place, but before she could even say another word, her gaze was narrowing sharply, her glaring attention now focused on a ditsy, bright character that wandered beyond the sitting pair's shoulders.  "What is she doing here?"

Willa abruptly glanced over her own shoulder, and stiffly peered into the shadows of the stilled night, allowing her barely stirring sage eyes to land on a small but awfully familiar, twirling and dancing figure.  Even in the dark, Willa could recognize Sarah Cameron's blonde and messy waves, her hair glowing every so luxuriously in the firelight.  The kook princess was currently standing further away from the party than what might have been expected of a kook who always thrived to be the center of attention, but she did not seem to mind one bit.  Always lost in the language of her own creative mind, Sarah Cameron was wildly waving a flashlight about as she stared intensely up into the sky, pointing to every star that she could see.

Willa could only bare to watch Sarah Cameron's silly movements for a few seconds before the alcohol began to twist uncomfortably in her unsteady stomach, and she looked away in distaste, fearful of spewing all that she had swallowed in the past hour back out.  Slowly, she looked down to the sand and closed her eyes, but she could still hear the girl's voice all the same now, and, god, did it frustrate her. Willa heard enough of Sarah Cameron every day as it was, she did not need to see her all the time to be reminded of her existence, too.

Now, it was not that Willa Deveraux and Sarah Cameron were not exactly friends, but they surely were not close, either.  Their experiences together held nothing but bad memories for them both; none that had been completely their faults, though.  No, their downfall of an incomplete friendship began long, long ago when they were barely third graders and their parents had once all been best friends, and they had been determined to ensure that their daughters turned out just like them.  Unfortunately, only one daughter had managed to take the bait and that was precious Sarah Cameron, whereas the other had sunk and that, of course, had been none other than troublemaker Willa Deveraux.

All those years later, those painful moments were what kept them apart.  Thankfully, given that they had both been raised respectably—for the most part—neither girl went out of her way to be harmful to the other . . . but if they could keep each other out of their own mouths then it was a good day for sure.

Suddenly, Kiara scoffed coldly, tearing Willa abruptly from her rapidly darkening thoughts.  "As if there wasn't enough trash on the beach already," She muttered.

With a lingering sharp curse, Kiara turned on her heel and stalked off towards the fire, dragging the garbage bag behind her, now determined to put as much distance between herself and her former freshman best friend.  John B. and Willa watched her go in silence, waiting until she rounded the bonfire and was seemingly swallowed up by the flames.  Finally, John B. exhaled a breath he had not realized he had been holding and looked back to Willa with a small, timid smile.  "Remind me to check that bag before I let her toss it," He said, only half-joking.  "Got to make sure there are no kook heads inside."

Willa smirked, her lips lazily rising as she crossed her legs at the ankles and readjusted on the piece of driftwood.  She had been sitting too long, her body growing more tired as the night finally began to grow colder.  It had to be nearing midnight, maybe even after midnight, and though Willa had only earlier promised she would be home before the clock struck twelve, it was not the first promise to her parents she had broken.  Besides, was it really even a promise if no one had heard her say it?

Willa uncurled her fingers, feeling her rings loosen around her knuckles as she reached down for the bottle of Fireball.  Lifting it up to the firelight, Willa's eyes widened in surprise at the fact that the bottle was empty.  In less than an hour, Willa and John B. had finished an entire fifth of whiskey.  "Damn," Willa murmured quietly, lifting the bottle to her lips to give it a sloppy, drunken kiss.  As she pulled away, a perfect rim of purple lipstick stained the plastic, looking back at her.  "Gone too soon."

"Way too soon," John B. agreed dishearteningly.  "But it's certainly doing the job.  How are you feeling now?  Buzzed?" He prompted.

"Buzzed . . . Drunk . . . " She agreed, nodding her head slowly.  Her brain felt like its own bowling ball, and she was losing her grasp.  "But not as drunk as I could be, you know?"

