[ xviii. bye, bye, birdie ]

➸➸➸

WILLA DEVERAUX HAD LOST all sense of the specific hours and minutes by the time John B. Routledge finally pulled the Twinkie back onto the familiar lawn of the darkened Chateau. Stepping out of the warm Volkswagen van and onto the cold, dried grass, it was pitch black outside and the faraway night sky twinkled with distant and dying stars, but aside from the quiet nature of the lulled marshland around her, Willa had no true way of knowing if it was only barely scraping past midnight or if the new dawn was steadily approaching on the nearby horizon.

Now that the thrill of the spooky cemetery chase had faded from Willa's heightened system, and the calming marijuana that had once cooled her boiling blood had now gradually dissipated back into the wind like the hazy smoke from JJ Maybank's previously rolled joint, Willa's thoughts were brought back to the heaviness of the long afternoon. Once more, she was reminded of another drastically different chase, one of violence and rage that had ended in blood and bruises amongst scorching asphalt on the familiar streets of her hostile hometown. Once more, she was reminded that her home key was gone. Whether her key had vanished in her panic to escape or was stolen by the cruelty of savaged souls, Willa could not truthfully be certain—but the weight of her massively guilty heart, slowly sinking deeper and deeper into her own aching chest like a large boulder dropping into the deepest of oceans, pulled dangerously at her rattled nerves, as if the only logical option for her key's disappearance was the latter. Because Willa could never be that lucky as to have simply dropped the key.

"You okay?" John B.'s voice rippled through the stillness of Willa's outer demeanor. Still standing in the center of the yard, a frozen silhouette in the dark marshy shadows, Willa slowly looked up to see John B. lingering on the porch steps for her, waiting patiently even after all of the other pogues had disappeared into the wooden shack.

And once more, staring into those warm hickory eyes, glowing even in the blackness of the night, Willa Deveraux was reminded of that goddamn kiss in the very place that John B. Routledge now stood.

But that kiss—that disastrous, haunting, and heated kiss—was an issue for another day. An issue that Willa wanted to put so far on the back burner of her chaotic mind that it was cold, unwanted, and rightfully forgotten by the time she ever returned to it. "Yeah," Willa confirmed to John B., nodding her head gently in his direction. "Right behind you."

Willa was silent as she followed John B. into the dimly lit Routledge household. Because of the island-wide power outage, the only lights that the five teenagers could provide were those of their lanterns and flashlights from their little adventure through the pogue cemetery. Most of the small lights were now set up in the kitchen where the food and booze were, of course. Soft hues of yellow were scattered to all edges of the messy room, displaying numerously different shapes in the shadows of the spastic movements from the wandering teenagers, but the dying light was enough to hold back the relentless dark that threatened to swallow them all whole.

"You really shouldn't eat that, JJ. That bread had mold on it three days ago."

At Pope Heyward's short and blunt insistence, Willa quickly turned her head towards the far kitchen countertop where JJ was in the middle of making a sandwich. Sure enough, even in the little lighting of the large room she could see squishy, grayish patches of mold forming along the edges of the white bread slices. "I'll just pull off the bad parts," JJ smartly shot back to Pope. "Plus, mold is good for you. It's just a natural organism."

Willa's uneasy stomach churned uncomfortably as she watched JJ slap down a large spoonful of crunchy peanut butter onto the mold, doing his best to cover the soiled part of the bread up. "Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there," She reminded him.

JJ snorted, his sapphire eyes still hazy and playful from the lingering effects of his shared smoke circle with Willa. "What do you think all the peanut butter's for?" He countered, licking his lips as he went back to the jar for more, his need to crave his munchies just as strong as his need to block out the mold. "To drown out the taste."

After another hefty slab of peanut butter, JJ tossed his spoon into the nearby dirty kitchen sink and finally trapped the moldy contents of the sandwich with another slice of bread, all the while Willa's expression still twisted sourly, her own tongue searing nastily as if she were the one that was going to eat it. Despite his effort, Willa could still see gray patches on the hardened crust that JJ had not managed to touch. "You're going to need a lot more peanut butter," She muttered.

