[ xxv. tainted kook ]

➸➸➸

WILLA DEVERAUX WAS STILL seething with a fiery, inextinguishable rage by the time she returned home from the Kildare Island's community movie night event.

It was well after midnight, but several of the lights on the lower story of the massively tall house were still on.  Thankfully, her father's large truck was missing from the long driveway, signaling that he was likely still at work, lost in the midst of patient files and endless cups of coffee.  At least, to her relief, Willa knew that her father would not be sitting up in his leather armchair, mindlessly watching the door as the clock ticked later into the humid evening.  The same absence could not be said for her mother though, who was, unsurprisingly, waiting up for the last of her children to trickle on home.

Willa did not bother to enter the mansion quietly, letting the heavy front door slam to a close behind her, booming in rhythm with her erratically pounding heart.  Despite the long walk home, she had not been able to calm herself down in the slightest.  In the back of her mind, she felt as if she were still in that dark park.  She felt as if she were still screaming into a black void of fury, as if she were still clinging to an erratically violent Rafe to slow his cruel punches, as if she were still wielding the stolen handgun that could have turned the night in a completely different and horrific direction.

She could have shot someone.  She could have killed someone.

The thought made Willa nearly sick to her stomach and her throat constricted tightly at the gruesome image her rattled mind had conjured up within the splinters of her pounding brain's muddled chaos.  There would have been so much blood.  So much more than what had already been spilt that night.

Meanwhile, she could feel the dirt and dried grass still caked on her scabbed knees from when she had found herself face down on the ground only an hour prior.  She had not bothered to clean herself up when she left the budding crime scene.  Not when she had been worried about ensuring that both JJ and Pope were alright and stitched up in the aftermaths of their brutal ambushes with the Figure Eight kooks. 

As a result, she could still feel the battered Maybank boy's crusted blood beneath her fingernails.

"Where have you been?"

Maren Deveraux's rigid voice clipped harshly through Willa's distracted trance and the young girl looked up from the cold floors and over to where her mother stood in the kitchen's wide entryway.  Looking over the older woman's shoulder, Willa could see the same familiar mess littering the island's marble tabletop from only days ago: endless Midsummer papers and more than half a bottle of red wine finished. 

In the light above, Willa could see the vibrant flush on her mother's sharpened cheekbones.  Despite Maren's straight posture that could not seemingly suggest anything less than perfected poise, Willa wondered how much her mother had actually had to drink today—and if that had been the reason that Ace had been the one responsible for taking their younger sisters out to the movie.

"Out," Willa finally answered.  Like always, she held the feeble eye contact with Maren that she had trained herself to withstand.  She hoped her mother might not say anything further in the seconds that pressed on between them; perhaps the stress of the approaching ball would lull her away from another conflict once more.

But upon Willa opting to take a single step towards the grand staircase, Maren continued, unmoving from her place in the entryway.  "Are you aware of what time it is?"

Willa paused, trapped in the center of the unblemished foyer, and let her eyes slide away from her mother's stern and pointed face.  In the silence between them, Willa's heart still pounded unsteadily in her chest; as if the timid quiet only urged her anger to fester, to grow, to unleash.  The Deveraux daughter did not have the time nor patience for these games with Maren.  Not after tonight.  Not after the past several chaotic and terrifying, and painful days.  She did not want to deal with anyone any longer today.  She just wanted to go to bed.

"Yep," She replied dryly.

More quiet ensued.  The type of quiet that withheld the weight of a bomb about to explode.  This time Willa was able to make it to the staircase, but Maren sidestepped in front of her before she could begin to climb a single step.  "Not so fast, young lady," She warned.

Willa pressed her lips together in a firm line.  "Can we please just talk about this tomorrow?" She attempted to bargain.

"No." Maren shook her head. The older woman's jaw was clenched immensely tight.  Willa thought that she could possibly hear the grinding of her mother's teeth over the severe ache of her heart clashing against the confines of her bruised ribs. "We cannot."

"Mom, I'm tired."

"And you don't think that I'm tired?  Staying up half the night, most nights, wondering where you are?"

Willa flinched as her mother's voice rose an octave.  She recognized the punishing pitch.  She had been on the receiving end of it more times than she could count and in the aftermath her eardrums were always left rushing with blood.  "I never asked you to do that," She insisted.