John B. smiled warmly at her, but it took him a long moment before he could properly climb to his own feet.  He, too, was nearly as drunk as Willa, though his body mass did a bit more to help him balance the careful line of false sobriety.  And so, once he was finally to his feet, with hardly much difficulty at all, he offered a large, open hand to Willa and shook it slightly, beckoning her to take it.  "Can I get you another drink?" He asked her.

"Piss poor beer?" Willa guessed.

John B.'s grin widened.  "The one and only."

Willa slowly returned the empty Fireball bottle to her back pocket, knowing that Kiara would skin her alive if she found out that she had littered, and then slipped her hand carefully into John B.'s, allowing him to effortlessly pull her to her feet.  Once she was standing firmly on her own two legs, she motioned outward and toward the long stretch of Boneyard beach with a dramatic wave of her free hand.  "Lead the way, John B."

With her smaller hand still securely in John B.'s strong hold, Willa allowed herself to be guided towards the metallic keg propped up in the sand near the bonfire located on the far opposite end of the Boneyard.  As they walked, Willa's fingers instinctively intertwined with his, and she could feel John B.'s calloused thumb softly wander and curve over the abundant number of rings that littered her delicate fingers.  Fearful of falling in the uneven sand, Willa walked close in John B.'s shadow, entrusting him with her fully drunken heart to either get her safely to the keg, or at least into the arms of her younger brother. 

Growing closer to the center of the party, Willa's head begun to swim at the loud and intruding chattering voices that filled her humming ears.  She was a bit of a hypocrite in the moment, but Willa absolutely despised the drunken teenage idiots that slurred their every word and stumbled their every step—even if she currently was one of those drunken idiots herself.  Thankfully, her scatterbrained attention did not last long, for the foggy cloud within her mind was abruptly broken by the loud, welcoming shout of none other than John B.'s absolute best friend and literal partner-in-crime, JJ Maybank.

"John B., get your ass over here!  How are you doing, bud?!"

Willa could see that JJ was completely and blatantly obliterated as he practically clung onto the keg to keep himself upright.  The sixteen-year-old was sloppily distributing drinks left and right, but still, somehow, also managing to be careful in ensuring that he did not run out of beer for himself. Once the crowd of drunken pogues and tourons finally began to clear, John B. and Willa make their quick rush over to the reckless, disastrously hot-headed blonde boy who was having the time of his life.

"Oh?" JJ said aloud, eyeing Willa up and down.  "And who've we got here?" He snickered.  JJ's lightning blue gaze lingered briefly on the intertwined hands of his best friend and the kook beside him, and his mind momentarily lagged, as if the shocking sight before him was an impossible sight to witness.  John B. with Willa Deveraux?  A pogue and a kook holding hands?  The thought nearly made JJ sick.  But when he quickly looked to their intertwined fingers once more, their hands were no longer touching at all and Willa had abruptly stepped back, knowing exactly what JJ had been looking for.

"You know who I am, JJ," Willa responded curtly.

"And I know just what you're here for," JJ replied coyly, hesitating momentarily, letting Willa agonizingly linger in the silence of his pogue power, knowing he could make or break a kook with a single snap of his fingers if he liked.  He rarely let that side of him slip so carelessly, but when he did?  Willa would not want to be on the receiving end of JJ's rage, not now, not ever.  "Free beer."

But little did he know that he should avoid Willa's rage, too.  She could be just as violent, just as unpredictable, just as broken. 

Before either drunken teen could allow their heated emotions to get the better of them, their desires get the better of them, John B. was hastily clearing his throat, drawing all eyes around the keg to him.  "Get us two cups," He said.

JJ nodded in understanding and finally pulled his icy eyes away from Willa's warm face.  She, on the other hand, could not stop staring.  With bated breath she watched as JJ pulled two red solo cups from a plastic bag near his feet, the muscles in his arms shifting as he readjusted the keg.  She could smell the alcohol on his breath, and seeping from his pores—or maybe it was hers—but, regardless, the pungent smell only seemed to make her more alert.  She was all the more entranced, watching as JJ's gaze narrowed in a silent, careful concentration that Willa simply could not stop herself from toying with.

"Watch the foam," Willa clipped out.

"I know how to do this, sunshine," JJ snipped back at her.

