[ viii. diver down ]

➸➸➸

ONLY A SHORT HOUR later, Willa Deveraux found herself in the middle of the cool, quiet marsh, sitting idly on the edge of John B. Routledge's small motorboat, the HMS Pogue.  Though she was quickly becoming very acquainted with the perks and tweaks of the surprisingly sturdy boat, Willa had yet to ask any of the young pogue occupants aboard what the HMS stood for—as Pope Heyward had bluntly informed her that the abbreviation went beyond the simple Her Majesty's Ship—and now Willa was almost certain that she did not want to find out the boat's true origin story.

Soon casting her eyes away from the painted side of the boat, Willa looked outwards to her peaceful marshland surroundings.  In one direction, Willa could see open water for as far as the eye could see, the waves lobbing gently back-and-forth as they were pushed by the soft wind.  The afternoon sun was burning brightly on youthful exposed skin as it slowly began its descent back down to the darkening horizon, painting the sky such a shade of orange that mere crafted firelight could never compare to the universe's natural glow.  On Willa's other side, trees reached for the golden sky, concealing the harsh and dry land of the Cut from prying fishermen eyes and other strangers that could be just as unkind.

Between the land and the sea, patches of soggy earth were poking up, scattered amongst the marsh and now that Willa had been informed that a dead body had been found near this very location, she could only wonder what else this seemingly serene and untouched piece of paradise within the southern end of Outer Banks was truly hiding.  In the corner of her eye, tiny bubbles quietly made their way upwards from the muddy banks below, disturbing the still surface of the water, and Willa could only hope that whatever rested below their boat was nothing more harmful than a small trout.

"This is empty, John B.," Kiara Carrera retorted, causing Willa to swiftly turn her head away from the cool water and back towards the others.  Five oxygen tanks—one for each of them; even one for Willa, who had been genuinely surprised to be included—were gathered by the bare feet of Kiara and John B. as the former examined the scuba gear closely with a frown.  "You took empty tanks?"  Kiara looked over the numerous narrow tanks until finally settling on the last one in the lineup.  "Okay, this one's a quarter full," She informed bitterly.  "It's enough for one of us."

Pope Heyward rolled his eyes and kicked his feet up beside the wheel of the boat, currently acting as the designated helmsman for the group.  "Love it when a plan comes together," He scoffed sarcastically.

"Does anybody here even know how to dive?" Kiara questioned.

From where he sat on the opposite side of the boat, JJ Maybank shook his head in answer.  "It's kind of a kook sport," He insisted dryly.  At the mere mention of the familiar degrading term, all at once four pogue heads automatically turned to Willa Deveraux, but JJ was the only one who dared to ask the next question, unbothered by the fact that it may be wrong to assume so much of a girl he hardly knew anymore.  "Do you know how to dive?" He wondered.

Willa smiled wryly at the blonde boy across from her, his lean frame outlined by the giant burning orange orb beyond him. "Oh, yeah, they teach us when we're two, you know?  So that we can start competing by the time we're in school," She informed hotly, crossing her arms over her chest.  Kiara and Pope caught the sarcasm as soon as it left her mouth and immediately rolled their eyes in response, but John B. and JJ were now staring at her with softly dropped jaws, as if they did actually believe her.  "Oh, my God," She exclaimed with a snort.  "No, I don't know how to dive, JJ.  Stereotypical much?"

JJ immediately rose his hands in defense.  "It was just a question," He muttered.

"A poorly executed question," Willa snipped back as she turned around towards Kiara. "So . . . if we don't have anyone who can dive, then what's our plan?"

"Well, I, um . . . I read about it," Pope finally offered hesitantly, gently raising his hand.

"Great," Kiara huffed.  "Pope read about it, so someone's going to die."

"Look, you put the thing in your mouth and breathe," JJ insisted, mocking an attempt at knowing how to use the scuba gear with a hand hovering over his mouth.  "How hard could it be?"