"No, you didn't.  But you did not have to," Maren snapped back.  She crossed her thin arms narrowly over her chest and Willa eyed a small wine stain on the woman's lightly colored cashmere cardigan.  "Because it should not be happening."

Willa did not bow beneath the growing strain of her mother's strict tone.  She had been building towards her next escape from her mother from the moment she had walked in the door.  In response, in a single breath, three lies slipped easily off Willa's tongue.  "Look, I was just out with a couple of friends and lost track of time," She explained.  "I'm sorry."  But she was not.  "It won't happen again."  And it most certainly would.

Maren nodded her head stiffly at the sound of her eldest daughter's feeble promise.  Willa wondered if she might actually believe her, if the wine might—for once—work in her favor.  No matter, regardless of what Willa thought, the effort was futile in the repercussions of her drastic behavior.  There were one too many notches on the board, and Willa was far past her three strikes.  "It won't happen again," Maren finally agreed.  "Because you are grounded."

And as the sword swung down its sentence, it was as if a bucket of ice had been dropped over Willa's head.  A swift and sudden and painful coldness surged through her veins, lashing with the ferocious heat she still felt brewing from her brutal exchange with Rafe.  Now, rather than cool away the flames that threaded themselves into the spaces of her heart, the ice that festered seemed to solidify the fire within her system, holding that anger, that rage, and strengthening it rather than putting it out.

"What?" Willa bit back sharply.  "That's—"

"I don't want to hear it," Maren cut off.  "I am your mother, and I am supposed to know where you are, end of story."

Willa scoffed, loudly and bluntly, causing her mother's steely dark eyes to narrow that much more.  This night was far from the end of the story.  "How long, then?" She challenged defiantly.  As if a number or time to her prison sentence truly mattered.  Willa could sneak out that very night if she wanted to.  But no, in that moment, all she wanted was the last word.

"Until I decide," Maren responded, unwavering.  "Until I feel that I can trust you again."

"You want to talk about trust?" The bitter words slipped from Willa's snarled mouth before she could stop them, and they hung heavily in the air between a tensed mother and daughter.  Willa did not try to take them back, though; ever since Rafe had revealed to her the fate of her own Midsummer evening, she had felt stung by betrayal, and it was a pain like no other.

A mother was supposed to want the best for her child.  A mother was supposed to protect her daughter; not flaunt her with the promise of future wealth.

Willa could see the confusion forming in her mother's eyes but before Maren could even get a word in, she pressed on, "How could you?" She demanded fiercely.

"How could I what?"

"Rafe Cameron?" Willa seethed, the lone name dripping off her lips like blistering venom.  The mere sound of it sent chills running down her spine, curling into the heat that wafted off her stiffening back.  "Of all the people in the world, you chose him?"

Maren's frown only deepened.  "What on earth are you talking about?" She questioned.

"Midsummers," Willa spat.  "How could you possibly think that setting him and I up was a good idea?  Mom, he's a horrible person!"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"No, I do."

"He's a perfectly polite young man," Maren insisted firmly.  Too firmly.  Willa could sense that somewhere hidden beneath her mother's words was a deeper-rooted anger; as if the woman could not dare to believe that her daughter were to attempt challenging her on this decision—a decision that had been months in the making.  "You two will make a lovely couple for the evening."

"You're delusional if you think I am going to be anywhere near him tomorrow night," Willa retorted with a sharpened scowl.

Maren sighed deeply and pulled an arm away from her chest to pinch the bridge of her nose.  "Willa, we are not arguing about this," She scolded.  "You are walking with Rafe, and that is that."

"Mom—"

"One night is not going to kill you."

No, one night might not kill her, but it certainly would do her harm.  Whether the pain that would be inflicted by Rafe Cameron on the night of Midsummers was emotional or physical, only time would tell.  Nonetheless, instinctively, Willa lifted her left hand to her right bicep.  Only hours ago, Rafe had grabbed her in that very same place and had pulled her harshly against him, threatening her into silence.  Though there were no bruises in sight now, Willa felt as if Rafe still had his disgusting hold on her.

She wished her mother would only notice how much the thought of the Cameron boy distressed her and that it was truly with good reason, but Maren Deveraux had never been the best at paying attention to her daughter's needs.  Only to her faults.

