ONLY ANGEL | JJ MAYBANK

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

•••

It feels like Collins has been riding a rollercoaster against her will and has no way of getting off any time soon.

The past few days had just been a series of highs and lows, the highs mostly thanks to JJ, the lows due to things seemingly out of her control. The gold had been theirs, but then they'd been nearly robbed with their friend group threatened to be torn apart when emotions hit an all time high. Things felt like they would be okay when Collins and JJ were finally able to act on their feelings for each other that had been building up a tension that couldn't be suppressed any longer. Then the gold was taken from them, and John B had discovered the truth behind his father's disappearance with the culprit being the murderer and the robber in one, knocking them down like bowling pins in disarray. Despite it all, they'd had hope that their one chance to steal the treasure would end in a high that they could never come down from— but of course, when the rollercoaster ends, it takes you from its peak and brings you back down to earth.

Collins was feeling that drop in her stomach like she'd just gone 100 to 0 in seconds, and her body was struggling to adjust to the change in gravity. With the absence of John B, who they'd begrudgingly left behind, the Pogues had taken hiding under a shed full of junk that was a good distance from the runway, and far from the eyes of the police whom were the reason they'd fled in the first place. They paced the small area, not quite sure what they were waiting for, but waiting nonetheless until a sign appeared to hopefully tell them what to do.

Unfortunately, the only sign they got was the sound of a plane engine whirring, and soon enough, the aircraft they'd been chasing after was soaring across the sky above them. "And there goes the gold." JJ sighed as they all squinted up to look at it.

Defeat weighed down upon each of them as their last hopes of having 80 million dollars to solve all of their problems went thousands of feet high above the ground while their problems stayed right there with them.

Collins tore her eyes away from the sight and bit her lip while trying to come to terms with the fact that it was really over; they'd lost. After everything they'd done, all that they'd risked, they failed. What was she supposed to tell Charlie? Should she be saying her goodbyes to JJ, Pope, Kie, and John B? Because there was no way Charlie was going to let her see them again when she finally came clean to him.

That was the only way for her to fix things with him, wasn't it? Avoiding the truth had clearly gotten her no where, and lying more wasn't going to clear her conscience, nor was it how she wanted to repair her relationship with her brother after their most awful fight to date. Honesty seemed to be the only route that Collins could stand to go down. Charlie wouldn't be happy with all the chaos she'd managed to stir up since befriending the Pogues after a clean track record, so it went without a doubt in her mind that he would forbid her from ever seeing them again.

She looked around at her friends like it was going to be the last time she ever saw them, at least for a long time, because it very well might be. She felt even more deeply saddened by the whole situation when she saw the expressions on each of their faces. They were filled with such sorrow.

Pope was probably the saddest of them all. That sadness quickly turned though as the two boys turned and a slew of curses escaped their lips. JJ kicked a broken chair and dismantled it into smaller pieces with the force of his punt. Pope turned and dragged his hands over his face and cried out in anguish. He managed to pick up a discarded bat alongside the pile of rubbish and started taking his anger out onto whatever he felt like smashing at that moment. It was a sequence of glass shattering, metal denting, and wood splintering as the boy put every shred of energy that he had into destroying everything in his path.

It was scary to watch in all seriousness. Collins had never seen him act this way before, Pope was usually the calm and collected one. He didn't break like this, but maybe because of that, all of this pent of rage they were seeing had just been building up until it finally reached its climax.

Collins jumped in her skin when Pope picked up a metal garbage can, lifted it over his head, and launched it a good distance away from him until it landed with a loud crash. Even when Kie tried yelling at him to stop, he just kept going until he finally collapsed in an exhausted heap on an abandoned wicker couch, panting from his outburst. He had tears in his eyes and was swallowing back cries while he stared off, unable to meet any of their gazes.

"Yeah, dude. I was wondering when this was going to happen." JJ walked over nonchalantly to Pope, looking at the state of his friend and knowing exactly what he needed. Holding out his weed pen, he offered its calming properties over to him. "Here you go, chief. A little weed never hurt no one."

