[ xxxiv. crackhead wasteland ]

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AFTER ENDURING TWO HARROWINGLY long weeks, Kildare Island's newest group of young friends—made up of both pogues and kooks alike—had found the Royal Merchant's infamous gold. What had been so dangerously sought after by so many older and wiser generations of seasoned treasure hunters had fatefully fallen into the hands of those so young. Sixteen-year-olds with a newfound historical fortune to wield as they saw fit. Willa Deveraux could barely conceive to fathom it—that she was even one of those sixteen-year-olds with the world suddenly thrust at her feet. That after so many wrongs that had unfolded in the trying, strenuous days, there had finally been something to go right. The treasure was finally theirs.

Well.

It was almost theirs.

Because, of course, nothing could ever be so easy as loading the Royal Merchant gold into a couple of duffle bags and running away with the rest of their lives. Based on Pope's careful calculations and analysis upon returning to the Chateau later that evening, it would take at least another entire day to devise a new lever-and-pulley system that would effectively—and safely—transport John B. back down the well rather than nearly drop him in. Then it would likely take at least another two days to remove all the gold. Maybe even three days if they wanted to ensure no more deadly crossings with the batty Mrs. Crain.

However, there was also another problem that Pope had alerted them to. Even if they managed to scrape the well dry of the treasure, they needed a way to properly turn it into cash without alerting the local—and national—authorities.

Gold did not turn into cash overnight and it became an infinitely more complicated process if the gold bars they would be attempting to pawn off to the greater Outer Banks pawnbrokers had giant wheat symbols on them.

That was until Kiara Carrera unexpectedly took matters into her own hands and went at the tiny gold bars, which John B. had previously collected from the night before, with a propane torch. Within thirty minutes of striking the first flame, what had started off as three separate pieces of treasure had turned into a muddled, melted mound of solid, unrecognizable gold.

A mesmerized Willa had been captivated throughout the melting process, watching the engraved wheat symbols so easily disappear into meshes of molten yellow; so much so that she had asked Kiara for a turn at playing chemist, and only threatened to burn off JJ's eyebrows once while wielding the torch in her own two hands.

"Hell of a job melting it down, Dr. Frankenstein. Oh, sorry, I meant Dr. Carrera—Hey. Up and at 'em, kook bait. Look alive!"

JJ's jeering tone interrupted Willa's musings, and with a forceful clap on her bare shoulder, she was snapped back to reality. Startled, Willa glanced out the window of the Twinkie and realized that the van had come to a halt and was now parked along a downtown curb. They had finally arrived at their next daring destination: the local pawnshop of the Cut, where their lying abilities would be put to the ultimate test.

"I know you're not talking to me like that, JJ," Kiara clipped back sassily as she hauled open the van's sliding door. "Like you could have done any better."

"I could have done much better actually," JJ declared as he hopped down onto the pavement after her. "I took a welding class."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"When, huh?"

Before JJ could shoot back another sarcastic response, John B. hurriedly positioned himself between his two bickering friends to stop their escalating voices from growing any louder. The last thing their group needed was to draw more unnecessary attention to themselves when they were already so far out in the open. The six of them looked odd enough. After all, what were the Deveraux daughter and Cameron princess doing, associating with one of the Cut's most well-known young crews outside of Kildare's sketchiest pawnshop? It was enough to turn even the heads of other pogues walking through their own familiar neighborhoods.

The thought of her parents catching wind of this encounter sent a chill down Willa's spine. God, the young girl did not even want to imagine it. She was already in enough trouble, knowing she had not been home in three days now. Regardless, she would continue to postpone the inevitable for as long as she could. Perhaps Maren and Alden Deveraux would go easier on their eldest daughter if she returned home with eighty million dollars in tow.

"JJ, chill out," John B. attempted to calm. He had placed a hand on his best friend's shoulder and was trying to turn the hothead's attention entirely toward him and away from Kiara completely.

"Easy for you to say." JJ swatted John B.'s hand off. "You're not the one that has to pawn this piece of shit off. How did I get this job anyway?"

"Because you're the best liar," Pope insisted. "Besides, Willa will be right there beside you if anything goes wrong."

"Is that supposed to reassure me?" JJ retorted dryly. "You might as well call her Kildare's Most Wanted."

Willa was slightly taken aback at just how much awareness the Maybank boy seemed to hold over her own family situation. Still, she did not comment on this revelation and kept her own expression sinister with sarcasm as she smiled coyly at her now literal partner-in-crime. "Least I know if I go down, you're going down with me," She snickered.

JJ scoffed at her words and readjusted his gray ballcap over his icy, calculated eyes. "Let's just get this over with," He sighed. "On me, kook bait."

Willa bid final farewell glances at John B., Kiara, Pope, and Sarah, who would remain with the Twinkie, before finally choosing to follow JJ into the small, shady pawnshop. The tinkling sound of a bell echoed overhead as they entered, and Willa clung closely to her partner's shadow as they maneuvered through the cramped aisles lined with antique items. The air was stale and dusty, and Willa could not help but notice that many of the objects on the shelves were worth no more than fifty dollars. She already sensed that they were off to a rocky start. How would a bulky slab of Royal Merchant gold ever fit into a place like this?

"Afternoon, ma'am," JJ greeted the female pawnbroker who stood near the back of the shop. She was an older woman with dark, sallow skin and deep wrinkles set on her face from long days spent in the dark of her shop, working to make ends meet. Willa sent a gentle smile in the woman's direction from over JJ's shoulder, feigning an innocence that was becoming harder and harder to remember. Who Willa had been, and who she was now, were very different. Perhaps if this stranger had known her better, had even recognized her face, she would have suspected this struggling façade. Still, the pawnbroker eyed both she and JJ narrowly as they stepped up to the glass countertop, ready to sell like their lives suddenly depended on it.

"Afternoon," The woman replied curtly. "How can I help you?"

"I saw that you buy gold," JJ stated, matter-of-factly.

"Hmm. That's what the sign says, don't it?"

"Well, I sure hope you buy a lot of it, because my partner," JJ gestured towards Willa as he said this, adding to his flair of polite dramatics, "and I are about to blow your mind."

The pawnbroker snorted. "Well, I ain't got much mind left to blow, so have at it."

JJ was a gale of confident charisma as he laid the heavy chunk of melted gold onto the countertop. Willa winced inwardly at the resounding thud it made, half-expecting the clear surface to shatter under its weight. The pawnbroker, too, seemed taken aback, leaning away from her register with widened eyes, a mix of surprise and intrigue etched across her face.