From the corner of her eye, Willa glanced toward the large clock located on the foyer's furthest wall and knew that she would be getting no sleep tonight.  She was still wound tight with bitter emotion and this exchange with Maren had only made her feel worse.  Willa was angry.  So, so angry, and she did not know how to bottle it back up.  For so long she had been so used to keeping her rage at bay, to keeping it locked within the confines of her letters left to dust in her bedroom.  But now something had changed.  Willa had changed and she no longer knew who or what to blame.

Willa suddenly exhaled heatedly, unaware that she had even been holding her breath until she felt the faint pain beginning to burn in her lungs, reminding her that, in that moment, she needed oxygen more than she needed to spite her mother.  Then the moment passed and despite the newly tensed silence that held both Deveraux women still, Willa was determined to break it once more.  She could feel a new rush of acidic words resting dangerously on the tip of her tongue.  With a frustrated sight, she raked her jeweled fingers through her knotted and dirt-crusted curls, vaguely aware of the trembles that still echoed in her bruised knuckles. "You never listen—"

"What is that?"

At Maren's abrupt question, Willa froze with a hand still trapped in her whirlwind mess of dark hair.  Maren was not looking directly at her daughter, however; rather, the older woman's eyes were already locked on the clump of bright, colorful locks hidden at the base of her daughter's neck and Willa knew that there was no point in bothering to hide her rebellious image.  Hell, she could not even find it within herself to be horrorstruck at her mindless actions.  It was only a matter of time before she would have gotten caught with the flaming red streaks that contrasted so chaotically and wonderfully with the rest of her darkened complexion.  She had known it was a beautiful mistake to be discovered and punished by right from the start.

Willa did not even try to hide the smirk when she shrugged and merely brushed her hair back further, allowing Maren to see just how much of her locks had been dyed red with a horrendous box-dye.  "What do you think?" She asked. "Do you like it?"

If looks could kill, Willa would have already found herself six feet under.

Maren's face twisted from shock, to betrayal, to fury, over and over again, until her expression was seemingly a mixture of all three reactions.  "Are you aware of what tomorrow is?" She hissed.  She no longer was trying to keep her voice quiet, no longer concerned that she might wake up any of her other children in the household.

Willa matched her tone easily.  "Did I ruin your perfect midsummer image?" She taunted.  Somewhere, suddenly, deep down in her stomach, like a bullet fired from a gun, a nerve flinched at how cold her own words sounded in her ringing ears.  She had never spoken to her mother like this before; she had never been forced into a position where she felt that the only way her mother might hear her was when she was determined to tear her down, too.

But Maren was clearly not listening.  "No," She coldly assured.  They were standing so close to each other now Willa had to tilt her chin upward to continue holding her mother's burning gaze, and she could smell the lingering scent of bitter red wine on her breath.  "Because you're going to cut it out.  Right now."

Willa's eyes widened and she stared at her mother as if she had gone mad.  "No, I'm not," She rebuked.

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not!"

"You are cutting it out!" Maren shouted back.  "I don't care if I have to hold you down, but that," she gestured in disgust towards Willa's chunk of vibrant hair, "is coming out tonight.  I will not have you seen like this in public."

"Seen like what?" Willa exclaimed.  "Like an ordinary teenager?"

"Like a pogue," Maren spat the word as if the label were a curse.  A disgrace.

Willa let her arms drop to her sides at her mother's cruel blow.  It was one thing for the teenagers on the island to belittle one another with the hurtful and unnecessary nicknames that divided an island even further; but for adults?  Before that very instant, Willa had been certain that Maren had had no idea that the terms kooks and pogues even existed.  Oh, how wrong she had been.  "You are such a bitch," She muttered.

Maren's jaw dipped.  "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"You do not ever get to speak to me like that."

Willa stubbornly turned to leave, forgoing any chance of pushing past her mother to reach the staircase and called out over her shoulder as she entered a nearby hallway, "Then maybe it's best that I don't speak at all," She sneered.

Escape would never be that easy, though.  Willa had barely reached the living room before she heard the rapidly approaching footsteps behind her.  Maren was quick on her daughter's heels as the two Deveraux women pressed further into the lower level of the home.  "What has gotten into you?  Get back here, right now!"

