[ xvii. grave robbers ]

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AS SOON AS THE loudly crackling fire on the Chateau's front lawn was mostly put out, the numerous blackened and broken house belongings now lost within smoldering ashes, Willa Deveraux soon found herself following John B. Routledge off the familiar marsh-side property and into the unknown all over again.

In that heated moments that had followed the sudden revelation that Redfield was not actually a place on the island but rather a person on it, John B. had acted fast and hazardously, trying to reorganize his hectic life as he made back for the Volkswagen, leaving a spiraling Willa with no choice but to chase after him out of her own fear of being left behind in his hurried state. Now smelling like sweat and smoke, as the two teenagers set off deeper into Cut in search of JJ Maybank and Pope Heyward, John B. struggled to articulate his rambling thoughts in regard to the family tree that he had saved from the fire, and refused to speak more on the matter of his plans until the whole group was put back together, but Willa did not necessarily mind the suspense. In fact, it gave her time to prepare for the chaos that would inevitably ensue and ruin all their lives once more.

Finding JJ and Pope in the shadows of the Cut was relatively easy. Both boys had been on the outskirts of the Maybank property, down by the marshy water as they attempted to build their own generator to bring back to the Chateau. At the sight of the rusty Twinkie pulling up the road, spinning gravel and spewing dust, the pogue boys had been eager to abandon their chore and return to the hunt for answers . . . but the same could not be said for the last lingering member of the core four group. Willa was fairly unsurprised by Kiara Carrera's refusal to join, given that she had just been bailed out of jail by her father only hours prior but, of course, John B. would not give up without a fight.

And that was now how Willa found herself sitting alone at the front of the Twinkie, silent and brooding with her arms crossed over her chest in a naturally defiant nature, all the while JJ and Pope went about their own businesses in the back of the van, each of the three teenagers trying their best to not let the growing heat within the idly parked vehicle bother them. The easily recognizable Volkswagen van was now tucked back into the shade of a few nearby trees that outlined the parking lot of The Wreck, the only logical location left—aside from the Chateau—where Kiara could possibly be hiding from her friends.

JJ, who was sitting on the farthest back bench in the Volkswagen, was the first of the trio to break the humid silence as he turned his blonde head towards the window, his icy blue gaze locked on the popular tourist restaurant across the paved lot. "Wonder what John B. did to piss Kie off so bad," He commented dryly.

Pope followed JJ's calculated stare and he rubbed his palms together anxiously. "You think it's because of John B. that she won't come out?" He wondered.

"What else could it be?" JJ countered, frowning in confusion.

"I mean, she did technically get arrested," Pope pointed out quietly, his own inner thoughts still reeling from John B.'s hurried recount of the day's events, all the way from the chaos at Redfield Lighthouse on the far western coast to the violence of the downtown area of Kildare County. Over the span of the ten minutes it had taken to drive to The Wreck, Pope and JJ had gotten a lot more than they had asked for with their inquiring questions in regard to the ambush, each boy now a little bit more rattled by the banged-up appearances of John B. and Willa, both of them carrying fresh bruises and blood from their scrambles with the gunmen. "Even if it was only by association," Pope hurriedly added. "Well . . . I guess she did trespass, too."

"Oh, c'mon," JJ scoffed. "Kie's not afraid of the cops."

"What if she got grounded? What if she's not allowed to leave?"

"Pope, even you don't stay where you're supposed to when you're on lockdown from your pops."

As the two boys continued to spout ridiculous excuses for Kiara's certain whereabouts—every possibility progressing to something worse and worse with each passing minute—Willa Deveraux finally pursed her lips and let her arms fall away from her tight chest. "Maybe Kiara's just tired," She huffed out, feeling exhausted herself. "Or maybe she just doesn't want to go."

From the back of the van, the teasing Maybank boy made a sarcastic noise in the back of his throat. "We're talking about Kie," He snickered to the back of Willa's dark, curly head. "Not about you, kook bait."

Willa rolled her eyes at JJ's bitter nickname. "I'm here, aren't I?" She retorted coldly.

And even if neither boy could realize the prominence of Willa's little snark statement, her mere presence meant more than any of them would likely ever know or dwell upon. Because at the end of the day, her presence meant that she was alive, that she had not given up, that she was not going to hide. After all that she had experienced in that single day alone, she had more than enough excuse to not be there, camped out in The Wreck parking lot. In the past 48 hours—maybe more than that; she was honestly struggling to keep the moments apart now—Willa had been exposed to more guns than she had seen in her whole entire life, had bashed her chin wide open on scorching asphalt, and had ran so much that she had likely dropped more than a pound in sweat alone. But despite the blood, and bruises, and aches and pains that she felt shifting in her tensed body, her fragile bomb of a heart ticking and ticking towards an unforgiving execution, Willa Deveraux was still there, out in the open, stubbornly sat in the passenger's seat of John B.'s Volkswagen, awaiting the next piece of the deadly unpredictable puzzle.

At the brief thought of her bloody chin, Willa instinctively lifted a finger to her jaw and the pad of her thumb rubbed painfully against the growing prickly scab. With her free hand, she then quickly pulled down the passenger's side visor—silently relieved to see that a model like this vehicle had a small, accessible mirror—but the audible and sharp exhale of breath that soon inevitably escaped her lips was not one of solace, but rather one of horror.