"I think this is more than enough," JJ Maybank argued confidently, stepping closer to the kook girl so that he could wave the stale sandwich in her round face, nearly touching her dusty, warm cheeks. Willa instantly batted his hand away, her fingertips ghosting across his hot skin as she hurriedly pushed the sandwich back in his face, not even wanting to risk a single whiff of the rotting food. With his lively chilled eyes holding her own softening sage ones, JJ boldly bit into the moldy peanut butter, his teeth snapping together loudly enough that Willa could hear it, even with the faint murmur of voices from the next room over. For a single moment, with Willa's heavy stare seemingly burning holes into his forehead, daring him to fail, JJ tried to feign that the sandwich was delicious—that he could handle the sharpness of the mold as it hit his taste buds. But then it hit him. And in the next instant, JJ was immediately recoiling with brutal disgust and stepping around Willa so that he could hurriedly spit his mouthful into the nearby garbage can.

Willa smirked, listening to JJ gag over her shoulder, and she crossed her arms loosely over her chest. "What did I just—"

"Nope." JJ quickly rounded back around to Willa and pointed his index finger in her face, cutting her off. "Nope. Don't."

"Natural organism, huh?" Willa teased, her smirk continuing to grow.

JJ only rolled his eyes, now icier with embarrassment, and Willa broke out into quiet laughter, an action so small and innocent, and so very unlike the heaviness of the rest of the dark Routledge household that even the Maybank boy could not help but let his chapped and peanut buttery lips curl upwards, too, letting the tiresome weight on his own battered shoulders lessen just the slightest. Meanwhile, in the shadowy light across the room, watching the two youthful teenagers in their own bubble of faded oblivion, Kiara Carrera put her hands on her hips and tilted her head sharply. "Are you two done in there? Come on," She beckoned, her auburn eyes glowing sternly as Willa and JJ's heads abruptly snapped in her direction. "John B.'s opening the package."

The delicate laughter caught in Willa's throat and her sage orbs immediately hardened at Kiara's calling, the Deveraux girl's attention falling from the tall blonde beside her right away. For a single moment, Willa had lost herself in the faraway clouds of a reality that did not rightfully exist. She could admit that it had felt nice to be silly; to laugh—even if only for a few measly seconds—when all that she or any of the teenagers around her had wanted to do over the past forty-eight hours was crumble and cry. But that moment of false harmony was over now, and Willa was once more reminded of where she was and how she had gotten there, and there was nothing laughable about that.

Following in JJ's shadow, Willa moved around the sharp edge of the kitchen countertop and over to the small rickety kitchen table in the middle of the dim room that John B. currently sat at. She came to a hesitant stop in between Kiara and Pope, but her gaze never left the table littered with bent playing cards and dirty poker chips, never left the dusty FedEx package that had literally taken their group a trip beyond the grave to find. Willa's jeweled fingers soon instinctively curled around the back of the empty chair across from John B., and she inwardly flinched at the low hiss of the Routledge boy peeling back the closed seal. In the back of her mind, Willa could not help but feel as if John B. had just unknowingly opened Pandora's Box.

"Holy shit," John B. murmured as he pulled out a thick, folded piece of paper for all to see. Slowly, John B. uncurled the yellowing paper and laid it atop the table, revealing its contents to the watchful eyes of his friends. To Willa's surprise, it was a map of the Outer Banks—particularly of the coast. A map of the beaches that Willa had grown up on and knew like the back of her own hand. Now, though, staring down at a map that was masked in endless scribbles and codes and spiraling lines, it was as if Willa were looking into an entirely different world from the Outer Banks that she knew. This was a world that she would never understand; a world that belonged to Big John Routledge and his son alone.

Beside Willa, Pope let out a quiet gasp and pointed down to the crinkled paper, his fingertip ghosting over an all-so very recognizable letter amongst maps . . . and of treasure hunts, too. "X marks the spot," The Heyward boy murmured, excitement tinging his tired tone.

"Longitude, latitude . . ." John B. drawled, his hickory eyes drifting carefully across the crinkling paper. He slowly shifted the map to the side of the table, allowing Kiara and JJ a better glance at the written details, and then turned back to the discarded envelope. "Oh, wait," He paused. "there's something else in here."

In the next moment, John B. carefully pulled out a small, black device from the FedEx package and JJ frowned in confusion. "What's that?" The blonde questioned.

Willa's eyes flickered suspiciously towards JJ's puzzled face, and she was genuinely surprised to see the blatant and honest bewilderment in his muddled stare as he looked down at the tiny object. Beside her, Kiara only snorted. "It's a tape recorder, dumbass," She scoffed.

