Sage Parkinson fucked up. Not a particularly unusual thing for a teenage girl with a dead-end future and a bad education to do- but this time she's in real trouble. Sage has drug dealers banging at her door and an overbearing brother on her back, an...
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Sage balanced the five Capri Suns in her arms, careful of the busy dock as she wandered down it, watching her feet more than anything. She hated to admit it, but JJ was right - more often than not, she was tripping over her own two legs. Her beaming smile dropped when she approached her friends, only to find that they were staring at a body on a stretcher which was being taken away.
"Oh my God," Sage grimaced, quickly turning her head away so she didn't have to look. "Who is it?"
"Some chick said it was Scooter Grubs," John B answered her, "He's Grady-White Guy."
Sage's eyes widened. "No," she said in disbelief.
"Yes," Kie replied before her eyes flickered down to the drinks piled in Sage's arms. "I thought I told you to use my money to get us all water, Sage."
"Yeah, but the Capri Suns were only like five cents more expensive," Sage said, passing them along to grateful hands. "And I haven't had one of these bad boys since, like, elementary school. I can give you the twenty-five cents difference when I get dropped home, if you want."
"No, it's fine," Kie sighed as she stabbed her straw into the drink.
...
"Okay, so we didn't see anything, we don't know anything," Pope reminded them all anxiously as he bounded up the stairs to the Chateau. "We need to have total and complete amnesia."
He sat down on the couch next to Kie as Sage pulled her legs up in one of the chairs that she sat in. Her fingers smoothed over a deep, jagged scar on her knee, one she had earned from skateboarding a couple of years ago.
The dent made her cringe often, not from the way it looked but from the way it felt. Everytime she headed down the road it happened on, she swore she could feel the dull pain again and remember how JJ and John B were yelling a mixture of curse words and her name as they ran over to help her. That was the last time she attempted to skate down the stairs that fast.
"Actually, Pope's right for once," JJ said from the chair beside her where he continued to flick his lighter open and closed. "See, I agree with you sometimes. Deny, deny, deny."
"Guys, we can't keep that money," Kie stressed.
"Okay. Not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, Kiara," JJ said, and before Sage could try and back Kie up, she suddenly remembered her own problem that she was in with the eviction notice.
"How - how much is there, JJ?" Sage asked, sitting up.
"It doesn't matter, Sage, we need to pass it off to Lana Grubbs," Kie replied, "Otherwise, it's bad karma."
"Bad karma to be implicated in a felony, too," Pope added, "We gotta go dark."
"If that means we get to keep the money, then I agree," JJ said.
