ONLY ANGEL | JJ MAYBANK

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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Rixon's Cove was a dank little sector of the marsh where they could park the boat and walk to a small little clearing. There, they could start a bonfire and sit around it on uncomfortably damp logs that were swarming with tiny flying bugs that Collins felt like she was always breathing in too many of through her nose. They could also speak in complete and total secrecy, the isolation from civilization made it the perfect place to regroup for what they had to discuss next. Or maybe it's seclusion made it the perfect place for an unhinged, screws loose, psycho hermit to attack them. Collins wished she hadn't have thought of it that way.

Anyhow, despite all of those faults in Rixon's Cove, there was one redeeming quality that made up for all of its unideal features: it was a place that they could all come to be together.

This was the first time they'd been back as a whole group since that unsuccessful, stomach-turning boat ride when they'd failed to find the gold. It wasn't really that long ago when you looked back at it in retrospect, but it felt like it was.

Collins was sat next to JJ, tugging her hair tie out of her hair so that her ponytail spilled out over her shoulders. She breathed a soft sigh in relief at the release in tension, massaging her scalp for a few moments before she smoothed her hair down into its normal unruly waves. Having her hair in a ponytail that high for so long usually led to a headache, so she was grateful to finally be able to take it out and let her hair sit freely.

JJ, who'd been watching her the entire time in mesmerization, forced himself to tear his gaze away from her. If he stared at her for any longer, he'd never be able to focus on anything they talked about that night.

"So like, my dad's already gonna kill me, so what's this mandatory meeting all about?" Pope looked to JJ and John B for more insight, hoping that whatever it was they had to share, was worth the trouble of his father probably disowning him when he got home.

John B's eyes flickered over to JJ and he wordlessly lifted his hands up to shoot finger guns off at JJ. The blond just shook his head and shrugged. "Might as well tell him man, before we're gaffed."

"Excuse me?" Collins's voice sounded.

It didn't seem like anyone else was as concerned about JJ's statement, because they carried on and just ignored it entirely. "You ready for this?" They all nodded their heads earnestly. "So... the gold never went down with the Royal Merchant."

Pope promptly began to roll his eyes. "Oh my God. Here we go again with this."

"Just hear him out, alright?" JJ protested.

John B held a finger to his mouth to silence them, delivering the news with an achingly tall build up of anticipation. "It's been here the whole time. It's on the island."

"Are you serious?" Kie questioned incredulously. "Oh my God."

"I'd like to voice my skepticism." Pope announced.

"I'm sure you would, Pope, but can I please present my evidence, sir?" John B pushed himself up from off of the log, and if that wasn't indication enough that he was about to spill some serious dirt, then Collins didn't know what was.

Pope pursed his lips then gave him a wave in consent. "Proceed."

"Alright, so, in my backpack, I have a letter from Denmark Tanny." John B pulled out the slip of tan, old, worn out looking paper, and held it up for all of them to see.

"Who the hell is that?"

"Denmark Tanny was a slave who survived the Royal Merchant wreck. Slaves weren't mentioned as crew members on the ship, but my dad found the complete manifest. That was his big discovery. So Tanny used the gold from the Merchant to buy his freedom. After that, he bought his farm. Drumroll please, because that farm is..." they obliged his requested and started beating their palms against their legs, "Tannyhill Plantation."

"No way, Tannyhill?" Collins repeated in disbelief. The oldest and richest mansions that had stood ground on Figure Eight territory for generations of Kildare County's finest, the Tannyhill, was the treasure site for millions of dollars worth of gold? Why was she even surprised?

John B nodded his head affirmatively. "So after that, he used his money to free even more slaves, and then he sold a shit ton of rice, which pissed off all the white farmers, and then they decide to lynch him." Collins spotted Kie and Pope exchange enervated glances, and she saw how frustrating it must've felt to hear how typical oppression was for people with their color of skin when it came to their success. And the unfortunate thing was, not much has changed in the society they currently lived in.