The Maybank boy rolled his sapphire eyes in response, but before he could bite back a snappy remark of his own to Kiara, John B. hastily clicked the device on, the tape recorder now emitting a small red light that drew all of the teenagers' attentions back down to the map. "Dear Bird." At the sound of a newfound voice—of the reality that the tape recorder worked—Willa Deveraux's chest constricted tightly as two single words slipped through the static of the dark device, a forgotten father unknowingly calling out to the last hope that was his only blood.

"Who's Bird?" JJ wondered.

"That's what my dad called me," John B. explained softly. From the corner of Willa's eye, she could see John B.'s lips press tightly together as a nervous shudder of breath escaped his deflated lungs. His large, bloody, and labor-worn hands were trembling when his father spoke to him again through the static of the tape recorder, as if they were truly and finally face-to-face all this painful and isolated time later.

"I hate to say, 'I told you so', but I told you so. And you doubted your old man," The recording of Big John Routledge continued, his voice just as deep and as strong, and as piercing as Willa remembered it from the very last time she had seen him in person. If Willa Deveraux had known the last time she would have seen him alive was at her school's quarterly conference—her father and John B.'s father waiting outside in the hallways together, making due with small talk as they waited for their children's meetings with their shared teacher—she might have been kinder to him. She might not have tried to pull her father away from a gentle conversation so that she might go to a party. She might not have broken one of the last conversations Big John Routledge would ever have. "I suspect at this moment, you're filled with guilt and self-loathing over our last fight, but don't kill yourself just yet, kid. I didn't expect to find the Merchant either."

Willa's jaw dropped softly at the mention of the Royal Merchant, a practical ghost ship sought by so many and found by none—that was, until now. Now. With her sage orbs widening to the size of saucers, Willa glanced tensely around the rickety table, her expression of surprise matching the four other stunned faces around her. "No fucking way," The Deveraux daughter murmured in disbelief. Chills ran eerily up Willa's spine, curling into her flaming nerves that her sent her heart pattering apprehensively, excitement and fear twirling together in a deadly dance for ultimate control.

"Fucking way," JJ murmured back.

"Shh, shh," Pope hurriedly hushed them both, waving a hand as Big John continued to speak, the Heyward boy eager to hold onto every last word.

"You were probably right to call me out. Wasn't exactly Father of the Decade," Big John sighed, his voice briefly muffled by the background noise of distant rummaging and movement, the big man likely having recorded the message from the office right down the hall. "What can I say, kid? I could smell the barn. And hopefully, we're listening to this in our brand-new sugar-shack down in Costa Rica, living off passive investments and pulling on permits . . . If not, and you find this for less than optimal reasons, well, that's what the map is for. There she is, the wreck of the Merchant." At the mention of the sunken ship, Willa's eyes quickly flickered back to the large black X scribbled onto the Outer Banks map as Pope swiftly pointed to it once more. "If something happens to me, finish what I started," Big John added with careful instruction to his son. "Go for the gold, kid . . . I love you, Bird, even if I didn't always act like it . . . I'll see you on the other side."

And then, without another word, the static slowly faded away, the voice of Big John crackling away into the emptiness of the remainder of the tape, leaving the Routledge home quieter than it had ever been before.

John B. Routledge was silent as he clicked the tape recorder back off with devastating finality, the red light on the device dying out with a gentle hum. For a long moment, no one moved from the table, and no one spoke, now deathly afraid of breaking the fragile silence. After all, how could any of the teenagers possibly bounce back so easily when what they had all listened to was surely the last words a father might ever say to his son? With her heart growing heavier and heavier in her chest with each passing second, Willa watched silently as the Routledge boy placed the recorder onto the table above the map, and her sage eyes softened at the sight of the unshed tears rapidly beginning to well in his naturally warm eyes.

A single sob escaped John B.'s bruised lips as he hurriedly pushed away from the table and escaped into the next room over. Willa's lips parted painfully as she watched him go, her own eyes automatically glossing over at the sight of seeing another young soul bleed and cry. She could hear the pain in every heart-wrenching cry that escaped John B.'s broken chest, the hurt and the longing, and the fear slipping from every barricade that he had built in an attempt to keep his soulful collapse at bay. But now, the sound of his father's voice—after having gone nine long and lonely months without it—was enough to make any orphaned boy crumble into a million shattered pieces.

Unfortunately, not all children of the Outer Banks could quite understand the heaviness of the longing for a lost or deceased parent. In fact, if they could help it, some children of the Outer Banks would have rather happily gone about the rest of their lives with never hearing their father's voice again.

"Holy shit!" JJ Maybank exclaimed loudly, entirely oblivious to his best friend falling apart in the living room. "He did it! Big John found the Merchant!"

