[ xxiii. the royal merchant ]

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THE NEXT MORNING, WILLA Deveraux found herself violently heaving over the side of Pope Heyward's father's boat. With trembling jeweled fingers wrapped tightly against the starboard side's edge, it took all the nauseous girl's power to keep standing upright as her knees threatened to buckle. Wave after wave of acidity sick pummeled her, curdling her burning stomach with an unforgiving stab of prickling pain after every shaking breath she released.

To the confusion of the four teenage pogues that moved restlessly around her, Willa was not sick because of the unpredictability of JJ's firm hand on the wheel, the boy determined to keep the unsteadily rocking boat in a certain place against the choppiness of a brewing sea.  Rather she was sick by the unsettled nerves in her stomach. Because even though she was currently in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Willa's body and mind were still trapped in the echoes of yesterday.  Her entire being was still frozen on her front doorstep where her house key had been left behind by a stranger. A stranger who could have easily broken into her house and taken anything and harmed anyone that they pleased.

As this horrifically cruel and haunting thought washed over her, Willa abruptly emptied another round of bile into the salty waves below. Her running nose was stinging, and her ears were rining with the clashing of loud and sudden noises, coming from both the boat and the sea.  Her long-since clenched eyes watered painfully, the warm trickles of water making their way down her cold and clammy cheeks and staining her slim neck.

"You know, you could have told us you get seasick," JJ Maybank clipped out from somewhere over Willa's shoulder.

The Deveraux daughter slowly lifted her head, thankful that Kiara had been quick to pull her curly hair back after the first explosion of vomit, and looked towards the cabin of the boat where JJ lingered.  The arrogant and snide blonde was watching her closely out of the corner of his sunglass-covered eyes.  From where he stood in the cabin's threshold, Willa could see that he was now barefoot, having abandoned his leather boots upon boarding. Now, he was the epitome of comfort meets bedhead: perfectly content in dark swimmer shorts that contrasted against a bright red ball cap and a long-sleeved, billowy white t-shirt.

How the hell JJ was willingly wearing a long-sleeved shirt in this middle of July was beyond Willa. Despite the fact that they were on the water, the air was still humid and uncomfortably hot.

Then again, she supposed, devils did thrive in heat.

"I'm not seasick," Willa bit back. Nonetheless, her timid shoulders still lurched as her body gave up control once more to the tremors that continued to thrash through her. "I'm just sick."

JJ scoffed and turned away, entirely unconvinced. His sharp and bitter attitude, though, was enough to strike a match in Willa's weakened system and she slowly pushed herself upright. Her arms and legs were still shaky as she stood tall, but she no longer felt as if she were going to throw up again. She was certain that her stomach was finally empty. No matter, Willa still clung close to the edge of the boat and held a wary hand up when John B. Routledge attempted to approach her.

"Don't say anything," She warned him. "I'm fine."

John B. tilted his head to the side, his mess of long brunette waves cascading to his right shoulder as he eyed her feeble hand. It was as if he were testing the weight of breaking her tiny barricade. Then he stepped forward anyway, the thin fabric over his chest meeting her open palm, and she reluctantly dropped her arm with a stubborn sigh. "Are you going to tell me what's going on with you?" He wondered.

"Nothing is going on. I just don't feel well."

"Are you hungover?"

Of course, he would ask that. Without saying a word further, both teens were immediately brought back to that horrendously embarrassing moment for Willa Deveraux. She was never going to be able to live down that first day at the Chateau, was she?

"No, I'm not hungover!" Willa angrily snapped back, speaking—perhaps—a bit harsher than she intended. To her relief her hostility did not phase John B. in the slightest. If anything, she was certain she could see a small smirk beginning to form on his squared and sun-kissed features. "It's probably just food poisoning."

John B. contemplated this innocent response for a moment, but his hickory stare never left her weary and pale face. She wondered if he could see the blatant lie so evidently in her eyes when it was masked amongst the pain and nausea that she still felt lingering in her expression. Finally, he shrugged. "If you say so," He replied.

Willa's sage-green eyes narrowed defensively. "I just did."

