Someone to stay || JJ Maybank

35

"Always the fool"

I try my best not to whine like a kid, impatient as I watch from the side how John B looks through the binoculars at the airstrip. It was torture, seeing those people working there, loading the gold in but unable to do anything. I could hear their voices but couldn't make out the words, could see the silhouettes of them but couldn't make out their faces. And it made me feel complitely useless.

Slowly John B lowers the binoculars, a shocked expression on his face. Or like slow, if you get what I mean. Like he was still trying to understand what he was seeing. Mouth hanging slightly open as he still stares at the airstrip.

"What?" Kie asks jut gets no reaction from him, and that's when I start to get worried. I squint my eyes, trying to see better what's happening there but it's no use.

"What?" I repeat Kie's question but nudge John B to the side while doing so to get his attention.

John B shakes his head slightly, waking from his trance before he asnwers. "It's Sarah", his voice is emotionless, eyes still staring stubbornly forward as he lifts the binoculars back to his eye level.

"She's with him?" JJ's question makes me hit him to the side with my elbow, glancing at him from under my brows. This probably wasn't the easiest topic for John B, and we really didn't have to rub it in his face with stupid questions.

'What?' JJ mouths to me, his brows scrunched confused like he really didn't understand what wrong he had said. If he honestly had no idea, then I wasn't gonna waste my time here and explain it to him. Of course, he didn't know John B and Sarah had already talked and Sarah had taken her father's side but one could figure out as much. But instead of saying anything, I just shake my head at him and return my gaze to John B.

For a while it's silent as we wait for John B to say something. But the silence is broken by something other than John B's voice. There are screams being heard from the distance, from the airstrip. They barely reach my ears but I can still tell it's a girl's voice, high and scared, the sound making my stomach drop. The realization hadn't sunk in yet but it was already there. At some level I already knew.

"Wait a minute", John B mutters to no one. Then his voice gets more strenght, stating the next way too calm which only tells me he's still in shock. "He's hurting her."

"What?" We all say in unision, our heads snapping to look at him. I had sensed that already, but it didn't stop my stomach from dropping once more, starting to form this weight in my gut. Nothing good was gonna happen from now on.

"They're fighting", John B is still looking through the binoculars but is now holding them in only one hand. His other hand is tapping on my shoulder in a panicked rythm. A distraction? No. A way to make sure we understood. "Holy shit."

He hands the binoculars to Kie who gladly takes them, taking them to her eyes quickly. She's clearly worried for Sarah, of course, we all were. But she more than I or Pope or JJ. My focus wasn't on Sarah anymore, and it wasn't on Kie and her hard breathing from worrying. It was on John B, who had stopped tapping my shoulder and disappeared from my side. I couldn't think of what he was planning but I knew it couldn't be anything good. How could you plan something good in a situation where all the hope was gone and you weren't thinking straight anymore. As if I would've cared if his plan was good or not, it wouldn't have stopped me from following him to the car, climbing to the passengers seat just before he started driving the car, the door still hanging open while he sped up.