[ xvi. bury the dead ]

➸➸➸

THE COLOR OF JOHN B. Routledge's bandanna was a deep navy blue. But ragged and tattered through many years of use and scratchy from too many washes, Willa Deveraux soon came to realize that the thick fabric had since lost much of its original shade.

Initially when the bandanna had been handed to her, Willa was not sure why she had noticed these strange details—why they suddenly mattered to her when she had never considered them before—but it surely might have had something to do with the fact that the deep navy color was now spotted and tainted. Tainted by a coppery red color, making the small cloth stiff in odd places and incredibly wet and sticky in others. Before that afternoon, John B.'s bandanna had been clean, but now it was stained entirely in Willa's own blood.

Willa slowly let her tearful, heavy-lidded eyes flicker away from the wadded-up bandanna in her scraped palm, and onto her rings which were now scuffed and dirty from her fall—from her attack. Blood had dried beneath her chipped fingernails, and now Willa was unsure if it was her own or her assailant's. For the briefest moment, Willa hoped it was her own blood; she hoped that she had not drawn an X onto her own back by piercing the skin of the gunman, leaving him with a deadly vengeance against her. But then she thought otherwise. Willa knew the dried blood beneath her fingernails and etched into the crevices of her fingers belonged to the gunman. She had stabbed him with her keys. She had fought back. She had survived and she would not belittle herself of that minuscule victory by the fear of the unknown.

"So, how's it workin' out, kid?"

Pulled from her rattled thoughts by the sound of Susan Peterkin's inquiring and formal tone, Willa could not help but look up from where she sat alone in the backseat of the sheriff's vehicle. The question was directed towards John B., who now sat tiredly but alert in the passenger's seat, quietly thankful to even be breathing. After Peterkin had joined Willa on the opposite side of the chain link fence, the sheriff had slowly helped the petrified young girl back to her feet, and they had worked together to carry a somewhat coherent John B. into her awaiting vehicle. In the time that it took for John B. to slowly regain consciousness, Peterkin had helped Willa to bandage up her bleeding knees in the back of the car, and had untied John B.'s bandanna from around his neck so that she may use it for her own bleeding chin. Though grateful for Peterkin's help, Willa remained silent throughout the ordeal, allowing the older woman to do her work as she secretly kept her own attention to the ailing John B., wondering if the Routledge boy was even responsive enough to notice that his bandanna was gone yet.

"It's a whole lot safer if you give it to me than anybody else," Peterkin continued cautiously when neither teenager opted to response, daring to break the silence of the vehicle once more.

Willa held her breath, her sage gaze locked on the back of John B.'s head. His naturally wavy hair was disheveled and knotted, and wet with sweat from their terrifying run. If Willa had not been with John B., had helped him be put into the sheriff's car, she might not have even recognized him from the back at all. The boy's shoulders were slumped with exhaustion, his own bleeding and scuffed hands laying aimlessly in his dirty lap, and his hickory eyes were locked out the window, staring out at a world that no longer made sense. Willa yearned to reach out to John B., to grab his shoulder and reassure him that he was not alone in this decision—but he was alone. This was his father's compass. This was his choice to make. It was up to John B. to determine what became of Big John's legacy.

So, Willa Deveraux held her tongue and lifted John B.'s stiff bandanna back to her scabbed chin, letting the tiny droplets of fresh, hot blood that still escaped her pierced skin find their homes in the deep navy blue fabric.

Finally, John B. exhaled a long breath and slowly fished the golden compass from his torn short's pocket. Both teenagers were more than relieved that it had not been stolen by the bearded gunman upon John B.'s electrocution—Peterkin truly could not have come at a better time. Or so Willa and John B. hoped. In the end, the compass was being taken from them in one way or another. Now, they could both only pray to the stars and the seas around them that the compass would find a safer home in new hands.

"Here," John B. muttered, the lone word trapped and guttural in his dry throat. With bitter distaste, he dropped the small golden compass into Peterkin's awaiting palm, and a quiet exhale of breath escaped the older woman's lips, as if she could hardly believe she was finally holding it.

Peterkin twirled the compass delicately between her worn fingers, her joints rickety and stiff from so many years of wielding the same weapon and holding the same steering wheel as she patrolled the same streets of Kildare County in the Outer Banks. "This thing probably saved your life. Concentrated the shock," The sheriff informed tightly, her own eyes never quite meeting John B.'s again. "Lucky."