Willa merely smirked at his sharp retort and JJ suddenly faltered as he went to look at Willa with what was meant to be a stern glare—but now so blatantly caught on her reaction, his own expression remained a blank slate.  JJ had surely expected her to bite back at him, to push back as defiantly as she had always done in elementary school yard against him.  But—as was obvious to any of the kooks and pogues in the Boneyard—they were no longer in elementary school anymore.  Things had gotten a lot more complicated since then, more so for JJ than anyone else.  Now, at only sixteen years of age, there were some things that JJ should never have been forced to carry.  There were now parts of JJ's life to be lived in secret, to be lived in fear, in pain.  And it broke him.  It burned at him deeper than any drop of alcohol could ever reach.

Unbeknownst to JJ, his liver was not the only one that suffered in the day-to-day life of the Outer Banks.  Surely, it was in a different way, but hurt was still hurt.  And little did JJ know that the now quiet girl beside him had only just drank nearly an entire fifth of whiskey to herself. 

How truly and completely, and agonizingly empty did one have to be to do that?

Only a few moments later, Willa finally had a red solo cup in her hands that was filled nearly to the brim with warm beer.  She sipped delicately, carefully, feeling herself reawaken with each drop that touched her cold system.  Beside her, John B. was now pulled into a quiet debate with JJ, and Willa entirely did not care enough to eavesdrop.  But maybe she should have because, suddenly, JJ was drunkenly yelling all over again, beckoning now towards none other than Sarah Cameron and her top-notch kook boyfriend, Topper Thornton, to come and get a drink from the keg.

"Sarah!" JJ called obnoxiously.  "Sarah!  Come here!  Can I interest you in a tasty Milwaukee beverage?"

Sarah Cameron stopped in front of the keg, her nose wrinkled uncomfortably.  "No, thanks," She replied coolly.

"Come on," JJ prodded.  "Is it not fancy enough for you?"

"No, no, we were just leaving, and—"

"Hey, you know what?" Topper interrupted his girlfriend, stepping in front of her, now acting as a divide between Sarah Cameron and JJ.  "I'll take it."

"That's nice, but I didn't ask you.  Now, if you said pretty please, maybe, but you didn't."

Willa exchanged careful glances with John B., both of them very fearful of the condescending tone hidden within JJ's burning ferocity.  She could practically see the venom swirling in his veins, bubbling and bubbling, rising to the top like a volcano, completely and excitedly prepared to obliterate all that laid in his wake.  And now, JJ was going to take them all down, and all over a stupid, pitiful excuse of a drink.

"Oh, pretty please," Topper mocked, sarcasm laced in his voice.  "Pretty please?"

JJ looked right past the kook; his entire attention devoted to Sarah Cameron.  "Oh, come on, Sarah," He teasingly pleaded, his words starting to slur.  "You can have—"

Sarah Cameron squirmed. "No, that's—"

JJ Maybank took a defining step closer, breaking a barrier not meant to be broken. "Just try—"

"She doesn't want it, you piece of shit!"  Topper snarled.  He instantly reached out and ripped the cup from JJ's hands, slinging it back into the pogue's salty, sweaty face, knocking him back several steps.  In an instant, JJ was curling back around, eyes seething with anger and teeth bared.  As the two boys violently lunged at each other, John B. quickly pushed Willa out of the way to ensure that she did not get trampled on, all the while knocking her cup of beer from her trembling hands in the process.

"No, stop!" Sarah Cameron cried fearfully, trying to pull Topper away by the back of his pressed shirt, but it was to absolutely no avail.  It only took seconds, a few harsh words and one quick shove, and the entire night had shifted to take a turn for the worst.

"JJ, no!" John B. shouted, wrapping his strong arms firmly around his best friend's slimmer waist.  With the additional newfound help of Pope Heyward—another member of John B.'s relatively small pogue crew—the two comrades desperately attempted to pull JJ off Topper, and finally, they managed to do so with a final, harsh heave backwards.  With his arms now restrained by John B. and Pope, JJ was practically screaming, his entire body pushed so far over the edge that he was ready to tear Topper's head off. 

