[ xxxvi. the longest goodbye ]

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AN ENTIRE DAY HAD passed since the cataclysmic rupture between Willa Deveraux and JJ Maybank, and in the wake of their shattered friendship—could it even truly be called that?—the entirety of Kildare Island seemed to hold its breath.

In the span of those twenty-four hours, nothing that followed had been easy. The hours bled into each other. It was ugly. It was devastating. But amidst the anarchy, there was silence, and in that silence, Willa vanished. Though not in the way she had planned.

She had not retreated to the lavish, bright lights of the Figure Eight, that supposed safety net she had been born for. But rather, she had disappeared in a way that made no sense at all. She had left the Cut, yes, but she had not gone home. Instead, she had found herself drawn back to the one place she never anticipated.

She returned to the Boneyard Beach.

Now, Willa sat on the cold and empty shore, her scabbed knees drawn to her chest, fingers wound so tightly into the fabric of her jersey shorts that her knuckles had gone white. The wind was harsh and stung her teary eyes, but the pain of it was nothing compared to the feeling that had settled thickly in her chest. There was a deep, deep ache inside of her that no swift ocean breeze could soothe.

All the while, before her very eyes, the dark waves crashed endlessly against the sand of the Boneyard, their sounds constant, as if the sea itself was mocking Willa's misery, uncaring for her suffering.

Because of that noise, she was unsure if she loved this place anymore or if she hated it. Maybe it was both.

She had wandered here almost unconsciously, as though her feet knew the way even when her mind could no longer bear to think. This stretch of beach had once been a kind of sanctuary, the place where her life had tilted and changed course—in more ways than one.

It was here that she had first truly met JJ. They had instantly clashed, two people who were too stubborn, too bruised, caught in their own private storms. That night had been a whirlwind of yelling and accusations, yes, but somehow, that brutal explosion of souls had cracked something open in her, too. JJ and his blatant, rude, hot-headedness had pulled her into a new world, one with the Pogues, one that had felt like a home she did not know she had been searching for.

She had finally found her place. Her home. Her people.

Or so she had thought.

Because now, sitting alone on that very same sand, Willa could hardly breathe. Certainly, she was more than the "sad, lonely little Kook" JJ had so callously thrown back in her face. Right? She had bled for this, had risked her life—from that first violent chase on the marsh to outsmarting Barry with a gun in their faces only yesterday. She had fought for her place, for her spot with the Pogues, and she had genuinely thought she had finally earned it.

But had she always just been one to be tolerated for a while—until someone else had grown tired of her? Perhaps she was the guest who had overstayed her welcome in the Chateau, the outsider who had never truly been invited in.

How many times had JJ vented about Willa behind her back? How many whispered complaints had slipped from his lips, convincing Kiara, Pope, and John B. that she was just as pathetic as he made her feel, clinging to them because she had nowhere else to go?

Was that really all she was—a piece of Kook bait, waiting to be discarded once she had served her purpose in their treasure hunt?

A broken sob suddenly scraped at Willa's chest, clawing its way up her throat.

One boy, just one stupid boy, had ruined everything.

And yet, she could still not entirely blame him. Maybe that made her stupid, too. But deep inside the rubble of her heart, Willa had known this ending was coming for her. Even before JJ's words had cut her to the bone, she had felt the flaying of what supposedly had held her in the circle of the Pogues.

It started with losing John B.

He had been the first one to really let her in, in that easy way of his—with his bizarre sophomore-year stories, the ones that made no sense, the ones that could only happen to him. That spontaneous night on the Boneyard, where they shared the last of the cinnamon whiskey, their beaming faces flushed with alcohol and teasing laughter, was all but gone, too. His hickory eyes were no longer filled with the same warmth when he looked into her sage green. Now, they only followed Sarah Cameron's every move, his every thought revolving around her in a way that Willa never once had.

But that was on her, was it not? John B. had not meant to leave her; not always. But he had because Willa had let him. She had pulled away from him first. She had closed herself off, too afraid of getting hurt, too confused—too stubborn in general.

Just like JJ, she inwardly thought. And now she was losing him, too.