Continuing his 온라인카지노게임, John B spoke, "So on the day they were coming to get him, he writes a letter to his son as a farewell, and in the last line of that letter, was a coded message about where to find the gold: harvest the wheat, in parcel nine, near the water. Except, there's no wheat, you see, wheat is code for gold. The gold is in parcel nine,  near the water."

"Ho-ly shit."

"All we need is an original survey map of the property and we've found the gold!" John B dropped his hands down to his sides with a slap and a wide grin on his face in accomplishment.

"Okay, so this may have a small chance of actually being true." Pope stated a little less pessimistically.

Meanwhile, JJ got up and walked around the campfire to throw his arms around John B and pick him up into a big bear hug. "I'm so proud of you right now." He whispered.

"Thank you, that's really sweet of you." John B whispered back while patting JJ on the shoulder. The two seemed to share little intimate bro moments like that often.

"Okay, so what's the plan now?" Collins asked curiously.

John B pointed to her. "Good question. Sarah Cameron is coming tonight. She'll bring the original survey map—"

"Wait, hold on." Kie suddenly interrupted. "Sarah- why Sarah?"

It went quiet amongst the Pogues as Kie waited expectantly for an answer and John B was reluctant to give her one. Collins, JJ, and Pope just sat off to the side like flies on the wall, watching the whole thing play out and fully expecting a disaster to go down.

"This is gonna be good." JJ quietly remarked. Collins bit her lip and exchanged a sly glance with Pope as the two silently agreed that this couldn't be going anywhere good.

"Sarah, um, she got me into the archives in Chapel Hill yesterday." John B stuttered. "And that's where I got the letter."

"You were in Chapel Hill with Sarah Cameron?" Kie said accusatorially. Her face was screwed up into a scowl at the betrayal, narrowing her eyes at John B in an icy glare.

"He was macking on her." JJ suddenly piped up and Collins could barely restrain herself from jumping out onto her feet and smacking him silly. She wanted to scold him for just adding more fuel to the fire.

"I wasn't macking on her, okay?" John B objected.

"You totally were."

"JJ! You're not helping!" Collins hissed, praying that he would just keep quiet before he made things worse. Things had clearly already started escalating, and the last thing they needed was for Kie to resort to sentencing John B to the guillotine for his treachery.

The boy just raised his shoulders indifferently. "I'm not trying to help, I'm just stating the blatantly obvious facts."

"I was using her for access." John B insisted.

"Oh, there was access, alright."

At this, Collins rolled her eyes and lost any desire to expend any more energy on defending him. "You lost me there, JB." Admitting that he was using Sarah for her archive privileges and involving her feelings into it was an inexcusable move. Collins couldn't support an act like that, nor did she like John B even saying it as a justification to get Kie off his back in the case that he really did like Sarah.

"Did you tell her about the treasure?" Kie asked him.

"I was just trying to get into the archives! I left out key details."

"Is that a yes? What?" Kie's jaw was dropped and she covered her face in pure devastation. "You let a Kook in on our secret? What about Pogue Lyfe? What about the t-shirt company, bro?"

"I was just using her for information." He proclaimed in exasperation.

"Okay, that's so messed up, John B." Collins said, shaking her head. "Kook or not, that's messed up. You can't play with people's feelings like that!"

"Who cares?" Kie exclaimed, dismissing Collins's criticism. Turning back to John B, she continued, "Why don't I believe you?"

"I'm trying to make us filthy rich here. So we can pay off a boat, or send you to autopsy school to study dead bodies— or in Collins's case, to put Pope out of a job and stop the bodies from dying in the first place!" John B looked at all of them with desperation. "Look, you guys know me. Do I really look like the type of person to fall for Sarah Cameron?"

"Uh, do you want us to answer that?"

"You don't know her yet. I do! You can't trust her." Kie protested.

"Her brother did hit me in the back with a golf club." Pope added mindfully. "And he hit Collins, and hitting a girl is like a cardinal sin."

"Rafe and Sarah are two different human beings." John B stated.

"What did she do to you exactly?" JJ asked Kie, a question which Collins was also eager to hear the 온라인카지노게임 about because she couldn't seem to understand why Kie hated Sarah so much to be reacting in this way.