What did he care, anyways? Had none of them ever been sick before? With the way that this boat was sailing through the water it was a surprise that no one else had lost their sea legs yet. Just then, as if to prove her point, the boat broke through another mass of waves and jolted harshly to the side, causing both Willa and John B. to brace up against the railing, bumping up against one another as they struggled to regain their balances. Willa huffed with annoyance as she quickly put some distance between herself and John B. once more, needing the space to breathe, and then she sent a bitter glare back towards the cabin of the boat. JJ was not looking at her currently, but she could imagine the smirk on his face at the ridiculous sight of her nearly toppling over the side and into the ocean achieved all by his doing.

"Why aren't you at the wheel, again?" Willa muttered under her breath to the tall Routledge boy beside her.

"Because someone needs to make sure that we don't lose the drone."

"Ah, yes, our illegal drone. Have you even thought about how you're going to get it back to the salvage yard without getting caught once we're done here?"

John B. grinned at the sarcasm that dripped from her tone. There was seemingly nothing that could tamper his spirits in that moment, so close to potentially discovering all that his father had left behind for him. "One problem at a time," He insisted.

Willa merely rolled her eyes at John B.'s attempt to spread his playfulness onto her. After the past twenty-four hours, she was struggling to feel much of any true emotion aside from a distant steadfastness; simply feeling just enough to keep her breathing, standing, and going.  Do not get her wrong, though. She was excited for John B.—she truly was—but she was exhausted, too.

"It's always just one more problem, isn't it?" She mused. "On the bright side . . . at least I know what I'm writing my summer paper on."

"Hey, hey, hey," A mischievous voice cut in from behind them. "Get in line."

Willa turned her head to find Pope smirking at her from where he stood near an open laptop set up in the cockpit of the boat. Attached to the side of the laptop was a tiny joystick that would eventually be used to control the drone once it was submerged. Meanwhile, the laptop's large screen currently displayed a live feed that was connected to the drone's software. A small tablet had also come along with the rest of the drone's equipment, but John B. had taken claim of that almost immediately after Pope had gotten the smaller device set up with its own sea-level map and detector, as well.

Seeing Pope work so efficiently in this element, Willa was more than glad that he was so excellent with operating and handling advanced technology.  The rest of them would have never been able to put this all together on their own. Without Pope, for all Willa knew, they would still be in her father's office, lost in Google Earth.

"Oh, yeah?" Willa retorted, though there was a sense of teasing hidden in her words.

"Oh, yeah.  This adventure is mine," Pope declared.

"You'll probably just get accused of writing a knock-off Goonies," Kiara Carrera snorted from where she stood at the stern of the boat. "Mrs. Warren will think you spent your whole summer inside watching a single movie on repeat."

"Not a bad way to spend your summer if you ask me," JJ butted in.  As always, he needed to throw in his own two cents, even if no one was actually talking to him.  Willa was growing to anticipate his interruptions more and more with every conversation that they shared now.  "The movie choice could be better, though," He added with a shrug.

"That reminds me. Speaking of movies . . ." Kiara drawled, looking around the boat expectantly. "Is anyone else planning on going to that outdoor movie night that the town's community center is throwing tonight?" She questioned. "We should all go together. It could be fun."

"Sounds lame."

"JJ."

"What?  I'm just saying."

Willa Deveraux knew vaguely of what Kiara was talking about, having eavesdropped on conversations between passerby women as she walked through downtown yesterday, but she had never taken that information too seriously nor bothered to feign interest. She had not seen an actual movie on a big screen in a long time. In fact, not many people living on Kildare had. There had not been any new movies shown on the island in over two summers.  Not since the only theater within fifty miles was burned down in a freak accident. Afterward, even with all the money in the world, no one had bothered to fix the building back up.

Lost in her thoughts, Willa never heard the responses of the other pogues to the potential movie night adventure and the young girl only managed to lift her heavy head back up, shaking her daydream distraction away, once John B. had announced that they had reached his father's last instructed coordinates.

By Big John Routledge's dying promise, they were now, supposedly, on top of the final resting place of the Royal Merchant.

