CRUEL SUMMER ~ Rafe Cameron

𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫

[...]

"It's not there. Look, just— just pull the drone up." John B says disappointed. We found the Royal Merchant, but there was no gold to be found. Thunder kept rumbling. "Shit." John B adds. "Look, we can do another pass, recharge the battery. We can— we can go back down." Pope says. "We've done it three times. There's nothing there." JJ says from behind the wheel.

"Shut up!" Kie yells at him over the loud wind. "What? It's true!" "The gold could be buried. We don't know." "If it was there, it would've been found on the metal detector, okay?" John B tells her, "Somebody beat us to it." "Or it was never here." JJ finishes and we shake our heads in disbelief.

I'm taking a walk at the harbour after we didn't find the gold. I saw that they were taking out some boat that sunk into the water. I realized it was Topper's boat so I went over to him and my mom. "What the hell happened." I ask them. "My boat, sunk." Topper says smartly. "Yeah, no shit Sherlock." I respond.

"Boats like this don't just sink, Dr. Thornton." The man who takes the boat out of the water says. "How much is this gonna cost me?" Our mom asks him. "Ah, submerged 24 hours, so you're lookin' at 25, 30K." He answers. "And insurance won't cover it?"

He chuckles, "No. Not for operator error. Plug wasn't in there." Our mom turns towards Topper giving him an angry look. "Well, why— why you lookin' at me?" Topper asks her. "Why do you think?" "I did not forget to put the plug in, Mom. It's been sitting in the water a week." "I thought that when you turned 17, you'd take more responsibility for your actions."

"Mom, I did not do this! Are you kidding me? You think I'm that stupid? Why is this my fault?" "Because it usually is." She finishes and I see that it hurt my brother, so I just look down. Since we were little, Topper would always get the blame. Even for the things I did. And I do feel bad for him.

"My mom thinks that I did it. Even though there's no way I could've. I mean how? It's always my fault, no matter what. Never Maddy's fault." Topper says to Rafe and Kelce. "Well, we know who did it right?" Rafe says. "It was that little geek Pope." Kelce responds. "Pope, yeah. It had to be Pope. Rafe, if you wouldn't have jumped him on the golf course, I'd still have a boat, right?" Topper continues.

"Sorry if I, uh.. had your back after some Pogue put a gun to your head. Listen man, I'm not the enemy here. Am I the enemy here?" Rafe turns to Kelce. "No." "I didn't sink the boat. Pope did." "Okay. All right." "So what are you gonna do about this?"

"I'm so glad that they're still doing this. Keep calm. Carry on. Back to OBX life." Kie says as we walk up to watch the summer movie series. "Aren't you guys glad I made you come?" "Ecstatic." Pope answers. "My couch was pretty comfy, I'll be honest." JJ adds. "I like it, Kie." I say rolling my eyes at them.

I walk over to get us some drinks. "Hey, uhh.. can I get three Pepsis, please?" I ask the barman. "Sure."

"Hey, Mads." I look over to see Rafe walking up to me, and I sigh. "Hey, what's up? How are you?" Rafe asks me with a smirk. "I'm fine." "Good, good. Um.. Tell your boy that we know what he did." He says. "Sorry, what boy are you talking about?" I ask him having no clue what he's talking about. "Uh, he'll know." I look at him for a second before I walk away. "Bye, Maddy." "Douche." I respond.

I walk back over to the rest, "Just saw Rafe, and he said, and I quote, 'Tell your boy that we know what he did'. What is that?" I ask them. "Where is he?" JJ asks. "Right there." I answer as we turn around.

"Great, the whole death squad. Ah!" Pope says shaking. "Don't stare, bro." JJ turns his head back. "Just warning you. If they corner me, I'm coming out swinging, okay? Slice and dicin'. I'm one edge right now. If that doesn't work, I got this right here." JJ says pulling up his bag with the gun inside. "No, JJ. Not again." I tell him. "I'm sorry, JJ. Please tell me that you did not bring a gun here. JJ, there are kids!" Kie silently yells. "Kie, I didn't bring the gun. Everything's fine, okay?" "Oh wow, thank you. That's really convincing. I love that JJ."