Waves

Rescue

Kie sits on top of a crate in the shipping container staring at her feet while JJ sits in the floor below her playing with his knife. The two have been silent ever since John B and Pope left to raid the armory.

"I've been thinking." JJ breaks the silence. "When all of this is over and we're just rollin' in the dough, I'm gonna buy two new boards. I'm gonna deck them out, and Harli and I are gonna go on our surf trip that we've always talked about doing."

"Surf trip, huh?"

"Yeah. We've been planning it since we were twelve. Barbados, Canary Islands, Australia, Portugal, Brazil, Puerto Rico... all the best surf spots in the world. We're gonna go to each place and just ride, ya know. Wherever the waves take us."

"So that's the dream? If we were to get a ton of cash? Surf trip?"

"Bamboo hut, cooking fish on a fire, and after that go back out and just hit the waves again. That's the dream. Just the two of us."

"Sounds perfect." Kie smiles as she watches him drift off into thought.

"It was Harli's idea." JJ confesses. "She's always wanted to travel the world. I told her that as long as there was good surf I'd go wherever she went. So, she planned out the whole trip."

"And she planned this when you were twelve?"

"Yeah, why?"

Suddenly, JJ and Kie hear Pope and John B outside of the container and JJ gets up and takes the vent back out for them to climb back in. When they do someone else climbs in after them and Kie starts to freak out. John B tells her that this was the girl that he and Sarah met in the Bahamas that helped him. He introduces her to the group as Cleo.

"You guys seriously didn't grab any weapons?" JJ huffs.

"We tr- we tried, okay? I got attacked." John B answers.

"This is why I should've went." JJ paces. "Harli and Sarah are out there somewhere being held against their will and we have to save them!"

"Who is Harli?"

"She's my sister." John B answers.

"So, let me get this straight. You four, with no weapons, decided you were gonna hijack this tramp steamer on your own? Do you have nay idea who these people are? If they catch you, they will kill you. Dead. Cut off your fingers." Cleo tells the teens before her.

"Okay, what about waiting to get to port?" John B questions. "At least then, if something goes wrong we have a place to run."

"No. No, we can't do that."

"Why?"

"Because I've run this scenario over a thousand times in my head and our best chances are on this ship. There are fifteen crew members and five of us."

"Exactly!"

"Three-to-one odds. Best it'll get. We wait till we get there, they'll trap us." Pope goes on to say.

"We have no chance."

"No, Kie. There's something else." John B adds. "Ward's alive. He's alive and he's on this boat."

"What?"

"Yeah, and that's not all." John B looks at all of them. "Harli's dad is here."

"Wait." Cleo looks at them confused. "Wouldn't that be your dad too?"

"Harli's actually my cousin. My dad and her mom were siblings, but when her mom died when we were eight my dad took on full custody and we were raised like brother and sister. My dad is the only dad she's ever known. Her biological dad took off when she was four."