Suddenly, Willa stood up straighter and anxiously looked around, as if trying to sense the tragedy that had once taken place here. On either side of her was nothing but deep and dark open water; she could barely see the island from the distance they had sailed. Oddly enough, despite the weight of the world pressing down on her shoulders, nothing about this stretch of the ocean particularly stood out to her. There was no sign at all that they were hovering right above 400 million dollars. But they were. It was right there.

All at once the five eager teenagers moved into their previously discussed positions of operation, more than ready to finally put this plan into motion. Willa followed closely in Kiara's shadow as they went to stand on the opposite side of the boat from where the former had been sick, and they simultaneously reached into a large black container to collect the one-thousand-foot extension line that would descend the drone into the sea. Meanwhile, JJ stopped turning the wheel and effectively pinned the boat down in a set location, but his hands remained locked around the slick steel, prepared to beginning turning it again at a moment's notice.

"All right, ladies and gentlemen . . ." John B. exhaled with a gentle smile.  With his tablet tucked beneath one arm, he took the small, yellow drone from Pope's extended hands and then promptly walked over to where Willa and Kiara stood. His eyes were ablaze with wonder and excitement and hope. "To going full kook."

Willa watched with bated breath as John B. dropped the drone into the waves with a gentle splash and allowed it to be swallowed by the sea. The Routledge son then backed away from the edge and returned to the center place of the boat to monitor the live feed and tablet with Pope, searching for any sudden sign of a shipwreck. Still on the port side, Willa and Kiara began working the thick cord forward, slowly but surely letting the drone sink deeper and deeper into the depths of murky water.

Though Willa could not see him with her back turned, she could hear the intensity in John B.'s voice grow as the seconds steadily passed. "All right, JJ, we're right over it," He announced. Willa could imagine the depth of his laser-like stare, his warm and attentive eyes never leaving the blinking dots that likely splattered the screen. "Ten seconds northwest."

"Got it!" JJ replied. "Ten seconds northwest." From the corner of her eye, Willa watched as the blonde captain quickly gave the wheel a short spin, following John B.'s instruction precisely.

Another series of seconds passed by in relative quietness, each and every teenager poised and focused in their own retrospect. All that could be heard was the battering of the waves against the side of the boat and the quiet friction of the extension cord slipping over the railing. "We're a hundred feet down, guys," Willa finally reported, still allowing the cord to slip through her hands and into Kiara's own from where the other girl stood in front of her, nearer to the vessel's edge. "Keep it steady—"

"Holy shit!"

From over her shoulder Pope yelped and Willa hurriedly whipped around at his cry, just in time to catch him flinching back from the joystick in what she assumed was shock—or, perhaps, fear. Pope's darkened and rattled gaze was now locked on the laptop's screen, eyeing the live feed closely and his jaw dipped with disbelief.  But then, ever so abruptly, his teeth snapped shut and his tensed mouth closed. "Oh, my God . . ."

"What? What? What?" John B. demanded feverishly, his voice almost giddy with anticipation as he nearly shoved Pope away from the laptop, trying to take a glimpse of the screen for himself. Like a current, his excitement and curiosity spread over Willa, Kiara, and JJ as they watched the bewildered pair of boys pour over the live feed. Though none of the three could move from their places, the teenagers still found that they could not contain themselves from daring tiny steps closer, eager to hear a report.

Through the nausea that still lingered in her system, Willa's own fierce heart was soaring as she continued to watch Pope, her sage gaze burning with an exhilarated alertness that she had not felt in several days. Strangely, with every moment that passed, she could see that very same electrified reaction fading from Pope's features.  Already in less than five seconds upon first crying out, his narrow shoulders had begun to slump back down once more.  Whatever had once surprised him was now gone.

"Uh . . . it's nothing," Pope shakily attempted to reassure.

That response sufficed no one. With the cord still working through her nimble fingers, Willa's widened stare narrowed in confusion. "Pope, what is it?" She pressed determinedly.

"It was a squid."

"What?"

"It was a squid!" The Heyward genius repeated with anguish. "It just—popped up on the screen out of nowhere. Scared me."

"There was a loud groan from inside the cabin. "Don't do that to me, man!" JJ shouted. Outside the cabin, Willa, Kiara, and John B. all voiced similar sounds of annoyed agreement.