"How about them gold apples?" JJ beamed, his voice brimming with self-assured charm. His bare arm brushed Willa's as he stepped closer to her, closer to the gold, as if wanting to keep it guarded from where it now sat so exposed to a stranger.

Slowly, however, the woman's expression of wonderment faded, and her shoulders relaxed as she once again tore her eyes from the gold nugget and back to the two teenagers before her. Willa could read the doubt that crept into the pawnbroker's mind, evident in her increasingly dismissive demeanor. She believed this to be a mere ruse, an attempt by two foolish kids to pull off a trick. "That ain't real," The pawnbroker scoffed, chuckling with a touch of rudeness. "Nice try."

"That ain't real?" JJ repeated loudly. His light-haired head swiveled down in Willa's direction, and he exhaled an exaggerated scoff as he nudged her with his elbow. "Can you believe her, babe?"

Babe?

Willa's bright green eyes widened to saucers at JJ's creative, and unexpected, and affectionate insinuation of her, and if it were not for the piece of gum she had been chewing, her jaw would have dropped to the dirty pawnshop floor. Beside her, standing tall and proud, and arrogant, the sixteen-year-old boy was still beaming, grinning like a madman, at the flustered mess he had so ludicrously made of her. Flustered, not for the reciprocation of such poised endearment, but for the loss of blatant control she had over him. Instantly, Willa knew he had concocted this idiotic distraction on purpose, had likely been planning to say it from the moment they climbed from the Twinkie, and now he was thriving in the warped chaos he had made of her with a mere word.

It almost made Willa furious. It almost made her bitter. If not for the prying eyes of the pawnbroker still standing in front of them, Willa would have absolutely torn back into him with a haywire passion all her own, and JJ knew that, too. Hell, he knew exactly the twisted amusement he derived from ensnaring her in this unpredictable game.

With less than five seconds to react—or to not react, more truthfully—Willa knew she had to move on, to keep the outside conversation going; but this would be far from forgotten. Instead, she would play the part that JJ had given her, and she would be damned if she did not play it well—and make him regret it, too.

"Oh, peanut."

Willa's voice was a sickening chime, and JJ's face quickly dropped like a stone.

"Calm down," She soothed in a tone that was too sweet, even for her own voice. Automatically, Willa's hand, adorned once more with rings, curled possessively around his right arm, the metals and jewels scratching against his bare skin as her fingers wrapped around his firm bicep. Now, it was JJ's turn for his cobalt eyes to burn holes into the side of her head, but she kept her attention forward now, locked on the female pawnbroker. "You'll have to excuse my lovey-dovey here," She said with feigned niceness. "He tends to jump the gun when he's told, 'no'. You know, baby boys and their fragile egos," She snickered. "I promise you, ma'am, that gold is real. Here, feel how heavy it is."

With her spare hand that was not still clinging dramatically to JJ, she scooped up the heavy piece of gold and basically thrust it into the woman's hands, so she had no choice but to examine it. The pawnbroker, however, seemed happy for the sudden distraction, appearing to cringe at JJ's nicknames as much as the boy was himself. But JJ said nothing aloud in response nor protest to the jabs Willa had sent his way, keeping his cool and collected composure, playing the same role of a lovestruck teen.

Two could play their games, after all.

"Shine some light on that, bad boy," JJ playfully advised with mischievous anticipation.

The pawnbroker rolled her eyes at the urging, yet it was clear by the way her fingers curled around the gold to support it that the melted mound was surely heavy. Still, she remained skeptical even as she shone a small flashlight beneath a scope lens to investigate and scrutinize its golden ridges further. "That's got to be spray-painted tungsten," She argued.

"Tungsten?" Willa echoed. It was her turn to repeat the accusations being thrown at them. "Really? You think we're capable of that type of trick, ma'am?"

"I don't know what you're capable of," The woman returned sharply. "But I do know that this cannot possibly be gold."

"Try again," JJ offered. "Why don't you see how soft it is?"

A crude noise escaped the back of the pawnbroker's throat. "You ready for me to end your little game, then?" She taunted.

"Go for it," The two teens responded simultaneously, their voices brimming with defiance. There was no hesitation in their words, no flicker of doubt. The woman on the other side of the counter remained unphased by their challenge and proceeded to chip away at the supposed 'tungsten metal' with a chisel, expecting it to easily crack under the pressure. However, after three taps the surface remained unscathed, refusing to break.

Willa could not help but smirk openly as JJ's smug grin grew wider. "Wow, would you look at that?" He remarked.

The pawnbroker waved them off dismissively. "Now, hold your horses," She retorted. "We ain't got to the acid test yet."

"My favorite test," JJ chimed in.

Willa rolled her eyes at her partner's joke, yet still found herself soon holding her breath as several droplets of acid were splattered along the smoothest edge of the gold. Seconds of silence passed in the shadowy shop, and there was no movement from either side of the counter as they all waited for something to give. Where the pawnbroker was expecting a chemical reaction, she was sourly left disappointed, and she exhaled a long, humming breath as she finally looked back to the two teenagers before her. Once again, her eyes narrowed on their cocky faces, likely trying to decipher just who these two kids even were to her, and how they had come into possession of such a rare and valuable item.

"Well, it ain't plated, and it ain't painted," The pawnbroker relented.

"Ma'am, we're telling you," JJ addressed with unwavering conviction, "this is as real as the day is long."

"It looks like somebody tried to melt it down."

"My mom," He quickly explained, seamlessly continuing the fabrication of truth, and never missing a beat as he did it. Willa found her own head turning in the boy's direction, interested to see where this next lie would take him. She would not let herself be surprised again. "She had all this jewelry laying around the house, and she thought it was best to melt it down. To 'consolidate' it, as she liked to say."

The pawnbroker moved the melted gold to a nearby scale set on the edge of the register and her eyes widened at its results. "Your mother had seven pounds worth lying around?" She gaped incredulously. "That's a lot of earrings."

JJ let out a soft sigh, leaning forward on the countertop and intertwining his fingers as if sharing a secret with the woman. "Okay, to be honest, ma'am, it's really hard to see my mom fall apart with Alzheimer's, and she doesn't have a whole lot of time left," He insisted softly, his voice choked with false sincerity. "We could really use this extra money to move up our wedding, and make sure—"

"Wedding?" The pawnbroker interrupted with a sputter. Her graying eyebrows had nearly jumped to her hairline. "How old are you two?"