It was only a matter of time before Pope and Kiara followed. After all, Willa was not their history. Not really. How could they ever possibly choose her over the other boys? They did not need her. And she could not blame them for that.

As always, she could only blame herself.

Willa Deveraux was the girl who had always pushed too hard. Too fast. Too much. The girl who did not know when to back off, to stop trying to force her way into a space that was never meant for her. She had never known how to let things breathe, to let people come to her on their own terms. Instead, she had torn down walls she had no right to touch, broken the delicate balance of lives she did not fully understand. She had made everything uncomfortable, always speaking too brashly, always breaking the timid lulls, always pushing until something gave.

But there was a question that haunted her, one she still could not shake, no matter how hard she tried: Why wasn't she good enough?

She was smart. She knew that. She was loyal. Brave. Even in the face of things that should have sent her running, she stayed. But there was something that counteracted every good quality of hers. Something was broken inside her, something splintered in ways she could not see, could not fix. And that part of her—whatever it was—always drove people away. It had to. Because it was the only explanation. She had tried so hard, and yet she always ended up here, sitting alone.

Why did everyone always leave her? Why could no one see Willa for who she truly was? And if they did—why could they not just accept her, flaws and all?

Willa could not bear to face the inevitable rejection from the other Pogues. No, she could not stay in this world, on this side of the island, anymore.

So, she decided, as the last traces of daylight slipped away: she would give the Pogues the goodbye they deserved—but on her terms. She would leave before they could turn their backs on her. She would walk away first, and in that walk, she would preserve the last shred of her dignity.

Quietly, Willa began to sort through what she would say and what she would not. She would craft an existence where the entire Royal Merchant adventure had never happened, and the Pogues would effectively move on with their lives as if Willa had never been a part of them.

The gold did not matter anymore. Willa did not need it. What was it worth, anyway, when it was now the cause of her whole mess? If she and JJ had never stepped foot inside that pawnshop yesterday, where might they have been today?

Stop it. Those possibilities were over.

Maybe, Willa sufficed instead, she could start over. Maybe she could find her way back to her parents, to a life where she was not constantly trying to prove she deserved to be seen. Maybe she could just be the daughter they once thought they had raised.

And maybe, just maybe, Willa could let go of John B. Routledge once and for all.

She wished that she had her journal and silver fountain pen—the tools she often used to keep her mind from unraveling completely. A goodbye would be so much easier in ink, each word of the letter arranged with a kind of order that her current thoughts denied her now as they tumbled and collided freely in her head, refusing to sit still.

As the final streaks of sun vanished, the July twilight soon smothered the Boneyard, casting everything around the Deveraux daughter into shadows. She stood up slowly, her limbs leaden, pins and needles prickling her legs as blood rushed back into them. Every muscle was still taut with the adrenaline from her screaming match with JJ. She could only hope that he would not be at the Chateau tonight—that the universe would grant her just this one small mercy.

But even if he was there, she would not turn back. If she was going to say goodbye, it would not be to him. It would be for everyone else who still hurt her to let go of. John B., Pope, Kiara—maybe even Sarah.

With a final, shaky lungful of salt-laden air, Willa turned her back on the open water. She forced herself to keep walking, her fingers curled into fists, nails digging into her palms.

The walk back to the Chateau stretched out before her, longer than she ever remembered it being. She avoided the main roads and the downtown area; avoided the prying eyes of those still awake along the beaches of Kildare. Eventually, she took to the trees completely, remembering the path that she and Kiara had taken the first time she ever truly ventured deep into the Cut marshes.

The stretches of dirt and gravel underfoot that had once steadily grown familiar to Willa now felt like an entirely new labyrinth. A new island. The air overhead had shifted subtly, too. It was heavier with every inch forward, thick with a kind of stillness that only dared to happen when something was about to break.

Willa could not afford to let it be her heart again. It had to be theirs.

When the old Routledge house finally came into view, it was shrouded in a familiar Cut darkness. As Willa grew closer, the silence of the structure struck her first. Though she had not been around long, the Chateau as she had known it had always been alive with noise—voices, laughter, reggae music, even the heated bickering that came with being a found family of teenagers—but now, it stood like a ghost, as if the very life had been sucked from it.