"JJ," Collins started, unsure if that was the right thing to do for Pope. He was the only one of them who didn't drink or smoke, aside from her with the exception of that one night on the boat with Kie and Sarah. Like her, he never wanted to risk being caught drunk or high and having it listed on his permanent record for colleges to see. Only right now, Pope's chances of going to college were even slimmer than before, because not only did he not have the gold to help pay for school, but he'd thrown away the opportunity for the scholarship that would've made up for that problem.

"You know he doesn't smoke." Kie added in protest, but she was soon proven wrong as Pope took the pen from JJ's hands and into his own.

"Well, maybe not until today." JJ stated, dropping down into the seat next to Pope.

"It's not going to fix anything. What's it going to help?" Collins tried to reason, sort of wanting to scold JJ for offering it when Pope was clearly vulnerable and feeling hopeless. Smoking weed was just going to give him that high that he was desperate for, but like all things, of course, they must come down. It wouldn't make him feel better in the long run.

"I lost my scholarship. Walked out in the middle of the interview." Pope shook his head regretfully. "It's gone, it's not gonna happen."

"You did that for us?" Kie asked him.

Looking up at her, Pope pushed himself up to stand and stared Kie dead in the eyes. "No, not for 'us'. For nothing."

"I'm here for you, Pope. Welcome to my world." JJ threw his arm around his shoulders and patted his chest reassuringly. At the look that Kie shot him, JJ shrugged his shoulders. "What, Kie? He's right. It doesn't matter anymore."

As Pope shrugged JJ's arm off of him, he took the weed pen and looked at it with a moment's hesitation. "You don't have to do that." Kie told him.

Narrowing his eyes at her in the coldest way, Pope said, "What do you care?"

Before Kie could react to Pope's icy attitude, Pope's face quickly changed, and his expression dropped at the sight of something behind them. They all turned in confusion as to what he was staring at and were simultaneously shocked to see that John B was standing a few feet away and had made his way back to them.

Immediately running up to him, Collins's eyes widened as she examined his blood stained hands in alarm. "Is this yours? John B, whose blood is that?" She turned his palms over and checked his clothes which also had marks on them for the source of the bleeding, but she couldn't find anything. Collins wasn't sure whether to be afraid or relieved by that fact.

Before John B could explain, the sound of police sirens sounding nearer made them all jump for somewhere to hide, ducking for cover behind the pile of junk until they couldn't hear the sirens anymore and the coast was clear.

When it finally felt safe enough to come out, they all looked to John B for answers to all of their questions. What happened? Whose blood was on his hands? Why did he seem like he had seen something terribly traumatizing?

"He killed her. He killed Sheriff Peterkin." The words had barely made it above a whisper as they were coming out of John B's mouth, but they were clear enough for the rest of them to decipher and it caused them to drop their jaws in horror at the news.

"Ward killed the sheriff?" They asked incredulously, shocked and seeking clarification to what John B was saying because understanding what happened exactly how it did was vital to their situation. There was no room for obscurity.

Shaking his head, John B squeezed his eyes shut and covered his face with his arm because his head hurt from all of this chaos he'd been facing over the past few days. "No, not Ward. Rafe. He came out of nowhere. Peterkin was just about to arrest Ward before Rafe shot her."

Exchanging dumbfounded glances, the rest of the Pogues stood apprehensively, unsure of what they were to say or do next. This was a lot to take in. Rafe had anger management issues for sure, but homicidal tendencies? It wasn't that far off from what they believed him to be capable of but that didn't make it any easier to accept.

Collins tried to work the whole thing out in her head before she started thinking out loud. "So if Peterkin was about to arrest Ward, does that mean the police know what he did to Big John?" Collins asked carefully. "Because if that's true, then maybe you can go to police and tell them what happened as a witness. They'll take Rafe and Ward in and lock them both up for what they've done."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea." JJ admitted uneasily.