"No."

"Willa!"

And suddenly, with little warning at all, just as it had in the dark park where more than one life had hung in the balance, the festering anger within Willa Deveraux boiled over. For the second time that night, she snapped all over again.

"Fuck you!" Willa unexpectedly shrieked, louder than she had ever shouted at one of her parents before.  She halted in her place and spun on her heel to face her mother once more.  Maren immediately took a step back as Willa pointed an aggressive finger in her face.  The young girl's round cheeks were burning, but not with shame.  She was furious.  "I'm not you, mom!  Don't you get that?!"

Maren's stony face became impassive.  Where there had once been only inches between them, now it felt as if there were miles keeping them apart.  But no matter the distance, Maren's were still cut like a knife stabbed directly into one's ribs.  "No, you're not," She agreed icily.  "And I'm embarrassed by you.  I'm embarrassed that you think that this type of behavior is tolerable!"

"I'm only sixteen!" Willa cried.  "I'm allowed to make mistakes!  I'm allowed to act like a teenager!  I am a fucking teenager!  You put all of this pressure on me to be perfect, but I'm not.  I'm not perfect!  I'm not the kook daughter you always wanted.  I won't ever be the daughter you wanted!"

"Yes, you will!"

Her mother's words hit her in the face with a screech, and Willa immediately pulled back in shock.  Without another word, lest she say something she would certainly regret, she darted into a bathroom at the end of the hallway and slammed the door in Maren's face as the older woman tried to follow her in.  In the nanosecond before the door finally closed, effectively dividing them, Willa was uncertain if the expression she saw on her mother's face was of brooding guilt or wicked relief.

A dry sob that had been trapped in Willa's chest unexpectedly exploded from her mouth as she watched the door handle jiggle when Maren tried to overcome the strength of the lock.  Her mother tried the handle for less than a minute before she began banging her bare and bony fists against the oak wood, doing all that she could to break it.  "Willa, open the door!" She ordered.

"Go away!" Willa yelled back.

"I will not tolerate this behavior!" Maren boomed. "You open this door, right now!"

"Mom, you're drunk!" Willa insisted shakily.  And she truly was—even if the Deveraux matriarch would always refuse to acknowledge it.  Maren would have never been acting like this in any other state of mind.  "You need to stop!"

"I'm calling your father!  And when he finds out about tonight . . ."

Despite the fact that Maren's voice was only growing louder by the second, the sounds of her threats soon became a distant wail in the back of Willa's ringing mind as she looked madly around the pristine bathroom.  She found herself staring at her surroundings like she had never seen them before and the weight of the shock of the night's succumbing events pulled whatever air remained from her lungs and left her dangerously empty.  It felt like the walls were caving in around Willa and though the door could certainly withstand the weight of her mother's persistently harsh fists, anxiety spiked in the young girl's chest at the thought of Maren finally reaching her.

She would cut her own hair out before she ever let her mother lay a hand on her.

Willa quickly found a small pair of sheer scissors within one of the white cabinets behind her but as she turned to face the mirror once more, she found herself frozen and gasping all over again.  A young girl stared back at Willa with sage green eyes full of confusion, and betrayal, and terror.  The sight horrified her, and big tears began to fill the mirror girl's eyes as Willa lifted a trembling hand to her red locks and began to cut.

It was over in less than a minute.  Now, at the base of the sink, long ringlets of reddened hair curled around the drain.  The hair that remained on Willa's head was back to normal.  There was not a single strand out of line.  It was just as her mother had wanted.  It was perfect.  Perfect to everyone but Willa.

As Willa continued to stare into the mirror, the longer she looked, the less she recognized.  The girl that peered back at Willa was lost behind concealer and excellence, and though she may have looked the part to the manipulative home she found herself within, she was drowning.  She was lost behind the curtains of a house she did not belong in yet could not escape from.  She was seemingly destined to remain in the house forever.

Willa Deveraux was terrified of the growing image of the cornered mirror girl before her.  She did not want it.  She did not want any of this.  She wanted to run but instead she was trapped.  She was trapped in the Figure Eight; she was trapped in a world where she was destined to be a kook—nothing more, nothing less.