"My bad, my bad," Pope apologized meekly; certainly embarrassed. The Heyward boy rubbed at his eyes with clenched fists and then returned to the joystick.  Willa was still watching him out of the corner of her eye, waiting to see if something else beneath the surface of the water would surprise him.  Nonetheless, Pope never looked up to meet her gaze; this time, he kept his attention firmly on the camera, not allowing himself to be surprised again. "And to quote The Hobbit," He breathed in a hushed sigh.  She could barely hear him over the roar of the ocean, which was seemingly growing rockier with each passing second.  "'Down, down to Goblin Town. Down, down, you go, my lad' . . ."

Despite the innocence of Pope's gesture—the boy simply doing whatever it took to calm himself down—Willa still shivered at the tone of his voice. For even though he tried to feign collectedness, there was a nervousness and eeriness that had taken over the boat.  That had taken over all of them.

Willa could feel the pained knots retwisting themselves tighter in her emptied stomach and she braced herself back against the large container that still held most of the extension cord.  Her eyes shifted away from Pope and she looked down towards the drenched deck of the boat.  Her hands were moving automatically, working freely with the persistent tug of the extension line, even as her tentative mind was still lost in the hesitation of what possibly waited for them at the bottom of the ocean.

What if there was no Royal Merchant? What if there was no money? What if this had all been for nothing?  What would happen if the five of them returned to the shore empty-handed?

The sharp slap of waves against the side of the boat rattled Willa from her distant thoughts once more and her head snapped up in alarm when she felt her body shift with a sudden jolt.  Over the top of Kiara's head, Willa Deveraux looked further out to sea, towards the darkening skies that were rapidly forming overhead.  Heavy and thick rain clouds loomed less than two miles off, turning the entire world around them to shadow, the warm and bright sun becoming lost in the black.  Already the wind was beginning to pick up, shaking the boat and its occupants, the sea sensing the storm before the rest of the island ever could.

"Guys . . . the tide's turning," Willa cautioned.

Just then, a sharp rumble of thunder echoed around them.

And yet the show had to go on.  In the midst of a waking ocean, now more than guaranteed to be caught in the storm, the group of teenagers could not give up now.  "The drone is at four hundred feet!" Kiara announced. She let go of the cord briefly to make a small tally on the boat's railing with a piece of chalk. At least one of them was keeping track.  Already Willa had forgotten how far the drone had dropped.

"Keep it going," John B. encouraged from behind the two girls.  A moment later, he spoke towards the cabin.  "JJ, ten seconds easy," He called.  His voice was steadily becoming louder with each word, doing all that he could to remain heard over the persistent howl of the wind.  "South-southeast."

"Copy that!"

Willa looked towards the darkened cabin.  JJ had now taken off his sunglasses, as if that could seemingly clear his vision and narrow his focus further. Then he hurriedly turned the wheel just as John B. shouted out another order, "Twenty seconds mid-speed, all right? South."

"Aye, aye, captain."

Willa Deveraux could not help but find herself watching in wonderment as the two best friends bounced off one another's responses, never missing a beat as they focused on their own tasks.  JJ worked with ease in the tiny cabin, pulling levels, pushing buttons, and twisting the wheel all at once, acting as if he had four arms rather than a mere two.  Never once did he seem phased by the looming storm nor thrown off by the shakiness of the boat as it was jerked and rocked by the ferocity of brewing waves. No, JJ Maybank handled the chaos with a level of calm unheard of to the rest of the teenagers. He was made to work on the water. He was made to—

"Eyes in the water, kook bait!"

JJ's sharp and deafening tone cut into her whirling thoughts, blistering blue eyes catching Willa's frozen stare before she could promptly look away.  The ruthless wind was roaring loudly in her ears, making her stubborn and fierce heart pound faster, as the icy breeze curled and twisted around her teetering body.  Willa held JJ's burning gaze for a moment longer before her attention went lower, eyes falling towards one of his calloused and battered hands that had left the wheel.  He was pointing at her—or rather pointing towards the extension line in her small, slippery hands. "Keep the cord out of the propeller!" He commanded.

Before Willa could even dare to attempt defending herself, to explain that his instruction was easier said than done, Kiara Carrera was already growling back, "We're trying, JJ!" She then looked back towards the ever-descending cord and marked another tally. "Seven hundred feet now!"