Finally seeing herself in the mirror for the first time in several hours, Willa was brutally surprised at how horrible she looked; it was as if she had never even taken a shower at home that afternoon. Despite John B.'s navy bandanna she had used in an attempt to clean herself up, Willa's face and upper chest were shiny with grime, dirt, and dried coppery blood. Her hair did not look much better as her knotted and curled strands now stuck out awkwardly around her face, creating a curtain of sorts around her scuffed chin. And though her raw and stinging chin was uncomfortable to look at, the hardest sight to behold was her own eyes. The sage orbs that reflected back at Willa from the dusty mirror were dark and cold, heavy with exhaustion but alight all the same with a fear that could not be subsided even by the deepest of distractions.

"That'll leave one hell of a scar."

At JJ's intruding tone, Willa tore her attention away from her own eyes and peered deeper into the mirror, her gaze quickly locking on the blonde boy's twisted expression as he stared expectantly back at her. "What?" She questioned dryly, daring the catalyst that always ensued when sage met sapphire. "Are you some kind of scar expert or something?"

Always the pogue boy to keep a smile or smirk tucked away in his back pocket, JJ Maybank's eyes remained light and playful as he spoke, never once daring to suggest to the watchful gazes of his peers that he knew more of the harsh realities of broken skin than he rightfully should for a boy so young. "Oh, I know all about 'em," He joked, his lost and lingering laughter slicing through the shattered echoes of long-ago broken bones that lined his lungs, his ribs forever weakened from one too many unforgivable hits. But Willa Deveraux did not know any of this, and was entirely unsuspecting to the lone, pale and jagged scar that JJ revealed to her as he scooted away from the back bench of the van and over to the lone cushion tucked behind the driver's seat, getting ever more closer to the kook girl. "Coral's a tough son-of-a-bitch," JJ mused airily, twisting his left leg slightly so that Willa might get a better view of his bare, muscled calf, the tanned skin scarred from a brutal surfing accident. It was one of the only scars on JJ's lean body that could rightfully be blamed on the unpredictability of mother nature, and not on the ferocity of his own drunken father.

Being the ever curious spirit that she was, Willa's eyes could not help but wander away from the scar that ghosted below JJ's knee, her sage gaze moving downwards toward the faint white lines that threatened to poke up from the tops of his black crew socks. This newfound, hidden scar was deeper against the delicate, darkened skin of his shins and faintly purple near the edges, declaring its freshness. "That one from coral, too?" She wondered innocently.

JJ only continued to smile down at Willa, dropping his leg back down and away from her curious stare. "One scar at a time, sunshine," He drawled.

A lie was craving to be pulled from JJ's unbroken tone, but all that Willa could sense in return was his playfulness, and so she smiled briefly back at him, her expression lighter than it had been that entire afternoon. Slowly, her shoulders sunk, and she turned so that her back was pressed against the passenger's side door, giving herself more room to prop her right leg up onto the driver's seat. A large and thick bandage that had already spotted through with dark blood was wrapped around Willa's knee, though it was already beginning to peel with the sweat that glistened on her bare leg. "Wonder how bad this scar will be," She said to no one in particular, allowing her eyes to flicker casually between both pogue boys settled in the back seat.

Unsurprisingly, Pope's eyes were closely peeled on Willa's knee, and he swallowed thickly. "You should change that bandage," He suggested.

"I would if I could." Willa frowned. "But I don't have any others."

"Well, then, you should at least air it out," Pope clarified genuinely. He shrugged his shoulders as Willa and JJ looked at him, both of their glassy eyes squinted as if they were staring at the sun rather than at a boy who was simply trying to help. "It's not good to keep it covered all the time," He insisted. "An open cut needs oxygen just as much as it needs moisture."

"This happened less than two hours ago," Willa protested, matter-of-fact.

"Still—It could fester—Did you put any Neosporin on it?"

"No, I didn't put any Neosporin on it," Willa answered truthfully, daring a risk down at her knee. She supposed, quite frankly, that she was even lucky she had something to cover the wound with now. "Peterkin just slapped a bandage on."

"Did she wear gloves?"

Willa hastily cleared her throat, trying to dissolve the panic she could see building in the Heyward boy's dark, calculated eyes. "Pope, she was a little pre-occupied—"

"Oh, my God, she didn't wear gloves—"

"Don't worry about—"

"Do you know how—"

"It's fine, Pope! My knee is fine!" Willa harshly interrupted, her words cold and calloused as unanticipated, swallowed rage crawled its way back up her dried throat, burning through the irritation that silently stirred in her heart. With the building heat and hostility brewing in the Volkswagen, Willa was tired of holding her bitterness and exhaustion at bay. She did not have to be the answer to everyone's questions and demands, and she most certainly did not have to be everyone's distraction to their own inner problems. "My dad's a doctor, and I have five siblings who have all had their fair share of cuts and bruises that I have had to help take care of at one point or another. I think I know what I'm doing," She snipped out, her cheeks burning and her chin stinging. "So, just back off. I'm fine."

At Willa's sharp exclamation, Pope Heyward sunk back in his seat, his focused expression now shifting to one of suffocated defeat. "Okay, then," He abruptly dismissed. And though Willa could not possibly know it, could not see the emotions swirling behind his guarded eyes, Pope wanted to say more to her—he wanted to add 'When you get an infection, don't come crying to me', but then he thought better of his bitter statement and held his tongue. Because how could Willa Deveraux ever turn to a boy like him when she needed help? She barely knew him. He barely knew her. They were classmates. They were hardly friends. And by the end of the week, if John B. Routledge found the answers to his past that he so desperately sought, none of the pogues would likely speak more than two words to the tainted kook girl ever again.