"Lucky," John B. mocked dryly, tilting his darkened and bruised gaze in Peterkin's direction. "I wouldn't call anything about any of this lucky."

"You're alive, aren't you?" Peterkin countered.

From her place in the isolated backseat, Willa frowned, but much of her expression remained hidden beneath the bloody bandanna. "At what cost?" She argued, unable to keep the words of anger and distress tight within a cage in her own chest any longer. Fear was pulling at her, stripping her nerves away bit-by-bit, leaving her dangerously exposed to a potential fiery explosion, one that could violently obliterate the little composure she held left at all. "Giving the compass to you won't keep those guys off our backs," She pointed out coldly. "That's what those guys are looking for and they still think we have it."

Peterkin's narrowed eyes flickered towards the rearview mirror, her concentrated stare meeting Willa's own challenging one through a thin shard of glass. "They won't bother you anymore," She assured stiffly.

Willa glowered darkly. "You can't promise that—"

"I need you to trust me, okay?" Peterkin interrupted, cutting the young and stormy Deveraux girl off in her defiant tracks. The sheriff's stern tone pushed Willa back against her own leather seat without even a single physical touch. "This is over."

Willa Deveraux wanted to believe Susan Peterkin when she assured John B. and herself that they would be safe from this moment on, but she knew it could never be that easy. Peterkin did not know the gunmen like they did; she did not know the lengths that those gunmen would go to find the compass. Willa and John B. could have been kidnapped today—they could have very well been killed right in the very streets they had grown up on. And Willa believed that they very much still could.

This fight was not over. No. Not by a long shot.

Unfortunately, Peterkin did not have it within herself to properly listen to the further complaints and protests of Willa and John B., and as soon as the Routledge boy was strong enough to lift both his arms at the same time, and recite the date, time, and the mayor of their county without any delay, she was more than prepared to send the two kids back on their (un)merry way. Back onto the very street where they had just nearly lost everything.

Not once did the sheriff offer to take either teenager to their own home—like any officer should have done on any other occasion. Willa could only figure that Peterkin was more than desperate to move the compass to a safer location, even if that meant taking it far, far away from the boy who deserved it most.

Now standing back on the asphalt that was stained with Willa's own blood, the Deveraux daughter crossed her arms tightly over her chest and swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. Beside her, John B. was looking ahead, back towards where they had come from, but Willa was not ready to move on just yet. Slowly, the smaller girl stepped around John B., and turned her focused sage gaze back towards the idle-sitting sheriff's vehicle, parked off to the side of the road. Peterkin had her window rolled down but was mere moments away from rolling it back up, closing away the two teenagers from her sight for good, before Willa ultimately called out to her for a final time.

"Sheriff Peterkin," Willa addressed cautiously, causing the sheriff to abruptly look up and out the tinted window. "You won't tell my dad about this, right?"

For a long moment, the older woman was silent as she peered across at Willa. Looking her up and down, bloodied and dirtied, Peterkin had all the power in the world to ruin Willa Deveraux's life, and she knew it. With a single push of a button, Alden Deveraux could be downtown in a moment's notice, and Willa would never see John B. Routledge again. She would never see any of the pogues again. The mere thought terrified Willa, but her fate was no longer in her own control. Not this time. Not like this, forced between reality and hope. For at the end of the day, regardless of what she told herself, she was still a Deveraux child and all secrets made their way to the surface of their darkened and broken family sooner or later, shattering what little trust might have been left.

And as Peterkin finally opened her mouth to speak, Willa supposed, in the end, that only time would tell if Peterkin would protect her—as all emergency personnel were sworn to do—or let her fall—as even the most selfish of human beings would do with faced with the possibility of an uncollected treasure set aside all for themselves.

"Don't give me a reason to."

And with that final, looming warning hanging over her head, Peterkin was gone.

➸➸➸

LIKE SHE HAD PROMISED only moments before disaster struck the two teenagers downtown, Willa Deveraux drove John B. Routledge back into the heart of the Cut, deep into the marshes where the lonely Chateau lied in wait for company.

