Sink or Swim || Outer Banks || JJ Maybank

Chapter 10

Big John had found the Royal Merchant, there was no doubt about that, but Madison focused on the tape recorder. She could recite every word, knew every noise in the background including what she imagined was him loading a gun, and yet had no clue on where he could be. She wasn't so easily going to throw in the towel no matter what anyone else said. He was out there somewhere and she was going to find him.

She found herself sitting out on the docks with the Pogues three nights later. The tension was still there but John B and Madison could at least be in each other's presence. The anger was there on Madison's side for thinking her brother had just written their father off as dead while John B was more than worried that Madison had finally cracked under the pressure and was going to end up doing something reckless that got her hurt...or end up like their dad.

"How much was it again?" JJ asked, sitting on the railing as Madison stood between his legs smoking a joint.

Pope quickly glanced between the siblings who couldn't have been further apart from each other on the dock, "Four hundred mil."

"All right, let's talk the split," JJ took the joint from Madison, hitting it twice before handing it back. "Now, before we say evenly, may I remind you that I am the only one that can properly defend us from those groupers who were after us. Protection? Not cheap, okay?"

"You haven't trained. You've done zero training," Pope shot back though he shouldn't have been surprised at the words coming out of his best friend's mouth.

JJ just shrugged, "YouTube, bro. That's at least a five percent bump right there. Any objections? Didn't think so."

"Yeah," Pope, Sarah, and Kiara answered at the same time. The siblings remained quiet as John B took a sip of the beer in his hand and Madison took another hit blowing the smoke out in a circle.

He easily ignored them, "I don't hear any, so..." He took the joint back from Madison and took the last hit off of it before flicking it into the water.

Kiara was ready to take JJ's gun and toss it in the ocean and decided to curb the conversation. "What are you gonna do with your sixty something mil, Pope?"

"Sixty six and change," Pope corrected her first, having done the math the moment they knew Big John found the Merchant. "Pay for college in advance. And also, textbooks. Those are expensive."

"What about you, Kie?" JJ asked, keeping the conversation going because it was awkward enough that the Routledge siblings had the silent treatment going.

Pope laughed at the question, "Yeah, what does a socialist do when she's rich?"

"Just wanna make a double album. About OBX, the Pogues. You know, the way Catch a Fire is about Kingston," she answered as if she had been dreaming about it her whole life. "Record it at Marley Studio, Peter Tosh producing."

Madison cleared her throat, not taking her eyes off the wooden boards beneath her feet, "Peter Tosh is dead."

"Spirit of Peter Tosh will never die," Kiara pointed at Madison before giving the rest of the Pogues a hopeful look that maybe they could break the siblings out of their shells.

"I know what I'll do," JJ got a child-like smile on his face. "I'm gonna get a big ass house on Figure Eight and go full Kook. Gonna get a marble statue of myself and Maddie," he wrapped an arm around the front of her pulling her closer to him and he rested his chin on top of her head. "And then I'm gonna get a koi pond. Put a bunch of those fish..."

Kiara rolled her eyes and mumbled, "I'm never visiting." She turned to Sarah who had been quiet this whole time, sitting next to John B her back rested against his shoulder. "What are you going to do, Sarah?"