But she wanted more.  Oh, she wanted more so badly.  She wanted to erase every last piece of kook from her system.

She wanted to free the girl in the mirror.

And so, before Willa could convince herself to stop—to think about what might result as a consequence of her hasty actions—she curled the fingers of her right hand into a fist and punched the mirror.  With a swift and solid swing, she sent it shattering into dozens of shards, effectively erasing the frozen girl that had been trapped in front of her.  Jagged pieces of glass quickly fell around Willa's exposed right arm and clattered into the sink, ringing in her ears like music.  Less than a second later, droplets of blood began to follow.

Perhaps it was the surge of anger and adrenaline that still coursed through her veins that prevented Willa from feeling any pain from the horrendous cuts she had received.  Regardless, Willa watched with muted curiosity as the deep slashes in her knuckles tore open further as she flexed her trembling hand and pulled it back from the remaining ghost of the mirror in front of her.  The suffering of a sage green expression was gone and, suddenly, she felt like she could breathe again.

Willa held her injured hand to her chest as she reluctantly turned around and opened the bathroom door when Maren's pleas became too severe.  Several sounds escaped her mother's open mouth as she examined the sight of daughter over the threshold.  More than once, Maren raised a hand, as if she were going to grab Willa's arm, but then she thought better of it and caught herself.  Or, maybe, she just did not want to be tainted by the blood.

"What have you done?" Maren gasped.  For the first time that night, there were reciprocating tears in her dark and startled eyes.

And while there were tears stained on Willa Deveraux's cheeks, too, she found that now she could only laugh.  It was a tired, almost monotone sound.  Defeated, victorious, yet still so tired.

Then she dropped the tattered red locks she had collected from the glass-filled sink at her mother's slippered feet where they mixed with the red droplets of her freshly split blood.

"How's this for a perfect image?"

➸➸➸

"AND THAT, LADIES AND gentlemen, is how the rest of my night went."

At the conclusion of her chaotic story from the night before, three pairs of eyes found themselves staring back at an exhausted Willa Deveraux.  One was saddened.  One was horrified.  And one was unbothered.

"All I'm saying is that you should have dropped some glass at her feet, too.  Rookie mistake, kook bait."

"Thanks, JJ.  I'll remember that for next time."

"You better."

Willa rolled her eyes and looked down to her injured arm that rested in her lap.  Her right hand was certainly a sight, wound tight with bloodied gauze and all.  Beneath the gaps in the thick white band, she could see her knuckles were already bruised and turning an even deeper blue shade than they had been the night prior, and the rest of the skin on the top of her hand was littered with tiny cuts from the falling glass.  She had taken some pain medicine in the aftermath, but they had long since worn off, and the persistent ache she felt in her bones now was growing harder to ignore.

"Are you sure that you're alright?" Kiara Carrera's voice cut into Willa's trance.  The latter looked up to find her staring down at her bandaged hand in concern.

"I'm fine," Willa promised with a nod.  "A bit tired if anything.  But this is nothing to worry about."

"Your story suggests otherwise," Pope Heyward countered warily from his place beside JJ.

"I'm fine," Willa reiterated, seemingly ending the conversation in its tracks.  She had simply told them what had unfolded last night because of the several confused looks they had all shared upon seeing her hand first thing in the morning.  She had not told them out of pity.  She had not expected them to care that her mother had drove her to cut her own hair out and smash a mirror with her bare knuckles.  Why would they?

Now, all Willa wanted to do was forget that it had ever happened in the first place.  In less than a week, her hand would be good as new.  At least that was what her father had said as he properly bandaged her up at four in the morning while her mother remained in the other room.  Unsurprisingly, Willa had gotten no sleep as a result, but her parents had left her alone once the bleeding had stopped which meant that she was able to sneak out of her house at first light without ever running into her mother.

She had decided not to take her chances at the Chateau, given that John B. was still likely desiring his space, so she went down to the marina instead.  She had been there less than twenty minutes, watching the night fade away into the rising horizon, before Kiara found her and they made their way to Pope's father's shop where Pope and JJ had taken shelter for the night.  When the Heyward patriarch had shown up only an hour later to the sight of four teenagers lingering in his empty store, he had not been bothered in the slightest—he simply expected them to help out with the work.