"Old enough to know what we want," Willa maintained brazenly, loudly in her claim just as JJ had been in his. She had been ready to go this time, knowing he would pull her into his star-crossed schemes once more. Meanwhile, as he stood back upright JJ was smirking again, she knew it, felt it, even if she could not dare turn her head to look. Knowing this, Willa's own lips were beginning to turn up, too, but she hid it beneath a fresh, innocent plea. "Please, ma'am," She added earnestly, playfully, as she cleared her throat. "Help us throw the wedding of a lifetime."

For a moment, the woman wavered. Her grip was still locked around the hunk of gold that was to be the two teens' lifeline. She could turn them away just as easily as she could accept them. Yet little did Willa nor JJ know just how differently their afternoon was to end as the pawnbroker conceded her side of the standoff and placed the large gold nugget back on the counter.

"Give me a minute," She ordered.

The pawnbroker did not wait for a response before she turned on her heel and entered a small backroom. What she might have been doing back there, Willa could only wonder. Then again, she had other questions on her mind and her eyes automatically slid back to the boy beside her. Her narrowed gaze locked heavily onto JJ's face, and as if drawn by her piercing intensity, his big, smug head tilted in her direction, eagerly awaiting the torrent of fury about to escape her lips.

"Babe?" Willa hissed through gritted teeth.

JJ's grin widened. "Aw, did I embarrass you?" He teased, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Hardly," She returned sharply. She refused to be outdone by him. "You almost ruined everything."

"Oh, please," He retorted, dismissing her accusation. "If anyone was going to ruin anything, it was you. I mean, peanut? Really?"

"I could do worse if you'd like."

"So could I, kook bait."

"Well, I guess it's a good thing that the day's far from over, Titanic," Willa muttered as she crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. Despite her own protests, she felt ridiculously like a toddler, pouting. "We've got a wedding to throw, after all."

JJ emitted a displeased noise in the back of his throat, betraying a slight flicker of annoyance at the revival of his own nickname. But he quickly masked any deeper reaction, his unwavering attention still fixated on riling her up. Willa despised how she recognized this pattern with JJ, how effortlessly he pulled her into his whirlwind of chaos. She seemed to thrive on their back-and-forth often, just as he seemed to revel in hers. "Getting cold feet?" He hassled, once again trying to provoke a fresh reaction.

Willa chuckled under her breath, but there was little warmth in her response. "You could never get rid of me that easily," She assured him.

JJ opened his mouth, poised and likely to toss another return or jab another shock to her system, but whatever he had planned to say was lost in the sound of the pawnbroker returning to the main room of the shop. The interruption shattered their verbal sparring, redirecting their attention to the business at hand. As the two supposedly engaged teens fell quickly into silence once more, the woman rested both hands firmly on the countertop and looked between Willa and JJ carefully. "So, I talked to my boss," She informed. "And this is what I can do."

She laid an offer hastily scribbled on a blank notepad down for them to see and immediately JJ shook his head. "Fifty thousand?" He derided. "You think we walked in here not knowing the spot price? Ma'am, we know for a fact that this is worth one-forty, at least."

The pawnbroker smiled, but the gesture did not reach her dark eyes. "Well, sweetie, you're in a pawnshop," She said with cold indifference. "This ain't Zurich. Do I look Swiss to you?"

"Ninety," JJ challenged. "Or the lady and I walk."

"Seventy. Half price, and . . ." The woman then paused momentarily in her negotiation. "I don't ask questions about where you two got this."

The pawnbroker's eyes shifted to Willa as she said her final piece of the bargain, but the Deveraux daughter did not falter under her interrogative stare. There was little left on the island that scared her after all she had faced in the last several days. Briefly, Willa broke eye contact with the dealer, but only to glance up at her partner. JJ was scratching his neck, his first sign of a nervous tick revealing itself, but he was looking solely back at Willa, silent and waiting for her to make the final say.

Without John B., Pope, Kiara, or Sarah in the room to aid them, the two most notorious troublemakers from both sides of the island were on their own in this damning decision. Doubt seeped into Willa's mind, and she began to wonder if Pope had made the right choice in sending the two of them in there alone without any immediate backup.

What if a seventy-thousand-dollar offer was far below John B.'s expectations? But what if he had not even shot that far himself and had expected much less? Then again, was Willa even willing to push for more when it came to the Routledge boy?

"Eighty."

The sudden, audacious price escaped Willa's lips in a burst, and the weight of her impulsive decision immediately crashed down upon her. She could barely comprehend that she was the one responsible for uttering the word, now solely controlling the fate of her and JJ's negotiation with the pawnbroker. The show had to go on now, whether she liked it or not.

"Eighty," Willa repeated more firmly as a sudden flood of confidence surged within her. She knew if she were to lie, she would make it a good one. "And in return, I don't tell the local authorities about what you're selling behind that door." As the pawnbroker's eyes narrowed in response to the bold accusation, Willa pressed on. "We both know there's nothing of significant value in this shop. So, if you're pushing out that kind of money to your sellers, you must be sourcing it from elsewhere, with other means." She paused, letting the weight of her words settle. "Let's face it. We both have secrets. Is ten grand worth the risk of exposing yours?"

Willa's heart was hammering wildly in her chest as she finished speaking her piece. She felt panicked and was frantically convinced that she could not breathe. What the hell had she been thinking? Where the hell had that part of her even come from? The adrenaline of the stakes had overtaken her, transforming her into someone strict, and unforgiving, and unrecognizable.

At her side, JJ stiffened. That was never a good sign. If even JJ could not defend Willa, she knew she had crossed a dangerous line. She had taken on a persona too big. She had bitten off more than she could chew and now it would be the ruin of them all. Fuck. The weight of regret settled upon her. They had barely possessed the Royal Merchant fortune for a full day before she had recklessly gambled it all away.

"Deal."

Come again?

The pawnbroker's answer echoed in the warm room, shattering the fragile silence. It took every ounce of Willa's willpower to conceal her own astonishment, to keep her exposed expression from betraying the overwhelming surprise that warped within her. The Deveraux daughter, against all odds, had outmaneuvered the older negotiator, leaving the pawnbroker looking near proud to see the hustle, even if the hustler herself had nearly lost her way in the fog of the game.

Meanwhile, JJ, blissfully unaware of Willa's inner turmoil, wore a triumphant smirk. "That's my girl," He proclaimed proudly. Playfully. Willa barely heard him through the ringing in her ears, barely cared to react to the persistence of how he was still playing his role. The cocky blonde leaned in, his gaze meeting the pawnbroker's, and he delivered a knowing wink. "So, we'll be needing that amount in large denominations, please," He smoothly requested, his confidence returning and radiating with every word.