Neither teenager spoke the entire ride back towards the south side of the island, both of them lost in their own haunted thoughts, their gazes locked out the same window but seeing very different things. Willa's eyes continued to flicker from the open road and then back towards her scuffed and bloodied fingers wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel that her knuckles were white, her skin stretched so tightly over her bones. Thankfully, her grip concealed the tremble that rattled throughout her body, determined to break her into a thousand pieces. When Willa had first climbed into the driver's seat with tears in her eyes John B. had offered to drive, but she insisted firmly, even in her fear, that she was fine. This was her car. If anyone was going to drive it—or wreck it in their delirium—it was going to be her.

It was not until Willa had parked the Jeep safely in the dying grass of John B.'s front yard, the vehicle now mere feet away from the Chateau, that she found that she could finally let go of the wheel with the certainty that no harm would befall her in the next few moments. With a rattling twist of her bare, burning fingers, Willa pulled the keys from the ignition, and as the gentle music immediately cut off, silence settled over the two teenagers who had yet to find the power to climb from the vehicle. For as soon as they stepped back onto the earth, they were right back where they had started. Regardless of what Peterkin said, Willa did not believe life could return to the way it was so simply. Until she knew for certain that those two gunmen were behind bars, Willa and John B. were still being hunted and they were still in danger.

Willa slowly let her keys fall into her lap, the jagged metal cool against her clammy skin, and soon reached for the navy bandanna that was also wadded up into a loose ball on her legs. As her jeweled fingers unfolded the bandanna, Willa's chest grew tight at the sight of her coppery blood looking back at her, and she swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry about your bandanna," She murmured softly to John B., guilty of leaving unwanted stains on property that was not hers, even when she had never asked to bleed in the first place. "I'll wash it for you," She added reassuringly.

Beside her, John B. waved a comforting hand and let his greasy and dirty arm fall back onto the spotless, light tan console between them. "Don't worry about it," He soothed gently. Looking between their two mucky appearances, Willa tried to not think too much of how much grime and dirt they were now leaving behind in the Jeep, tried to not think too heavily on that fact that Ace would notice it all instantly. "How's your chin?" John B. questioned a moment later, his voice filled with tired concern, pulling her from her thoughts. "Looks like the bleeding's stopped."

Despite herself, Willa reached upward and ran a fingertip over the growing scab on her chin. Pain immediately reflected in her touch and though it was a relatively small gash, it still hurt, nonetheless. Even worse, though, was the pain she felt in her scuffed knees. She could barely keep her legs still, her skin flaring and stinging as the hot, humid air continued to hit at the raw scraps. Willa refused to look down, even as she was certain her right knee—the one that had taken much more damage—was still bleeding. "Hurts," was finally all that she could muster in response to John B. after several long moments of silence. Slowly, Willa soon tilted her head in his direction, and found that he was already looking at her. His gaze immediately dropped from her eyes and down to her chin, and nerves knotted tightly in her empty stomach as his tensed expression. "How's . . . everything?" She questioned lightly, unsure of where even to guide her hands in John B.'s general direction, knowing his entire body was likely in so much pain from those scorching volts.

"Hurts," John B. admitted in return. He then smiled grimly; an expression that did not reach his warm hickory eyes. "But I guess . . . we're just lucky to be alive."

Willa inwardly scoffed and shook her head at the echo of Peterkin's words, bouncing around in her aching skull. "I don't feel lucky," She muttered.

John B. shook his head in bitter agreement. "I'm sorry you weren't able to get your dress," He apologized dryly.

"I didn't want to pick it up today, anyways," Willa attempted to brush off. She wanted to add more to that statement—that maybe this was all just a sign that she should not attend Midsummers—but Willa held her acidic tongue. She could hardly joke right now. This was not about her. This was not a light situation. This was heavy. So, so heavy that Willa still felt as if the gunman was holding her down to the hot ground, his large body crushing her with his deadly rage. "What are you going to tell the others, John B.?" She asked fearfully. "About . . . about those guys? And the compass?" Unable to hold the Routledge boy's gaze any longer, Willa looked back down to her car keys and curled her fingers tightly into the chain, pressing tightly down on her own skin in hopes of finding an even more painful distraction than her growing reality at hand. "And . . . and Peterkin?"

John B. scratched narrowly at the back of his sunburnt neck, his expression furrowing with reluctance. "We tell them the truth," He insisted. "All of it. Even if they are upset about the compass, which I know they will be." He exhaled a tight breath and shook his head, his wavy locks stiff with dried sweat. "Telling them what happened . . . I know—I know that it probably won't change anything. How could it?" He countered genuinely. "But at least—"

"Oh, my God."