Willa tried not to fret over the quickly forming realization that they were about to run out of line. The drone could only descend so much further into the sea before it would be lost to the shadows of the unknown and they would then be forced to drag it back to the surface.  And if they were forced to do that, then that was that.  They could not stay out on the water.  This storm was pushing them out of the ocean one way or another and with the tide turning it would be days before they could attempt another deep-sea search. Days that they did not have; not with daunting gunmen, a stolen drone, and a rapidly ending summer lurking over them.

Thunder boomed overhead and Willa could feel the gooseflesh rising on her bare arms. With lightning not so far off, the Deveraux daughter was beginning to feel the timid static sweeping dangerously through her curly, knotted locks that twisted into the base of her skull. In front of her, Kiara's own dark hair was beginning to curl up and off her shoulders.

"JJ, hold it steady!" John B. instructed loudly.  All around Willa, she could see the four other teenagers struggling against the rocky swaying of the boat. "We'll turtle in this storm!"

"We're at nine-hundred feet!" Willa shouted, panic shooting into her throat in her own desperation to be heard over the storm.  Suddenly, the boat dipped dangerously low into the sea, sending a large wave showering over the two girls who slipped and slid within the salty water, trying to maintain balance as they held onto the drone's extension cord. "Sorry!" Willa yelped, upon knocking harshly into Kiara's back.

"It's okay!" Kiara rushed back, struggling to keep her freed and drenched hair out of her eyes. "John B., we're at nine-twenty! Less than a hundred feet left!"

"Hang on, Kie!  JJ, crank it north by northwest! Ten seconds!"

"Ten seconds!" JJ repeated. From beneath his white shirt, Willa could see the muscles in his arms flexing as he pulled the wheel with all his weight, doing all that he could to keep their boat afloat. If he was not careful, they were all going to flip. Then not only would the townspeople of Kildare be left looking for the Royal Merchant, but for the bodies of five teenagers, too.

"Pope, how are we doing?" John B. urgently questioned.  Once more, he was peering directly over the Heyward boy's shoulder, looking closely towards the live feed screen.

"Almost there," Pope reassured, though Willa found hardly any solace in his words. She could barely hear the two boys conversing behind her, her attention back down towards the cord in her hands that was threatening to snap. Her palms were stinging with pain as she tried to hold the extension line still, but the waves were working against her, forcing more and more of the line from her grip.  The friction burned her smooth skin, tearing her palms open.

Willa's teeth clenched as she fought against the harshness of the earth's watery and tenacious pull.  "John B., we're losing the line!" She shouted.

In front of her, a harsh gasp escaped Kiara's lips as she stumbled once more, her tiny body slamming into the railing.  "There's too much current!"

John B. did not respond to either of the struggling girls. Instead, he was still entranced by the blinking dots on his small handheld monitor. "South, southwest, JJ! Hard!" He ordered breathlessly. Without hesitation, JJ followed the Routledge boy's command and Willa could feel the boat rock with another sudden turn. "Half speed! Steady at this bearing, JJ!"

"You got it!" JJ hollered back.

Suddenly, the tablet in John B.'s hands began to beep loudly and incessantly like a metal detector over a piece of buried gold. "What do you got, Pope?" The Routledge boy demanded, looking towards the larger camera on the nearby laptop's screen.  Willa could not see what either of them saw from the angle that she stood, but the anticipation was threatening to overtake her just as easily as the sea threatened to overtake the Heyward boat. "Come on, man. What do you see?"

"Nothing," Pope muttered, his hand still moving anxiously on the joystick. "A whole lot of nothing."

"No, no, no!" John B. groaned. "We should be right above it, brother."

"The drone needs to go lower."

"How much lower?" Willa demanded.  She spared a glance towards the tally marks that Kiara had created.  "We're at nine-sixty! We can't go much further!"

"Nine-seventy . . . Nine-eighty . . ." Kiara trailed uncertainly, allowing more and more of the extension line to slip through her hands. Both girls were now practically staring into an empty black box that had once been filled to the brim with one-thousand feet of thick yellow wiring. How could the drone have gone so deep and still managed to find nothing?

