"And lastly, that's Madison, or Mads, my little sister who is also trying to climb up the broken lifeguard tower. We're only a year apart. When she's not doing some odd job for extra cash she is on the HMS Pogue with the rest of us. Most loyal perso...
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John B stared at the piece of paper, the pencil scratches across the top smudged from him being left handed, as he thought about what he should write. He needed to come up with a defense, some way of proving that a seventeen year old from the Cut was telling the truth and that one of the wealthiest men on Figure Eight was lying. The problem was that he wasn't really sure where to start. Turning himself in seemed like the right thing to do at the time. There was no way he was about to let his best friend get into a shoot out with the cops but now that he actually had on the orange jumpsuit and was behind bars it was all that more real.
He thought about his sister and how they used to tease each other that neither one of them looked good in orange and as he looked down at himself now he had to agree. The weight on his shoulders that he thought would have been lifted by coming back to the Outer Banks was only heavier. He had worried about her, how could he not, he hadn't been the best brother as the gold took an unrightful first spot in his life just like their father had done, but she was still his blood. He tried to think about where it all went wrong, when the moment the hunt for the gold meant more to him than the only family he had left, and he couldn't pinpoint just one. There wasn't some big defining moment it sort of just snowballed over time until they were left with no gold and a strained relationship. And, while he knew she was out there doing everything she could, and probably shouldn't, do to get him out he had to start somewhere.
We were out in the marsh and came across a sunken Grady-White...
John B wrote down every single little detail he remembered and the more he wrote the angrier he got as he relived every moment. It got to the point that when he jotted down Ward Cameron was the one that killed his father the pencil ripped a hole right through the paper. It always came down to the Camerons. Ward killed his dad, Ward tried to kill him, Rafe had killed the sheriff, Rafe had traumatized his sister, and if it wasn't for Sarah he'd say the whole family was certifiable and should be behind bars. They were the villains in his story, the true evil, the ones that painted the town red just to make sure that they came out on top, but this wasn't some fairytale, there was no hero coming to save him or a happy ending in sight. It was real life and in reality the villains always won.
He was alone, truly alone, for the first time since he wasn't sure when, and he finally allowed himself to feel. He let the tears roll down his cheeks and he didn't ignore the pain in his chest, or the way his throat slightly closed, or the way his hands shook. He could finally admit it if to no one else but himself that he was scared. John B knew there would be consequences for running and that Ward would make sure it all got pinned on him. There was really no surprise there, what he didn't expect, what hadn't even crossed his mind, was the judge even mentioning the death penalty.
"JB, if-if you get caught that's-that's the death penalty. They're g-g-oing to kill you. You're...you're gonna..."
John B wasn't sure why Madison's voice now resounded in his head like someone using a megaphone because he was certain he didn't even hear her say those words. The only thing he really remembered from that night was walking into the police station and being blindsided by the fact that they thought he did it when he was just trying to do right by Peterkin in the first place. She was right about one thing though, he needed to fight like hell, he wasn't ready to die, and he sure as hell wasn't ready to leave Madison as the last Routledge standing.