Willa wrinkled her nose distastefully.  "I don't think it's that simple," She argued with a shrug.  "Otherwise two-year-olds actually could be taught how to scuba dive."

"Willa's right," Pope agreed, nodding his head.  "If you come up too fast, nitrogen gets into your blood, and you get the bends."

JJ smirked suggestively.  "Bends like . . . bend over and—"

"The bends kill you."

Instantly the playful smile dropped from JJ's tanned features and he awkwardly coughed.  "Right."

Kiara scoffed in disgust and Willa merely rolled her eyes, weighing the pros and cons of walking right over to the Maybank boy and pushing him into the water.  Granted, he would probably pull her right in after him and Willa was not exactly in the right spirits to get wet if she did not necessarily have to.  Meanwhile, still sitting at the stern of the boat, John B. exhaled a reluctant sigh and clambered back up to his feet.  "I can dive," He volunteered.  His voice was only slightly trembling as he spoke, and Willa Deveraux instantly sensed the fear underlying his tone.

"John B.—" Willa attempted to protest.

"You can dive," JJ hyped, cutting Willa off as he lifted an encouraging thumbs-up to his best friend.  "I'm cool with that."

Elsewhere Kiara was entirely and appropriately unconvinced.  "Since when can you dive?" She prodded suspiciously.

"You can't go down there if there's not enough air," Willa pointed out.

"It's fine," John B. reassured both girls.  "I can do it."

Before Willa could spring into the numerous amounts of reasons as to why this was not necessarily fine, Pope Heyward was quickly coming to her defense and rising to his feet to grab some notebook paper from his backpack.  "Let me do some calculations really quick," He decided, laying the paper flat against the wheel.  "Okay, that boat's about thirty feet down," He guesstimated as he began to draft out the potential plan as the four onlookers watched hesitantly.  "So, it'll take twenty-five minutes at most at that depth."

"Twenty-five," John B. repeated back to himself.  "That's not so bad."

"Without enough oxygen that will kill you, John B.," Willa bitterly reminded him.  "If you don't know how to dive properly you won't be alive down there for twenty-five minutes.  You'll be dead in twenty-five seconds."

"I'm starting to gather that you're not really an optimist, are you?" John B. rebuked, sending her a side glance.

"Optimists are bullshitters," She argued, matter-of-fact.  "I'm not a bullshitter.  I'm a realist."

"Focus, guys," Pope called, waving a hand to draw both of their attentions back to the diagram.  "John B., you need to make your safety stop at about ten feet, okay?  For two minutes."

"Ten feet, two minutes." John B. nodded his head as he slowly but surely began to pull the scuba gear onto his lean, bare body.  "Got it."

Willa Deveraux swallowed uncomfortably as she silently watched John B. readjust the tank properly on his sun-kissed back.  It seemed so incredibly heavy as it weighed down on John B.'s beaten and bruised limbs, but the boy did not seem to be bothered too much by the fact that either that tank alone would be what ultimately saved him or what killed him.

Suddenly, Willa's worried thoughts were broken by the loud splash of Kiara Carrera abruptly plunging into the marshy water without a single word.  Willa instantly stood up and crossed to the opposite side of the boat barefoot, her brows furrowed in confusion as she glanced down towards the murky ripples.  On either side of her, John B. and JJ joined, both looking in the same spot.  "What was that all about?" The former wondered aloud.

"I don't know," JJ answered, grinning as he looked towards the spot in the marsh where Kiara had disappeared.  "but I liked it.  A lot."

"Really, JJ?" Willa frowned in disgust. "Don't be a pig."

With a single stern and disappointed look from Willa Deveraux, the flirty smirk slipped from JJ Maybank's lips once more and he immediately looked down to the bottom of the boat, now incredibly interested in the wet, muddy open space between himself and Willa.  He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on the heels of his leather boots as he hastily looked over Willa's head to meet John B.'s own embarrassed gaze.  "So . . . anyways, John B.," JJ drawled, very adamantly avoiding Willa's stare that he could still feel searing into the side of his face.  "When you're down there, you look for the cargo hold." He pulled a key from his pocket, the same key that had likely been collected from Scooter's motel room, and passed it over to John B. "You stick this thing inside and twist and pull, okay?"