And so that was what Willa did.  For over an hour she had helped Kiara stock shelves while Pope manned the register and JJ did whatever he could to make it look like he was working but was really only being a nuisance to Pope's father.

But now she was taking a break and in that break it had been story time.  Yet despite the fact that it was over, the four teenagers had yet to promptly get back to work.  All Willa wanted to do was continue to sit on the counter and peruse the many shelves from a distance.  She had never been in in the Heyward family shop before and she found it fascinating.

"So, did you have to stitch yourself back up?" JJ questioned idly.  The tall blonde was currently on the opposite end of the front counter, flipping through a magazine that clearly was not doing much to hold his attention.

"No," Willa answered.  She sat up straighter.  "But that reminds me.  Come here.  I need to take a look at your stiches."

JJ's tanned features twisted uncomfortably.  "Why?"

"I just need to make sure that it's healing properly," She explained.  Then she inwardly winced.  God, with all the injuries she was consistently finding herself checking in on, she was sounding more and more like her father each day.

"Check Pope's then," JJ brushed off.

"Pope didn't need stiches."

From over Willa's shoulder, at the mention of his name, now back to manning the register, Pope lifted his head and frowned.  Hidden beneath the tip of his reddish orange ballcap, the scar from a nine-iron was only just beginning to heal. "Not this time, anyways," He muttered.

"And not any time after.  They'd be stupid to try coming after you again," Willa argued, matter-of-fact.  She then tilted her head back towards the blonde still located at the far end of the counter where it appeared he had nonchalantly put more distance between them.  "I promise it won't hurt."

"I know it won't hurt.  It's just a cut," JJ protested stubbornly.  "It's fine."

"It could scar."

"Then it'll make for a badass yearbook photo."

"JJ," Willa deadpanned.  She never blinked as her sage gaze met his sapphire glower.  She swore she was one of the only young girls on the entire island that did not ever fall for his smugness.  "Come here."

"Fine," JJ huffed in defeat.  He threw the magazine down with a dramatic sigh and crossed over to where Willa sat on the counter, stepping into the space between her legs.  His hands were folded behind his back, and he rocked irritably on his heels when he was still forced to bring his head down further.  Even with the mock booster seat, she was still much shorter than him.  "Make it fast."

"Because you're just so busy right now?" Willa retorted as she reached up with her left thumb and index finger to grab his chin.

"Yeah, actually," JJ snickered, allowing his head to be tilted to the left as Willa began to examine the damage of his bruised right cheekbone.  His bottom lip had also been busted in the fight—split right down the middle—but there had been nothing she could do for it at the time except hold a wet towel to his mouth and wait for the bleeding to stop.  "It's time we start getting ready for a rematch," JJ grumbled, his warm breath fanning Willa's cheeks.  "Can't believe those assholes tried to ambush us last night.  I mean, three of them and two of us?  That's typical kook shit right there."

Willa frowned and her fingers halted in their prodding.  "So, you're just going to ignore the fact that Kie and I helped you guys?" She questioned.

Kiara snorted from where she stood in the entryway of the closest aisle.  "And that's typical pogue shit," She muttered under her breath.

"Funny, Kie." JJ rolled his eyes at the sniggering Carrera girl before shifting his gaze back to Willa's.  "And no, I'm not ignoring the fact that you both helped.  I'm just saying—the way it started wasn't cool." He then paused for a moment, as if contemplating continuing.  Willa half-thought that he might find another way to drag the girls down—perhaps, finding a way to blame them for being late to the fight and that had been what kept them from completely being able to kick their asses—but what he said next completely surprised her.  "You throw a pretty mean right hook."

Willa's hands froze on either side of JJ's head, and she turned his face back towards her.  "Was that a compliment?" She gasped.

She was already smirking deviously and just like that JJ hastily pulled away, stepping out from the space between her legs and pushing off the counter, and she was left without ever even being able to properly check his stitches.  "In your dreams, sunshine."

Willa laughed lightly at his jibe and watched him push deeper into the store, eager to find a distraction, but before she could try to coerce him back over to her, a newfound voice abruptly broke the carefree group of four's playful conversations.  "Hey, Pope.  There's someone here to see you."