"She's like a— like a spitting cobra. First, she blinds you and then—"

"This is a bad analogy." Pope said, airing out the same thoughts that had been going on through everyone else's mind.

"Listen to me!" Kie insisted. "Whatever we get, she's gonna try to take."

Even with Kie's clear opposition to Sarah's help on their enterprise, they did still need Sarah. If they wanted to get the map of the original layout of the Tannyhill Plantation's land, they were going to have to get it from her. That was just one thing that she could offer them at least, her privilege.

For some reason, John B had made the meet up destination with Sarah at the Hawk's Nest, the state park in Kildare County. It had a really cool structure that allowed you to walk up a series of stairs so that you could survey the area at the same level as the height of the trees. In the daytime, it was usually always surging with wildlife. Birdwatchers sometimes came from the mainland just to study the species that were unique to their little small section of the island.

But in the nighttime, there wasn't really all that much to see. They didn't put up lights or anything that would disrupt nature, leaving only the railed platform as mankind's footprint on the domain. The thunder crashing and lightning strikes made it a place that Collins probably wouldn't have wanted to be at so late at night anyways.

As the Twinkie pulled up to the entrance of the trail that would lead to the Hawk's Nest, John B cut the engine and turned in his seat to look at everyone.

"Yeah, uh, so I think I'm gonna do this one by myself." They are furrowed their brows at him in confusion. "Look, I just don't want to spook Sarah out with the peanut gallery."

"I just don't understand why we're involving her at all." Kie grumbled.

John B threw his head back and groaned. "Kie, we're not involving her, okay? It's just a business meeting." JJ made a vulgar motion with the blunt in his hand, earning him an incredulous giggle from Pope and a shake of her head from Collins. "Once we get what we need, we cut her loose, alright? Plus, we need the map."

"Promise me nothing's happening between you."

"Nothing is happening, Kie." John B said in a way that wasn't at all that convincing.

"I'm serious." The girl pressed. "This isn't about you, and this isn't about us. This is about her. Dude, she's gonna get inside your head. Just promise me, nothing's happening between you guys."

John B stared her in the eyes, then said, "I promise." He'd really sealed the envelope on that one.

As a few seconds passed, everyone studied him carefully. Something in the way that he said it and the way that he immediately looked away, didn't instill any sort of confidence in Kie that he was going to keep his promise. He could tell himself and them that he didn't have even the tiniest crush on Sarah Cameron, but things happen.

"That was really believable." JJ remarked sarcastically.

"A hundred percent believable." Pope chimed in.

John B just shook his head at them. "Anyways, I'm gonna take care of business."

"You're gonna take care of that business, so well." JJ sneered, wiggling his brows.

"We'll just sit here... in the hot ass car... while it's lightning."

"Do the right thing, John B." Collins told him, just before he left. She didn't say it with any intention to sway him towards any particular direction, but only for him to think about what felt right to him. Whether that meant following his gut with to follow with whatever road he and Sarah were headed down or to respect Kie's wishes against any sort of relation to Sarah Cameron at all. Nevertheless, he had to know that using a person for their assets or breaking a promise to a friend was wrong. And so, what felt like the right thing to do was what Collins hoped for him to be able to discern and pay thoughtful attention to.

John B got out of the driver's seat and slammed the car door shut behind him. Collins watched carefully as he walked toward the sign marking the entrance of Kildare County's state park, and walked down the pathway while the weather began to rage above him. He disappeared behind the tree line.

They had the back door of the van slid open, allowing for some airflow into the vehicle. Collins was sat at the very back, JJ adjacent to her on her right, and Kie further up on the other side of her, while Pope sat across from JJ.

"So, if it's okay to ask, why do you hate Sarah so much, Kie?" Collins asked her quietly, timid due to the fact that she wasn't sure if that was a bad question to ask at that time since it was clear that Kie had a strong vendetta against the Kook girl. But that was what made Collins only more interested to know. Maybe if she knew what exactly happened between the two, it would help her empathize with Kie more. Knowing nothing just made her wonder if Kie was just being territorial about the gold, since Sarah obviously wasn't someone who needed it. Collins had feared that so much money might change them, make them greedier with time. This would be the first indication of this particular impact the gold could have on them.