The surrounding property, too, looked different. Unfamiliar odds-and-ends objects lay scattered across the lawn, signs that Willa had already become forgotten while lost in her own head. Pope's father's pickup truck sat parked under the massive, sagging tree that otherwise took up most of the space in the Routledge family's backyard. A large winch device sat idle beside the truck.

She could almost already hear the mechanical hum it would make as John B. was lowered down beneath the Crain mansion, retrieving whatever scraps of Royal Merchant gold remained in the deep. Willa wondered if the Pogues had tested the winch beforehand this afternoon; if they had taken the time to make sure they would not make the mistake of nearly dropping John B. down a well again.

Then, Willa figured, they must have. For in the next breath, she spotted a hot tub sitting awkwardly in the center of the overgrown yard, something completely out of place, an extravagance that had not been there just days before. New gold—new money—surely had to have been found.

Willa did not even have to ask who had made the sudden purchase. She could already hear the laughter of JJ in her head, full of bold and arrogant bravado as he soaked—literally—in his newfound riches.

He likely had gone to buy the damn thing right after tearing Willa to shreds.

At the abrupt thought of the blonde Maybank boy, Willa sighed bitterly to herself. She turned her attention back to the Chateau's unoccupied porch. The steps creaked underfoot as she made her way up. She reached the front entrance, but hesitation suddenly gripped her. She did not want to just walk through the front door—which she knew would be unlocked—as if nothing had changed. This was not her hideaway home anymore.

So instead, Willa raised her voice and called through the closed door, "John B.? Are you here?"

Silence.

She waited, sage green eyes darting precariously to the dusty windows, searching for any movement, a flicker of a shadow, anything. But there was nothing.

A tight knot of panic unfurled in her stomach. Had she missed her chance? Had JJ already gotten to them? Willa cursed beneath her breath. She had wasted an entire day—an entire day of standing on the edge of this goodbye—and for what?

She called out again, her voice louder still, stronger this time. "Kiara? Pope?

Again, silence greeted her, stretching long and empty across the island night.

Willa felt the loneliness creep back in. It all but whispered her name. Taunted her.

Surely it was easier to walk away now, to slip quietly into the night and let them forget about her. Maybe it would be best if she disappeared without a trace. But just as Willa stepped backward, ready to turn away for good, a sound cut through the quiet. Footsteps.

"John B.?" she called once more.

The front door creaked open. And there he was—the Routledge boy—standing in the Chateau's shadowy doorway. Instantly, Willa felt a wave of relief, ready to expel all that was trapped in her own chest before she could regret it. But before she could say a single word, she blinked and noticed John B.'s expression as it fell back upon her.

His hickory eyes were red and swollen, the inflammation one only gets after crying for hours. The freckles across his nose looked like they had been painted in a haze of saltwater tears, and the lower half of his face trembled, lips quivering. His breathing was shallow, his chest rising and falling in uneven gasps.

It only took a single second. Within it, Willa forgot everything. Her own pain fell away and was quickly replaced by a different kind.

"John B.," she whispered, taking a tentative step forward. The impulse to comfort him, to reach out, was overwhelming. "What's wrong?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice faltered, unable to find the words. He looked away, his watery gaze flickering like he was trying to hold something together that he did not have the strength for. He was turning hysterical in front of her.

"It's . . . my dad," he croaked, the explanation coming out strained, as though it were forced from the depths of his very being. "Ward Cameron . . . He killed him, Willa. He killed my dad."

And just like that, with four violent words that slammed into the Deveraux daughter with the force of a freight train, Willa's world—the one she had spent the entire day trying to escape, trying to protect herself from—shifted completely. And all her carefully constructed plans to walk away from the Pogues, her desire to leave this chapter of her life behind, crumbled in an instant.

➸➸➸

WARD CAMERON. THE NAME was a poison.

Ward Cameron, Sarah Cameron's very own father. The very man who charmed everyone on Kildare Island with his wealth, his influence, his carefully curated smiles . . . had murdered Big John Routledge?

It was unthinkable. Horrible. Yet John B.'s broken voice left no room for doubt. He had told Willa everything, through choked, angry words, how Ward had once been his father's partner, then his betrayer, and then, finally, his killer.