A long moment passed by in awkward silence as Willa dropped her feet away from the driver's seat and rightfully turned away from the two boys in the back. With nowhere else to look to, Willa slowly let her eyes wander back towards The Wreck. More and more islanders were beginning to enter the small marsh-side restaurant, an invisible clock winding closer and closer to the dinnertime rush, but Willa was only trying to find two familiar faces amongst the growing, hungry crowd of locals and tourists alike. What the hell was taking John B. so long? Was Kiara really being that stubborn about all of this?

"Well, I don't know about you guys," JJ sighed, daring to break the silence of the van once more. "But this tension is making me sweat more than I already am. And I think I just need to relax. So, do either of you mind if I smoke this?"

Willa Deveraux promptly turned around in her seat to the sight of JJ Maybank fishing a single joint from his shorts pocket. "Here in the parking lot?" She questioned in surprise, watching as he soon went for his small, silver lighter next. "In broad daylight?"

JJ blinked across at Willa. "Yeah?"

"Actually, it's sunset," Pope defended, all the while still watching his destructive friend distastefully. "So there's not so much to worry about with the light."

"Even better," The blonde boy grinned excitedly.

"But the smell—"

"Want to start it off, Pope?" JJ cut off giddily, holding the joint out for Pope to take if he pleased.

"Absolutely not," Pope shot down bluntly, smacking JJ's extended arm away. "I keep the signal clear."

JJ Maybank merely shrugged his shoulders as if to say 'suit yourself', but then—rather than stick the joint between his own lips and smoke himself into a hazy oblivion—he abruptly turned to Willa and held the small joint out to her, willing her to take it. For a moment, Willa's eyes merely widened, and she found that she could not move, hardly able to believe the genuinely unexpected action she had just witnessed. "Me?" She questioned, pointing a jeweled finger into her own sweaty torso.

JJ leaned closer, his arm resting against the back of the driver's seat as he stared at Willa, sage and sapphire intertwining as easily as smoke and secrecy. "You're here, aren't you?" He challenged, never once daring to miss an opportunity to throw Willa's own former words back at her, even if he was only teasing now.

Now, it was Willa's turn to smirk. After all, at this rate, the Volkswagen was not going anywhere any time soon. "Sure," She decided eagerly. "Let me take a hit."

Willa then delicately plucked the joint from JJ's fingers and tucked it between her lips, allowing him to light it for her, all the while Pope rolled his eyes as he watched them both. Feeling the first wave of marijuana seep into the spaces between her ribs, coiling deep into her strained body, Willa Deveraux soon exhaled gently, never daring to let a cough escape from her lungs so early in the smoke session. She would not give JJ Maybank the satisfaction of a future teasing when she knew damn well how to smoke a joint all on her own.

As Willa soon passed the joint back to an awaiting JJ and settled deeper into her leather seat, the Deveraux daughter thought little of the smoke circle shared between herself and JJ, knowing that they both needed the brief marijuana escape to help calm their spiking hearts and their spiraling minds. Because even if they did not want to say it aloud to those around them, neither teenager was coping well with the day's violent events. JJ was still entirely shaken up by the brutal sacking of the Routledge home and Willa was rightfully rattled by the gunpoint ambush downtown, her thoughts always flickering back to the coldness of the gunman's dark, venomous eyes as he held her down, more than prepared to kill her where she laid helpless in the middle of the street.

But for now, lost in a hazy bubble of her own making, Willa Deveraux found that she could breathe smoke easier than pure oxygen, and with that, she slowly let her mind drift away from the fear that held her body frozen.

And also, for the time being—as long as there were no sudden movements or upsets—JJ and Willa could get along and, even more importantly, they could share a joint without anyone getting burned in the process.

"Hey, Pope," JJ called only a short while later, exhaling the name through a small puff of smoke. "are you sure you don't want a single hit?"

Pope Heyward frowned in disgust and crossed his arms tight over his chest, gritting his teeth together. His gaze slowly flickered towards the door handle as if he were about to go drag John B. and Kiara from the depths of The Wreck himself, unable to bear being stuck in the stifling van any longer. "I'm fine," He muttered.

Willa's expression softly dropped at the familiarity of Pope's words, the very same words she had spat back at him only a short while prior. Guilt immediately began to eat away at her stomach, just as it had done way, way earlier in the afternoon when they had been locked away in the back of the van after the escape from the Chateau. "I'm sorry, Pope," Willa gushed out. "I know that was it was wrong to yell at you, but—"

Pope merely shook his head and lowered his arms as he looked directly to Willa. "I'm just trying to make sure we're all okay," He insisted firmly.

"And I appreciate that. I really do," Willa reassured sincerely. "It's just been a really, really long day."

Despite the irritability still evident in his eyes, Pope could not help but nod his head in agreement, his own facial features riddled with exhaustion. "No kidding," He huffed.

"And I am tired. And I am scared," Willa continued on heavily. "And honestly—my knee is the least of my concerns. Not with everything else that's going on." She exhaled a tight breath of smoke and shuddered, the oblivion weakening against the harsh reality that weighed drastically on her sunburnt shoulders. "But despite all the shit that has gone down today, I know it's not over. And that's why, even when it's been the longest day of my life, I'm not going anywhere," She declared sternly. "Right now, I feel safer with you guys than anywhere else on the whole entire island."

JJ let out a sharp, spastic cough as the smoke slipped from his lungs. "That's what happens when you nearly get popped together," He emphasized. "Even if you're practically strangers, suddenly, there ain't no one else you'd rather get popped with."