"Twist and pull," John B. confirmed, looking down at the lonely key.  If he dropped that key—if he lost it in the murky marsh waters below—all of this would have been for nothing, and John B. could not risk losing the reward so soon.  "Easy enough."

"Very easy, trust me," JJ assured.  "My dad moved weight back in the day."

Pope snorted.  "Who didn't?"

Willa silently swallowed.  She had not ever moved weight.  She was also nearly certain that her own father did not move weight when he was a teenager, either.  Her oddball, firecracker uncle on her father's side—maybe had moved some weight back in the day—but he was so long out of the picture that he did not exactly count in the sophisticated Deveraux family tree.  And she did not dare to bring him up in conversation now out of fear that she would only be giving the boys around her more illegal ideas to partake in once this was all over.

Before Willa could vocally voice her desperation for Kiara's return, by the grace of God, the girl of the hour was hurriedly returning to the surface.  As Willa held a hand out for her to grab, Kiara waded back over to the boat and took hold of her open palm.  "I tied my T-shirt to the anchor chain about ten feet down," She informed breathlessly as Willa pulled her back onto the stern.  As expected, now, Kiara was very visibly clad in only a gray tight-fitting bikini and Willa hastily offered her a towel to dry off.  "It's where you need to do your safety stop," She added as she began to wring out her sopping-wet hair.

John B. smiled appreciatively.  "Okay, cool.  Thanks."

Seconds later, Pope Heyward stepped around Willa and did a quick one-over of John B., ensuring that every piece of the scuba gear was exactly where it was supposed to be.  After taking a careful glance at the amount of air left in the tank, Pope passed the pressure gauge over to John B. "You need to make sure you have enough air to decompress," He explained.

"How much do I need?" John B. questioned.

Pope timidly shrugged his shoulders.  "Unclear," He answered hesitantly.  There was only so much knowledge he had on scuba diving, after all.  And while Pope may have easily been the smartest of the five, he did not have a photographic memory.  "Breathe as little as possible," He suggested.

John B. swallowed tightly.  "Great."

"Zen," JJ soothed from behind Willa.  "Think Zen, you know?"

As JJ began to imitate breathing through the mask in hopes of easing John B.'s unsettled nerves, Willa took a calmer approach.  Taking a step closer to the taller boy, she lifted a soft hand to John B.'s bare, warm shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.  "Be careful," She pleaded.  "Between you and me, I don't know what this group would do without you."

"Let's hope that doesn't happen, then, yeah?" John B. replied surely, smiling softly back at Willa.  He knew—well, he almost knew—that nothing would likely happen to him down at the bottom of the marsh.  He had lived his whole life in these waters; all the pogues had.  "Try not to kill JJ while I'm gone, okay?"

At the mere suggestion, Willa and JJ's faces simultaneously contorted with distaste and they both retorted back, "No promises."

John B.'s smile only widened with their responses.  He already knew to expect no finer answer from the bickering duo and, at this point, figured that it was probably better that Willa and JJ continued to argue and kept themselves distracted.  If they were too alone in their thoughts, that was when it would get dangerous for the pair.  John B. just also hoped that they would not always be arguing; that hopefully, one day, JJ would be able to see in Willa what he saw in her now.

Pope abruptly clapped John B. on the shoulder, ripping him from his dazed thoughts of his first friend and his newest friend.  "Hey, if we get caught in the marsh, we're basically screwed, so, you better get a move on," He advised.  John B. nodded his head in understanding and then turned on his heel to meet his fate.  With slow steps, he carefully walked to the edge of the stern, likely as prepared to jump in and get it over with as he was ever going to be.  When he was finally in place, Kiara suddenly called him back for an urgent final word.