In the midst of John B.'s quiet rambles, his voice was swiftly drowned out by the incessant, loud clinging of Willa's car keys as she hurriedly overturned them and her frantic exclaim of horror that soon followed. John B.'s words were lost on his tongue as he immediately turned towards the smaller girl in the driver's seat and his face dropped further at the ghostly fear that was quickly forming on her own pinched features. "What is it?" He questioned worriedly. "What's wrong?"

Willa Deveraux's hands were trembling harshly as she lifted them higher. "M-My keys," She gasped, her jaw dropping wide like a gaping fish struggling for its breath. "S-some of my keys are g-gone."

John B. frowned in alarm. "What?"

"John B., my h-house key is gone! The k-key to my b-backdoor is gone!" Willa exclaimed loudly, her voice dangerously stricken with panic. "H-He has it!"

"Who does?"

"The gunman!"

John B. swallowed grimly, and his own stomach plummeted with dread as his gaze shifted towards the rattling keys that the Deveraux daughter could hardly hold onto any longer, the metal jagged tinted with dark red. Without hesitation, he reached over and grabbed Willa's hands, but she would not dare hand the keys over just yet. "Hey, hey, you don't know that for sure," He attempted to console. "You could have just dropped it—when you were running, okay?"

"No!" Willa choked out, her voice cracking loudly with a single word. The heavy, forgotten sobs were beginning to build in her throat, choking her where she sat. The weakening dam in her head was cracking and crumbling—the agonized explosion within herself that she had been fearing from the moment she had been placed in the backseat of Peterkin's car was ready to blow. "I didn't d-drop it. It fell off a-and he took it. And now—and now my f-family—"

"Don't do that to yourself," John B. warned seriously. "Nothing is going to happen to your family. Those guys want the compass. Not you. Not you, Willa." He squeezed her hands tighter, but it was futile comfort as she hastily pulled them out of his grasp, unable to stay still. Her left hand—the one not holding the keys—hurriedly stretched outwards and towards the window, as if it might stabilize her spinning vision, her haphazard world. "Even if they have the keys, they're not going to waste their time going door-to-door to see where it fits."

Willa's eyes were a storming sage green, her glassy orbs swirling madly with terrified tears. She could not even move her head to look at John B. as she spoke. "What if t-they already know where I live?" She countered, her entire body growing rigid. "They knew w-where you lived!"

For once, John B. was left without an explanation, and in that silence that formed in the open void between them Willa felt her control slip away as the keys fell from her trembling grasp and clattered into one of the cup holders in the console below. Panic surged through her unsteady system, and her nerves screamed in agony as the darkest depths of her mind spiraled away from her, each scenario growing worse and worse in her mind's eye. Clenching her eyes shut, Willa hoped that the blackness would steal reality away from her, but in the darkness her fear only festered, scorching against every narrow crevice of her being. Willa's arms were shaking profoundly, and her feet were pressed down on both the stilled gas and brake pedals like they were frozen, her entire body now crumbling beneath the tremors that pooled in her twisted stomach, burning deeply into her tissues and carving into her bones.

"Willa?" John B. called uncertainly. The Deveraux daughter could sense the growing fear in the Routledge son's own tone as she chillingly fell apart in front of him. "Willa, hey, look at me."

Willa attempted to turn to John B., she truly did, but all she could see within her own mind was the consequences of her own actions—of her own existence—coming back to harm her unsuspecting and innocent siblings. Her heart thumped painfully against her rib cage as she thought of her brothers and her sisters face-to-face with the same two gunmen that had threatened herself and John B., and his other friends so harshly and venomously. She then thought of little Rayne—who was only four years old—the baby of the family, potentially forced to hide beneath her toddler bed as criminals invaded their home, searching for an object that none of the Deveraux's had never even known existed.

She thought of one of her family members taking a bullet—when it should have been directed towards her instead.

Willa let out a painful gasp, the raw sound ripping through the silence of the Jeep. "John B., I can't—" She stuttered out between sharp and shallow breaths. She felt suffocated, as if she were drowning in the cold waves that called out to her from her own bedroom window. The same bedroom window that may soon be her only escape if the gunmen ever found her home.