Pope sent the hazy, hot-headed boy across the van a quirked look. "It's called shared trauma, JJ," He reminded him.

JJ merely smirked and lifted the joint back to his lips, as if he were raising a beer to the stars in a forlorn toast. "To shared trauma."

"Shared trauma," Willa echoed once the joint was passed back to her. "Oh," She sighed another lungful away and lowered the joint between two jeweled fingers. "And JJ? Please don't ever refer to us nearly getting shot down as popped again."

JJ Maybank simply smirked at Willa and opened his mouth to spit back a retort, but whatever he had planned to say next was abruptly cut off by the loud sliding door of the Volkswagen being hastily pulled open. Both smoking teenagers leaped in alarm at the sudden intrusion, but Pope remained stiffly where he sat, his eyes cloudy with disappointment as he looked over to Kiara Carrera and John B. Routledge, the latter teenagers alarmed at the sight before them. "Finally," The Heyward boy scoffed.

At the sight of the burning joint, John B. merely rolled his eyes and went around to climb into the lonely driver's seat. Meanwhile, Kiara was still frozen to the pavement, her auburn eyes widening in surprise and her nostrils flaring at the pungent smell wafting from the stifling van. "What the hell?" She demanded.

For the briefest moment, Willa Deveraux hesitated in her response, unsure of whether Kiara was more concerned with the hotbox or her busted chin. But in the end Willa supposed it did not matter which narrative she started with. Kiara was about to hear the load of it all, anyways, whether she wanted to or not.

"Long story," Willa insisted with a quiet cough, all the while motioning for Kiara to climb get into the van with her free hand. The hand that was currently not entangled with JJ's as one stoned teenager tried to pass a burning joint off to another stoned teenager as coolly as possible, only to wind up failing horrendously. "Get in."

➸➸➸

WAS SMOKING AN ENTIRE joint with JJ Maybank before being expected to tromp off into the pitch blackness of a spooky cemetery in the middle of the night the best idea that Willa Deveraux ever had?

No. Probably not.

But did smoking an entire joint make it all the more easier for Willa to lead the idiotic charge into said cemetery, even though she had no idea where she was going?

Oh, yes. Definitely.

"Willa, watch out for that headstone!"

"Shit, sorry!"

Willa nearly dropped her small flashlight when she was abruptly yanked from her path in the soft dirt as John B. Routledge hastily grabbed her arm and pulled her back onto the designated trail. "Just stay behind me," He instructed sternly. Of course, none of the pogues could really blame the kook girl for her uncertainties in her footpath; she had likely never been to this cemetery before in her whole entire life. Because like with everything and everyone else on the island that was divided into twos by the opposing social tribes, cemeteries were no exception. And while there was a much more serene and respectful cemetery on the north side of the island, this was a pogue cemetery. If the teenagers would have been doing this little stunt in the daylight, that difference would have been blatantly obvious by the lack of maintenance and groundskeeping.

"John B., keep your voice down!" Kiara hissed from right over Willa's shoulder.

"She was going to fall!" John B. defended with a sharp exclaim. "Look, just hang on, all right? We're almost there."

"Almost where?" JJ retorted from the back of the pack. He, too, was speaking loud enough that Kiara turned on him next, scolding him sharply as she waved her flashlight wildly in his eyes. "Hey, get that out of my face!" He shouted, batting her hand away as he leaned forward, attempting to blind the Carrera girl with the small, bluish light from his own headlamp. "Yeah, that'll teach you!" To Willa's own relief, she was not the worst-off of the traveling group, even in her slightly stoned state. After all, when compared to JJ Maybank, she was practically sober. While Willa had cut herself off as soon as the van was parked, he had already started on a second joint; this time, taking the brunt of the weed load all to himself, and he now seemed perfectly content on their stroll through the Cut's local graveyard.

"Come on, guys," John B. ushered quietly. "We're almost—"

"Don't rush me, I can barely see," Pope interrupted hotly.

"This place is scary," Kiara murmured uncomfortably.

At Kiara's skittish tone, Willa's own grip tightened around her small flashlight, her sweaty palm curling around the waxy material as she anxiously rubbed the pad of her jeweled thumb over the small power button, desperately wanting to turn the flashlight on-and-off in her nervous state. With the dimmed lighting spread throughout the minuscule lanterns the five teenagers had managed to scavenge from the backseat of the Twinkie, Willa struggled with the internal battle to not peer too deeply into the cold shadows that enveloped her. The pogue cemetery was eerily silent and with not even the sound of crickets to ease her pounding heart, Willa swallowed thickly. She had watched too many horror movies in her youth—no thanks to Hudson and Ace—and now knew too much for her own good about the ghastly monsters that haunted cemeteries, each and every one of them lying in wait for their victims.

"Would now be a bad time to bring up zombies?" Willa muttered uneasily.

Kiara glowered. "Oh, do not start with that, Willa!"

Aside from her own silly childhood fears, general paranoia of the unknown did not help Willa navigate the darkness in the slightest, either. "We were all thinking it," She defended meekly.

"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of vampires."

Suddenly, there was a soft smack in the darkness from somewhere over Willa's shoulder. "Shut up, JJ!" Pope chastised.

"What's so wrong with vampires?!"

Kiara exhaled a shaky breath, trying her best to ignore JJ's distant, mumble trains of thought. "Guys, this is a bad idea," She huffed.

"No, it's not. I promise," John B. reassured heartily, his voice soft and soothing as he led their group deeper and deeper into the depths of the pogue cemetery. "Look, I know I was wrong about the lighthouse, all right? And . . . pretty much wrong about everything else going on . . ." He drawled uncertainly, earning several murmurs of tight agreement from those around him. "But I was right about one thing, okay? My dad is trying to tell me something."