It seemed that Kie was too exhausted to explain the whole ordeal with the same amount of fury that she'd had when they were at Rixon's Cove, because she simply huffed and blinked tiredly from her seat in the van. "We used to be friends, back when I was at the Kook Academy. All you need to know is that she's faker than the plastic polluting our oceans. She'll act one way with you one day then switch up the next."

Collins listened intently with a neutral expression. It was apparent that it wasn't just anger that Kie had against Sarah, it was also hurt. Whatever happened between them had hurt Kie so much that she couldn't stand the thought of sharing one of her best friend's with this girl. John B's lack of loyalty was also pretty hurtful, like he didn't even care about how it was affecting her, he was just following his own selfish instincts.

"Kiara, holding onto your grudge is like drinking poison and thinking Sarah will die." Pope told her in an attempt to shed some insight on the situation. JJ nodded in agreement while Kie just didn't respond, and rested her chin on her hand wearily.

When all that was left was the sound of the thunder rumbling outside, Collins finally felt the humidity in the van get to her and decided that it was time to step out. It was better than sitting there in awkward silence. "I'm gonna go get some fresh air."

She crawled her way through the various objects obstructing her path, one of those being JJ, as she stumbled past him so that her feet hit the grass less than gracefully. But once she was actually outside, she felt the air start to feel a little clearer and easier to breathe, taking in big inhales and pushing out long exhales.

"I'll-uh, I'll come with you." JJ stuttered, scrambling out after her, an action which both and Kie and Pope knew was bound to occur.

As soon as he was standing next to her, the two exchanged soft smiles then began to wander away from Kie and Pope so they could speak a little more privately. They didn't go far, they pretty much just maneuvered to the back of the van. Collins leaned against the back and looked up at the sky while JJ followed in suit, taking a drag from the blunt between his fingers.

He blew the smoke to the side in the wind, but Collins could still smell the scent of marijuana and a hint of cherry from the rolling paper. He offered the blunt to her but she sheepishly declined.

"That's more of Charlie's thing, not really mine." She told him honestly. When he moved to put it out, Collins said quickly, "It's okay, the smell doesn't bother me." JJ looked at her to make sure she was really okay with it, then took a wary drag. Collins turned her gaze back up to the sky and observed the colors and shadows of the clouds. "You don't always think of the moon shining light. It's always the sun, because in the nighttime, everything is dark and hard to see. But right now, the moon almost looks like a shiny silver quarter in the sky."

Despite the storm clouding the atmosphere, the moon still looked so clear. It illuminated the sky and made it easer to see the overlap in the fluffy silhouettes. Collins lifted up one hand in front of her and pretended to pluck the moon from its proper place. She examined the distance of the space between her fingers in which the outline of the moon fit, and nodded satisfactorily. Yep, about the size of a quarter.

JJ watched her in amusement. "Aren't you scared out here, you know, with the thunder or being struck by lightning?"

Collins scoffed. "There's like a less than one in a million chance that you will ever be struck by lightning in your whole life. And even if you do, most people survive it anyways. Not to mention that I'm CPR certified, the volunteer shelter requires it."

"Well, good thing I have a future Dr. Collins Jacobson here to save me in case I'm the less than one in a million."

"That reminds me." Moving to position her body in front of him, Collins gently placed her hands on each side of JJ's head to slowly tilt his face up so that it could better be clarified under the moonlight. She hadn't gotten a chance to check him when she'd noticed his injuries before. Although, it was pretty apparent that he was okay based on the way he'd been able to carry out his day normally. Maybe she just wanted a reason to be this close to him again.

"You know, I'm starting to think that you're just using this whole medical interest thing as an excuse to get close to me." JJ said quietly, but loud enough for her to hear. Was she that easy to read? How was it that he always seemed to know exactly what was going through her mind?

"This is strictly vocational." She told him, which wasn't true of course, but she kept her expression as composed as possible. "And it's practice for when I do become a doctor, so that I'll be prepared to remain focused and professional even around the most difficult patients."

"So you're saying that being around me makes it hard for you to concentrate." There was a hint of smug in JJ's tone.