The woman rolled her eyes at the shift in demands. "Look, even with the deal, here's the snag," She confessed. "I don't have that much denominated. Not here anyway. I can write you a cashier's check."

"No check," JJ immediately shot down. "We want the cold hard. That's what that sign says. Cash for gold."

"Then I'll have to send you to the warehouse. I have the money there," The pawnbroker insisted. "Is that all right?"

JJ's gaze darted toward Willa again, his eyes seeking answers within the depths of her unwavering stare. The ball was back now in his court, the power to decide their next move firmly in his hands. JJ's eyes bounced delicately between hers, and Willa faintly nodded her head in encouragement. In that charged moment, the weight of their unspoken communication hung heavily in the air. She hoped he would understand her implications, that she would follow his lead.

After a tense moment of deliberation, JJ finally scooped the gold off the counter. For reassurance or for leverage, Willa did not know. "All right," He yielded. "Where's this warehouse?" JJ's cautious eyes never once left the pawnbroker's, sniffing out any potential trick that lay up her sleeve. But the older woman was as cool and as careful, and as collected as the two very young deceivers standing innocently before her.

The pawnbroker's lips curled into a sly smile as she gave them an answer, and then sent the two teens and their friends on their way, each and every one of them oblivious to the impending danger which now lurked just beneath the surface of their own youthful ignorance.

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"SO . . . IS THERE SOMETHING you'd like to share with the rest of the class, kook bait?" JJ Maybank demanded of Willa Deveraux from where she sat in the back of the crowded Twinkie van. The girl in question turned her head abruptly from the window, where her eyes met JJ's piercing and interrogative gaze. Confusion and apprehension clouded Willa's expression as she became unsure of the storm about to be unleashed upon her. "Okay, fine. Let me try again," He initiated. "How the hell did you know that lady was selling something out of her back room?"

Immediately thereafter his accusation clicked. Then Willa began to laugh at it. "I didn't," she confessed, her voice tinged with a dangerous liveliness.

JJ's jaw dipped. "Excuse me?"

"I have no idea if they're selling anything illegal out of that shop," Willa restated. Her eyes were gleaming with mischief as the honesty spilled from her. "I was bluffing, JJ."

Time stood still as JJ processed her words, his mind struggling to comprehend the enormity of her audacious gamble. Then he shook his head in astonishment.

"My God, woman, you are full of surprises."

Willa's laughter softened into something gentler as he joined in with her, until all that was left between her and the Maybank boy was a smile that pulled at the edges of her chapped lips and echoed within his own. The other teens, huddled in the confines of the van, bore witness to their fleeting exchange, yet chose to remain silent as they watched. Perhaps they knew it was no use to attempt even to translate what had happened within that pawnshop into better words for them to actually understand. Sometimes it was often better to leave Willa and JJ to their own devices—so long as they were working toward the same goal. And they were one step closer to that goal. With John B. behind the wheel, going easily thirty over the local speed limit, they would reach the pawnbroker's warehouse in no time. In less than an hour, Willa was certain that she and her friends would be 80,000 dollars richer.

"So, they really keep the money out here?" Pope wondered aloud. He was sitting opposite of Willa, nearest to the sliding door, and was looking out the window attentively. Brushy grassland stared back at them all hauntingly as they continued down the desolate gravel road.

"That's what she said," Willa replied.

JJ could not help but snort, a sarcastic smirk playing on his lips. "That's what she—"

"Stop."

"Okay."

"You know, I've never even heard of Resurrection Drive," Sarah admitted from the passenger's seat beside John B. She, too, was staring out warily into the island's wilderness.

Willa followed the Cameron girl's gaze and did not necessarily like what she saw either. Miles upon miles of trees lined both sides of the narrow road. The Twinkie had long since passed its last actual Cut neighborhood—let alone had it even driven by one of its decrepit homes—and based on the deep potholes that broke the gravel, this road had not been occupied—or been remembered by the greater island public—in some time.

"There's nothing but weeds back here," Kiara stated with a touch of disdain, her voice filled with unease. She was right. They really were alone this far off the main roads.

Suddenly, the faint whoop of a siren chirped from behind their loaded van. Being furthest back, Willa instantly whipped around in her seat first, and her green eyes widened at the sight of the familiar red-and-blue lights that flashed from the dark, unmarked cop car that had likely been tailing them for who knows how long.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" JJ cursed.

"A cop?" Kiara gasped. "Out here?"

"What did we even do?" Sarah's tone cracked with anxiety.

"Well, Vin Diesel over here wasn't exactly following the rules of the road," Willa muttered as she made eye contact with John B. through the rearview mirror. However, he did not hold her gaze for long, nor try to even argue with her, before his attention shifted to the cop car that had quickly caught up to their van, leaving him no choice but to pull the Twinkie over to the side of the road.

Just another fucking bump in the road.

Willa turned back around in her seat as the van lulled to a final stop, and watched as JJ shoved the gold nugget into his backpack for safekeeping. In fact, they were all watching the Maybank boy—or more specifically, his backpack. Their lives could very well depend on the contents within it.

"Did you bring the gun?" John B. suddenly questioned, sharp and urgent.

An unexpected and nervous knot dropped heavily in Willa's stomach a mere second before JJ answered back, "No, okay?" He reassured them. "Everybody told me to leave it back at the Chateau."

"Thank God," Kiara sighed in relief.

"What about drugs?" Pope pressed next. He was easily the most nervous of the stalled group. "You don't have anything on you, do you?" The space fell silent, the air thick with anticipation. Willa watched as JJ opened his mouth to reply, but his words were swallowed by a chilling sound that shattered the fragile state of their beings.

A sharp click echoed through the van as a shotgun shell slid forcefully into place, icy and resolute, signaling a ruthless readiness for impending doom. Willa's eyes widened with profound terror as she turned her gaze toward the source of the sound.

An armed man, who was most certainly not a police officer, stood at John B.'s open window, looming both grotesquely and menacingly. Willa's breath caught in her throat, and a gasp of alarm escaped her lips. Half of the gunman's face and identity were concealed by a skull-like bandanna, yet his sunken cheekbones and snake-like eyes were distantly familiar—though Willa could not instantly place where she had seen either feature before on their tiny island.

"Why don't I go ahead and see them hands in the air?" The gunman barked, his voice dripping with ruthless authority. The barrel of his gun loomed inches away from John B.'s vulnerable chest, freezing the young driver in place. "I won't say it again, all y'all's hands up in the air right now!"