Now, Willa watched quietly as John B. wiped a stray tear from his cheek with a shaky hand. When he lowered his arm again, his shoulders hunched forward, carrying an invisible load that was far too heavy for anyone to bear, let alone a teenage boy.

She wished she could shoulder some of it. But it was not her place. She could not pretend to understand this new type of grief. Instead, all Willa could do was try to be there for John B., to finally sit alone with him in the dark, as she had once promised herself to do long ago.

And that was exactly what happened, nearly a half-hour later, as the two teenagers navigated to sit on the edge of the Routledge jetty. In their shared silence, between broken, exhausted gasps of breath, John B. pulled a crumpled photo from his pocket. Despite the near-black of the night, she saw the familiar face in it: Big John, smiling kindly, matching hickory eyes crinkled behind his round, thick glasses. He looked happy, warm—alive. There was a tenderness in the man's gaze as he stared back into the lens that made Willa wonder if his son had taken this picture himself.

Meanwhile, she could see the tremor in John B.'s fingers as he looked at his father's face, the way one of his thumbs traced over the corner of the photo as if that simple act could keep the memory of Big John alive just a little bit longer.

Wordlessly, he laid the photograph in a small boat he had fashioned from broken twigs, bits of fishing net, and an old candle stump, all scrounged from around the Chateau. Willa watched him light the candle with a small propane torch, and the orange glow cast flickering shadows on his face, hollowing out his tanned features, making him look both older and somehow still heartbreakingly young. The flame slowly took to the photograph, and John B. watched it burn across his father's image, turning the colors into smoke and ash.

Willa did not dare speak as John B. leaned forward and held the tiny funeral pyre over the rippling water.

"Goodbye, Dad," he murmured.

With a quiet exhale, he lowered the burning pyre to the water and let it go. For a few brief moments, it held together, the tiny boat sailing out into the marsh like a spirit on its final journey. But soon the flames dimmed. Then the makeshift vessel tipped, its fragile structure crumbling as it sank slowly beneath the surface altogether.

For a long time afterward, Willa and John B. only stared at the place the small pyre had once been. The only sound around them was the soft lapping of the water beneath them, and the occasional call of a night bird. In their isolation, a part of Willa felt the absence of the other Pogues acutely—Pope, Kiara, JJ—each of them should have been here. And yet, another part of her was relieved that it was only the two of them. Any grudges, any moments of tension or distance, from Barry's crackhead wasteland only days ago, were nothing between them now.

Gently, almost subconsciously, Willa reached over and rested her hand on John B.'s forearm, her palm resting along the tough fabric of his cast. She did not have to say anything at all to him. He did not look at her, but his shoulders loosened, and he let out a shaky breath, as though finally, a fraction of the weight had lifted.

When she eventually drew her hand back, John B. seemed to surface from whatever place he had been quietly drifting in. He cleared his throat. "I don't know what happens now," he confessed to her.

Willa turned to him. "You don't have to know everything all the time, John B.," she said. "Sometimes . . . you just need to exist. Take a minute. You sure as hell deserve one."

"I can't." John B.'s expression tightened. "Not with Ward still out there." His voice trailed off, frustrated. "And then there's Sarah now."

At her name, Willa's heart somersaulted, but she held her expression neutral. She had wanted to protect him from the thought of the Cameron daughter tonight, let him grieve without thoughts of the girl who was now so heavily entwined in this tragedy. But of course, Willa knew it was impossible.

John B.'s brow furrowed. "Do you think she told Ward?" he asked. "About the gold, I mean?"

Willa studied him. "Do you think she did?"

He hesitated as he turned her question over. Finally, he shook his head. "No."

"Why not?"

John B.'s jaw clenched, the muscles in his neck taut as he searched for the words. "Because . . . I know her. Or at least, I think I do. She wouldn't betray me. Not like that. She's . . . she's not that person."

A faint, bittersweet smile tugged at Willa's lips. "I think you found your answer then," she said softly. "You don't need to hear mine."