Collins looked up at JJ with a sort of embarrassed smile on her face, realizing that her words had given her away. She couldn't get away with anything with him. She quickly gathered herself and replied, "Or maybe, I'm just saying that you're difficult."

JJ winced, scaring her into thinking that she'd unintentionally injured him in her examination. "You hurt me, Collins, with your words." She also may have had things twisted. She was the one that was difficult, confusing even, she was the one who left him alone on her bed when they'd collectively agreed that there was something going on between them and given him no explanation as to why she couldn't go through with it. She was the one that was hard to read.

Collins stared up at him blankly, fighting the grin fighting its way onto her lips. "You made me nervous there for a second. I thought I hurt you or something."

"Hey, nerves are a part of the job, too," he shrugged nonchalantly, "I'm just helping you prepare."

His smile redirected Collins's attention to a small cut on the apple of his cheek. She observed the bruising around his eye that she hadn't seen the night before and studied the split in his skin more carefully. "That wasn't there before."

"What wasn't?" JJ asked.

"That cut on your cheek, it's kinda like mine. And this one on your eyebrow." She explained. "You didn't have it last night, otherwise I would've remembered cleaning it." The split in his lip, she did remember, but that had been the only open wound she'd treated.

"I don't exactly remember every single thing you did last night either, but there are a few moments that I can't soon forget." JJ said, referencing to the particular instance they'd shared before she'd bailed horribly and left him alone in her room without so much as a warning.

"How did it happen?" Collins questioned next, avoiding his comment while dredging up the unpleasant topic about the person responsible for the onslaught he'd had to deal with for as long as he could remember. Double homicide, 0-2 Collins.

JJ didn't really like sharing things about his dad. The extent of which he ever brought up was about how much of a deadbeat he's always been. It was the reputation of Luke Maybank, that he was a classic representation of the cut's trademark lowlife, gambling, run-of-the-mill addict. He was also abusive, but JJ never went around spreading news like that to everyone he came across. Especially girls, he would rather eat sand than tell them about his daddy issues.

He'd take his shirt off on late summer nights after a party when he was alone with a girl. There'd be bruises around his stomach from when his dad used him as a punching bag after too many beers and too many pills. It occurred over the most trivial of actions, too. Sometimes it was because he didn't put the tv remote where his dad could easily find it, or he didn't put enough beers in the fridge and there weren't anymore cold ones left since Luke drank about a dozen each evening.

"Those are so sexy." He'd been told one night when the dim lighting caught the surface of his abdomen. Acrylic nails painted hot pink would trace the outlines around them in a seductive manner rather than a concerned one.

The big round, dark purple splotches on his skin were tender to the touch, and made it look like he was a tough guy. The type of guy who got into fights often and won them, except his knuckles didn't have the scrapes and contusions that a guy who threw punches would normally have. They were usually clear and unharmed, aside from the callouses on his palms from working. They thought that he was the bad boy of their desires, but he was just the guy who got beat up because he was too scared to defend himself against his own father.

JJ began to look back on those nights when it was typical for him to take a girl home after every party he went to. There'd been so many, most of which he'd been too intoxicated to remember, and he'd never seen them again afterwards. They'd all had the same personalities: ditzy, promiscuous, and shallow. He was the same. He didn't need to be sober to pick up a girl and he'd stopped keeping track of how many times he'd done the action, nor did he bother getting to know more about them than the basics.

And then there was Collins, who he'd fully expected to be as simple as them, too. That night was still blurry, some parts clearer than others. But for the most part, when he imagined how it probably would've looked if he'd hadn't been smashing beers like his father, he pictured Collins sitting on a log in front of the campfire (kinda like she was at Rixon's Cove, actually), and she was mesmerizing.

He'd tried his smooth talk on her, and it was kinda working. Except, it didn't go the same way that it did with other girls. She was more shy, more reserved, and more afraid to be assertive. When he complimented her, she hid her face and changed the subject instead of moving closer to him and begging for more flattery. When he talked to her, she didn't make suggestive remarks that hinted a hook up, nor did she give in to his.