Immediately Willa's hands shot up, and her elbow knocked with Pope's. As her eyes locked with his, she was met with reciprocated fear, and the knot in her stomach had turned into a full-blown weight, desperate to crush what little resolve she had left.

The gunman took a step away from the door and shifted the barrel of the shotgun to John B.'s head. "You, out of the car!" He shouted powerfully. "Let's go!" The Routledge boy slowly and nervously complied, reaching stiffly to push open his driver's side door. As soon as his two feet hit the gravel road, the gunman violently ushered him over to the other side of the van. "Let them out!" The gunman yelled. John B. hesitated, and in that moment of frozen breath, the gunman pushed the barrel closer to the boy. He was growing angrier and more erratic by the second. "What are you waitin' on? Let them out!"

Sarah whimpered as John B. reluctantly opened the passenger's side door, and then proceeded to pull back the sliding one. Through the open doorway, Willa's fearful eyes locked with John B.'s, and she felt helpless to act. There was not a single thing that any one of them could do. Not with the promise of a bullet to the back so firmly pressed down upon each one of them.

"There you go, pretty girl," The gunman sneered at Sarah as she left her seat, letting the shotgun rest briefly on her exposed stomach before it shifted back to the remaining loaded van. Willa's arms lurched higher, knowing the barrel of the gun had paused on her next. "Here we go. Get out of the car, let's go! Hurry up!"

One by one, Pope, Kiara, JJ, and Willa were left with no choice but to obey. Climbing out of the van, Willa kept her head down and her hands raised as her own bare feet touched the gravel road. In her fear, she had left her sandals behind in the backseat, but through that same fear, she could not feel the sharp-edged rocks cutting into her skin at all. She could not feel anything aside from the crackling of her ribcage as her unsteady heart slammed against its confines.

JJ was the last to climb from the van and though his own hands were raised, his fury was not left solely to his rigid body, but to his temper and spirit, too. Even with a loaded gun to his chest, the boy pushed back against danger, for it was a taste he was all too familiar with. "We're broke, you stupid—"

"Shut the hell up!" The gunman boomed back.

"All right! Just relax, man!" JJ spat back.

"Shut the fuck up!"

The gunman shoved the barrel of the gun into the Maybank boy's narrow chest and sent him flying back with brutal force into a startled Willa and Pope. Willa whimpered from her place between the two boys as they all collided with a violent jolt, and one of her hands instinctively curled into JJ's shirt for support. "Stop talking, JJ!" She begged him.

At the sound of her anguished and pleading voice, even though it had not been directed toward the gunman at all, he immediately turned the weapon on Willa again, and the barrel swung inches from her own curly dark locks of hair. "Did you not fucking hear me?" He screamed in her face. "I'll blow your goddamn head off!"

Willa flinched back as JJ abruptly side-stepped in front of her to shield her smaller body once more. No longer were his arms raised up in surrender, but rather pushed back in defiance, his hands blindly holding her sides, ensuring that she was firmly secured and protected behind him. Both of Willa's own hands were lowered, too, wrapped within the fabric of JJ's sky-blue shirt, anchored, and though she could not see his stormy expression, she could hear the ferociousness in his own snarl as he faced off against the gunman once more. "You won't fucking—" He began.

The gunman did not allow the younger boy to finish and instead released a vicious swing, whipping the long gun sideways so that the butt of the weapon slammed into the side of JJ's head, knocking him to his knees in the ditch. Willa and the others cried out as they watched him fall, but JJ did not stay down for long. The boy immediately began to stir in the dirt, a frigid fire that refused to be extinguished, even as he struggled to get back upright through the impending daze and disorientation of the sudden hit.

To Willa's relief, the gunman did not notice the defiance that still surged from the boy at his feet, and instead quickly turned back to the other teens that still needed to be subdued. "Lay down in the ditch!" He commanded, turning the gun on each of them. "Lay down in the fucking ditch! On your goddamn hands and knees! Down! Put your face on the ground!"

Willa dropped to her knees beside JJ in the ditch and, ignoring the sharpness of the rocks as they found her bare skin, forced herself down onto her stomach. As she joined him on the ground, JJ's gaze met hers, wild and filled with a mix of determination and pain. His breaths were coming in ragged gasps.

"A-Are you okay?" Willa whispered to him, barely audible in her panic.

"No fucking talking!" The gunman snapped down at her. He kicked dirt up in the open space between Willa and JJ's faces, and the former began to cough wildly as the open air hit the back of her throat. She immediately turned her head to the opposite side to clear her lungs, and as her forehead touched the Earth, the gunman above gave a loud hum of approval. "You all stay here just like that!" He shouted. "Keep your goddamn heads down! Don't let me see you look up!"

Tears streamed down Willa's face, her burning eyes refusing to close as she desperately scanned the shifting patterns of open light around her buried head. On one side, Pope dutifully followed the gunman's command, his fingers interlaced at the back of his head. On the other side, JJ's hands clenched in the dirt, his head tilting up ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of the van that the gunman was ransacking with reckless abandon.

"It's a setup, guys," Kiara's fearful voice trembled.

"That old bat shanked us," JJ growled. "Fucking goddamn it!"

Willa flinched as one of JJ's closed fists punched angrily at the gravel until his knuckles were bleeding. He could barely contain his rage, his anguish, regarding how their afternoon had ultimately unfolded. He felt betrayed and Willa did, too. Yet she also felt sick. The cold weight in her stomach had unfoiled and leeched into her veins, poisoning her, restraining her breath, and there was nothing she could do to subside that feeling, knowing that she was the creator of her own doom. She had been responsible for this. All over again, she had made an arrogant call and had put others in harm's way without recognizing the consequences of her actions. Her friends' very lives were in danger now—JJ had just taken the side of a shotgun to the head—because of her. In her attempt to outmaneuver the negotiator, she had foolishly believed victory was within her grasp. Only now did the weight of her losses become painfully clear.

Tears mingled with dirt on her cheeks as Willa whimpered. "I'm sorry," She choked out. "I'm so sorry. This is my fault."

Kiara's fragile voice reached out to Willa across the several bodies that lay between them. "This isn't your fault," She tried to reassure.

"It's going to be okay," Pope forced out. His words sounded strained, crackled with innocence now broken. "We just have to do what he says."