"That's real funny, man!" JJ spat.  "Why don't you—"

"JJ, stop!" John B. attempted to soothe, trying to draw his best friend's narrowed eyes away from the threat.  "Hey, hey, hey—"

Behind the trio of boys, Topper spit out a wad of saliva and shoved Sarah Cameron aside.  "Dirty pogues!" He snarled.

And just like that, the only voice of reason within the boys had been snuffed out as John B. abruptly released his hold on JJ and whipped around towards Topper, prepared to now kill the kook himself.  Willa let out a whimper of alarm as she was forcefully pulled back by Pope, the much taller boy guiding her away as a large group of partying teenagers instantly began to circle around the forming fight between a kook and a pogue.  Amongst the several recognizable faces, Willa saw Mona and Shiloh holding onto one another, and one opposite sides of the ring were both of her younger brothers, Ace and Cruz, each silently rooting for a different opponent than that of their brother.

Willa could not dare to try and pull Cruz nor Ace away from the fight without getting herself pulled into the chaos.  She could only pray and hope that this fight remained between John B. and Topper, and that no one else was pulled in for backup.  Willa was not ready to pick sides, nor was she ready to fuck up her rings all over again.

Turning her attention back to the fight, John B. appeared to have the upper hand, shoving Topper backwards and seemingly out of the ring, but the kook would not be so easily embarrassed in front of his own people.  The kook's tan, narrow face with cold and deadly, his green eyes screaming with rage. As John B. hastily turned on his heel and looked towards his remaining friends, his eyes shifted from Pope, to JJ, and then, to her own surprise, to Willa.  He never said a single word, but his message to her was clear.  This party was over.

But not just yet.  Not while Topper still had a say in it.  For over John B.'s unsuspecting shoulder, Topper Thorton was moving quickly towards him, his large hands curled into strong, swift fists.

"John B., watch out!" Willa blurted out.

Too little too late, Willa Deveraux had not been fast enough in her warning.  Before John B. could rightfully process her words, Topper was punching him hard in the face and sending him sprawling down into the shallow waves that crept up the darkening, shadowy shore.  John B. groaned lightly, curling in on himself as Topper kicked at his fallen form, throwing sand into his eyes and his mouth, drowning him on both dry and wet ground, all at once.

"Hey, John B.," Topper sneered maliciously.  "don't make me drown you like your old man, all right?"

"Guys!" Kiara Carerra was next to push her way through the ring, finding herself not far from where Willa stood.  "Guys, stop!" She pleaded.  "Just chill out!"

Not a single soul on the beach listened to her.  As the mindless onlookers began to chant for a fight, John B. was going to give them just that, and within an instant he was back on his feet and throwing Topper down into the waves with a solid hit to the rib cage.  John B. was quick to jump on him, holding him down, and swinging his fists blindly when the thrashing water blinded him. The two boys were both now sprawled in the wet sand, swears and blows, water and blood all rising into the air as they practically fought to the death.  In the dark part of Willa's mind, she was almost fearful that neither boy would pull away until the other was dead.  She swallowed grimly, her bottom lip trembling as she quickly looked to anyone that might break up the fight, anyone at all.

Caught between two of John B.'s closest friends, Willa finally looked to JJ, and before she could stop herself, her hands were wrapping around his arm and she tugged hard, drawing his frantic, unfocused attention down to him.  "Do something!" She urged.  "He's your friend!"

JJ merely brushed her off.  "This is their fight now."

"You started it!" Willa accused, pointing a stern finger in his chest.  "This is your fault!  You need to do something!"

JJ was no longer paying her any regard and he cupped his hands over his lips, cheering John B. on as he landed another punch to Topper's face.  "That's what I'm talking about!"

"Let's go, John B.!" Pope yelled from his other side.

Kiara, on the other hand, did not say a word, watching as John B. recklessly battled for a purpose without any true worth.  Meanwhile, across the ring, Sarah Cameron was sobbing, her hands curled tightly in her beachy, knotted waves and her eyes were frozen wide.  The girl was traumatized, and no one was coming to help her, not even Topper's own friends.  "Topper!" She screamed helplessly.  "Topper, stop!"