"John B might be a witness to murder, we can't just sit on something like that. We have to make sure the psycho responsible gets caught." Collins pointed out. "Plus, they can probably get the gold that Ward just flew off and use it as evidence for their case against him for killing John B's dad. If we can't have the gold we can at least make sure he doesn't either."

"I'm telling you, it might not be as black and white as that." JJ insisted. The two were just going to go back and forth at this point. Collins was all for going to the police with the information they had, while JJ was staying adamant to avoiding them at all costs due to his hi온라인카지노게임 with them. They weren't fighting, but they were facing a sort of weird bump in the road because they couldn't reach a consensus and it didn't feel right that they weren't on the same page.

Before Collins could bring up another argument in response, Kie came between them and stopped her before she could. "How about we get the hell out of here first before we make any big decisions. The cops could circle back here at any moment and we need to be ghosts when they do."

Kie made the first move to leave, prompting the rest of them to follow after her in agreement. Collins glanced over at JJ as they were heading out and pressed her lips tightly together. JJ made the first effort to place a hand on her back and leaned over to speak lowly to her so that no one else could hear them from the short distance they were away from their group. "I'm sorry. I don't want this to come between us."

"Neither do I. In fact, that's the last thing I want right now." Collins said gently. They needed each other now more than ever. Fighting wasn't going to get them out of this. "And I guess it's not really up to either of us anyways." She looked back at John B. He was the one who was actually there. Everything that they knew had just been second hand, they'd never physically saw or witnessed anything that would incriminate Ward or Rafe, making any testimony of theirs ultimately useless. He was the only one who could make this decision.

JJ reached over and grabbed her by the hand, and she interlocked their fingers. If they could just get through this, then everything would be fine. At least that's what Collins kept telling herself. The truth is, there was no end in sight for all of this. There was no way of predicting what kind of things would come and what would happen to them when it did, so all that was left for them to do was just wait. Perhaps just hoping for a good outcome would suffice. Keeping an optimistic attitude was the one thing that actually was in their control.

They waited until they got to Kie's car and were able to pile in after an exhausting walk because John B had left the Twinkie back on the runway. It required them to take the slightly longer way in order to dodge traffic and avoid the risk someone seeing John B covered in blood which would raise even more suspicion than they needed. Once they were in the safe confines of the vehicle, the sun had already gone down, and John B had made his decision.

That's why they were sitting in the dark while parked outside of the police station like floating ducks. John B had asked Kie to drive him there, making the choice to tell them his side of the 온라인카지노게임.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Collins twisted around in the passengers seat to look back at him for when he answered her question. She knew that she was the one who'd encouraged him to go, but now that they were there, she couldn't help but feel anxious about the thought of him going in and willingly putting himself in front of a building full of cops. She hoped that she hadn't influenced him too much, because she didn't want it to be her fault if things went south.

"Someone's gotta tell them." John B said, knowing it was the right thing to do to not keep what he knew to himself.

Coming up from behind his shoulder from the trunk of the car, JJ leaned over to speak up. "I'm gonna be real with you right now. You might end up in the lions den, but you don't go there on purpose. It's fundamentals. Just like my old man taught me, you should never ever trust cops, no matter the circumstances."

"Your old man's an abusive liar." Kie deadpanned with a scowl, but she wasn't wrong. There wasn't a single scenario in the world where they should take the advice of JJ's dad on what was right or wrong. The man had more screw ups than they could count and he was a total scumbag.

"I agree with JJ." Pope piped up despite this. "Fuck the police. When's the last time the police ever helped us?"

It probably didn't help that he and JJ were sharing a joint and Pope was probably inhaling way too much compared to the nothing that he was used to. He'd gone into a coughing fit from the smoke not even two minutes earlier because his perfectly healthy lungs weren't used to the fumes he was drawing in with his breaths. The two weren't the most reliable sources to look to for guidance at the moment.