And when John B had shown him that picture of her in the yearbook, looking all smart and beautiful for something as boring and nerdy to him as the science club, he'd been hooked.

He could trust Collins; she would never say or do anything to hurt him. She didn't look at him like damaged goods, even when he really looked the part. The only thing she seemed to care about was pasting him back together. It was more than anyone else had ever done for him. When he looked her in the eyes, he could see that she would never do what those girls had done to him in the past. She wouldn't ever look at his scars and fill with lust over his pain, take his trauma and perceive it as an attraction.

She would mend his wounds with the gentle touch of an angel, with the innocence and care of one as well. He could trust her with this, he didn't have to be the tough guy all the time.

Taking in a sharp breath, JJ finally just decided to come out and say it. He didn't want to lie, not to Collins. He didn't want their 온라인카지노게임 to start with lies to protect his own ego. The right thing to do was to just tell her the truth. "My dad, he wasn't happy when he found out we have to pay 30k in restitution for Topper's boat."

Peering up at him intently, Collins's brows seemed to be permanently etched into an expression filled with concern and confusion over everything JJ said. For some reason, it took her a good while to figure out what JJ meant. Perhaps it was just because she didn't want to believe the worst. "So, you're saying that your dad did this to you?"

JJ was quiet for a moment. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed back the lump in his throat, then he slowly nodded. "Yeah, that's what I'm saying."

Collins felt like a knife had been shoved into her heart at the revelation. As she looked over his injuries for another time, it suddenly pained her more to know that most of them were probably from the hands of his own blood relative. In that moment, every scar that littered JJ's body had a new meaning; had they come from past inflictions made by his father? How many did he have and how many never scarred or healed properly? And her heart broke into a billion more pieces when she saw the look in JJ's eyes. This was taking a bigger toll on him than she could've possibly ever imagined, the fact that he trusted her enough to tell her something like this meant so much to her.

"Has he been doing this for a while?" She asked, even though she wasn't even sure she wanted to know the answer.

"A long time, Colls." JJ responded solemnly. So long, that he was used to it at this point. It never got better, but he'd come to the stage in his life where he could predict when it'd happen. That was the most that he could hope for as protection.

"I'm so sorry, JJ." Collins said, her heart breaking as she cupped his face with her hand and stroked her thumb across his cheek, just below where the bruise had formed. She wished that she had the power to make it all go away-- not just the physical pain, but the emotional pain as well. No one deserved to experience such evil, certainly not someone like JJ, who never transferred the pain that his father inflicted on him unto others. "What can I do? How can I help?"

Looking down at her, JJ took in her caring gaze, melting under her soft brown eyes. Those eyes could cure any ailment. "I think you're already doing it." He whispered.

Collins half smiled at him, she was still too overcome with sadness to make it a full one. Wrapping her arms around the back of his neck, she pulled him into her embrace. His face sunk into the fabric of her shirt on her shoulder, and he snaked his arms around her waist in response to her firm hold. She felt smaller in his arms; a lot more than he had anticipated. For a moment, he forgot that it was him that was supposed to be the one being comforted, because all he could think about was how much he wanted to keep her safe.

Their difference in size made him think she was so fragile, made of glass and in need of protection. He didn't want the kind of wrath that his father took out on him to ever reach her. He would take every blow that his dad inflicted upon them if it meant he was keeping her from getting hurt. He would take it from anyone that ever tried to cause her pain. The gash on her cheek which was sure to scar when it healed was going to be a reminder of that. Rafe had hurt her one time already, JJ wouldn't let there be a second.

"I'm here for you, JJ." Collins said into his ear, sending shivers down his spine. "Whatever you need."

She couldn't believe that he trusted her with something like this. Her, Collins Jacobson, was now a confidant for JJ Maybank. She assumed that role with the utmost sincerity, as it wasn't one to ever be taken lightly.

Her words instilled a comfort in JJ that he'd never felt before. He'd never felt more secure in being vulnerable than he was with her in that moment. It felt like every time they were alone together, she was knocking down a wall of his and opening up a side to him that he would never show just anyone. There was something about her that made everything so unfortunate about him feel okay. Like, as long as he was right there, in her arms, everything would be fine.