Willa's eyes widened in surprise as Kiara Carrera hastily crossed the distance to John B. and quickly planted a soft kiss to his cheek.  From the corner of her eye, Willa soon found herself looking to JJ for a silent explanation, but he and Pope were already looking at each other, each seemingly as confused as Willa by the sudden action.  How the hell had Willa missed that?  Oh, God.  She had not stepped on any toes, had she?  The last thing she ever wanted to do was get between an already said for couple.  Willa Deveraux had already had her share of summer and winter flings stolen from her in the past; she had never wanted to feel that heart-wrenching pain of betrayal again, so she would never intentionally inflict it on anyone else.

Finally, Kiara pulled back, but never allowed her auburn eyes to stray from the boy in front of her.  Her plump cheeks were burning a shy, rosy red as she asked, "Diver down?"

John B. gave a single nod, his hickory eyes glowing warmly in the July sunlight as he looked around to each of his friends for what he hoped would not be the final time.  "Diver down," He confirmed.

With a final salute, John B. rocked backwards and allowed himself to fall into the open marsh.  Water sloshed loudly against the side of the boat as John B. broke the surface and when the boat began to rock unsteadily against the man made waves, Willa hesitantly grabbed onto the edge of her seat to ensure that she did not go toppling into the water after John B. Routledge herself.

Once John B. was completely below the water, Willa Deveraux dropped down onto her hands and knees near the end of the stern and carefully peered over the edge, staring down into the rippling water.  For a long moment she saw nothing at all within the murky darkness, but soon her narrowed sage orbs caught sight of the excess bubbles from the scuba respirator and she breathed a long sigh of relief knowing that—so far—everything was good.  Willa could only hope that it remained that way as she followed John B.'s watery shadow, watching as he continued to sink and sink until he was finally lost to the deep abyss of the marsh.

➸➸➸

HARDLY ANY TIME HAD passed since John B. disappeared beneath the marsh water's murky surface, but to the four individuals waiting anxiously above the water for his return, time could not have been passing any more horrendously.  Willa was nervously biting on her chipped thumbnail as she stared over Pope's shoulder, watching the hands of his wristwatch slowly tick past to see how much time John B. had before he needed to resurface.  There was already a multitude of things that could possibly go wrong down there and Willa did not want John B. being down there a single second longer than what the math genius, Pope, had already determined to be safe timing.

Willa exhausted a shaky breath and raked her jeweled fingers through her knotted dark locks, wincing painfully as a strand of her hair curled tightly around one of her jagged rings.  Unfortunately, the sharp pain did little to distract her from the reality of her situation and she hesitantly licked her lips as she looked back up towards the setting sun.

At this rate, it was going to be a long night.

Suddenly, at the faint distant chirp of an approaching boat, Willa's head instantly snapped up in alarm.  Hastily turning her body around, Willa's light green eyes widened in horror at the sight of an approaching harbor patrol, its red-and-blue light spinning round and round to loudly declare its presence to the young panicked teenagers.

"Shit!" JJ cursed.  "Guys, that's the police."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Pope groaned.

"What do we do?" Willa demanded, rising carefully to her feet.  Her stomach tightened painfully as her bare feet scrapped across the rocky floor in her hurry to back away from the boat's edge.

"Just act frickin' normal!" Kiara hissed, awkwardly tossing her hair over her shoulder.

"You call that normal?!" Pope snipped back.

As the patrol boat's siren blared again, Willa swallowed tensely and looked carefully to the blonde boy standing near the bow of the HMS Pogue.  "JJ, you were kidding about the kook bait, right?" She asked quietly.

"What?" JJ shot back.  "Oh, right." The frown of confusion hastily slipped from his face as he let out a small chuckle.  "I already forgot about that.  That's a great idea, though."

"JJ!"

"Relax, sunshine.  I was kidding," JJ reassured, his voice dropping to hardly more than a whisper to avoid being overheard by the patrol.  "But you better be ready to use your name if we need it.  And get away from the stern while you're at it."