Willa, Kiara, and Pope all jumped lightly at the unexpected and booming echo of JJ's voice as he excitedly shouted, shattering the otherwise soft lull that had previously filled the home. In an instant, three pairs of eyes were glaring at the Maybank boy, each entirely disgusted by the blatant lack of acknowledgement for the reality of their situation. Right now, in the wake of one of their own's downfall, there was absolutely nothing to celebrate. Across the table from JJ, Willa's lips furled back into a silent snarl and Pope Heyward shook his head in horrid disbelief.

"Can you—" Kiara Carrera struggled to get the words out, raking her hands through her dark locks as she glared dangerously at JJ. "Can you please?"

At Kiara's condescending tone, JJ's jaw quickly snapped shut and his voice dropped down to a whisper. "Sorry," He apologized gently.

Willa scoffed, seeing right past JJ's minuscule attempt at seeming sorry when his eyes were still blazing with glee for gold. "What the hell's wrong with you, JJ?" She snapped.

JJ's icy eyes abruptly widened in alarm at Willa's straightforward jab. "I didn't mean—I didn't think—"

"Do you ever?"

"Okay, Jesus Christ, how many times are you going to bring up the gun—"

"Oh, my God. Are you being serious right now?" Willa growled defensively, throwing her hands up in exasperation, her own shouts beginning to drown out John B.'s cries. "This isn't about the fucking gun! And this sure as hell isn't about the Royal-fucking-Merchant. This is about your best friend. Your best friend who is literally falling apart in the next room over and who needs his best friend right now." Her teeth gritted together painfully, her sage orbs narrowed darkly as she stepped around the table to take the taller boy head-on, taking advantage of JJ's silence. Willa Deveraux was tired of being thrown into situations that had nothing to do with her! This was strictly a moment of ignorance and selfishness. It had absolutely nothing to do with a gun or a missing shipwreck. It had to do with two boys who had grown up on the same island, had been through the thick of every storm together, and were suddenly no longer acting like it. "You're John B.'s best friend, JJ," Willa stormed impassively. "So, start acting like it. Have a fucking heart."

In the fallout of Willa's stern words, JJ looked shamefully at his feet, his cheeks glowing lowly in the dimmed lighting as he clenched his jaw tightly, causing a vein to leap near his hairline as he did so. With his hands now clenched tightly into fists at his side, JJ soon dared a single glance up, but rather than look to Willa as she expected he might, he instead turned towards the living room where John B. had disappeared. Before he could even consider going to comfort his friend, Kiara was beating him to it as she quickly curled her arms around John B.'s torso from behind, her head resting on his shoulder as she squeezed him tight, trying to mend all of his broken pieces back together.

"Smooth," Pope huffed.

"Shut up, man," JJ snapped back.

Now standing in the wrathful quiet of the restless kitchen, Willa longed to be the one to follow John B. out of the room. She longed to hold him as he had held her only hours prior on the very same property, cracking under the very same agony and fear she had felt, but she now knew that it was not her place. Such a possibility could not be hers when she had been the one to push him away in the first place only hours ago. Now, in the darkest, most agonized and lonely parts of her own beating and hurting heart, Willa wished she could be where Kiara stood . . . but her longings for newfound possibilities and healing endings had begun falling from the sky long ago—so much so that she had long since stopped believing in the faithfulness of wishes and shooting stars.

And so, in the end, she did nothing. Frozen and unmoving, Willa Deveraux bit down on her tongue and held her breath, ultimately daring herself to finally look away from the crying boy in Kiara Carrera's warm hold, his aching sobs ringing loud and true throughout the stilled darkness of the Chateau.

➸➸➸

THE QUIET TUNE OF an unspoken song filled the quiet space of the Routledge jetty, the five teenagers seated on the splintered dock, all the while sipping warm beers as Kiara plucked carefully at the strings of her ukulele. She was doing her best to loosen the tensions that still ran a bit high in the awkwardly poised group, but music nor beer would help Willa or any of the other pogues move on so easily from the events of that evening. Not with wounds and anger, and terror so dangerously fresh, all of their emotions rising and falling as unpredictably as the choppy waves of the stirring marsh, the once calm water now awakening with the quiet rumbling of thunder off in the distance.

As another voiceless melody came to an end, Willa took a long swig of her Pacifico beer. Though bitter on her tongue, it was not responsible for the irritability she now felt surging throughout the rest of her tired body.