The Routledge son simply looked at the Deveraux daughter, surprise flashing in his gaze before a hint of clarity took its place. A small kind of peace settled over him. Good. It was the least she could give him.

As he turned his calm stare back toward the open water, Willa's thoughts lingered behind. Only days ago, she had stood on the opposite side of this trust she now proclaimed, warning John B. against Sarah Cameron and her involvement with the Royal Merchant gold. She had insisted that the Kook princess would only betray them in the end—if it suited her precious father's schemes.

But since then, everything Willa was once certain of shifted again. She could not easily forget the way Sarah had looked at her that night on the Heyward family's boat, that vulnerability in her eyes when she promised she would not leave John B., no matter what. Willa had believed her— because, even then, she had suspected it was no longer just some teenage crush or a promise made in the heat of a drunken moment. Already, in only days, Sarah's heart was too tangled with John B.'s for her to ever turn on him. Willa knew that now, even if it was hard to admit.

But Ward Cameron? The unwarranted thought of him slithered uncomfortably down her spine. There had always been something off about him, long before Willa had even known about his infatuation for gold.

She did not want to think about the lengths they might have to go to stop him now. She did not want to think about how far Ward would push in response to get his hands on the Royal Merchant gold completely. They could not let him have it. It did not belong to him. It belonged to John B.

Because to him, it was not just a treasure. It was his father's legacy, the one thing that tied him to a life before everything had gone to hell. He deserved that peace, that closure, far more than anyone else.

Willa decided, right then, that she would not let Ward Cameron take anything else from John B. ever again.

Several more minutes passed between the two teenagers. But then, in the midst of Willa's wanderings of a faraway future, an innocent question drifted from her lips—one that had unknowingly held her mind captive since that very first night she shared a genuine conversation with John B., when everything was so much simpler. When they had no idea at all how drastically their summer would turn.

"Why did you choose to talk to me that night at the Boneyard? You didn't know me."

John B. blinked in her direction, caught off guard.  Then he hastily looked away again, considering. "Honestly?" he began. "I wanted to know you. I'd seen you around before—outside of school, I mean. You never stayed in the Figure Eight. That night at the party, you looked . . . I don't know . . . like you didn't fit. Not because you couldn't," he quickly amended, "but because you didn't want to." He rubbed a hand over his face, a hint of embarrassment crossing his features. "I wanted to figure out why."

"So, it really wasn't the free Fireball?"

John B. let out a genuine laugh. "No," he said, shaking his head. "It wasn't the free Fireball."

Willa felt a forgotten warmth spread through her chest. Her lips tilted upward, still nearly teasing. "Well, do you regret it yet?" she asked. "Talking to me, I mean?"

"Not a bit," he replied with a small, barely-there smile of his own. Then his expression turned a little more serious again. "But if we're talking about regret . . . shouldn't it be you?"

Willa's brow lifted. "Why me?"

John B. leaned back slightly. A brief, darkening shadow passed over his face. "Because I was an ass to you that night. I made that stupid comment about how you didn't have a job—like I was some kind of saint of hard work—"

"Because you got fired a day later," Willa interrupted coyly. She could not help herself.

"I did," John B. agreed, easily biting the bullet. "Anyway, it was a dumb thing to say, and I know it came out wrong, but I still feel bad about it. I didn't even know you. I'm sorry for that."

Willa looked down. She remembered the sting of John B.'s bite, of course. But she also remembered how much had come after it. She nudged him with her shoulder. "I appreciate the apology," she said. "But you don't need to beat yourself up over one dumb comment. Not after everything else we've been through."

John B. gave her a lopsided, almost sheepish grin now. "Just let me make my amends, alright?"

"Alright, alright," Willa huffed with a shake of her head. Her smile faded. "It's crazy, isn't it?" she murmured. "How one night can change everything."

"Yeah." He nodded, his gaze distant. "It really is."

They both fell silent once more, their conversations ebbing and flowing like the gentle laps of waves beneath them. Eventually, John B. pushed himself away from the edge of the dock with a slow, deliberate movement, his legs extending in front of him. Glancing over her shoulder, Willa watched as he lay flat on his back, arms outstretching, eyes locking on the sky. He did not go to sleep. Instead, he simply stared at the stars, his mind returning to a place far, far away.

