LETTERS SHE WROTE.
❝I hope that someday when I am gone,
someone, somewhere, picks my soul up
off of these pages and thinks:
I would have loved her. ❞
OUTER BANKS.
BOOK ONE of the LETTERS TRILOGY.
[ SEASONS 1 - 2 ]
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I do not own any rights to Ou...
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[ xxxiv. crackhead wasteland ]
➸➸➸
AFTER ENDURING TWO HARROWINGLY long weeks, Kildare Island's newest group of young friends—made up of both pogues and kooks alike—had found the Royal Merchant's infamous gold. What had been so dangerously sought after by so many older and wiser generations of seasoned treasure hunters had fatefully fallen into the hands of those so young. Sixteen-year-olds with a newfound historical fortune to wield as they saw fit. Willa Deveraux could barely conceive to fathom it—that she was even one of those sixteen-year-olds with the world suddenly thrust at her feet. That after so many wrongs that had unfolded in the trying, strenuous days, there had finally been something to go right. The treasure was finally theirs.
Well.
It was almost theirs.
Because, of course, nothing could ever be so easy as loading the Royal Merchant gold into a couple of duffle bags and running away with the rest of their lives. Based on Pope's careful calculations and analysis upon returning to the Chateau later that evening, it would take at least another entire day to devise a new lever-and-pulley system that would effectively—and safely—transport John B. back down the well rather than nearly drop him in. Then it would likely take at least another two days to remove all the gold. Maybe even three days if they wanted to ensure no more deadly crossings with the batty Mrs. Crain.
However, there was also another problem that Pope had alerted them to. Even if they managed to scrape the well dry of the treasure, they needed a way to properly turn it into cash without alerting the local—and national—authorities.
Gold did not turn into cash overnight and it became an infinitely more complicated process if the gold bars they would be attempting to pawn off to the greater Outer Banks pawnbrokers had giant wheat symbols on them.
That was until Kiara Carrera unexpectedly took matters into her own hands and went at the tiny gold bars, which John B. had previously collected from the night before, with a propane torch. Within thirty minutes of striking the first flame, what had started off as three separate pieces of treasure had turned into a muddled, melted mound of solid, unrecognizable gold.
A mesmerized Willa had been captivated throughout the melting process, watching the engraved wheat symbols so easily disappear into meshes of molten yellow; so much so that she had asked Kiara for a turn at playing chemist, and only threatened to burn off JJ's eyebrows once while wielding the torch in her own two hands.
"Hell of a job melting it down, Dr. Frankenstein. Oh, sorry, I meant Dr. Carrera—Hey. Up and at 'em, kook bait. Look alive!"
JJ's jeering tone interrupted Willa's musings, and with a forceful clap on her bare shoulder, she was snapped back to reality. Startled, Willa glanced out the window of the Twinkie and realized that the van had come to a halt and was now parked along a downtown curb. They had finally arrived at their next daring destination: the local pawnshop of the Cut, where their lying abilities would be put to the ultimate test.