The confused teenagers quickly looked towards the entrance of the store to see Pope's burly father leading none other than the Kildare police deputy, Victor Shoupe, into the building.

Willa's heart dropped into her stomach at the sight of the officer, and she hurriedly pulled herself off the counter.  All signs of ease and playfulness left her at once and all that remained was a cold guardedness.  She did not look at Pope as she slowly side-stepped in front of the register, knowing that if she did the paling expression that she would find looking back at her would not be good.  Slowly, on either of her sides, Kiara and JJ approached, seemingly building a line of defense.  They all knew what Shoupe was there for.  Shoupe likely knew that they already knew, too.

"Morning, officer," Pope greeted timidly.

Shoupe wasted no time with civilities, and he immediately reached down to grab the set of handcuffs at his waist.  "I have an arrest warrant for felony destruction of property," He announced coldly.  "Hands where I can see them."

"What?" Pope's father exclaimed.  "You're arresting my boy?  Whoa, whoa, whoa!  Shoupe, what did he do?"

"Look at the warrant.  Out of my way, kids," Shoupe warned, stepping closer to the counter.  Willa, Kiara, and JJ did not move but the deputy did not falter, instead shoving his way past JJ and Willa in an attempt to grab a frozen and fearful Pope.  Pope went easily and turned away so that Shoupe could secure his wrists.  All the while, Willa watched with her jaw dropped in disbelief.

"Where's your proof?" She demanded.

Shoupe did not answer Willa's question as he harshly yanked Pope from behind the counter and the young boy stumbled at the brute force.  "Be careful!" Kiara yelled sharply. 

The officer did not listen to a single soul in the store that was screaming at him as he read Pope his rights, pushing him further and further away from his friends and his father.

"How much did they pay you, man?" JJ snarled.  "Hey!  How much did they fucking pay—!"

Pope's father had to hold JJ back from violently grabbing at Shoupe as he began leading Pope out of the store with his arms handcuffed behind his back.  Thankfully, JJ was putting up too much of a fuss for the Heyward patriarch to also stop a fuming Willa and Kiara from following the officer outside and all the way to his car.

"This isn't right, Shoupe, and you know it!" Kiara screamed.

"Let him go!" Willa pleaded.  Her heart was breaking at the sight of Pope's forlorn face as he was hauled away to jail.  He looked absolutely defeated and crushed.  Like a cornered animal, his mind was likely spiraling with all the possible scenarios that led to him having a life that did not exist beyond this moment.  What would become of his scholarship?  Of his future?  How was any of this fair to him?  How was Pope being beaten with a golf club leading only to his own arrest?  Surely there were more names to be dragged down into the depths of this hell and Willa would be damned if Pope were the only one that was left to face the wrath of his past actions.  "It wasn't his fault!  It wasn't—!"

"It wasn't him!  It was me!"

Willa Deveraux came to an abrupt halt in the Heyward shop's gravel parking lot and turned in surprise at the sound of JJ Maybank's voice cutting loudly through the heavy echoes of brash shouting.  From the entryway of the empty store, the battered and beaten and fearless boy pulled himself free of Pope's father's hold and boldly pointed a finger into his own chest.  Only Willa was certain she saw the painful wince as he inadvertently touched the bruises from Rafe's punches.

"He tried to talk me out of it, Shoupe," JJ continued confidently, all the while very blatantly ignoring the horrified stares from both Willa and Kiara as he swiftly walked past them.  "But I was mad because he'd just been beaten up.  I was so sick of those assholes from the Figure Eight that I lost my shit."  As he made his way towards Shoupe and Pope, he smirked.  He smirked so widely, so defiantly, that Willa wondered if he could feel the tug of his stitches pulling against the roughness of his sharpened cheekbone.  He was not afraid to bleed all over again.  "I can't let you take the blame for something I did, Pope," He said coolly.  "You've got too much to lose."

"JJ, what are you doing?" Pope demanded darkly.  There was no way he could let his friend take the fall for him.

And yet, with seemingly no care for himself, that was exactly what JJ was going to do.  And he would do it proudly.  "I'm telling the truth," He lied.  "For once in my goddamn life, I'm going to tell the truth."

"JJ, come on—" Pope pleaded desperately.

