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PULLING OUT A FEDEX LETTER from the dark crevice, Kiara hands John B the thick and bumpy envelope. Her hands shaking as she does so, her eyes bulging at the words: FOR BIRD written on it in his father's kooky handwriting.
"That's not gold," Pope mumbles, dropping the lantern to his side in disappointment.
Marty helps pull Kiara out from the tiny hole in the old concrete wall as John B curses in disbelief.
"This is from my dad." He says, startling the pair of girls. The sentence is quiet but very significant, both knowing that moving forward shit's about to get weird.
JJ lights up a spare bogie that he had hidden from the rest of his friends, including Martha. He always has one on him in case of emergencies. He blows out the smoke, pulling Marty away from the group and towards him.
"Can I take a hit?" She whispers, grabbing a hold of his warm forearm. Her fingers are cold and icy. She squints as J's forehead light beams brightly as he looks down on her lopsided, dazed, smile.
"Sure McFly, have at it," he smiles back offering the bud until he stops.
His ears picking up crunching gravel. A vehicle was approaching.
"Code red. Code red. Square groupers! Square groupers!" His eyes widen as a much brighter light beam into the dark cemetery forest. He grabs Marty's hand, pulling her with him as he jogs and hops over sticks and loud leaves just to turn the corner and hide behind the building. "It's the guys who robbed your house."
The group shushes him, clicking off their flashlights and the lantern.
"Do you think it's them?" Kie whispers, JJ peaking out around the dead vines to check out who came.
"Homie's gotta gun," JJ whispers, his mind regretting that bud he just took hits off. "Fuck," he mumbles, causing Martha's ears to grow red and hot. "I'm never smoking weed in a cemetery, again."
"Yeah, like that'll happen," Pope scoffs, earning a giggle from Marty.
Men can be heard behind the group of teenagers, shouts, and whistles of pointing shadows that turned out to be nothing. And at that moment, Kie knew what had to be done.
"Screw this," she whispers, signaling to everyone else that they're running. Kicking off the wall, Marty laughs as she is pulled along by JJ clasping around her hand.
Running through the woods, she's finally not sleepy anymore. Her adrenaline kicks in, helping her tear away from JJ and race him to the gated wall. "Hurry up, loser! Or snakes will bite your ass!"
"Okay, game on! Prepared to be destroyed!" He yells back, whooping and cheering as he reaches the gated wall right after she does.
She laughs as she shakes her head, pulling herself up and over the iron gate with ease. She smiles triumphantly as JJ jumps down on the dirt road, his knees and hands dusty from his difficult landing.