The seconds that passed by each felt their own century and Willa winced at every grunt of pain that sounded from John B.'s bleeding lips.  Now back on his feet, Willa could see that his left eye was already beginning to swell, and his body trembled—from the fear, and the anger, and the alcohol that lingered in his veins.  His body, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not, was giving out.  John B. did not have the upper hand in this fight any longer.  Topper was stronger.  Anyone that was watching could see that.

"They're going to kill each other!" Willa tried again at the blonde boy beside her.  "JJ!"

Topper painfully threw John B. over his back and cast him down into the deeper waves with a body slam, leaving him face-down in the wet sand.  Before John B. could even lift his head and attempt to catch his breath, Topper was clambering onto his back and forcing his head under the water, holding it there while his bare hands bled a sickly red.

"No!" Kiara shrieked.  "John B.!"

"He's drowning him!" Willa gasped.

"Topper!" Sarah Cameron begged, unmoving.  "Topper, stop!"

In the chaos of the world's ending, Willa Deveraux could no longer stand idly aside and watch as John B. was forced to suffer through the same final moments of his own father.  Willa was not a bystander; bystanders were the true killers of any otherwise stoppable occurrence, and Willa refused to be one ever again.  With drunken tears pooling in her terrified eyes, Willa instantly stepped forward and into the fighting ring, feeling her stomach drop, like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, rather than on solid ground.  Feeling numerous eyes on her skinny form, Willa made for the waves that threatened to pull John B. away from the Outer Banks forever. 

But as if suddenly able to read her rambling and desperate, chaotic mind, JJ was abruptly grabbing Willa by the wrist and shoving her backwards, back into the safety of Pope and Kiara as he went to handle Topper himself.

And with her heart practically beating out of her chest, Willa Deveraux watched as JJ Maybank waded out into the shallow waves and put a gun to the back of Topper's head.  A live, loaded gun. There was no hesitation in the pogue boy's own violent storm, no fear in his soul, his finger already curled around the trigger, silently pleading for a single sign from the universe to finally be given a reason to pull it.

Cries of terror from the surrounding crowd filled Willa's ringing ears, and young teenagers instantly began to flee the beach.  Willa was not one of them; she was frozen to the spot, watching a catastrophe unfold before her eyes.  Amidst the screams and shouts, she could not hear the words exchanged between JJ and Topper in the desperate moments that followed, but they were easily enough to send the once proud kook boy cowering back into the arms of Sarah Cameron, his hands raised high above his head in a surrender.  But Willa hardly paid Topper Thornton nor Sarah Cameron any regard for her attention hastily swung back to the teenager wielding a gun, firing warning shots high into the black sky as Kiara and Pope urgently ran to pull an unconscious John B. from the waves.

"Get the hell off our side of the island!" JJ screeched into the wind, into the roar of the sea, into the oblivion of the stars threatening to crash down on all their young, shattered spirits.

In a sea of running bodies, each trying to save his or herself, all that Willa saw amongst the shadows that now threatened to swallow her up was her brother and a gun. 

Her baby brother.

And a gun.

Just like that, the rest of the world no longer mattered to Willa Deveraux, for all she saw in her mind's eye was the horrific image of her brother's future being stolen from him.  Not once did she see her own future, not once did she think of Ace, or her mother, or her little sister, or of John. B, Kiara, or Sarah Cameron.  No, all she saw was Cruz, his fearful, horrified eyes widening as he caught sight of the sleek black gun, heard the deadly shots fired upwards into the sky as JJ let doomsday rain down on the unsuspecting teenagers who had only ever been trying to have fun.

"JJ, put the gun down!" Willa Deveraux sternly commanded.

JJ instantly whipped around to face Willa, his eyes alight, their own individual orbs of thunder and chaos, shining bright in the dying bonfire that crackled and cried, carrying the gasps and fearful whimpers of running kooks and pogues alike.  "Did you say somethin', sunshine?" He shot back.