Willa attempted to feign nonchalance as she hesitantly stepped closer to the bow of the boat, hovering in the tight space between JJ and Pope.  The only one who had yet to move was Kiara, who was trying her best to look as casual as possible from where she rested on the far end of the Pogue, lounging idly in the sun in hopes of feigning an innocent sun bathe.

Standing there in terrified silence, Willa Deveraux could hardly comprehend how JJ, Pope and Kiara were—though, she supposed, still obviously nervous—managing to remain calm in the face of certain doom.  This—taking the cops head-on—was completely out of the kook girl's element, and it was not one that she ever had time to prepare for.  Now, do not get her wrong.  Willa was a troublemaker, sure.  She had run from the cops from parties, also sure.  But had she ever been forced to interact face-to-face with a cop when they were on duty?  Absolutely not.  Her heart was now practically pounding out of her chest as she clenched her jaw tightly and forced her arms to rest delicately at her sides.  She had nothing to hide.  Nope.  She had nothing to hide at all.

"Evening, officers," Pope greeted politely as the patrol pulled up alongside their own smaller boat.

"Evening," Kildare County deputy, Victor Shoupe, responded coolly.  Standing further behind him was deputy Rochelle Plumb, and her eyes were narrowed carefully, watching the four teenagers rather closely.  "How're you kids doing?  Did you know the marsh is closed?"

JJ softly shook his head and leaned his arms against the locked wheel.  "No," He answered.

"No, sir, we didn't know that," Willa confirmed, lying right through her teeth with ease.  On the outside, her appearance gave away nothing, but on the inside the young girl was suddenly giddy with long since forgotten nerves.  Wow.  In all her sixteen years, she had never lied to a cop before.  Willa Deveraux could almost admit that she liked this newfound thrill of evading the law in an entirely new way.

Pope tilted his head to the side.  "Why is it closed?" He wondered.

"Well, we're conducting a search out here.  A boat went down," Shoupe informed briskly, looking over the heads of the teenagers towards the far-off horizon.  "Have you seen anything?"

"No boats," Pope insisted.

"Nothing," Kiara affirmed.

"Huh," Shoupe hummed, allowing his eyes to fall away from the water and back the four unmoving teenagers.  As his gaze scanned over their many faces, searching for any lie within their pointed, placid expressions, Shoupe's light, beady eyes abruptly fell on Willa and he tilted his head to the side in confusion.  She did not belong with this mix of kids and Willa could see that written plainly on his face before he even spoke.  "You're that Deveraux girl, aren't you?" He wondered.  "Alden's daughter?"

In that moment, if JJ Maybank had been standing any closer to her, he surely would have been nudging her forward, silently speaking a single order.  Sell.  And so, she planned to do just that.  Clearing her throat, Willa nodded her head and lightly swept her hair back over her shoulder. "Yes, sir," She confirmed.  "That's my dad."

"He didn't tell you the marsh was closed?"

"Oh, no," Willa answered with a shake of her head.  "I haven't seen him."

Shoupe's eyes widened.  "You haven't?"

Willa momentarily froze, but in her silence, Kiara Carrera was instantly there for the narrow recover, "Because she stayed the night at my house last night," She butted in easily, and Willa inwardly sighed in relief.  "And we've been out here since this morning, sir."

JJ coughed.  "But we should probably be getting home—"

"Where's your other friend that you always hang with?" Shoupe interrupted rather rudely, his expression tightening as he looked about the open motorboat cabin suspiciously.  Whether the deputy could prove it or not, there was certainly a missing body missing from this natural equation.  The group of pogues could only hope that Willa's new presence could now make up for John B.'s secretive absence.  "He here?"