As Willa began to hyperventilate, John B. hurriedly shoved the passenger's side door open and clambered to his feet. In an instant, he was moving around to the other side of the Jeep and pulled the driver's side door open, coming face-to-face with Willa who had blindly turned to him. In the dying sunlight, her sage gaze gleamed uneasily, her fear of the unknown so evident in her pained eyes; her round cheeks were stained with salty tears, each gentle trickle cutting though the dirt and grime that clung to her skin as she exhaled a shuddering breath. "What can I do?" John B. questioned softly, fighting to keep the worry from his own tone.

"I need—I n-need—out."

John B. nodded his head in quiet understanding and reached around Willa to undo her seatbelt when her own trembling fingers could not. "I'm right here, Willa," John B. soothed. His hands went to her waist and he gently picked her up, helping her from the driver's seat. "You're here." Willa stumbled as her feet hit the ground, her sobs whispering into the treetops above them as John B. held her close, speaking softly and calmly in her ear. "It's okay. Breathe, Willa."

"M-My family—they're not s-safe," Willa whimpered, swaying in John B.'s hold. "—and it's my f-fault—I can't—J-John B.—" She swallowed painfully, like she was swallowing glass and bullets herself, and she reached out to grab the side-view mirror of the Jeep, but her jeweled fingers missed their target. "John B.," She squeaked out. "John." Willa's mind was spinning so dangerously she could not even call the boy by his rightful name anymore.

Suddenly, by no fault of her own, Willa's legs simply gave out beneath her, and she went crashing towards the dead grass below. At the abrupt shift of her weight, John B.'s arms instantly tightened around her limp form, attempting to soften her fall as he went down right alongside her, never letting her go. "Hey, hey, I've got you," John B. assured as a panicked yelp escaped Willa's hoarse throat. "It's okay. It's okay." As soon as both of their bare and scraped knees touched the ground, John B. was brushing her knotted locks from her face and pulling Willa's flailing body into his lap as he leaned back against the side of the dirty white Jeep. Holding her as tightly as he could against his warm bare chest Willa turned her head into John B.'s shoulder and cried hard, her frightful breath caught coldly in her unmoving lungs as the youthful life seemingly was pulled from her raging, hammering heart.

"I've got you," John B. murmured tightly, pulling Willa even closer against his own trembling body, until their tears and their sweat, and their petrifying fear all mixed together as one.

➸➸➸

SLOWLY, WILLA DEVERAUX CAUGHT her breath once more and her tears eventually dried, but it was still a long time after that fateful collapse on the Chateau's dead lawn before she truly regained her composure again and John B. Routledge was able to help her over to his front porch.

The two teenagers were now sitting side-by-side on the top wooden step. John B.'s long, muscled legs were stretched outwards on the steps, his feet nearly touching the grass, whereas Willa held her own smaller body close, her knees curled against her chest as her hurting chin sat atop them. There was no space between Willa and John B. now, their sides pressed so closely together where they sat, reminding each other that no matter what had happened—no matter what was still bound to happen—that they were not alone in this very moment. And they both needed that reassurance whether they knew it or not. Whether they wanted to embrace that fearful weakness or not.

Willa swallowed stiffly and allowed her tired eyes to drift towards the lapping waters of the marsh. Sunset was upon the quiet Chateau, the night steadily approaching, but Willa knew that this day was far from over. While the sky was a deep, calming orange and the air was finally beginning to cool in just the slightest degree—Willa was convinced she could only feel the difference due to the fact that, for once, she was not moving. She was not running. She was not hiding. No, finally, in the midst of two chaotic days, Willa could just breathe.

After a while, Willa soon dared to break the silence. One way or another, she had to move on from what had happened only a few yards away. "Do you think you'll ever see that compass again?" She questioned.

John B. exhaled a quiet breath from his place beside Willa, and slowly brought his knees back up, sitting up straighter. "Is it bad," He addressed carefully, his head tilting to the side in curiosity. "even after all the trouble it's caused, that I say . . . I hope so?" He wondered.

Willa shook her head. "Not at all," She reassured genuinely. "That was your dad's compass. If it belonged to anyone after him, it belonged to you."

John B. held his hands up and drummed his calloused fingertips together, his eyes locked on his empty palms. "When I had that compass . . . I had a piece of my dad back. The last piece I was probably ever going to get," He murmured. "And even though it was just a compass . . . just a piece of cheap metal . . . I didn't feel so alone anymore."