A yell in the distance interrupted their tranquility. It cut through the air and travelled to their ears, disrupting their tender moment.

"Did you hear that?" Collins asked, slowly unraveling herself from their embrace.

"Please, somebody help!" The voice cried more loudly and with more desperation.

Collins and JJ didn't waste another second before they took off towards the direction in which they'd seen John B disappear down. They could hear Pope and Kie jump out of the van and sprint after them, engulfing themselves in complete darkness where they were surrounded by trees in every which direction. Following the sound of what soon became clear to be known as Sarah's voice, they reached the Hawk's Nest and fell upon a stomach-dropping sight.

John B was lying sprawled on the ground, unconscious. Sarah was sobbing hysterically, knelt down next to him and frantically trying to figure out what to do.

"I don't know what to do, he needs help." Sarah explained through choked breaths. "Topper shoved him." JJ and Pope looked around for the aforementioned Kook, but he was no where to be found.

Meanwhile, Collins jumped into action right away. "Is this how you found him, Sarah? How he landed?"

"I-I moved his head a little, he wasn't saying anything. I didn't know what to do." Sarah cried worriedly.

"It's okay, we are okay, Sarah." Collins told her calmly, even though she felt like her heart was about to burst through her chest and soon she was going to be the one in need of medical assistance. It wasn't really okay, a million things could've been damaged from Sarah moving him, especially his head and neck. But Collins wasn't going to tell her that of course because Sarah was clearly in no condition to hear information that would be pinning any sense of blame on her for whatever potential injuries John B suffered from.  Twisting around to everyone behind her, she said, "Call 911, now."

"Go, go, go." JJ exclaimed to Pope, and the boy ran back down the path they'd came from to race back to the van and get one of their phones to call for help.

Focusing her attention back on John B, Collins took a shaky breath and let her hands hover over his body before she did what she knew she had to do. "Sarah, I need you to back away from him. I know you're worried and I know you're scared, but we cannot under any circumstances move him. If he fell from the Hawk's Nest, he could have a head, neck, or spinal injury and we don't want to make things worse."

Sarah clamped a hand over her mouth to cover her weeps, but managed to force a nod. She scooted back, dirt soiling her once mint white dress, and she didn't care. All she could do was think about John B and pray that he was going to be okay.

"John B, can you hear me?" Collins tapped his shoulder and he didn't respond. Leaning down to bring her ear above his mouth, Collins checked for his breathing sounds. Five, ten seconds passed before she sat up straight again. "He's breathing normally, that's a good sign."

Sarah had her knees pulled up to her chest and tears streaming down her face. "Please, don't leave me, John B." She whimpered, staring down at him. It was clear how badly she wanted to reach over and hold him, but under Collins's instruction, she kept hers hands clutched tightly in each other.

As Collins was inspecting John B's head, it was hard to tell the signs of injury without lighting. It wasn't as clear as it was back where she and JJ had been studying the sky earlier. The canopy that the trees cast over them was blocking the moonlight from cascading over them, leaving them under a veil of darkness. Collins couldn't see any visible signs of discoloration under John B's eyes or behind his ear.

She moved further down his body, and saw that his left wrist was in an odd position and swollen like it'd been stung by bees or wasps about a thousand times. "I think his wrist is broken, it shouldn't look like that." She said with a hard swallow, instantly looking around for something to use. "Kie, grab me that piece of flat wood right there." It looked to be a piece of the railing from the Hawk's Nest platform. The girl did as she was told, while Collins began undoing the buttons to her shirt and shrugging it off so that she was left with the tank top under it.

Once Kie came back with the piece of wood, Collins had ripped her shirt into manageable strips. "Got it."

Nodding, Collins very carefully with extreme delicacy, wiggled one hand underneath John B's elbow and the other one under his palm. "On the count of three, I'm gonna lift his arm and I want you to push the wood under it once I do, okay?"

"Yeah, I'm ready." Kie confirmed, kneeling down beside her with the wood in her hands.

