𝗠𝘆 𝗘𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲 ⇉ 𝗝𝗝 𝗠𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗸

Goodbye

"HOW'S IT feeling?"

Pope's voice carries up toward Kie from where he stood beneath the tree, one hand braced against the makeshift rig while the other rests near the rope they had spent far too long arguing over.

Kie sat awkwardly inside the small metal tub they had hoisted several feet off the ground, her knees bent because there was nowhere else for them to go, one hand wrapped around the edge as the whole thing swayed faintly beneath her weight.

"Feels good." She calls down, glancing at him only for a second before looking back toward the pulley system.

"Alright. I'm taking you down."

Pope pushes himself upright with the kind of seriousness he brought to absolutely everything, even lowering Kie six feet from a tree.

"Okay." She shrugs as though she was not currently suspended in a bathtub because five teenagers had decided that stealing several hundred pounds of buried gold from the bottom of an abandoned well was somehow a reasonable use of the afternoon.

Ariella sat at the edge of the hot tub nearby, her feet submerged to the ankles while the rest of her remained dry, absently kicking at the warm water as she watches Pope work.

It had been one of those strange afternoons where, for a few hours, everything had almost managed to feel normal.

Or at least Pogue-normal.

There were ropes stretched across the yard, tools scattered beneath trees, discarded water bottles lying beside equipment none of them technically knew how to operate, and a hot tub still occupying a ridiculous amount of space behind the château because JJ had apparently decided it was now a permanent fixture.

Ariella had stopped questioning it.

Mostly.

Beside her, JJ sat on the lip of the tub with both legs dropped into the water, shoulders loose beneath his sleeveless shirt, his hair pushed back from his forehead from where he had dragged wet fingers through it.

The bruises beneath his clothes had started fading.

Ariella knew because she checked them whenever he let her.

Some had shifted from the brutal purple-black that had nearly made her sick when she first saw them into jaundiced yellow and muted green. The physical proof of Luke's anger was disappearing from his body.

The rest of it would take longer.

She knew that too.

JJ leans backward on his palms and looks toward the road. "John B pullin' a Houdini."

Pope glances over.

"Yeah, where is he?" He immediately checks the time. "I got my scholarship interview tomorrow. We gotta get this done."

Ariella smiles faintly.

Of course Pope is worried about a scholarship interview while actively participating in an illegal treasure recovery operation.

"I think he's fishing with—."

"Speak of the devil."

JJ cut her off so abruptly that Ariella follows his gaze.

"Hey!"

John B appears at the edge of the property.

Something is wrong.

Ariella knew it before he reaches them.

There's a difference between John B being angry and John B being hollowed out by something.