"And it's in a graveyard?" Pope challenged.

John B. nodded his head swiftly, dodging a long hanging branch from a nearby Weeping Willow tree. "You know how you're trying to remember a song and you can't remember who sings it?" He prodded.

"All the time." Willa nodded her head, all the while keeping her eyes down, watching closely for another potential dip in the ground that was waiting to trip her. "Wait, is that what Red—"

"Yes! Redfield!" John B. exclaimed, turning to glance back at the rest of his friends. "This whole time, I thought it was a place, right? But it's not a place." The Routledge boy paused briefly in his recount as his hickory eyes locked on a large stone mausoleum ahead. In the soft white light of the lantern he held, Willa could see a faint smile of relief pulling at John B.'s bruised lips as he came to a final stop in the middle of the dark pogue cemetery. With a gentle hand, he waved outwards towards the large stone settlement, and Willa and the other intrigued teenagers followed his direction, their numerous gazes wandering across the ancient building that stood before them. At the very top of the mausoleum was a lone name, permanently etched in cracking stone and far reaching vines, that read Redfield. "It's a person."

"Voi-effing-là," JJ cooed in disbelief.

"It's my great-great-grandmother Olivia Redfield," John B. explained proudly. "That was her maiden name."

"So, you think whatever it is you've been searching for is in there?" Willa wondered, letting her flashlight's soft beam scatter across the stone doorway.

"I know it is," John B. insisted firmly. "Help me with the door, guys."

Willa Deveraux and Kiara Carrera quickly took further steps back to allow the three boys to do the heavy lifting while they opted to hold the numerous flashlights, giving them the light they needed to see. "Okay . . . maybe it's not zombies," Willa drawled hesitantly, speaking over the grunts and swears of the boys as they pushed against the heavy door. "Maybe it's—"

From the corner of her eye, Kiara sent Willa a stern look. "Don't finish that sentence."

"Mummies."

"Seriously, Willa?"

"Sorry," Willa shrugged, though her voice sounded less than apologetic. "I talk when I'm nervous."

"And when you're faded, apparently," Kiara scoffed, attempting to sound condescending—but even with the dull lighting, Willa could see the faint smirk pulling at her round cheeks.

With that relieving sight, Willa could not help but let a small chuckle escape her lips as she nodded embarrassingly. "That, too," She admitted to the Carrera girl.

Suddenly, there was a sharp exclaim of pain from Pope Heyward as he shoved his broad shoulders fiercely into the door, the stone whining and grating softly as unexpected weight was pushed against it. "This door is like seven-hundred pounds! It's not going to budge," He snapped in frustration.

In the middle of the trio, JJ Maybank let out a quiet growl of protest. "We didn't come this far to get this far, all right?" He heaved, digging his leather boots deeper into the dirt below. Slowly, a small crack began to grow in the gap at the top of the door, revealing a small, crawl-through space. A little bit more pushing, and they would be golden for the entrance. "We got this—Whoa, whoa! Snake! Snake!"

The quiet of the dead cemetery was hastily broken by the sharp, fearful shouts of panicked teenagers and the venomous and protective hisses of an antagonized snake. As the five teenagers quickly scattered from the close proximity of the mausoleum, Willa leaped back in alarm, jumping to avoid any potential bites to her exposed legs. "Holy, shit!" She yelped.

"That's a moccasin, all right! Ye olde Dr. Cottonmouth!" JJ cried breathlessly, daring to take a step closer to the slithering snake that was drifting off into the nearby shadows. "Death in tall grass!" And then, just when Willa thought that things could truly not get any more chaotic, JJ Maybank, in all his spontaneous and excitable glory, started to bark at the snake.

"JJ, shut up!"

"Stop it! Someone'll hear us!"

"JJ!"

"You're going to wake the dead!"

JJ quickly whipped back around to the stern shouts of his friends, ceasing in his odd, animalistic behavior with a frown of confusion. "What?!" He demanded fiercely. "They're afraid of dogs!"

"They're afraid of you!" Willa retorted back with a wild wave of her hand. Her heart was soaring madly in her pounding chest, her nerves alight with a panic that formed both from the shock of the moccasin and the disturbance of JJ himself.

"Oh, come on!" JJ argued, only looking back once to ensure that the snake truly had slithered away and would no longer be a problem, before finally turning back to Willa's awaiting stern stare. "Everyone knows that snakes are afraid of dogs."

From JJ's other side, John B. merely shook his head and raked a bare hand down his exhausted face, attempting to clear his thoughts. "Are you done?" He demanded of his best friend.

JJ's brows furrowed tighter together, confusion still so very evident on his pinched features. "What did I do?" He questioned.

"What didn't you do?" Kiara retorted with a roll of her eyes.

Kiara's response was met with a scoff from JJ, but before the two of them could get into another heated argument, the blonde boy's eyes were widening with alarm as he hastily reached out to grab John B.'s arm, preventing the Routledge boy from approaching the mausoleum once more as he intended to do. "Hold on, John B.!" JJ warned. "If there's one, there's probably dozens."

"What?" Pope gasped.

"Snakes," JJ prompted swiftly. "All round."

"Stop it, JJ!" Kiara snapped, leaning away from the stone structure. "You're scaring me."

"Maybe . . . Maybe we should wait until it's light out," Willa insisted meekly.

"Are you serious?" John B. frowned, looking across to Willa in an edged and accusing manner. "You want to turn back now?"