To her own astonishment, Willa Deveraux silently wished she were at home in the Figure Eight, enclosed in the warmth of her own bed, free to let her thoughts fall apart on numerous pages of her notebook. After her snapping with JJ and John B.'s own heartbreaking fall, Willa did not want to be at the Chateau. Not right now. Not after everything. It had only been two days, but after all that she and the pogues had gone through, it felt more like two years had passed instead.

Willa knew that she would need to go home tonight, and she did not complain as she soon set aside her empty beer bottle on the wooden railing, knowing she would need to attempt sobering up before she drove Pope, Kiara and herself to their homes. She could only hope that none of their parents were waiting up for them, whatever hour of the night—or early morning—it may actually be.

But it was a long time—and several more Carrera original songs later—before Willa finally broke the silence. "Anyone know what time it is?" She asked gently.

Pope Heyward glanced down to his wristwatch, now the only teenager left to tell time with the rest of them all sitting with dead cell phones resting idly in their pockets. "A little after four," He answered.

"Shit," Willa sighed, frowning discontentedly as she looked towards the dark horizon. "The sun's going to start rising soon," She murmured, squinting as she tried to convince herself that the black sky was not already beginning to grow brighter off in the faraway distance. "Anyone know what day it is?" She prodded absentmindedly.

"That . . ." Pope hesitated. "I don't know."

"Well, when was the party?" Kiara wondered, letting her ukulele fall silent in her lap. "Two days ago? Three?"

Willa shrugged and pursed her lips as she looked across the deck to the only other female. "I think it's Monday," She insisted dryly.

"Feels like a Monday," Pope agreed blandly. He, too, had stopped drinking for the evening and now his hands were occupied with a nearby life jacket, his fingers fiddling lazily with the thick black straps. "Bad shit always happens on Monday's."

"No," JJ Maybank argued, shaking his head as he finally brought his own two cents to the weakened conversation. "bad shit always happens on Tuesday's."

"I think," Willa addressed carefully, attempting to keep her sage gaze locked away on anything but with the brooding sapphire catalyst across the deck. "at the rate we're going, bad shit is going to start happening every day."

Though Willa wished she were joking, all of the teenagers knew better than to laugh. With those gunmen still on the loose, Peterkin with the compass, an entire island seemingly splitting down the middle, and Big John guiding his orphaned son from the dead, Willa Deveraux definitely knew that things were likely going to much get worse before they ever got better. Hell, at this rate, the only way this situation got better was when John B. found the Royal Merchant and completed his father's mission. After everything . . . the Royal Merchant was the key. It had to be. Right? There was no other explanation. In the end, the Royal Merchant's treasure would carry Willa and the pogues through to the end of the collapsing tunnel . . . but was all that they had gone through—and had yet to inevitably go through—worth the concluding outcome?

Willa Deveraux could only hope so.

Suddenly, JJ cleared his throat and abruptly pulled Willa from her thoughts. "How much was it again?" He questioned.

"Four hundred mil," Pope answered.

At the very large amount of money now in discussion, JJ whistled softly in praise as a loon called out in the darkness of the marsh, searching for its own food and shelter. "All right," He sighed. "Let's talk the split. Now, before we say 'evenly', may I remind you that I am the only one that can properly defend us from those groupers who were after us."

"You say that as if you killed them, JJ," Willa pointed out, matter-of-fact. "They're still out there."

"And when they come back, we'll be ready. I'll be ready," JJ assured her confidently, though she only scoffed in return. One of his hands automatically drifted towards the small handgun that rested on the dock, and he casually picked up the weapon. Willa could only hope that the safety was on. "Protection?" He proclaimed. "Not cheap, okay?"

Pope scowled. "You haven't trained," He argued. "You've done zero training."

"YouTube, bro!" The Maybank boy insisted brightly. "That's at least a five percent bump right there. Any objections?" From the corner of JJ's eye, Kiara rose her hand in protest, but the arrogant and playful blonde merely shook his head, sweeping his gaze right over his friend. "Didn't think so."

Kiara promptly flipped him off while Willa rolled her eyes at JJ's crude bluntness, and sat up straighter, her spine digging uncomfortably into a wooden beam she had been leaning against. "Look, if we're going to talk about money splits," She began softly, curling her hands together automatically as tiny nerves began to flutter uneasily in her empty, beer-soaked stomach. "we might as well talk about the elephant in the room."

"Which is?" Pope wondered.