"Just shut up, Pope!  Just shut up," JJ cut him off with stern shake of his blond and unruly head. Then he turned to Shoupe and offered up his own wrists.  "He's a good kid.  You know where I'm from."

Shoupe swallowed stiffly.  With disgust, he responded, "I do." 

Once more boiling anger twisted in Willa's empty stomach at the thought of adults still choosing to further force the divides within the island.  How could an officer—a man sworn to protect an entire community—choose to judge a child solely based on where he had come from?  How did coming from the south side of the island automatically make someone a criminal?

"So now you know," JJ concluded, tearing Willa from her rampantly running thoughts once more.  "This was all me."

Shoupe was silent for a long moment, contemplating all that had been said, before he finally tore his gaze away from a steadfast JJ and looked towards an uneasy Pope.  "That's the whole truth?" The officer asked.  It was not a question exactly.  Rather it appeared in the air as seemingly one last offer.  One last offer to take back all the lies that had been built.  One last offer to potentially save a friendship from imploding.

But that was not who Pope and JJ were and Willa knew what the former's response would be to the deputy before the Heyward boy even had the chance to say it out loud.  "Yeah," He slowly sighed.  "That about covers it."

And just like that JJ Maybank's first arrest of the summer was made.

The next several moments passed by Willa in a blur.  With bated breath, she watched as Shoupe quickly undid the handcuffs from around Pope's trembling wrists and then secured them around JJ's steady and awaiting ones.  All around her, Kiara, Pope, and his father were still yelling but she was silent as she watched JJ be dragged towards the cop car.  The sixteen-year-old boy was defiantly quiet, but even as he turned away from his friends to face his unknown fate, he was smirking.

Willa was uncertain that she had ever been such a brave act of loyalty.  She had always known to expect the unexpected with JJ, but she had never seen him like this.  It made her heart storm, and all she wanted in that very moment was to see him free of the handcuffs he did not deserve.  None of them had deserved for their morning to turn out like it had.  Could they not just catch a single damn break?

Shoupe led JJ around to the back of the vehicle and held the backdoor open.  "Get in," He barked.

JJ went easily but Willa would not.  After all, the brooding blonde firecracker of mayhem and chaos was not the only teenager present with the promise of unpredictability.

Because even if—for the time being—she could not erase the staleness of kook in her blood, she could still use it to her advantage.  She would twist the knife that had once been used to hold her still and pull it free, ready to brandish it as her own. 

"I'll bail you out!" Willa blurted loudly.  Despite shocked eyes of Kiara and Pope that suddenly fell to her, there was no lie in her words.  It was a promise.  "I'll bail you out, JJ," She repeated sternly.  "Don't worry."

Meanwhile, JJ Maybank still continued to smirk as he was lowered into the backseat of the cop car.  For a single moment in time, sapphire held sage rather than the other way around.  "Knew you were good for something, kook bait." Then the backdoor slammed in his smug face and the boy was nothing more than a mischievous shadow behind tinted glass.

Willa Deveraux could do nothing more than watch him go.

~~~~~~~~~~

holy crap, i never thought i would get this chapter done. i seriously feel like i lost a couple brain cells in the process of this chapter. i blame willa and maren's argument for my tremendous writer's block. i would not blame you if you did not enjoy this chapter; i'm just happy that it's over with AND WE CAN FINALLY MOVE ONTO MIDSUMMERS!!!!!

oh man, oh man, is it going to get crazy from here on out!! literally, i have so much planned for this upcoming chaotic night, y'all aren't ready!! but!! i love hearing predictions so drop some ideas of what you predict might happen or what you'd like to see unfold at midsummers!!!

lastly, i'd just like to thank everyone for being so consistently supportive of this story. it truly is one of my favorites and i really need to kick it into high gear if i'm going to be ready for season two which drops in less than a month!! i'm so excited!! i'd also like to thank y'all for getting this story to 103K reads!! that's insane!! i never thought i would see this story grow so quickly, but i am so glad that you all are enjoying it!! there's still so much more to come!! willa's story is just getting started!!

and finally, like i was must ask, what are y'all thinking of this chapter?? how are we feeling about miss willa?? poor girl is going through it! i'd love to hear what y'all are thinking.  i appreciate all votes and comments of feedback!!

stay safe and stay well.

--B.

happy summer, y'all!!!