Willa struggled to keep her eyes level with the officers in the opposing patrol boat when all that she genuinely wanted to do was look back down towards the murky waters below.  Little did Shoupe or Plumb know, but the boy that they were now so eagerly looking for was swimming right below them, stirring up dirt and digging up what they would likely have passed right over.  Now, Willa could only hope that the twenty-five minutes beneath the surface had not yet passed for if John B. came up in the middle of this Willa was going home in handcuffs for sure.

"He's working," Kiara informed with a shrug.

"Oh." Shoupe vaguely nodded his head in understanding, but his body language suggested that he was otherwise less than convinced with Kiara's answer.  Pursing his lips, he passed his walkie-talkie off to Plumb and carefully stepped onto the edge of his own boat.  "I'm going to check your little boat out," He decided bluntly.

Because the teenagers obviously could not say 'no', Pope merely nodded his head and stepped back to allow the deputy room.  "Hop aboard," He beckoned, though his tone was now less than cheerful and polite. 

"Go ahead and check her out," JJ piped in irritably.

Shoupe smiled, but the gesture did not reach his eyes.  "Thank you, boys."

As Shoupe quickly set about to examine the small HMS Pogue—likely in search of alcohol or drugs—Willa Deveraux decided to take other matters that she could control into her own hands.  While Kiara, JJ and Pope were busy ensuring that Shoupe did not look too closely at the water below them by distracting him with life vest safety, Willa instantly turned her attention back to the lonely officer who had opted to remain in the patrol boat.  Crossing her arms lightly over her chest, Willa smiled cheerfully and took a warm, welcoming step forward. 

"How're you doing, Mrs. Plumb?"

Rochelle Plumb's hazel eyes flickered away from Victor Shoupe and over to the young, inquiring girl. Her gaze narrowed but her expression was still calm, nonetheless.  "I'm fine, Willa," She responded curtly.  For a brief moment, Willa thought that the deputy would leave it at that, but when Plumb finally opted to speak again Willa knew that it was not in the older woman to be as cruel and rude as the other officers were prone to be in the department.  "I hope you're having a good summer?" She questioned.

"I'm trying to," Willa confessed with a soft, dainty chuckle.  "How about Nico?"

And there she goes.

At the sudden change of topic to her own teenage son, Plumb's face softened drastically, and Willa's formal smile widened just the slightest with her own newfound victory.  Willa had learned long ago that bringing up one's family always made the conversation sway and guards drop; suddenly, as if pulled by an invisible force, the current whereabouts of a person became not as important when their thoughts were now on their loved ones, and Willa knew exactly how to play that to her advantage.  It was her oldest trick in the book.

"He's good," Plumb warmly answered, letting her hands rest idly on her hips as she fell into a more relaxed position.  "He's actually got an interview for a scholarship coming up."

"Oh, really?" Willa prodded curiously.  "What scholarship?"

"The Lucas T. Vanderhorst Merit," Plumb informed, smiling proudly for her son's accomplishments.  "He's one of the finalists."

"What?" Willa exclaimed with a beam.  "That's so exciting!  You'll have to tell him congratulations for me."

"I certainly will," Plumb promised.  "He'll be happy to hear from you."

Willa forced herself to keep smiling, feigning innocence and positivism, even as she hesitantly glanced over her shoulder to see Shoupe balanced on the stern of the boat, peering carefully into the murky water below.  JJ, Kiara, and Pope were all hovering behind him, each one of them practically holding their breath and praying to the stars above and the seas below that John B. Routledge would not soon be found with an entire load of contraband on him.

Willa's stomach tightened nervously once more at the mere thought of John B.  She wondered what he was doing right now; was he waiting right below the surface, just out of eye's reach, or was he still searching through the mess of the shipwreck, carefully biding his time in the darkness of the marsh?  Either way, the twenty-five minutes had to be surely approaching any second now, and these cops needed to leave or else they would soon be finding another dead body in the marsh.

But finally, after a long moment, Shoupe reluctantly pulled away from the stern and crossed back over to the patrol boat.  "All right," He sighed.  "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

"Sure is," JJ cooed, exhaling a loud sigh of relief that was, thankfully, lost in the warm breeze around them.