Without saying a word, Willa shifted her weight, letting herself fall back onto the dock, too, her body sinking into the wood with a soft groan. The fatigue of the past few days settled deep in her bones as she exhaled a long breath, but she did not want to think of the physical and emotional toll that had been drained from her. She just wanted to be, for a few seconds, lost in the quiet of the marsh.

Her shoulder brushed against John B.'s, and she let herself linger there, not pulling away, not moving. She felt him next to her, his warmth, the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, a rhythm that calmed her own.

"Do you think we could just . . . stay here for a while?" he quietly asked her.

The exhausted question hung between them, simple but loaded. Willa did not hesitate as she nodded her head. Unanimously, they both reached for lifejackets resting against the dock's lone railing behind them, pulling them down and folding them beneath their heads to create makeshift pillows. Then their attentions returned to tracking the universe overhead.

The stars felt different now.

Willa turned her head slightly, just enough to see John B. beside her, who still had not moved. The pale moonlight kissed his half-healed face, caressing his bruises, highlighting the way his brown hair curled messily around his split brow. Looking at him so openly, so unabashed, something stirred in Willa's chest. Something warm. Something too complicated to name.

Fuck.

She hated that fucking feeling.

Because just like that, the history between the Routledge son and Deveraux daughter returned. Their lone kiss—one left unfinished before it could fully bloom, a taste they could not rid themselves of. There was something painfully familiar to Willa in the way everything between her and John B. felt so close, yet so impossibly far away.

Perhaps it was for the best that it stayed away, though.

After all, Willa could feel what still crackled—not just between her and John B.—but between him and Sarah, too. Willa knew that the Cameron princess remained the larger home in John B.'s heart. She had not even needed to hear it from him; it was in the way his eyes still softened when Sarah's name came up tonight, in the way he would always justify her actions, even if he were angry at her. He knew her in ways that he could not ever know Willa.

And Willa was not about to tear them apart. Not when Sarah was out there, alone, unable to defend the relationship herself. Not when John B.'s feelings were still tethered, even now, given the Ward bombshell.

So Willa kept quiet. She could return to that perfectly frayed tightrope between them—their fine line.

Then, as though pulled by some invisible thread, Willa abruptly felt John B. shift beside her. The space between them tightened. She tilted her head further, and there he was—his face suddenly so close now that she could feel the warmth of his skin on her own. She could see the same silent war in his hickory stare, between what was and what could never be. The pull between them that neither teen seemed able to escape, no matter how hard they tried.

The breath shook in Willa's lungs when she spoke.

"Don't kiss me if you're going to break my heart, John B."

He pulled back, and Willa felt a pang of loss as the distance between them grew again. But then, as if he understood exactly what she was really asking, as if some agreement passed between them, John B. leaned into her again—savoring all that she and him were, before the inevitable came. He pressed a kiss to Willa's forehead, so soft, so gentle, that it sent a fresh shiver through her.

It was not the kind of kiss she expected. But it was a response.  And yet, it was not. It was a promise, but not one of certainty. Not for them.

And still, as Willa closed her eyes, for the first time in what felt like ages, she felt something like genuine peace settle in the pit of her stomach. It was not closure—there was no neat ending to their story—but it was something. For just this moment, she realized, she did not need anything more. She did not need John B. to choose her beyond this. They were only teenagers, after all. And feelings so young and new were often fleeting things and would disappear as quickly as they came.

But for now, in this space between the stars, it was enough.

➸➸➸

AT DAWN, WILLA AND John B. woke, still side-by-side on the jetty, to the quiet thrum of the marsh just beginning to stir.

They rose wordlessly, feeling the press of morning around them as they headed back to the Chateau to change into fresh pairs of clothes. They acted normal—normal enough, anyway, for a situation that was anything but. They did not mention the forehead kiss, nor the closeness they had found somewhere in the quiet midnight hours. There was no need to. Whatever had been there was gone now.

Willa had hoped—no, she had truly wished—that whatever lay between them was, finally, simply platonic. Clear. They could not afford more unnecessary confusion.

Besides, they had work to do.