At the brokenness in John B.'s defeated tone, Willa's brows furrowed together, and she turned her head to look at him, her expression softening with concern for the orphaned boy. "You're not alone," She insisted firmly. "You know that, right?"

John B. smiled softly, just the mere corners of his lips tilting upwards, at the sympathy of Willa Deveraux. But as always, Willa knew better than to take John B.'s innocent smiles for what they should have merely stood to be. For in the past several days, Willa had quickly come to realize that such actions were only shields for a greater pain. "It's complicated," He sighed.

And just as quickly as John B.'s smile appeared, it disappeared just as fast, too. Willa's eyes remained locked on John B.'s stature, watching as his head turned in her direction, hickory meeting sage as it now always did. It was a peaceful meeting of two souls; never stormy, never cold. It was as warm as Willa's own body had been after downing a fifth of whiskey with the party boy beside her, each of them lost in the moonlight and the stars, their cheeks hot from the alcohol in their veins and the crackling bonfire that burned just beyond the corners of their vision.

What Willa would not already give to be back in that moment with John B., when they were both just naive teenagers drunk on a beach, living in the playful shadows that loomed beyond the heavy realities that existed outside of summertime. Willa wished she could be sitting on that soft piece of driftwood rather than this splintered porch now, but she could not go back in time. At least, despite the craziness of her newfound world, of a world that should have never existed for a kook like herself, Willa found that her company had not changed. That even as doomsday called out to her, John B., somehow, always remained at her side.

So, when John B. Routledge finally leaned in to kiss Willa Deveraux, his warm and bruised lips pressing against her own, even though she was slightly caught off-guard, she instantly kissed him back. Because for the briefest of moments, Willa wondered if this was how the night at the Boneyard beach had been destined to end. A night that should have ended with summer heat and unbroken bliss, a kook and a pogue twisted together with cinnamon whiskey.

But, now, as a sobered and battered teenage kook and pogue kissed beneath the dying light of the marsh, holding onto a memory that neither wanted to lose, consumed in a place of so much urgency and fear—where there should have only been warmth between them, Willa now felt ice, too. And that coldness was what ultimately awoke her bleeding soul and snapped her back into her cruel reality. Because this was not the Boneyard beach, and Willa's soul that ached for serene warmth could not have it just yet. She knew it. This was not right. Not this way.

And then Willa finally pulled away, breathless, with her hands knotted in John B.'s unbuttoned shirt, dreading the moment when she knew she would have to let go entirely. "No, John B.," She rushed out, firm in her words as she shook her head, even when all she wanted was to lean forward into him even more. "We can't do this."

John B. was breathing heavily as he pulled away, too, but his hands were still holding her hips, his instincts still screaming to pull her closer. "Fuck." His eyes were still closed as he spoke next, nodding his head in agreement even as a bright tinge of red embarrassment burned beneath the tanned skin of his cheeks. "And now I just made things a lot more complicated."

Willa attempted to smile, but it surely came across as more of a grimace. "It's just . . . it wasn't the right time," She insisted quietly, letting her balled fists fall away from his shirt as her own shame began to creep up her spine. "We're both . . . feeling too much," She explained. "It's not fair to either of us. It's not real."

It's not real.

Three words that did not go unnoticed by either teenager, and as soon as they left Willa's lips, there was nothing that could be done to take them back. "I'm so sorry," John B. gushed out, scooting back, leaving multiple inches of space in between their heated bodies that had not been there before. "I shouldn't have done that."

Willa's heart leaped painfully. "No, no, you don't have to apologize," She consoled. "It wasn't just you. It was a heated moment. We just . . . we just survived all of that—" She lifted a hand outward towards the marsh, as if their surroundings were to blame—but all that John B. could see was her. "—and I think that's part of the reason it just happened the way it did," Willa sufficed. "You know?"

"Yeah."

A long moment of silence stretched over them, and Willa finally dared to look away from John B., unable to watch the warmth fade from John B.'s hickory gaze any longer. The warmth that she had so desperately wanted to hold onto. "Maybe I should go," She decided.

John B. frowned. "What about JJ's?"

"We can meet there?" Willa offered, fighting to keep her voice calm, even as her chest began to constrict once more. She hated this. This was a shattering pain she had not anticipated to feel—not for such a long, long time in her unfortunate life. "I'll have to take my car back home, anyways. It can't just sit here forever."