"Peterkin looked out for me, all right? Tried to, at least." John B trailed off. He was still torn up about the whole thing. A part of him felt bad for getting Peterkin all wrong. He'd thought that she was just another dirty cop, working for bribes instead of the community but it turned out that wasn't her. She'd proven that. "They need to know."

Again, it wasn't really up to them whether or not John B went to the police. This was all him, as unfortunate of a burden that was. Nobody else could take his place or force him to do something. This was entirely within his own control. That could've been one consolation for him to consider, or it could've been his curse.

He got out of the car and they watched him walk over to the police station entrance with their hearts thumping in their ears. What if that was the last time they saw him? What if he never came back out because they locked him up in a jail cell because it's always the Pogue. They could never believe a Kook of the Cameron family's status could ever even think of shooting a cop. Well, John B was already inside, so now all that was left for them to do was wait.

"I think we could all use a hit of this." JJ said, breaking the silence in the car. He held up the lit joint in his hand and offered it up to Kie or Collins up front. A slow and steady stream of smoke blew from his lips and escaped into the night air through the open window.

"One person should probably stay sober through all of this." Kie sighed, though any other laid back summer night she probably would've accepted. A nice little high would've been great if it meant getting a break from all the stress going on in their lives, but she wouldn't be able to function right if she had some weed in her. John B needed them to be ready for whatever he needed them for.

Shaking her head, Collins politely declined. "Count me out, too, I don't have it in me to start acting like a ditz."

"How do you know you'd be a ditz if you've never even tried it?" JJ pointed out questioningly. "For all you know you could be even smarter than you already are, you could be a fucking genius and discover the key to the multiverse or some shit."

"Unfortunately you're wrong because I've already tried it and I, in fact, did not discover the key to the universe." Collins replied matter of factly. "I was a total airhead."

Jumping in his seat, JJ's jaw dropped. "You got high without me? You? When did this happen?"

"When you left us stranded on a boat with nothing to do." Kie shot back.

As JJ retraced his memory back to when he and the other guys had tricked Kie and Sarah into reconciliation, throwing Collins into the mix, he immediately slumped back against the car seat and groaned. "No fair. I wanted to see stoned Collins."

The two girls just exchanged smiles while JJ and Pope passed the joint between them, JJ still holding onto the fact that Collins had actually smoked and had failed to mention it until just then. He was busy mumbling incoherencies about it to himself when they heard a yell from outside the car.

"Kie! Start the car!"

It was John B. He was yelling at them before he was ripping the car door open and scrambling inside, screaming at Kie to drive. "What? John B, what did you do?" The girl cried, fumbling to fit the keys in the ignition with so much pressure being placed on her while two officers were running out of the station and heading towards them fast.

"Just drive!" He exclaimed, jumping back into Pope as he dodged the hands of an officer who lunged at the open window next to him, banging on the side of the car as they tried to get it open.

Every muscle in Collins's body tensed up as she was helpless to do anything. All they could do was get the hell out of there.

"Open the door!" Pope said to John B, and the boy did as told, pushing the door open and shoving the officer off of the car, sending them tumbling into the ground.

Collins gasped as she watched the whole thing go down, and she turned around in her seat to look back at the woman who appeared to be okay despite the fall. As Kie drove them further away, the Pogues were left breathless, no one able to utter a word between their pants. All they'd done was sit in a car and yet somehow, they were breathing like they'd just run a marathon. All of the adrenaline pumping through them was giving them chest pain.

Okay, so maybe it would be best if Collins didn't offer any more of her opinions, because clearly, they weren't in any better of a position than they were before.

•••

Collins has to admit, a night spent sleeping in a car is way worse than sleeping on a hammock. That may be in part due to the fact that Collins couldn't sleep next to JJ in the car, so there were already points deducted because of that already.

Though not everything could be blamed on the vehicle. She'd probably only got an hour or two of rest, not just because she couldn't seem to find a position comfortable enough for her to actually fall asleep in, but because she was so nervous that they were going to get ambushed by the police. All that anxiety wasn't good for when you were trying to calm your mind into thinking it was safe enough to let it's guard down and shut down for the night. Unfortunately, Collins couldn't blame that on anything else but herself.