"Stop! Stop!" Pope suddenly exclaimed, raising a frantic hand towards both girls. "I'm at the bottom! The drone is at the bottom!"

Willa exhaled a breath she had not realized she had been holding. Over the pounding of her heart in her ears she could no longer even hear the thunder that rumbled over her head. With grateful yet hurting hands, Willa released the extension line when Kiara did and they both stepped away from the edge of the boat. They were both soaking wet, yet it was no thanks to the rainclouds that had yet to break overhead.

Neither Willa nor Kiara went for a spare towel in the cabin, though. Instead, they were quick to gather around John B. and Pope, eager to take their own looks at the murky screen.  Standing on her tiptoes and peering over John B's broad shoulder, Willa immediately recognized the bottom of the ocean staring back at her, but that was it.  That was all that she could see.

"Shouldn't we be seeing something by now?" She questioned.

"Hang on.  Steady here, JJ!" John B. called, turning to look over Willa's head as he spoke to his friend. "Quarter speed, all right?"

JJ held a thumb up.  "Quarter speed!"

John B. then turned back around looked to the screen once more.  "You should be seeing something by now, Pope," He reminded his friend.

"I know, I know," Pope exhaled shakily. "I don't understand—Wait! Wait! Look!  Oh, my God!"

"See anything?!" JJ demanded wildly from within the cabin. Willa knew that it was taking all the boy's self-control to remain at the wheel and not storm the screen himself.

And just like that, Willa Deveraux's world was about to change forever.  "Holy shit," The young girl murmured.  Her sage-green eyes were wide with wonder, her jaw dropping as she leaned closer towards the screen, so close that she could practically touch the—

"The Royal Merchant," John B. whispered in awe.

Out of the darkness of the murky ocean water, slowly, the skeletal remains of the legendary Royal Merchant began to take shape on the screen. In the dim lighting that the drone projected, Willa could make out the figurine of an angel-like woman at the bow of the ship.  Beyond it, she could see into the crevices that had caused its brutal and horrific collapse.  Schools of tiny fish swam within the depths of the forgotten walls and rooms of the shipwreck, finding homes within the plants, coral, and decay that had taken the lives of so many from a history long-held dormant.

But now that history was about to come to light. After a troubling and tired search, after scaling a haunted lighthouse, after a wild hunt through the mazelike salvage yard, after searching beyond the grave and through the depths of a wasteland marsh ridden with dead bodies and bullets, Willa Deveraux, John B. Routledge, Pope Heyward, Kiara Carrera, and JJ Maybank had finally made history.

Or . . . so she thought that they had.

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LESS THAN TEN MINUTES after locating the Royal Merchant lost within the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the five teenagers who had been responsible for the discovery found themselves disappointed rather than elated.  Because while they had found the lost shipwreck, that was all that they had managed to find.

Aside from an abundance of rotting wood and diminished steel, there was nothing else to take away from the famous shipwreck. The 400 million treasure that Big John Routledge had supposedly died for was not onboard. The fortune was gone. Missing. Likely lost to the sea forever, just as history always intended it to be.

In the aftermath, Willa Deveraux was not how she was supposed to feel upon this revelation.  All five of them had been certain that today would end in victory.  That they would return to the island as historic heroes, each left to become their own millionaire with their own fortune to spend as they pleased.

From paying for college, to opening a floral shop, and even to owning a koi pond . . . now, those innocent dreams were all gone.

So, where did they go from there?

Willa did not know the answer.  No one did.

Yet to her surprise—hell, to the surprise of all the pogues—John B. Routledge was the first to accept to the defeat of losing the Royal Merchant's fortune. "It's not there," He said with a reluctant sigh. His eyes, once so warm and jubilant, were now faded and tired as he looked from face-to-face that peered back up at him. So many had looked to him in the prior moments, so many had put their dreams on his shoulders, and Willa could recognize the guilt of disappointment that echoed in the depth of his gaze as he was forced to cut them all loose.  "Let's just—just pull the drone up."

"We can do another pass," Pope insisted, trying to salvage any hope that remained. "If we just recharge the battery, we can go back down."