"John B., we look like a bunch of grave robbers!" The Deveraux girl protested, matter-of-fact, struggling to keep the worry in her voice at bay. "And we certainly haven't been quiet thanks to our watchdog over here!"

Now, it was JJ's turn to whip towards Willa, his expression contorted as if she had physically just slapped him in the face. "Was that necessary?" He questioned.

"I don't know," Willa responded crudely, her eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Was your barking necessary?!"

"Dude, look it up!" JJ snapped back in her face. "I know what I'm talking about. I just saved your life." Before Willa could attempt to argue in return, JJ abruptly turned back towards the stone mausoleum and began to bark all over again, trying to scare off all of the scaly reptiles that they could not possibly see in the dark.

This time, in the fallout of the Maybank boy's idiocy, it was John B.'s turn to shout, "Stop barking at the snakes, JJ!"

The blonde boy rose a defiant hand. "I'm just making sure the coast is clear!"

"Oh, my God, JJ, shut up!" Pope snapped, smacking JJ over the back of the head, as if he could knock some sense into his friend. "John B., look," He soon addressed next, letting his eyes drift away from the barking boy and over to the brooding one. "Willa's right. We're not going to make any progress when we're tripping over ourselves in the dark. We're probably not even going to get in there at all! The door is not budging. We need to go and come back tomorrow with a better plan—"

"I can get through."

Willa whipped her head in surprise at the sound of Kiara Carrera's sudden declaration, but the young girl refused to meet anyone's eyes as she moved closer towards the tiny crack in the door. "What?" John B.'s jaw dipped in alarm as the question slipped from his lips. "You think you're going to fit through that hole?"

Kiara nodded her head in quiet confirmation. "Look, this is about your dad," She insisted, firm and headstrong in her words as she looked expectantly to the Routledge boy. "And honestly, I really don't believe in it, but . . . you deserve to know the truth. So, I'll do it."

Willa was silently awestruck and appalled at her courage, but otherwise did not protest her determination, knowing that if Kiara gave any sign of backing out now then the Deveraux daughter would be the next tribute offered up, being the shortest of all the teenagers and all. And, though still unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Willa did not particularly like small spaces. Or snakes. Or the dark. In fact, she probably should have avoided the cemetery altogether, but yet, there she was.

And so, this time, Willa and the three boys worked together to clear a path for Kiara, each and every one of them doing their part, all the while silently afraid that an entire pit of poisonous snakes potentially waited for them on the other side. Willa's sage eyes were clenched shut as she yanked away at stiff, crackly vines, but thankfully no hisses or spats of venom met her exposed body as the small entrance finally began to clear. "Okay, someone give me a boost," Kiara decided from behind them.

"I'll do it," JJ volunteered, raising his hand in offering. "I've seen it in the movies several times."

"That's reassuring," Willa muttered under her breath.

Meanwhile, Kiara exhaled a quiet breath, letting the last of her nerves slip away as she stepped into JJ's awaiting hands and was slowly boosted up and over his shoulder. "Remind me what we're looking for," She prompted of John B. below.

John B. swallowed stiffly as he looked encouragingly up to Kiara, the latter's face merely a shadow in the dark. "You'll know when you see it," He assured.

Willa could see the visible shiver in Kiara's bare shoulders as she took John B. Routledge's strong and heavy words into account, likely leaving her feeling more unsure in herself than she had been only seconds prior. Nonetheless, with one leg dangling over the edge of the doorway, there was no going back now. With bated breath, Willa Deveraux held two sets of flashlights high, providing as much light as she could, and silently watched as Kiara Carerra soon disappeared into the heart of the Redfield mausoleum with nothing more than a flashlight to protect herself with.

For several moments, no one spoke, allowing Kiara to hopefully find her footing. Once more, Willa's heart was beginning to pound uneasily, and her knees felt unsteady, fearing how this could all still go wrong. "Are you alive, Kie?" John B. eventually called into the bleakness of the stone structure. Willa could barely see the faint glow of Kiara's flashlight on the opposing side of the tall doorway, and she could not even begin to imagine how dark it must be in the depths of the long-ago dead. "You got, like, a heartbeat and everything?"

"So far," Kiara confirmed back a mere second later, her warm voice a faint and trembling echo through the thick stone. A sigh of relief settled through the entire group that was left exposed to the shadowy cemetery. "I, uh . . . I need some more light."

"Here." Willa instantly thrust out one of the larger lanterns that gave off the most light, and John B. took it from her gratefully, but not without feeling the faint shake in her fingertips, the nerves of their sinister surroundings beginning to eat her quiet composure up.

As the second light was passed through the tight crack in the doorway, JJ tilted his blonde, ruffled head, eager to attempt taking a peek for himself through the cracks in the stone. "Did you find something?" He called out expectantly. "Is there gold?"

"Oh, my God!"

Kiara let out a small gasp of alarm from within the mausoleum and Willa instantly took a large step forward, pushing her smaller body in between the boys' so that she may get a closer look. "What is it?" Willa called, daring to raise her voice above a whisper. "Are you okay?"

Suddenly, a large FedEx envelope was being shoved through the tiny crack, and Kiara Carerra herself was quick to follow, clambering up towards the tight opening. As Willa held a cold hand out to help the girl back down to the soft dirt, Pope merely frowned in confusion at the sight of the lightly worn package as John B. hastily collected it. "That's not gold," The Heyward boy mused dishearteningly.