She'd woken up to the sound of the radio changing, the static rousing her from her slumber. She blinked, her eyes still heavy as she was eventually able to make out the sight of Kie twisting the knobs on her dashboard to tune into the local station for any word on John B or Peterkin.

The morning sun was out, but they were hidden as Kie had parked her car in a little nook between garages, out of sight from the road unless you were looking hard enough.

"And still, no arrest in the shooting death of Sheriff Susan Peterkin." The voice on the radio speaks. "The state police have issued a statement regarding a local person of interest, a juvenile from—"

Hardly out of coincidence, police sirens rang out and Kie abruptly shut off the radio, everyone ducking down into the seats and out of sight through the windows. A couple police cars flew by, racing past them on route to who knows where. They stayed where they were for a few minutes until it was apparent that the coast was clear.

Tilting his hat up from how it was sat over his eyes, JJ started to go off on a tangent, relaying what they knew so far to hopefully start a plan. "Let's game this out. Maybe you guys can help being the smart ones and all, but who are the cops going to believe? Ward Cameron, or us? So the accuser is a big shot developer, kind of lord of the island, got the Governor on speed-dial kind of person, and the accused is John B. Who is, pretty much a homeless 16 year-old boy at the moment."

"Thanks." John B mumbled apathetically.

JJ sat up as he began to go into his own phase of concocting. "Okay man, Yucatán, all right? I'm saying that's the only option. What other options do you have?"

"Enough with the Mexican bullshit." John B grumbled, brushing off JJ's ridiculous idea. "Sarah's gonna bail me out."

"She did witness the whole thing." Kie said in agreement.

Pope raised his brow dubiously. "And she's gonna snitch on her brother?"

"I think she would." Collins defended. If what Collins had seen in Sarah since she and John B had become an item were any indication of what she would do for John B, Collins believed that she would come through for him. Sarah cared so deeply for him, there was no way she'd just throw it all away, especially not when her brother was the villain in this whole situation. But then again, they were family and blood is thicker than water, so there really was no telling what could happen.

Shaking his head, JJ said, "Not happening. We got to get John B off the island. We can't just rely on Sarah for this one."

"The ferry. That's the only way." Pope proposed.

"Exit stage left while you still can. Before the entire island is on lockdown." More sirens came, prompting them to stay low as cop cars drove past them once more. If that wasn't a sign, then Collins didn't know what was.

"Sarah's not a Pogue, man." Pope stated. "You can't stay here."

And like Pope had said before, the ferry was John B's only shot at getting out, so that's where they'd headed next.

Needing to stretch her legs out a little bit, Collins rotated seats with Kie and Pope, so that Kie could also take a break from being driver. She sat in the back with JJ and John B, waiting in a long line of cars at the ferry docks, which made her anxious from how busy it was. Anyone could see them just walking by. They were doing the bare minimum having John B lay flat in his seat so he wasn't directly seen.

Only Pope went out to see what the hold up was, returning back to them he had a paper in his hand and a paranoid stiffness in his walk.

"Pope, can you act normal?" Kie hissed out the window as he circled around to the drivers side.

"Okay, so, um- bad news. The ferry's closed and there's this." He handed the paper over to Kie who took one quick once over it before her eyes widened and she was passing it back to them.

Collins took it and held it out for her, JJ, and John B to look at. "Wow, John B, that's a good framer of you." JJ said sarcastically, causing the brunet boy to release a sigh. It was a wanted sign, a public announcement on paper that John B was wanted by law enforcement, a picture of him and a cash reward inked onto the flimsy sheet.

"Okay, so the whole island's looking for you, JB." Collins stated with mock eager. "Congratulations, you're famous now."

Kie released a long breath, her eyes staring off into space as her mind was more preoccupied with trying to come up with a solution for their problem. "We got to get to the HMS. We need small, no running lights—"

"It's at the Château, Kie." John B pointed out glumly.

