The Outer Banks, paradise on earth. The sort of place where you either have two jobs, or two houses. Two tribes, one island.
The younger girl survived because of her friends. For them. The first five or six months after her father disappeared were...
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The adventure at Ms. Lana's house officially over, JJ, Liv, and John B made their way back to the Château. After stopping to pick up Pope and Kie, the group sat on the front porch of the Routledge home.
"And we were right outside like this," said JJ, crouching against a wall, "and all we hear is just, 'Bam! Bam! Bam!'" As dramatic he was being, Liv shivered. She really had been scared. "Knocking paint off the wall, G! From the inside. All right? And I'm just looking at them, like..." JJ moved over to Pope and Kie, ruffling his hands through his hair. "Wait, first off, look at this shit. Look at it."
Specks of paint rained on to his friends, who–much to his dismay– grimaced and pushed him away. "That's dandruff, disgusting." JJ ignored Kiara's comment, instead just moving to stand next to Liv.
"Thats, paint, okay? At that point, I was just, like... I'm waiting for death."
Pope rubbed his eyes, already getting a headache from his friends antics. "Okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?" The three nodded. "Did you get a good description of them? What did they look like? Anything we can bring to a police report?"
The blond thought for a moment. "Uh, burly." All signs of hope disappeared from Pope and Kiara's faces. "That's not very helpful." Kiara looked at him as though he couldn't have said anything more useless. Liv thought for a moment. "Um... tall? Dark clothes?" Grimacing, the two looked at her. "Tall isn't terrible, but Liv.. people can change their clothes. Easy." Her face flushed and she looked down, just wanting to help.
JJ squeezed her shoulder. "Okay, well, no, like the type of guy at my dad's garage. I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers. I can tell you with full confidence, these boys, these killers..." He paused and took a deep breath from his vape. "They're square groupers."
"They're square groupers, like narco square grouper? Like, Pablo Escobar square grouper?" Pope watched as his blond friend leant against a wall, hitting his vape once more.
"You guys," said Kie, "not everything is a kingpin movie."
Pope sighed, determined to get answers. "So what does this square grouper look like, specifically?" He emphasized the last word, trying to get some useful information out of the boy.
"You weren't there!" Said JJ.
"Apparently, you don't know what to look for!" Pope was becoming stressed, he had a lot to lose and everything was starting to feel crazy.
"Dude!" Said JJ, and Liv made a point to stand and give his hand a squeeze to try and calm him down. "I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time. I was under duress, okay? But I can tell you.. I can tell you by the way that Ms. Lana was screaming... that these guys are serious, serious hombres, man."
Liv nodded, hoping she could reassure her friends that JJ wasn't speaking gibberish–he was telling the truth.
"It's a heavy vibe right now, okay?" Liv watched as John B began to examine the compass in his hand. "I'm not liking this very much."