"But it's something," Willa defended, returning the numerous flashlights she held to their prior owners, tired of holding them all. "I mean, how often do you get FedEx packages from beyond the grave?"

Pope continued to frown down at the Deveraux girl, once more left without a logical answer to their situation, but before he could attempt to suffice with any sort of response, John B. Routledge was suddenly letting out a sharp exhale of breath, his hickory eyes locked and alight at the package in his dirty, calloused hands. "Holy shit," He gulped. "This is from my dad."

Willa's jaw dipped in surprise. "What?"

And then the world ended all over again.

Because just like that, the calm collectedness of the pogue graveyard was immediately broken by the intrusion of sharp sweeping car headlights. "Guys!" JJ Maybank harshly called, standing further off from the group, his icy gaze locked on a daunting sight at the far end of the cemetery. "Code red! Code red!" The blonde boy gasped, exhaling a loud cough of surprise, his lungs frozen in his chest as pure fear poured over him. "Square groupers! Square groupers!"

The four other teenagers quickly followed JJ's fearful stare, and Willa's blood turned to ice in her veins at the sight of two men entering the cemetery in the far-off distance. Beside her, Pope immediately turned away. "Let's go!" He hissed. "Hide!"

"It's the guys who robbed your house!" Kiara yelped.

Meanwhile, as the four pogues scrambled to hide in the shadows, Willa remained locked where she stood, her attention narrowed on the scorching bright headlights. Despite all that was telling her to run, she could not move. Willa's brain was working much too quickly to even think of fleeing the scene, her mind now wired towards the familiarity of the former black vehicle and the situation from this afternoon. But there was nothing familiar about the vehicle in the distance of the cemetery, nor the two ghostly silhouettes that began to approach them. "I don't think . . ." Willa trailed off uncertainly. She did not know how else to explain it, but she did not feel the same fear from before. Willa also knew that she would have easily recognized the rough and rumbling engine of the sleek black pickup truck if it had truly been here. She had heard it one too many times to ever possibly forget it again. "Guys—"

Before Willa Deveraux could say any more to argue her standpoint, John B. Routledge was harshly grabbing her hand and pulling her around to the dark side of the mausoleum where the five teenagers would hopefully—hopefully—be concealed from sight of the approaching strangers. That was, until no one seemed to know how to turn their flashlights off. "Lights! Lights!" Kiara commanded quietly. "Turn off your lights!" Kiara and Willa were the only two of the five teenagers to successfully turn off their flashlights in the urgency to hide; elsewhere, John B. shoved simply shoved his burning lantern under his shirt, hoping that would conceal the bright light.

"Are you serious, John B.?!" Willa growled. In an instant, without any thought of all, she was lifting John B.'s shirt up to turn off the lantern herself, her jeweled fingers brushing against his flaming and sweaty exposed skin. As she then dropped his shirt back down, John B. remained silent and motionless, clinging to the dead lantern, his thoughts still locked in the state of an approaching attack.

From Willa's other side, Pope quickly reached around JJ's flailing figure to turn off the small headlamp atop his head. "JJ, your light!" The Heyward son hissed sternly. The blonde boy was entirely unbothered by Pope's harsh hands, too caught up his own struggle to put out of his faintly burning joint, as if the tiny embers were what was truly going to give them all away.

"Hey, I see something over there!"

At the loud and unfamiliar shout of a man from somewhere deeper within the cemetery, newfound footsteps seemingly growing closer and closer to the mausoleum with every wasted second, Willa flinched and looked around wildly, struggling to see the faces of the pogues in the dark. "This isn't working!" She whispered shakily. "We need to go!"

JJ quickly dared a peek around the edge of the stone wall, dodging the sweeping beam of a searching flashlight. "Homie's got a gun!" He announced fearfully.

John B.'s eyes widened as he tucked the FedEx envelope into his shorts. "Are you sure?!" He demanded.

Before the Maybank boy could respond back to his best friend, Kiara Carrera abruptly rose to her feet and shook her head, sending her long, dark locks spinning around her sweaty face. "Screw this!" She shouted, no longer caring for who might have heard her. "Run, guys!"

And with no room left to argue, no chance to risk the concealment of broken shadows to keep them safe in the darkness of the pogue cemetery, the four remaining teenagers did exactly that. They ran.

"There they are!"

Willa Deveraux let out a loud shout of fear as the bright beam of a foreign flashlight swept over her body, but she did not dare look back as she ran. "Oh, shit!" She yelped. Keeping her sage eyes locked on Kiara's back, following her sprinting figure to the end of the line, Willa pumped her arms at her sides as she dashed blindly down the dirt path that led to the cemetery's main exit.

"Hurry up!" John B. shouted from somewhere to her left, scrambling and tripping over his own feet. "Go! Go!"

Willa did not need to be told twice as she neared the locked gate of the cemetery. Thankfully, this was not her first rodeo with hopping cemetery fences—even if those said fences belonged in the opposite kook cemetery on the north side of the island. Still, a getaway was a getaway, and Willa could not help but grin. Her body was alive with the looming sense of the all-too familiar, light-headedness of her pounding heart soaring wildly as the intoxicating adrenaline pumped through her cold veins, working away the icy fear that had previously held her tightly against the cold stone of the dark Redfield mausoleum.

One by one, the five teenagers swiftly clambered over wrought-iron fence and back into the world of the living. Willa went crashing down hard on the other side, using her bare hands to catch herself, but Kiara was quick to push her back to her feet, keeping her moving as they approached the hidden Volkswagen van parked across the street, the three boys not far behind them.

"Guys, I'm stuck!"

