Runaway Kids - JJ Maybank - Outer Banks

Chapter 8 : Under Duress

A few hours later, Kie and Pope joined me, John B, and JJ on the deck of the chateau while JJ explained the slamming and crashing noises that were heard at Ms. Lana's.

"Wait, first off, look at this shit," JJ walked in front of Pope, bending over and running both hands through his hair. The crew watched as small pieces of white paint fell from his hair onto the deck.

"That's dandruff, disgusting," said Kie.

"Okay, thank you" said Pope, dusting remaining paint off of his leg.

"Look at all that. All right? That's paint," said JJ. "At that point, I was just, like... I'm waiting for death."

"He was about to scream like a little girl," I teased.

"I was not," he scolded me.

Pope spoke, "Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?" and JJ nodded. "Did you get a good description of them? Anything we can bring to a police report?"

"Burly," said JJ.

"Burly?" Pope repeated.

"That's not very helpful," said Kie.

"It's hard to be exact when you're mostly focused on not trying to get killed," I stated sarcastically.

"Fair point. So, they were 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...they're square groupers," said JJ, jumping to conclusions.

"They're square groupers, like narco square grouper? Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?" Pope asked in disbelief, and JJ nodded.

"You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie," Kie stated. JJ and Pope began raising their voices at each other, Pope trying to get a description of the men sarcastically while JJ continued to try and justify 'burly.'

"I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time. I was under duress, okay?" JJ yelled, running out of breath. "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."

I shuddered, remembering the sounds of Ms. Lana wailing and screaming. "If we're going to keep going with this, we need to be careful. JJ is right, these guys will come for us if we give them reason to."

"It's a heavy vibe right now, okay? I'm not liking this very much," said JJ.

"Why do they want the compass?" Kie asked.

"It's a piece of shit," said Pope. "You couldn't pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to. No offense. I know it's in your family."

"Thanks for the apology, Pope. Means a lot," I said, sarcasm in my tone.

"My dad. My dad's office. He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research. We used to laugh at him, like he was gonna find it. But now that he's gone, We've just kinda...we just left it as he kept it," John B explained, heading inside towards his dad's office.

"Yeah, for when he gets back," Kie reassured as John B fumbled the keys, opening the office door. I shook my head at her comment-- now more than ever I believed he was gone forever.

"I've slept over here like 600 times, and I've never seen this door opened," said Pope, as the others agreed. I myself hadn't been in this room almost ever. The group walked into the room, staring at the mountains of books spread around on bookshelves and on the desks. Various old copies of newspapers were laid out around the room, along with a mess of pens and pencils. The room was filled from the ceiling down with information about the Royal Merchant.