Suddenly, from the opposite end of their lineup, Sarah had begun to cry, and her sobs were growing louder until every other teen had turned her way. What Willa saw made her eyes widen, and it was not for Sarah's state, but rather for John B. who had slowly risen to a crouch and was prepared to stand back up.

"No, no, no," Sarah pleaded softly, reaching frantically for John B. from her knees. "Don't go!"

John B. gently touched the side of Sarah's face, trying to convey reassurance through their unspoken bond, before withdrawing from her grip. However, he did not attempt to sneak up on the gunman whose back was still turned to them as he rummaged beneath the dashboard and inside the glovebox. John B. instead chose to turn and make a silent break for the gunman's unmarked car where the driver's side door had been left wide open.

Pope's eyes widened in alarm, and he hissed after his friend, "Don't be a hero, man!"

The Routledge boy did not listen, and Willa was quivering as she watched her friend clamber into the backseat to avoid imminent discovery. Mere moments later, the gunman let out a sharp whoop of victory and soon jumped from the open sliding door of the van. Willa jumped as the gunman spoke viciously over her head once more, his tone both deafening and destructive, "All right, y'all stay just like that," He ordered coldly. "Unless you want your brains blown out all over this road, don't move your goddamn heads, okay? Don't you get up until I'm gone!"

Satisfied with the terror he had inflicted upon the teens, the gunman turned away from where their trembling bodies still lined the road. As he stepped over them, Willa finally allowed her jaw to shift, and she turned her head upward, eyeing the edge of the large gold nugget that stuck out from their attacker's back pocket. So, that was what—or rather, who—had been in the back room of the pawnshop. Willa's jaw was hanging wide open as she watched the gunman return to his own unsuspecting vehicle from aways down the road. The man never once realized one of his would-be victims had disappeared—but he was about to, and it was a mistake that would surely cost him.

Willa had barely lifted her head from the ground before she heard a sharp exclaim of pain escape from the gunman's car. Then John B.'s voice sounded in the violent havoc as he tore himself from the backseat and away from the clutches of the man in the front. "Guys, I've got the gun!" He announced.

JJ was the first on his feet and was followed closely by Willa and the others are they stormed the vehicle. The now unarmed gunman was ready for them, though, and swung first at JJ as John B. scrambled upright and away with the loaded weapon. As JJ was knocked away with a punch to the stomach, Willa and Kiara both struck next at the gunman, hitting him harshly from behind as Pope tore the piece of gold free from the man's clothing.

Willa was thankful for her rings as she swung her bruised fist back across the gunman's face a second time, hitting as hard as her tensed muscles would allow. Her rings caught skin, and the gunman cried out as she effectively ripped his bandanna free from his face. At the sign of such exposure, the gunman turned near feral and leaped across at Willa, going for her throat, but it was John B.'s turn to smack the butt of the gun across the former owner's head. The gunman immediately crashed to the ground, stunned mid-lunge, and Sarah delivered the final blow as she slammed the driver's side door on his shoulders and head. Though the Cameron girl's strength may not have been enough to kill him or cause significant damage, it was enough to leave him panting and dazed. It was enough for JJ to stalk back up to the gunman, rip the newly bruised man to a sitting position by the fabric on his neck, and force him to talk through a mouthful of his own blood.

"You know him?" John B. questioned wearily.

"Yeah, I know this piece of shit," JJ snapped in disgust. "Barry Benson. He's a basehead. Sells coke to my dad."

Sarah raked her knotted blonde locks back from her face and her expression twisted sourly. "He probably knows my brother." Willa's stomach churned again at Sarah's comment. If Rafe Cameron had any association with this maniac, what were the odds that her own brother, Ace, knew of him, too?

"Listen," Barry started breathlessly. He was gasping and clutching at his side from where one of the teens had kicked him in their fury while he was down. "I could have hurt any single one of y'all—"

JJ interrupted him, a primal rage consuming him as he ripped the gun from John B.'s hands and swung it across Barry's face. There was a sickening crack, and Willa knew instantly by the gush of blood that flowed from Barry's nose that it had broken with a single hit. Without hesitation, JJ swung the gun back again, not nearly satiated with his sudden bloodlust, and John B. had to leap forward to stop his best friend from doing something he might regret. "JJ, no!" He exclaimed.

As JJ attempted to shake John B. off him, Pope seized the open opportunity and stole the gun away from the former's fisted hands and hurled it into the undergrowth of the ditch far behind them. "Chill out, man. He's down."

"He should be dead," JJ snarled.

"We should get out of here," Kiara urged.

Sarah and Pope nodded their agreement, desperate to be rid of this place, but John B. and Willa were both still watching JJ closely, unmoving. As Barry moaned in pain at their feet, a whirlwind of mayhem spun within JJ's bones. They could practically see the flesh of living rage encompassed as it danced across his burning red skin. Both Willa and John B. knew that there was still an edge that the Maybank boy clung to and would bleed himself for if it guaranteed him a suspended moment longer. There was one more blow he could still deliver to their tormentor, their humiliator, which is why it did not come as a shock to either the Deveraux daughter or the Routledge son as they watched their seething friend crouch down beside the bleeding gunman and search his pockets until he came across his wallet.

JJ stuffed what little cash Barry had carried into his own pocket, and examined his driver's license until it was clear to Willa what he was really looking for: an address. Once JJ was satisfied, he carelessly tossed the piece of plastic back into the dirt. "We've got one last stop," He announced bitterly. "Let's go see where this son-of-a-bitch lives."

Willa hastily stepped aside to avoid being swept away in the whirlwind of JJ's wrath. It seemed that JJ barely registered her, barely even saw her as he stomped back toward the van. Pope and Kiara hurried at his heels, their expressions filled with worry as their frenzied friend clambered into the driver's seat and ushered them all to hurry up.

Sarah turned to join the others, but John B. lingered behind with Willa in the middle of the road, and the latter watched tensely as John B. reached back into Barry's car and pulled the keys from the ignition. Without a word, he hauled his arm back and threw them out into the woodland beyond the gravel ditches where they would surely be lost forever.

"Come on," John B. softly beckoned to Willa. She numbly stepped into his shadow, wrapping her aching arms protectively around her chest, as they followed the rest of their shaken group back to the Twinkie. None of them spared a backward glance at the beaten mess that was Barry Benson, even as his dark promises echoed in the air. "I'm going to remember this shit!" He called out, his words dripping with malice.

"You can't hide from me!"

➸➸➸

"WELCOME TO CRACKHEAD WASTELAND."