At Pope Heyward's short, panicked calling, Willa instantly froze in her sprint and hastily whipped back around to the cemetery entrance. To her disbelief—and, to be quite honest, her humor, too—Pope truly was stuck atop the iron fence, his khaki shorts now caught on one of the wrought spikes, leaving him dangling several feet above the ground. Kiara let out a loud snort, forgetting entirely about the chase through the cemetery as she quickly crossed back to Pope's side, leaving Willa standing in the middle of the road with John B. and JJ on either side of her, both boys now struggling to keep their own laughter at bay, too. "Hang on!" Kiara reassured heartily. "I've got you!"

As Kiara went to untangle Pope from the fence, John B. hurriedly turned away to go start up the van. Meanwhile, Willa and JJ were still stopped in the middle of the road, both stoner teenagers watching with heavy anticipation to see how this all would end. For the briefest moment, Willa thought there would be no issue at all—that was, until JJ reached into the waistband of his own shorts to retrieve the handgun she had completely forgotten about. "Pope," The Maybank boy called loudly, raising the weapon up to eye-level as he took aim. "Don't move, okay?"

Willa's eyes widened in alarm and she quickly slapped her hand out, pushing JJ's arm away before he could dare wrap a finger around the trigger. "Are you insane?!" She demanded harshly. "Get in the van, JJ! Let's go!" The Deveraux daughter quickly pushed the Maybank son closer to the rumbling van, her hands firmly in the center of his back, but before they could rightfully get inside the vehicle, their quiet and violent bickering was broken by a final shout from Pope.

"Kie, stop! You're going to rip me!"

And rip she did.

Pope let out a tiny yelp of surprise as his shorts gave way from his body, the fabric still stuck at the top of the iron fence even as the Heyward boy now laid in a heap on the ground below, clad in nothing but a t-shirt, Converse, and a tiny pair of white underwear briefs. Before she could stop herself, a loud laugh escaped Willa's lips as she reeled back, finally climbing into the van. Kiara, too, was a laughing mess as she helped an exposed Pope back to his feet, the latter using his large hands to try and cover himself as best as he could.

"Nice, man!" JJ cackled, crawling into the tight space beside Willa on the nearest bench. "It's a little Tootsie Roll!"

"This is ridiculous!" Pope shouted vehemently, his face burning with embarrassment as he hurriedly flung himself into the van.

Finally, Kiara was the last to climb inside the Volkswagen, the men from the cemetery (who turned out to be nothing more than members of the maintenance crew) now nearly to the gate by that point, and she hurriedly slammed the sliding door closed behind her to avoid giving away all their youthful identities. "Let's get out of here!" She shouted, waving a wild hand in John B.'s direction, giving him the signal to step on it.

"Go! Go! Go!"

It was not until all five teenagers were securely back in the safety of the warm van, the Twinkie now steadily soaring down the dark and shadowy highway road, that Willa suddenly found that she could breathe again, swallowing the last drops of adrenaline that spiked through her trembling, sun-kissed body. Beside her, Kiara was leaning her head back against the window, her eyes closed as she panted, trying to regain her own breath. "Oh, my God!" The Carrera girl exclaimed hysterically. "That was awesome!"

JJ excitedly slapped the roof of the van with his palm, his sapphire eyes burning brighter than the bluest of seas as his lips stretched in a wild smirk. "Those square groupers had nothing on us!" He cheered thunderously.

Willa Deveraux was a madly grinning mess as she raked her knotted locks away from her reddened face and sat up straighter in her seat, her skin slick with cold sweat. Looking around at each of her peers, even though fear still echoed in all of their widened irises, the pure bliss of a summer escapade pulled stronger at all of their rosy features, the thrill of rebellion sending them all coasting to a higher cloud nine than any drug could ever possibly give them. "That was . . ." Willa struggled to find the words, her chest still heaving with exhilaration as she looked around to the smiling faces around her. "Oh, shit!" She suddenly gasped, looking back down to her bare knees as she began to laugh uncontrollably. "I lost my bandage."

At her sudden exclamation of playful shock, the slightly unhinged teenagers around her continued to laugh loudly once more. Well, all except for Pope, whose dark eyes were still burning with embarrassment from his traumatic scene atop the cemetery fence. "You lost your bandage," He repeated, his voice deadpanned as he stared blankly across at Willa. "Are you shitting me right now?!" For a moment, the van was deadly quiet, Willa Deveraux and the other three teenagers around her waiting with bated breath to see which way Pope's vivid emotions would ultimately swing. But even then, on the brink of insanity and chaos, despite the uneasiness that pulled at the boy's rattled and horrified system, there was still a little bit of humor in his expression, too.

And then, finally daring to break the unsteady and heated silence, Pope Heyward laughed.

"I lost my pants!"

~~~~~~~~~~

hi, this chapter was 9,000 words long, please send me all the love. i need it, my brain is fried.

this was definitely not my best chapter, but oh well.  it was mostly just a filler, anyways.  it was more for dialogue, rather than narrative, but don't worry.  shit starts getting real again in the next chapter.

anywaysssss despite the chaos of this chapter (it definitely wasn't my favorite, so i don't judge you if it wasn't your favorite either)... what did y'all think? there was a lot going on, so much chaos in the cemetery that i could barely wrap my head around it.  like god damn, i did not expect that scene to take so long!! it truly killed me. i thought it would never end.  but anyways, i hope you enjoyed it.

now, i really don't know what to say here, so i'm just going to leave it all to you.  how are we feeling about willa?  her relationships with the pogues?  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.