One Stupid Thing

3:3:85

Later that afternoon, the group was gathered on the top deck once more. The boat was still set on it's path steadfast away from the island.

JJ had given me the cold shoulder all night. I had hope that after a few hours to think things through he would listen to reason, but that isn't the case.

"So this is what we're doing, huh? We're just sailing out. We're just gonna forget about John B? We should never have left him. We're turning right back around," JJ commands. He starts towards the helm where Sarah is steering the boat, but is intercepted by Cleo.

"No! We're all gonna get caught. What type of plan is that?"

"It's a plan to stick together, Cleo."

"Then we are dead together."

JJ drops his gaze to the floor and backs away in defeat.

"She's right," Kie pipes up. "We had to leave, or we'd all be zip-tied in the back of a pickup. We did the right thing."

From my seat beside where Sarah stands, I hear her sigh and stifle a shaky breath. I know that she feels just as guilty as I do about leaving John B behind, but with any luck he isn't alone. After being pressured into giving up the information, my sister told us that John B ran off to follow a lead that could potentially lead to his father. Yes, the father that we all thought had died. At this point, after everything that has happened, it isn't too impossible to believe that he could have survived my father's attack.

The sound of a phone ringing breaks the silence that had fallen over us. Kiara fishes through her bag and retrieves the phone; the one that we had taken off of the guard back at Singh's.

"Who's that?" JJ asks her.

"It's Portis." We all know that that isn't possible. Kiara and I used the guard's phone to contact the Pogues on Portis's phone before. Who's to say that it couldn't be used again?

"Portis? That's John B. That's definitely John B." JJ hurries over, Kiara gives the phone to him, and he answers it. "Yo! Dude! Is this you?" he asks with the phone up to his ear. "What— Do you need us to turn around?"

"Speaker," Kiara says.

JJ unglues the device from the side of his face and turns the speaker on. "Yo, say it again. Say it again."

John B's voice is distorted as it comes through the phone. We can hardly understand him.

"We do not copy. Can you—" JJ starts, but Sarah interrupts him.

"Let me talk to him." She snatched the phone from his hand. "John B?" My sister gestures for me to take the wheel in her place and I do so while she speaks over the phone. "Are you okay?" She waits for a reply. "He's fine. Thank God," Sarah reports. "What happened?"

John B continues trying to communicate with us, however the distance and lack of service is still causing us problems.

"Wait. What'd you say? John B? I... I can't hear you. John B?"

The only word I can make out is one that I have dreaded hearing since the moment we arrived on the island: Kildare. Home.

"Kildare, when? Kildare—" The line cuts abruptly. "John B! No, no, no. John B!" Sarah gives the phone back to Kiara and paces back and forth anxiously. "Kildare. What the hell?"

"You guys think he found his father?" Cleo asks.

"He's been missing for almost a year," Pope points out.

"Sarah, what do you think? Should we go back?" Kiara puts the phone back in her bag.

"Sarah— We're sitting ducks right now. We need to make a decision. Are we turning back around, or are we gonna keep going?" JJ prompts her impatiently. When she doesn't give him an answer he pushes even further. "Sarah, come on! Sarah, we need to make a decision!"