Sarah Cameron's repulsive words loomed like daggers, poking deeper wounds into the already stifling tension that had grown to suffocate John B.'s Volkswagen van. No one had spoken the entire ride out of the backwoods, even as they returned to the Cut and the land of the living. But even in their newfound forced moment of peace, their breath of fresh air had been short-lived as JJ Maybank soon navigated them back towards the outskirts of the Cut and into the infamous drug-infested trailer park.

It was an ugly place located in the heart of the murky marshes. The lone dirt road which led through the run-down community was riddled deeply with frantic tire tracks, implying enough evidence of hasty arrivals and hurried escapes. Elsewhere around them, rows of decaying trailers stretched into the shadowy distance on both sides of the drive, and within the confines of the beaten trailers, lives tainted by addiction unraveled, ignored by the greater Outer Banks society. Through the Twinkie's open windows, the acrid scent of burnt substances wafted through the air, mingling with the damp musk of the summer heat.

"I don't know about this, man," Pope expressed hesitantly as JJ veered off the road and onto the overgrown front yard of a greasy, decaying trailer. The van came to a sudden halt, and JJ killed the engine, signaling their arrival at the destination indicated on Barry's license. They were deep in the cracked-out neighborhood now. "Dude, why are we here?"

JJ did not answer. Instead, he merely swung the driver's side door open and stepped out. "This will only take a second," He assured.

As he slammed the door shut behind him, John B. opened his own and called out to his disappearing friend, "Where are you going?"

"Yo soy justicia," JJ responded heatedly over his shoulder. He did not even hesitate as he ascended the creaking porch steps and entered Barry's trailer, banging the front door open wide. On any other day, such an action would have been a sure death sentence, and the reality of that promise made Willa tense. JJ was in a dangerous mindset right now. Reckless even by his own standards.

Inwardly Kiara seemed to agree as she was the first to voice her worry. "Somebody should probably go check—"

"Yeah, I got it," John B. interrupted, already halfway out of his seat. "Stay put."

Willa watched silently from the backseat as John B. entered Barry's home. She could hear a faint clamoring from inside the trailer and could only wonder what John B. might have walked in on upon crossing his best friend's warpath. JJ and this place mixed as well as gasoline and an open flame. Violence was crafted here. Violence would end here. The mental images of such disaster, twisted with the faces of those she had grown to care for, seared painfully within Willa's brain, each conception worse than the one before it, and she suddenly lurched out of her seat. "I need air," She decided.

Willa brushed off the concerned hands of Kiara, Sarah, and Pope as they exited the vehicle after her, and eventually, the four teens were spread out amongst the dead grass of the silent trailer park, reflecting upon their own exchanges with the day's threat. They were all in a half-circle of sorts around the van, standing dormant upon a cold wire that could crackle and catalyze within an instantaneous moment.

That moment came quicker than Willa had hoped, and it came in none other than the form of a fiery and angry JJ Maybank as he slammed the front door of the trailer open wide again and bounded down into the grass to meet them. There was a newly collected black duffle bag in his arms that was half unzipped and Willa could see the large amount of money that swam freely within it. Money that most definitely did not belong to them.

"All right, so we're looking at five grand each for reparations for putting us through that bullshit," JJ informed briskly. "Here, take your piece."

"So that's what we're doing now?" Kiara questioned as she glared across at JJ in disgust. "We're robbing drug dealers?"

"This Barry guy is going to find out, and he's going to know it was us," Sarah pointed out. "You heard him say it, he's going to come after us."

"He won't find out," JJ denied. His head was still down as he sorted through the money in the bag. Behind him, John B. had resurfaced and stepped down from the porch steps. His own expression was now cold and distant. Whatever exchange had been shared between the two boys within that trailer had not ended well for either of them.

"He will, JJ," Pope cautioned sternly. "This is not the time to start wilding out."

JJ's head abruptly snapped up. "How'd you like having a gun pulled on you?" He demanded sharply.

John B. glowered and intercepted JJ's high-strung path, stopping him from getting any closer to Pope. "Relax," He warned.

Willa could practically hear the frustrated grinding of JJ's teeth as he shoved two pointed fingers back into John B.'s own chest. "He had it right here on you, bro," He reminded him darkly.

"It's over. Look, we've got to go get the gold, okay?" John B. urgently pleaded. "Give me that bag. We're putting it back." He grabbed one of the exposed straps and attempted to quickly pull the duffle from JJ's chest, but before it was clear of the latter's hold, JJ was knocking John B.'s reach aside and shoving back against the side of the van. The back of John B.'s head collided with a solid whack, and JJ's fists curled tightly into the front of John B.'s unbuttoned shirt, holding him securely in place. The duffle bag was now lost somewhere in between them, entirely forgotten.

Undeterred by the sudden outburst of aggression, John B. met JJ's hostility with his own icy resolve. "Do you feel like a tough guy? Huh?" He taunted. "What are you going to do when he comes for us?"

"We punch him in the throat," JJ growled.

"Great fucking idea, JJ," John B. sneered back.

Willa was unsure of how much more she could watch of the two friends tearing each other apart, but her weariness was answered as JJ abruptly scoffed and released his hold on John B. altogether. "I'm not putting it back," He declared as he recollected his grip on the duffle bag. He then stepped around John B. completely and clambered through the open sliding door of the van and settled onto one of the bench seats. When no one immediately followed him, he groaned in annoyance and acknowledged their distance. "You guys getting in or what?" He asked.

No one moved. Not even Willa dared take a step, perhaps the one still attempting to stand on the middle ground between both boys. After all, how could the rest of them even dare to pick sides between John B. and JJ? They were one team, one group.

Now, it no longer felt like it.

JJ exhaled a harsh breath of frustration as he sensed this, too. He could not escape so easily, and like a wild animal, he would not go down without a fight. So, rather than be cornered into the van, he clambered back out into the open and lifted his hands up, beckoning a reckoning. "What?" He practically growled as he dropped onto the dead grass and faced the several faces that looked back upon him.

"We're sick of your shit," John B. spat, still unmoving from where he had been shoved up against the van.

"My shit?" JJ repeated. He laughed as if it were a joke.

"Yes!" Kiara exclaimed, butting in from behind. "Your 'pulling guns on people' shit."

"You, acting like a maniac—" Pope began to add.

"Pope, I took the fall for you, man!" JJ's voice thundered, a sharp retort that cut through the air, silencing Pope mid-sentence. Instantly, the Heyward boy backed off, and the expression of guilt that overtook his own horrified features was almost heartbreaking for Willa to witness. Almost. For if JJ had not said what he said to defend himself, to, at last, unveil his feelings of pain and betrayal, Willa would have finally broken her own silence to recognize just that, too. "Do you know how much money I owe because of you?"