"And I wonder if the cops have the entire place staked out? Let me think. Oh yeah, no. They definitely got that place locked down." JJ quipped through a tight lipped smile.

"Wait, JJ," Pope started, twisting around in his seat to look at the boy in the back. "Does your dad still have that boat? The cigarette boat, the Phantom? The one he used to race?"

"Maybe." JJ answered warily, unsure if he wanted to be disclosing that kind of information.

"You could ride up the coast no problem." Pope said, and Kie immediately started thinking out loud of places where they could dock the boat and get it into the water, while Pope started the engine to the car.

"It's not gonna be easy." JJ told them, though they were already five steps ahead of him into a potential plan. He wanted to find a solution just as much as the rest of them, but this solution involved his dad and he didn't want anything to do with the man. "Dude, I don't even know where the keys are."

"Well, find them." Pope responded bluntly, shifting the gears but immediately shifting them back because there was no where to go when there was still a stagnant line of cars ahead of them. His eye twitched in annoyance. "Why is nobody moving forward? What's going on here?"

"Can you relax?" Kie frowned at him, before glancing back. He was so agitated and so jittery, it was making her head hurt. He was practically bouncing off the walls. "JJ, how much weed did you give him?"

"Guys, wait a second. The freaking car is on here. It's on the poster." Collins whispered harshly, just as Pope started honking the horn to instigate some movement, as if whatever was causing traffic would simply disappear the more times he honked. Taking a look at the paper themselves, JJ and John B saw that a description of Kie's car was indeed listed in the text on the wanted sign of him. "Pope, stop, you're gonna draw too much attention."

Unfortunately, it was too late for that, because they were already hearing yells being directed towards them and fingers being pointed their way by bystanders.

A knocking on the window and a face peering into the car, startled Collins as they were looking right at John B. The boy quickly turned to his side to shield his face away, but it was too late, he'd already been spotted and the commotion he attracted was growing bigger and bigger.

"We gotta go, now, guys. Pope, drive!"

There was so much yelling and so much panic to get out of there that once he'd gotten the gears shifted, Pope was hitting the gas and jerking right into the car in front of them. Collins winced, but the damage had already been done and instead of backing the car up like one normally would, Pope just proceeded on forward, pushing the car into the other until they could drive out and make their escape.

It was obvious that Pope was not using any logic in his getaway driving, which was hard to say was because of the intensity of the situation or the fact that he'd had weed for breakfast that morning. Collins was just going to have to assume it was the latter because Pope was clearly so high right now.

"Pope, watch out!" Kie exclaimed, right as he rammed straight through a mailbox like he'd been aiming for it. "What the fuck?"

"I'm living my best life right now!" The boy said with a big grin on his face. Meanwhile Kie was cringing at the thought of what her car must've looked like because it already wasn't looking good in her head.

Clinging to each other and wishing she'd put on her seatbelt, Collins was practically sitting in JJ's lap and holding on for dear life with Pope at the wheel. Holding her with both arms wrapped around her, JJ said, "Pope, I should be the last one to say this, but you are not okay to drive, dude. Stop!"

Pope hit the brakes with a sharp squeal and rubber skidded across concrete. "John B, get out. We'll draw the cops and you run."

And even though they'd already established that Pope was way too high to be trusted behind the wheel, somehow, they still found his idea to be a good one and decided that it was their best shot at getting out of their sticky situation.

"I'll get the rig and I'll meet you at the dump tomorrow." JJ told him. "Three o'clock, okay?"

John B nodded before he was stumbling out of the car, taking off into a sprint to take cover in the trees and bushes. Pope didn't waste another second before he was shifting the car back into drive and taking off down the road as they led the angry mob away. Collins craned her neck to watch just as John B disappeared in the brush, then turned her gaze over to the cars chasing after them. They all sped past where he'd run off to without so much as a clue that the car they were chasing had split up with him, only continuing to follow the false lead they'd given them.

She felt her stomach churn. Their plan had worked for now, but they were far from being in the clear.