"Very beautiful," Pope agreed.

"Well." Shoupe grabbed Plumb's awaiting hand and carefully stretched over the open space of water between the two boats before carefully stepping back down in his own.  "Let us know if you see anything on your way out," He instructed.

Kiara nodded.  "Will do."

"We'll be gone soon, sir," JJ promised.

"Yes, you will."

As Victor Shoupe started up the engine, Willa politely rose her hand to Rochelle Plumb.  "Tell Mr. Plumb I said hi!" She called sweetly.

Plumb smiled appreciatively; now so, so completely unsuspecting of Willa's false facade.  The group of pogues could almost feel bad for the older woman.  Almost, but not quite.  "You do the same for your mom and dad, all right?" She said back to her.  "I'm sure Robert would love to go fishing with Alden once the waters have calmed down from the hurricane."

"Yes, ma'am.  I'll make sure to tell him," Willa promised.  Of course, she would truly be doing no such thing, but what Plumb did not know would not hurt her.  "Have a good evening."

And with a final, long-awaited farewell, the two boats separated within the otherwise quiet marsh.  As JJ, Kiara and Pope moved about in an awestruck daze, trying to snap back from their false personalities, Willa Deveraux continued to smile and wave at Shoupe and Plumb until the patrol's boat had finally turned around, and Willa was now only looking at their backs.  Once they were truly and completely gone from their area of the marsh, finally, Willa let her arms drop back to her sides and let out a load groan as she plopped back down onto the side of the boat to catch her breath.

"Oh, my God!" Kiara sighed loudly.  "Did that really just happen?"

"That really just happened," Pope confirmed, so entirely wound up with nerves that he could only laugh to release his panic and fear.  Kiara began to laugh, too, but only because Pope Heyward now seemed awfully close to going over the edge of sanity.  Not that he had not already been balancing that fine, careful line before this very moment, anyway.

"Okay . . . But what the hell was that?"  At the sudden, explosive question Willa hesitantly lifted her head and stared back against the burning sunlight to find none other than JJ looking down at her, his eyes furrowed in disbelief.

"That, JJ, was small talk," She informed, a twinge of annoyance underlying in her tone.  With every fiber of her body, Willa absolutely hated small talk, but also, she hated even more that she was remarkably good at it.  "A skill acquired over years and years of horrid parties thrown by my parents that I had no choice but to be part of."

"Impressive," Pope praised.

"Wow," JJ Maybank murmured, letting himself sit back down on the ledge on the opposite side of the boat from Willa.  He sounded truly impressed by her kiss-assing skills—as if that were a skill to be proud of.  Now, though, getting down and dirty in the Outer Banks marshes with the pogues, Willa was starting to believe that it actually was something to be proud of, and she was not all that bothered by that conclusion.

"Yeah, I know," Willa Deveraux huffed tiredly as she looked back down to the floor of the boat, completely unaware that JJ Maybank was now currently smirking down at her as she, too, smirked at herself.  Lying to the cops?  Maybe she was not such a kook after all.

"It's a blessing and a curse."

~~~~~~~~~~

willa is the biggest kiss ass i know and i am allllllll here for it.

wow this chapter was so much fun to write, willa is truly interacting with the pogues!! ahhhh and i love it so so much!! i hope you all enjoyed this chapter, so what're you thinking?! how're we feeling about willa now? we've got a pretty crazy boat chase coming up in the next chapter!! i'd love to hear what y'all are thinking 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!

also, i'm just genuinely curious... even though we're nowhere near close to determining a love interest for willa, what're y'all thinking??? who are you feeling her vibing with? anyone that you're rooting for yet?!

stay safe and stay well.

—B.

i've also decided that i am now going to be making outer banks memes a regular thing in these author notes, so please, enjoy. all credits goes to the makers on tumblr and instagram; i take no claim for any of these hilarious bits.