"Me," Willa confessed, letting the lone word fall from her lips in a loud exhale, an unseen weight seemingly falling from her chest. "I know that I kind of just . . . showed up. And I didn't leave. Even when you all probably wanted me to," She explained. "I'm not going to pretend that things haven't been weird since I've been here. I know that I don't belong. And I know where I stand with you guys. But I guess . . ." She pursed her lips, daring to look up to meet the several intent stares that followed her every timid move. "What I'm trying to say is that I don't expect anything. No matter what happens, you don't have to worry about my share of the Merchant. It's not my treasure to take."

"Wow," JJ Maybank deadpanned, staring unconvincingly at Willa's smaller figure. "You almost had me convinced."

"Really?"

"Fuck no. How much of the cut are you actually expecting, kook bait? Honest answer."

"You want my honest answer?" Willa repeated, pointing a curved and jeweled finger back into her own chest. JJ only nodded. "Well, then, I don't see why I can't get an equal portion—"

JJ's jaw dropped in disbelief and he quickly rose a hand, cutting her off. "An equal portion?!" He repeated, shell-shocked. "You're already rich!"

"My parents are rich," The eldest Deveraux correctly stiffly, her bruised and bloodied jaw taut as she tilted her head cautiously to the side, her long and curly locks automatically bunching in knots around her tensed shoulders. "I don't want their paychecks. I'd rather have my own hard-earned money to spend, thank you."

"No way." JJ Maybank shook his head sternly, his eyes cloudy and guarded. "You get fifty million, and that's it. Take it or leave it."

"JJ," John B. cut off curtly, slicing through the darkness of the dock. Willa's eyes widened in surprise at the Routledge boy's newfound voice. Ever since they had made their way out onto the jetty, John B. had not bothered to speak once. Willa had been entirely certain that she would not hear from him for the rest of the night—and she definitely had not expected his first words since his breakdown to be words said in her defense. "Until you get chased downtown by two psychos, you're not making any cuts to the share," He decided. "Willa gets her equal eighty million just like the rest of us. She deserves it. Like she said, she didn't leave." John B.'s hickory gaze softly flickered to Willa, but she remained unmoving as she held his stare, silently awed that, somehow, he still continued to hold her, long after his arms had fallen away from her. "Even when she had every opportunity to."

"But's she already got so much money—" JJ attempted to argue.

"She's not her parents."

"Big assumption, John B."

John B. glowered back at his best friend, challenging him. "You're not your dad, are you, JJ?" He countered.

JJ scoffed coldly, his stare hardening drastically as his thoughts were pulled back to his own father. "Don't even joke about that, bro," He warned.

"I'm serious," John B. insisted.

"So am I," The Maybank boy shot back, never missing a beat. "I ain't ever going to be like my fucking dad."

Pope hummed softly, nodding his head in agreement to JJ's solemn words. "Me either," He murmured. Meanwhile, John B. Routledge only shook his head and pulled his knees tighter against his exposed chest, turning his gaze away from Willa and back towards the choppy waves below, letting the argument drop before it could fester into something even uglier and more unforgiveable.

Willa watched after John B. for a long moment, her bottom lip trapped tightly between her teeth as she looked between the two boys. Whether any of the teenagers liked it or not, there was still rigidity between the group. Minds were spiraling too fast, growing bodies aching to finally have some rest that they had been so desperately deprived of. They were all exhausted, and they all needed a good night's sleep—and a night apart from one another. Apparently, Willa was not the only one to think as such. Across the jetty, Kiara Carrera stretched out her legs and scoffed. "Wow," She muttered, looking around uneasily. "I didn't realize I was in a scene from The Breakfast Club." Without another word, she set aside her ukulele and climbed to her feet, and went over to the abandoned cooler that she had previously drug out earlier in the evening. "Who wants another beer?" She offered, pulling out another Pacifico bottle. "Willa? Hmm?"

Though the idea of another beer was tempting to the Deveraux party girl, Willa merely shook her head and nodded her head towards the empty bottle on the railing. "Thanks," She said cooly. "But I'd rather not get a DUI from Peterkin tonight."

While Kiara nodded her head in understanding, likely realizing that Willa was her only way of getting home—and she would rather not die on the way there—John B. only frowned as he looked between the conversing girls. "You could always just crash here again?" He offered lightly.

"Yeah," Pope added swiftly. "Besides, you were just home, Willa."

"Pope, Willa's your only ride, too," Kiara remined him, frowning in confusion. "And you probably need to be home more than she does."