Oh, she said something, all right.  Whether or not JJ heard it, though, was an entirely different story.  And it was one that Willa did not necessarily care to open and read.  No, the only one that needed to hear what Willa Deveraux had to say in the moments that followed was herself.  Which is why, with seemingly the entire universe—its mountains, its oceans, its stars, its echoes, and all its souls—resting purely on her shoulders, Willa walked straight up to JJ and knocked the handgun harshly from his calloused and bruised hands, sending the loaded weapon sprawling into the open space between their bare feet.

Silence ensued in the void between them.  The two teenagers were breathing hard as they stared at each other in the cold light of the Boneyard party beach. Willa's heart was a hammering drum, her ribs aching with each slam in her heaving chest. Her eyes poured with salty tears that she could no longer contain, her body trembling with profound fear at the thought of how so much life could have been taken so carelessly by so many today.  By Topper, by John. B, by JJ.  By even Willa herself, too, if she had dared a different approach at taking the gun from between JJ's ravaged hands. Now so close, standing in the shadow of the young trembling pogue, Willa could still smell the alcohol wafting dangerously off JJ, and now she could also smell the gunpowder on his skin, too. 

JJ Maybank was a war of a boy and Willa Deveraux was a burning spark of a girl meant to unleash a catalyst of ultimate destruction, and finally, after so many moments of paralyzed silence, one of them dared to speak.

"Get the hell off our beach," JJ spat in her face.

Despite his vicious snarl, Willa did not move.  She could not move.  Her body was frozen on the sands that now reeked of blood and bullets.

It was not until JJ dared to touch her, dared to place his arms on her bony bare shoulders and shove that Willa finally moved.  At the force of his harsh push, Willa stumbled, but she did not lose her ground.  She could not fall in front of JJ Maybank; she could not fall in front of any of his friends—her classmates who she truly did not seem to know at all.

Could she blame herself, though? They were pogues. She was a kook. She was not meant to know them. She could never understand them, just as they could never understand her.

So, without another word, with the echoing divides of the Outer Banks ringing clearly in her mind, Willa Deveraux finally turned away from the trembling, dangerous group of four pogues and walked out of the silent Boneyard battlefield, alone.  And even as she felt JJ, Kiara and Pope's eyes following her into the shadows of the deadly night, clinging to her, whispering to her to dare to turn around once more, she did not look back.

~~~~~~~~~~

i honestly have no idea what happened to this chapter. my god, it was stressful to write. i hope it went across okay? did y'all like it?

is everyone binge-watching outer banks this weekend? you better be. we've gotta get it renewed for season two! so even if you're not actively watching it, just have it playing in the background you filthy animals!  okay, and now onto the author's note--

so, i am very aware that once again this was very much a john b. centric chapter, but i'm not even sorry.  i'm just going with willa's flow and her flow is currently with john b., and i honestly already love the chemistry between them. but now that's over, and that drunken happy willa was probably the last of the happiness we'll be seeing from our sweet girl for a while because it all only goes downhill from here

and also now we probs won't see john b. for at least another chapter or two... it's time for our girl kie to make her mark..

also, what're we thinking of jj and willa???? they stress me out, too, those two hot-headed, extremely hot bastards.

side note, and this is just an author preference, but throughout this book, unless it's dialogue, willa is always going to refer to sarah as "sarah cameron".  i just love the way the two names flow together, and it also makes the whole name itself more original? with all the other unique/random outer banks names like topper, wheezie, pope, and even john b.  (even the b. manages to spice the name up, come on!) sarah needs the cameron to feel more original.  also it adds to the 'kook' feeling.  only rich people would give a damn about how their last name affected them.  so in this book, she'll never be just sarah.  she'll be the sarah cameron, got it? okay, good.

i'm so excited to finally get to start exploring all these crazy dynamics within the group! whose interactions with willa are you looking forward to most?!  what're you all thinking of willa so far?? i hope you all like her.. and i hope you all enjoyed the chapter! so, what are y'all thinking?? what do you hope to see from willa and her people next?? i'd love to hear your thoughts and what you'd like to see next! so please, leave some votes and comments because your girl would really appreciate it! thanks for reading! and i hope y'all are having a lovely day or night.

stay safe and stay well.

--B.