After finding last-ditch bites to eat, they hurried outside to the Twinkie that was parked at the edge of the Routledge property. The van was already beginning to heat under the rising summer sun, dust flecked across its scratched, faded paint, still as battered as ever. John B. slid into the driver's seat. He did not ask Willa to follow him, to sit beside him in the passenger's seat; she simply did. She would not let him face this next part alone.

The engine roared to life, vibrating beneath the two teens, and in the next breath they were speeding toward the Crain mansion, the Cut landscape whipping by in a blur of faded greens and rotten golds.

Soon, the Crain estate crested over the treetops. And with it came the glossy Cameron Development signs that were now staked along the outskirts of the property.

"No." The single word tore itself from John B.'s mouth, barely a hissed whisper in Willa's ears. He jerked the Volkswagen van to a sudden halt, tires skidding across gravel.

They did not wait. They bolted from their seats, feet hitting the dirt, hearts racing in tandem. Ahead, the lone, moss-flecked wall that divided them from the overgrown yard. Their hands pressed against the stone as they scaled it, their bodies moving with memorized ease. Had it really only been days since they had last climbed this wall? It felt like years had passed.

Landing on the other side, Willa and John B. found themselves in a silent, empty backyard.

Relief pulsed through Willa's flared veins. No Ward. No workers. No sign of anyone. But then dread pooled, cold and heavy in her middle. The stillness was wrong—too easy. They were probably already too late.

Still, they pressed forward, cutting through the tall, dry grass quickly. John B. led while Willa stayed close to his shoulder, her eyes scanning the shadows of the dense yard, guarding their six. Rounding the back of the house, beneath the rusted awnings, the basement doors came into view, both lying crookedly open. With no time to fear the awaiting dark, she descended into the underbelly of the Crain mansion, where the air was still familiarly thick with the smell of old wood and dust.

Willa's eyes scanned the dimmed room, tracing the corners where Mrs. Crain's dusty belongings had once cluttered the space. It was all gone, emptied by Ward's crew. And in the center of the hollowed-out basement, the well gaped, a dark mouth stripped of its cover, its stone walls bared to the entirety of Kildare Island. It was an open gold mine, ready to be raided.

Willa's heart sank.

Her only solace?

A glint of metal sat near the rim of the well, abandoned carelessly by Ward's crew. A winch mechanism. Without a word, Willa reached for it, her hands moving deftly over the controls while John B. harnessed himself in beside her. In minutes, the winch began to groan and rattle as the rope lowered him, slowly at first, then faster, into the deep.

Her only devastation?

John B.'s ensuing scream which clawed its way back up to Willa. It was a guttural, savage roar of rage that stretched on for minutes. She did not ever need to see what had awaited John B. at the bottom of the empty Crain well to understand his cries of agony. She knew.

Ward Cameron had done it. He had stolen the Royal Merchant gold.

~~~~~~~~~~

i genuinely forgot how much i love writing this book.  how much i love writing willa's dynamics with the characters.  i hope you are enjoying these new chapters as much as i am.

and can i just say, i also love writing the chaos that is teenage romance--and just teenage feelings in general.  it's so back-and-forth, and oh, so much fun!  i hope it feels realistic.  because obviously willa was still whipped by john b. but perhaps she finally is not anymore.

what do you think?  do you think #willb is finally over?  THEY'RE SO WISHY-WASHY I LOVE IT--

anyways, another chapter down.  more chaos to come.  i hope you all enjoyed the swerving of scenery i have been doing during this portion of the show.  i find that in most fics the oc is usually always with jj, kiara, and pope during the infamous "hot tub scene" that i just refused to go along with it.  plus, it's so much fun writing all of this internal monologue with willa where's she's envisioning all of these things about the pogues that we, as tv viewers, know isn't the case.

like, the fact she's literally hating jj on right now (with good reason) but still bashing on his decisions, thinking he's completely unfeeling, while he's actually having his own crash out.  they're twin flames, i swear sometimes.

gosh, i just love writing.  thank you all for reading! now, i would love to hear all of your thoughts.  what did you guys think of this chapter?? what are your predictions for the future?? let's talk!!

and as always, stay safe and well.

--B.