For a long moment Pope Heyward paused in his argument, his brows furrowing together as he contemplated how his own parents were likely taking to his constant nights out on the island, away from the safety of his own roof. Odds were, it was not good. "You got me there," He admitted with a shrug. Willa softly smirked at Pope's words, knowing exactly where he was coming from. Life with strict parents was a pain in the ass. At least, to Willa's silent relief, that ideology remained the same, no matter what side of the island a child came from. For the briefest moment, Willa considered how her parents and Pope's parents might get along if they were to ever meet—but then she remembered. Willa remembered that her mother would never willingly associate with the Heyward's. Because regardless of whether they were successful business owners, they still lived in the Cut. And that just would not cut it for Maren Deveraux.

Still staring at Willa from across the dock, JJ licked his lips and scratched at the top of his blonde, ruffled head. "Don't you got enough brothers and sisters to keep your parents distracted?" He questioned.

Pulled from her thoughts, Willa looked expectantly back to the Maybank boy and her smirk only grew, her exhaustion seeping into her expression, making her facial features seem light even as her mood continued to darken. "Look, there may be six of us constantly running around, but trust me, I'm far from invisible," She assured with a bitter huff. "If anything, I'm the most-wanted. And not in a 'favorite child' kind of way."

JJ chuckled quietly and briefly lifted his own beer to his lips, taking a long swig before he spoke. "Well, with your equal portion," He snickered to Willa. "maybe you can pay your way to being the favorite, sunshine."

Willa only rolled her eyes, holding onto her smirk even as it threatened to fall away from features all over again. If only paying her way would be that easy. Surely, the title of the favorite child was one that Willa would never earn. Not when Ace existed. Not when Rayne existed. Not when true-blooded Deveraux's existed. But the pogues did not really need to know that.

Meanwhile, at the mention of the treasure from the Royal Merchant, Kiara perked her head up slightly and her warm auburn eyes shifted expectantly, her expression pure and playful as she looked to Pope who was currently sitting closest to her. "What are you going to do with your eighty mil, Pope?" She wondered innocently.

Pope's answer was almost immediate, his eyes darkening solemnly as he thought to the reality that existed beyond the tranquility of the Routledge jetty. Whether any of the teenagers liked it or not, they could not stay on that wooden dock forever. They could not stay kids forever. "Pay for college in advance," The Heyward boy informed surely. "And also, textbooks. Those are expensive."

"What about you, Kie?" JJ asked.

"Yeah," Pope prodded in agreement. "What does a socialist do when she's rich?"

Kiara laughed softly and shook her head. "I just want to make a double album. About OBX, the pogues . . . You know, the way Catch a Fire is about Kingston," She admitted carelessly. " Record it at Marley Studio, Peter Tosh producing."

Pope frowned. "Peter Tosh is de—"

"Peter Tosh is dead. I know that," Kiara Carrera confirmed, beating Pope to the punch. "But the spirit of Peter Tosh will never die."

JJ grinned at Kiara's light tone, his own expression brightening with a silent and excitable wonder. "I know what I'll do . . . I'm going to get a big ass house on Figure Eight," He declared boldly. "I'm going to get a marble statue of myself, and then I'm going to get a koi pond—"

"A koi pond?" Willa repeated with a lively roll of her soft, sage-colored eyes. "Not a single soul in the Figure Eight has a koi pond."

"Well, then I'll be the first!" JJ grinned eagerly at her. "I'll put a bunch of those little fish—"

"I'm never visiting," Kiara chuckled, playfully waving a hand to cut the rambling, hyperactive boy off. "What about you, Wills?" She added, turning her attention across the dock as she changed the subject. "What are you doing with your eighty mil?"

Throughout Willa Deveraux's young and rebellious life, there were plenty of times that she had dreamed of running away from her home on the Outer Banks. With eighty million dollars, she could do just that . . . She truly could run away and never look back. But what became of her life after she made it back onto the mainland? How did life go on after the great escape? That was what had always held her at bay from fleeing on a local ferry long, long ago. But even then, Willa had dreams for a settled life in the middle of a faraway country, too. She wanted to get as far away from the ocean as she could. And then she wanted to build a quiet life for herself; a life where her past and her roots could not find her, and her future and her legacy could only grow.