John B. Routledge did not respond vocally to her again, and as much as the realization hurt, Willa Deveraux knew that was her cue to leave. For a lingering moment, Willa looked to John B. once more, but he was already standing up, too. For the first time, hickory avoided meeting sage. And then Willa walked away, leaving John B. alone on his lonely front porch.

Crossing back over to the lonely Jeep Wrangler, Willa took her time climbing inside. As the door closed behind her, Willa abruptly choked in alarm, feeling the stiff and hot air within the vehicle encircle her weakened and hurting lungs. Letting her gaze fall away from the empty passenger's seat, her attention soon fell to her car keys that sat idly in the console. She did not want to touch them.

Unable to look at the haunted keys that would ultimately bring her home any longer, Willa lifted her head back up and peered through the windshield, watching as John B. finally slipped back inside his ravaged and destroyed home. Not once did he look back at her, but she wondered if he wanted to. She would have wanted to turn around, too. For several long minutes, Willa remained unmoving and watched the closed screen front door closely, her heart tightening uncomfortably as she withstood the deafening silence. She could feel her blood rushing in her ears, hot and warm against her flushed skin. Her skin that, in a single day's time, had been touched both by soft, bruised lips and rough, dangerous hands that reeked of gunpowder.

Willa Deveraux's heart broke as she thought of John B., and their unexpected kiss. A kiss desired for all the right reasons but crafted out of all the wrong ones. She had never meant to hurt him. It had simply not been the right time between them. They both had known that as soon as they had pulled away. Willa knew that. This was not a time when Willa could pretend that the world was not weighing down on her shoulders.

In only two days' time, Willa was no longer that girl that had snuck out to the Boneyard beach for a mindless party. She could not be that girl anymore. If she wanted to survive what was to come, she had to change. She could not hold onto the possibilities of the Boneyard beach any longer for they were already gone, just as the innocence of her entire summer was. But even as her mind convinced her to let go, Willa's defiant and stubborn heart was still beating with uncertainties.

Willa could not hold onto her own place in the Boneyard, but she could not forgo the bonds she had made there. She could not let John B.'s entire existence snuff away from her like it was nothing. Because it was not nothing. Not after their time in the Boneyard. Was she now a fool for attempting to ever run away, only to realize that she could not? Was she a fool for both fearing the unknown, but longing for it all the same? In the end, Willa begrudgingly knew that she would never find her answers locked away in the safety of her own car. If she turned away now, she would regret it forever. She would be alone, lost on an island that was forever ravaged by storms crafted both from nature and mankind.

And so, without another word, Willa opened her driver's side door once more and stepped back out onto the dead grass of the Chateau. About halfway to the porch, the screen front door swung open once more, and John B. appeared, his arms now filled with garbage and broken pieces of furniture that held no further use but to be discarded of.

John B. licked his lips hesitantly, looking her up and down uncertainly from where he stood above. "You're back?" He questioned cautiously.

Willa felt entirely small on the grass, and feebly stuffed her hands into her pockets. "I never left," She confessed with a shrug.

And once more, with three simple words that left Willa's lips, perhaps, these new ones could fill the void that three others had originally created. Slowly, John B.'s hickory gaze brightened at the realization that Willa was not going anywhere, and he stepped off the porch as his lips turned upwards warmly, truly into a smile. "Grab a broom, then," He snickered.

Willa playfully rolled her eyes and smiled back at the taller boy, before nodding her head in understanding as he walked past. As Willa made her way into the kitchen to retrieve what little cleaning supplies was left in the Routledge household, John B. promptly went outside into the main yard, closer to the marsh, to begin piling up the unsalvageable garbage of the home that was to be burned. To Willa's silent relief, even with the past hanging over their heads, they worked well together as they cleaned up the Chateau, and whenever Willa was not too busy sweeping up a pile of glass, she eagerly helped to move the heavier, broken furniture down to the growing pile with John B. Room-by-room, as the two teenagers worked side-by-side, the tension slowly subsided between them, each of them successfully pulling away from the heavy thoughts that threatened to drag them back down to the bottoms of the marshes that surrounded them.

Nearly an hour later, Willa could almost pretend that the kiss had not happened. Almost. But amidst their chit-chat and their jokes, there was an underlying heaviness that would not fade away so easily. For in the moments that Willa was not looking, John B. would watch her in silent wonder, and in response, whenever he was turned away, her curious eyes would follow wherever he went. It was not a longing within Willa per say, but a silent devastating ache all the same; a wound that stung as powerfully as the raw scraps on her own bare knees.