Meanwhile, thunder still crackled in the darkened sky overhead.  The storm was growing closer with every passing second, the waves still rocking the boat unsteadily to-and-fro.  "Look at those clouds," Willa quietly pointed out, raising a timid and jeweled finger towards the sky.  Four pairs of saddened eyes followed her gaze.  It was as if, for the briefest moment, they had forgotten about the storm entirely.  For a single moment, they had thought that they could not be touched.  "We can't wait for a recharge."

"But—"

"Pope, you took the drone through the wreckage three times," JJ cut him off as he stepped out from within the stifling cabin. The hot-headed blonde was angry at this betrayal of wishful thinking, his sharpened cheeks tinted with a furious red, but even he knew that there was no hope left to find.  "There's nothing there."

"Shut up, JJ!" Kiara snapped defensively.  She could barely even look at him in her own dispirited rage.  Clearly, not everyone was as accepting to the idea of leaving the missing fortune to remain missing as John B. supposedly was.

"What?!" JJ retorted with a roll of his eyes. "It's true!"

"The gold could be buried!" Kiara roared, raising her hands above her head in frustration. "We don't know!  Maybe it's—"

"If it was there, it would've been found on the drone's monitor, okay?" John B. interrupted. His voice was monotone, void of any life left.  "Somebody beat us to it." Plain and simple.

"Or it was never there," The Maybank boy sneered beneath his breath.

Willa crossed her arms tightly over her chest at JJ's comment, but she chose not to verbally react.  None of them could try to tell him that he was wrong when none of them would ever know the truth about the gold now.

As a final sign of abandon, John B. Routledge pulled the hood of his salmon-colored jacket over his head and sulked to the stern of the boat. Without another word, he sunk down against the railing and stared out into the depths of the stirring ocean.  His hickory gaze was darkeningly forlorn, lost in the disappointment of letting down both his friends and his father.

Willa Deveraux watched the quiet boy for a long moment.  She never moved but somewhere behind her she could hear Pope beginning to pack up the drone's equipment as Kiara began to pull the drone back towards the water's surface.  The only ones who had yet to follow in their own tasks were the Deveraux daughter and the Maybank son.  They were both still watching John B., still waiting for the sign of a final crack in his shaken and torn system.  She could not imagine how hard he was likely trying to keep his composure steady, to keep his tears at bay.

For the briefest of seconds, Willa considered joining him at the stern of the boat.  Not to talk to him but to simply hold his hand.  To be with him in the dark.  But then she thought better of it and went to stand near the bow of the rocking vessel.  She knew that John B. needed to be alone.  In fact, after the devastation that this entire goose chase had truly been just that—a goose chase—they all likely needed some time to be alone with their thoughts.

But apparently someone did not get that memo.

"Well," JJ Maybank defiantly huffed, a valorous and blazing persona built to always keep moving forward and to never look back.  With John B. still turned away from the group, only three soaked, miserable, and defeated faces managed to look over at the tall and unbeaten blonde boy.  In the shadows of the storm, beneath the echoing rumble of thunder, sapphire blue met sage green all over again.

"Now what?"

~~~~~~~~~~

this update truly and utterly killed me. but i am glad to finally get it posted, a darn four months later. with summer rapidly approaching and school wrapping up in the next month or so, i should start to have more time to work on this story! seeing the cast and crew of obx wrap up the second season is motivating me to get back into this story! i need to get willa caught up with the rest of the gang!!

anyways, i hope you enjoyed this chapter. i'm not so sure how i feel about it, but it's mainly just a filler chapter, so i suppose that's okay. we're getting back into the groove of things on the island in the chapters to come and we are so, so close to midsummers! i cannot wait to write about that night!!

so, what're you all thinking? how're you all doing?? i'd love to hear your thoughts! i appreciate all votes and comments of feedback! thank you!!

oh, and on another note—you know how all of the pogues have their own sort of fashion style? well, i have determined what willa would be wearing on their adventures across the island, and here it is:

different colored flannel, tank-top, and jersey shorts every day. and, of course, endless ring jewelry and those painful birkenstocks. that's our girl. but anyways, just wanted to give you an idea of willa's fashion sense, and how i imagine her clothing appearance from chapter-to-chapter.

as always, stay safe and stay well xx

—B.