"I think I'd like to open a floral shop one day. You know, like Miss Bonnie's downtown?" Willa clarified, earning several understanding head nods from the teenagers around her. Of the many watchful stares, Kiara's expression was the lightest, the gentlest and most understanding of a dream that others might not have expected from a kook girl raised to the highest of standards. "And I'd like to open up a ring shop, too," She added warmly. "Not really a full-on jewelry shop, but sort of, just a little boutique for rings. But . . ." Willa trailed off momentarily. "since that's kind of impossible, I thought it would be really fun if I could just, like, mash them together? A floral shop and a ring shop all rolled into one? It's kind of silly, I know—"

"I don't think it's silly at all," Kiara assured, interrupting her kindly. "I think it's really cool. I'd shop there."

Willa smiled softly and looked down to her own intertwined hands, her fingers curling over the numerous rings that littered her gritty and bloody skin. How cool would it be to sell rings just like these to a whole new generation? The thought made Willa giddy. "I'd also like to publish a book one day," She admitted gently, almost as if it were an afterthought.

Pope tilted his head to the side, genuinely curious. "About what?" He inquired.

Before Willa could answer—as if she would have told the truth, anyways—JJ Maybank was beating her to it. "To going full kook?" He teased.

"Full kook?" Pope repeated, frowning.

"Rich, richer, richest," JJ drawled cockily, numbering each statement off on his fingers. "The whole nine yards, baby." Willa merely rolled her eyes at JJ's jab. Despite JJ's assumptions, Willa Deveraux had absolutely no interest in going full kook. In her bitter and angry sixteen years of life, she had had more than enough experience in the Figure Eight to know that it was never going to be the life for her if she had any say in it. She did not want to ever be a full kook.

So, instead, Willa Deveraux only said, "To going free."

And that was more than answer enough.

Despite himself, JJ Maybank could not help but nod, his expression soft with quiet respect, and Kiara only continued to smile around at her friends, her gaze alight with the possibilities that rested beyond the dark horizon for them all. Meanwhile, from beside the Carrera girl, Pope eagerly turned his head in John B.'s direction. "What are you going to do, JB?" He asked.

One-by-one, four heads automatically turned towards the Routledge boy. For a long moment, John B. did not dare to meet any pair of eyes that watched him, his own hickory gaze still locked on the marsh, on the water that had both taken his father from him, and had returned him back to him, too. And with that heaviness—that heartbreaking reality, that unknown future—weighing on his shoulders, John B. would not let his father's final message go to waste. He would make his father proud. Slowly, John B. Routledge lifted his head to the surrounding teenagers and smiled gently, even if it did not quite reach his eyes just yet. "To going full kook," He cheered softly, lifting his half-drunken beer in a final toast.

To going full kook.

"That's the spirit, brother!" JJ Maybank crowed, climbing eagerly to his feet at the sight of his best friend slowly but surely coming back to life, the fire within his beaten and bruised heart coming to life once more. In fact, the fire was beginning to burn bright in them all, all over again. And it was all by John B.'s own unsuspecting doing. "To kookdom! And to freedom!" Kiara was the next to rise to her feet, grabbing another beer to join in the toast with JJ and John B. Then, after exchanging a small glance with Pope, Willa was soon standing up, too, now cradling two empty beers in her jeweled hands as she lifted them high into the dark sky. With five teenagers now shoulder-to-shoulder, bottles clanging loudly as bare feet pattered on the splintered, wooden dock, the night truly felt alive. "And to four-hundred-fucking-mil!"

And as all their silly cheers soon rang clear with the echoing thunder overhead—all the while the island unsuspectingly pushed a deadly storm their way—none of the teenagers could ever anticipate the cruel ending that lied ahead for them all. Nor could any of them possibly know that they would not all survive to reach the promise of their own eighty million. But right now, with the whole world seemingly at their feet, none of five teenagers could possibly see the fatal doomsday looming right over their heads.

Least of all Willa Deveraux.

~~~~~~~~~~

well, that took a bit of a dark turn, didn't it?

wow i'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get this chapter posted!! life has gotten really crazy and i'm honestly just trying to keep up with it. anyways, i hope this chapter was enjoyable. not a whole lot happened, but i just love seeing our babies bond together. i cannot wait to see the relationships and bonds that grow from these early days. looking at the timeline of outer banks, it's truly crazy to believe how quickly everything happens to these kids.. like, willa deveraux is not ready for it, y'all!

anywaysssss, now, i really don't know what to say here, so i'm just going to leave it all to you once again. i'd honestly really love to hear some feedback from y'all. it makes my day and it makes me feel like y'all are genuinely enjoying this story. i love hearing your thoughts!!

do you think willa deveraux will survive to the end of her story?

so, 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.

and now,

"the perfect meme for willa doesnt exis—"