When most of the Routledge house was as cleaned as it was going to get, Willa soon found herself standing near the pile of battered belongings. Now also sprinkled throughout the pile were candy wrappers, cardboard pizza boxes and yellow, Pacifico beer cans. Willa's nose wrinkled at the smell of rooting food and older beer, and she crossed her bare arms over her chest. She had long-since removed her flannel and it was now looped lightly around her waist, her tank-top soaked with sweat from the strong heat within the home that had clung to her body as she worked. Nonetheless, she was thankful for the sweat. It cleaned her in a way, washing away the scorching touches of strangers that would haunt her in the long weeks and months to come.

Only a short while later, John B. returned from the depths of the Chateau, having spent the past twenty minutes privately scavenging through his father's office whilst Willa waited at an appropriate distance. Now, as he crossed back over to the pile with a bottle of lighter fluid in one hand and the large framed picture of Routledge family tree tucked under his other arm, Willa frowned in alarm.

"John B., what are you doing?" She questioned suspiciously. John B. did not respond immediately and Willa stepped back hesitantly as he tossed the family tree littered with the faces of his loved ones into the pile, and soon began to douse all of his belongings in the lighter fluid.

John B. slowly pulled a small box of matches from his pocket and lit a single one, watching the lone flame dance delicately on the hot, dying wind. "Burying the dead," He answered emotionlessly. Then, without another word, he tossed the match into the pile, letting it catch ablaze.

The blast of heat that ensued from the growing fire licked at Willa's cheeks and she took a further step back, growing closer to the water. With her arms still crossed tightly over her chest, she silently watched as John B.'s entire past seemingly burned before him.

Or, as she soon realized, most of his past.

For as quickly as John B. started the fire, regret immediately settled deeply in his heart and he yearned to put out the fire instantly, but it was the evident realization that hit him a mere second later that turned out to be a much stronger turning point. Without any warning to Willa at all, John B. quickly turned away to grab a long stick that could reach the burning family tree, and soon hurriedly pulled it out of the burning flames. "Oh, my God!" The Routledge boy exclaimed in surprise, stepping back as the steaming frame crackled at his feet. "That was close."

"What the hell was that?!" Willa gasped.

"Look. Look!" John B. Routledge cried, laying an excited hand on Willa's arm to pull her closer to the smoking family tree. "Redfield was never a place," He insisted. Willa frowned at the puzzling words that reached her ears as she leaned in closer to John B., peering through the hot plumes and down onto a corner of the family tree—down towards one of the eldest members of the Routledge family, whose former last name had never been Routledge at all. Not to begin with. And just like that, as Willa Deveraux had suspected prior in the afternoon, contrary to what Susan Peterkin had attempted to convince her with otherwise, this deadly manhunt for answers was far from over.

"It was a person."

~~~~~~~~~~

sorry, that kiss still doesn't mean anything.

or does it?

like i always say, only time will tell. because willa is nowhere near ready for a committed relationship right now. but i can kind of? confirm? that willa has a crush on john b., i guess.  but crushes can die... or they can grow to something more.  all i can literally say is just don't take this kiss to define the rest of the story.

on another note, i genuinely hope you enjoyed this chapter.  for the past couple of days i struggled with determining whether to have willa and john b. kiss or not, but it is pivotal to willa's character.  i hoped you enjoyed it.  i hope you understand it. 

but beyond just willa with john b., we're seeing willa's mindset already begin to change as the world changes around her.  she's in this now, whether she likes it or not.  not only could willa not drive away from the chateau because of john b., but also because she knows she's in this for the long haul now.  she cannot back out.  and that realization is going to start weighing heavily on her.  she's got a lot going on in her mind. so, i hope you all can understand the progressing development of willa's character that is going to be approaching very soon.

i know i'm likely not touching on all that i need to say for this chapter because a lot happened. but i would really 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!

stay safe and stay well.

--B.

instead of sharing a meme as i typically do, i would like to take this time to use this platform for love.  for good.  at the top of my bio on my page you will find a link with numerous ways to help create change in the battle against racism, the fight for equality, and the deliverance of justice for george floyd and countless others.  learn their names.  donate.  spread awareness.  educate yourself.  you can always make a difference.  thank you.