"I'm going to pay you back!" Pope insisted earnestly. "And I didn't even ask you to do that!"

"I just did pay it back!" JJ asserted as he rattled the duffle bag still locked in his clenched fist. "Right here, right now, by myself . . . Fuck . . .You know what? That's exactly what I'm going to do. Go off by myself." Without uttering another word, he slung the black bag over his shoulders and tore away from their fractured circle and started off in the direction of his own home. Not once did he look back at them, and Willa did not expect him to. He could make it fine without them; at least for a little while, at least until tempers had simmered.

"JJ, wait!" Pope suddenly called. His instincts compelled him to chase after his exiled friend, but John B. grabbed Pope's shoulder and held him in place. With one shake of his head, both boys ceased any movement at all. The unanimous decision to let JJ go left Willa reeling. In fact, Willa was more than reeling. She was silently fuming. Had been from the moment JJ had drawn a line in the sand, and John B. had dared to cross it.

How could this be happening? How could their group of six choose to succumb to such division now, even amongst their anger, their fear, their silence? Were sides to finally be selected in the cold quiet that surrounded them?

But the sides had already been chosen, Willa discovered, as lines were etched in the glances exchanged between them. Willa's searching gaze swept over Kiara, Pope, and Sarah, but not a single one of them met her eyes. Instead, their collective attention was fixated upon John B., their three pairs of eyes locked onto him, and him alone. JJ, now nearly out of sight, was a growing afterthought, and Willa found herself frozen in the sea of tension, drowning within the resentment and fright that pulled at all parts of her, just as it did her friends.

Yet within her, something else simmered and surged—a profound fury, a tempest storm of relentlessly pent-up emotion that reverberated through her core. An echoing of fire that felt all so familiar.

Willa turned and looked after JJ as he vanished, once and for all, down the dirt road. Was she truly the only one left that still recognized his rightful rage as a result of the calamity that had occurred? Was it her raw comprehension of JJ Maybank, forged in their shared day of newly acquired trauma, that propelled her to grasp the weight of their isolated and grave responsibility, knowing it was them who had ultimately put all their other friends in harm's way? Was it because she truly, intimately, understood the collapse of such a cruelly crafted guilt and the desperate, near mind-bending desire to correct and set it right?

After all, the sting of shame was not so easily disregarded. Nor was the swift inferno of its promised rectified vengeance.

As suddenly as if a switch were flipped, Willa sprang into motion, her stride purposeful and resolute, chasing after JJ now with a ferocity that defied reason. In her wake, pleas erupted from her friends. They spoke frantically—like they could not possibly fathom seeing the group's divide deepen.

"Willa, where are you going?" John B.'s call pierced through her escaping tirade.

Willa's determined steps came to an abrupt halt. From halfway down the drive, she stiffly turned, and her sage gaze narrowed, cutting through the air like a sharpened blade. "You had no right to treat him like that. To say those things to him. None of you did," She reprimanded. "He's just as scared as the rest of us are, and you all choose to ignore that."

John B.'s voice cracked and was laced with a mixture of frustration and desperation. "He's putting us in danger!"

"You have been putting us in danger from the moment you found that fucking compass!" Willa shouted back. "Don't act like our actions aren't a result of those you've forced us into making, John B. You put JJ on a frontline and then try to punish him for choosing to protect himself there. For choosing to protect you! For choosing to protect all of us!"

"You think JJ robbing a drug dealer is a form of protection?" He demanded. "He's going to get us killed! When Barry finds out what he took, he's going to come after all of us!"

"With or without the money, Barry was always going to come after us!" Willa insisted sharply. "Barry is going to try to hurt you, and me, and JJ, and Kie, and Pope, and Sarah. He won't stop no matter what we do or don't take from him. You heard him back there. None of us are safe until—"

"Until what, Willa?" John B. dared to interject. Deep down, he already knew the answer.

Willa Deveraux barely hesitated. Barely breathed as the heinous words escaped her lips. "Until he's dead," She stated with chilling certainty. "JJ was right. He should be dead."

A deafening silence descended upon them. John B. recoiled, his once-warm gaze darkening as her revelation sunk into his skin, into his very bones. "You don't mean that," He protested.

"You don't speak for me."

Within that moment, the chasm between their perspectives widened, and the fragile threads of their fine line threatened to snap. In the end, Willa did not wait for John B.'s imminent and painful return. She did not even wait to see his broken reaction to her cold dismissal. Instead, with that final, hapless exchange, she turned on her heels and began to walk again. This time no one called after her. Not even Kiara whose voice she had originally heard first only minutes prior. Just like JJ Maybank, her friends were now letting her go, too, and Willa was relieved it would not be a dirtier fight.

JJ needed her company more than the others did, and right now, JJ's company was the only one Willa truly sought in return. Perhaps he might not be happy to see her following him into the darkness of the Cut. She knew JJ, and she knew that he had wanted to be left alone. But JJ also knew her, and as she had promised him while within the shadows of the pawnshop that had betrayed them, she would not be that easy to get rid of.

And so, amidst her own inner chaos and despair, Willa Deveraux defiantly pressed on and continued walking.

~~~~~~~~~~

that was one hell of a chapter.

my everything is hurting.

very much a willa and jj centric chapter, but these two's lives are destined to stay intertwined through the chaos they are being forced to live.  what thoughts are you having about the relationship between willa and jj?  i'd love to hear what you all are thinking here.

i'd also love to hear your thoughts on willa's relationships with the other pogues! as we all remember, this is a dark and challenging time in season one for all of the teens.  and you have to remember just that, THEY ARE KIDS! they're sixteen and times are only going to get harder.  they're going to fight, just as we saw with willa and john b. this chapter.  of course there's going to be some bumps in the road in the way that willa interacts with the pogues.  right now, she feels that jj is in her corner and vice versa.  but who knows if it will stay that way.  knowing those two hot-heads, it probably won't.

so, again, please just let me know what you're thinking!! how did you like willa during the pawnshop scene?  the barry scene?  the trailer park scene?  what did you think of willa actively wishing for barry's death?  that's a new side of her that definitely did not exist at the beginning of the book.  so, do we think this journey is going to change willa's character for the better or the worst?

let me hear your thoughts!!!  and as always, i'm sending all my love. thank you for reading.  thank you for loving willa as much as i do. 

stay safe and well.

--B.