"Okay-- one, two, three." The two girls performed the action as Collins had explained it, and John B's forearm was now lain on top of the short strip of wood. "Perfect." Collins stated, surveying their work.

She swiftly checked John B's breathing for a second time, just to make sure nothing had changed. So far, so good. Hopping back over to the previous task, Collins took the strips of fabric from her shirt and began securing them into a splint with the wood. She rolled one up into a cylinder and stuffed it under his palm, tying two other strips above and below John B's wrist, making sure that they weren't too tight to restrict blood flow, but also that they were tied securely enough that they wouldn't budge.

The sound of an emergency vehicle echoed in the distance, along with the flashing glow of red and white lights, indicating that help had arrived.

Collins stepped away from John B, surveying her work and hoping with every fiber in her being that she hadn't made things worse. She played out her entire care procedure in her head and tried to see if she'd forgotten anything. Responsiveness, breathing, injury. He hadn't responded to her touch or her voice. He was breathing normally as far as she could tell; no gasping, no other infrequencies. There was no external bleeding to control and she'd stabilized his wrist for transfer.

What did she miss, what did she miss?

Check for responsiveness, search for breathing sounds, stabilize the injury.

What did you miss?

Before she knew it, a pair of hands were taking her by the sides and moving her back and out of the way of EMTs that immediately began to get to work. The took out their tools, they started asking questions about the situation, most of which only Sarah could answer because she was the only one who'd been there when it'd happened.

Collins watched, almost dissociatively, as John B was transferred onto a gurney, a cervical collar around his neck and her shoddy attempt at a rigid splint still on his wrist.

"Collins." A voice spoke to her, and she felt her shoulder shake under someone's grasp. They sounded so far away, like they weren't actually standing next to her. It was like all of the thoughts in her head were muffling out the actual sound trying to travel through her ears from the outside. She felt her her whole entire body wobble, and that's when Collins finally broke out of her trance.

She turned her head and JJ's face was staring back at her. He looked at her with the same amount of concern that he'd had for John B, trying to bring her back to reality from whatever far off place she'd been in her mind.

"What if I paralyzed him? He might never walk again." Collins suddenly said. "What if-what if I mistook my own breathing for his, and he wasn't breathing the whole time? I should've done CPR then, I'm CPR certified. Every second counts. I'm certified to do it, what's the point of being certified if you don't do it?"

Her voice came out more frantic; she was losing it. The calm and collected person that she'd just been for everyone else, the one who told Sarah that everything was going to be okay, the one who singlehandedly provided first aid care for the first time in her life since she took the free course at the community center on a whim, that person had disappeared. Collins was panicking.

"Collins, did you not just hear a single word that they said?" JJ asked her, holding her by the shoulders and gazing at her at eye level. She shook her head. "They said the exact same things that you were saying. His breathing was good and all it looked like was a simple wrist fracture. They said they didn't have to do a splint because yours was good enough to move him, and I don't think he's paralyzed because I saw his foot twitch when they moved him onto the gurney."

Blinking at him, Collins furrowed her brows as she slowly processed everything that he'd said to her. "So, John B is gonna be okay?"

"They're taking him to the hospital as we speak. He might have a concussion, but other than that, he's gonna be okay." Pope confirmed incredulously.

"I didn't kill him." Collins whispered faintly, still trying to come to terms with everything that she'd just been told.

From a few feet away beside them, Kie chuckled sympathetically at her. "No, Collins, of course you didn't kill him."

Small smiles slowly spread across all of their faces, and suddenly, Collins was being enveloped in a giant group hug, sandwiched between JJ, Kie, and Pope as all three wrapped their arms around her. "Collins Jacobson, M.D. I like the sound of that." JJ announced.

She'd done everything right as she was supposed to with what she had and what she knew. She could be the person who helped others, saved them. It's one thing to think about wanting to do it, to think you have what it takes. It doesn't actually mean you do until the moment strikes and you're suddenly forced to. After everything, it didn't feel like such a far off idea now.

For so long, Collins had tried her hardest. Every long night spent at the library, all the hours poured into studying instead of partying, none of it had gone to waste. What just happened made her finally realize that maybe all that effort had really been worth something after all.