𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡, obx

10 ... old witch

the seven pogues drove through the streets of outerbanks, towards the crain house. nalani had heard many stories of the crain house from when she was younger but the only one that really stuck was that she chopped her husband's dead off with an axe. oscar had told her once that his babysitter, hollis crain, had actually seen her own father's head.

oscar and nalani were assigned to keep watch in the twinkie while the teens went inside the house to retrieve the gold because they were too young to be getting decapitated. oscar tried to argue about it and even volunteered to be the one who they dumped into the well but they still said no.

nalani was just hoping shoupe or peterkin didn't stumble upon the twinkie and ask them what they were doing outside of a serial killer's house in a car by themselves, that they couldn't even drive.

"c'mon, let's go." jj swung open the van, hopping out of it and grabbing all the supplies from the back.

"i hope she wakes up." oscar flicked on his flashlight, shining it straight into nalani's eyes.

she hit the flashlight out of his hands which sent it tumbling out of the twinkie and straight down the road. "karma." she scoffed.

"you have to go get that." he looked out at the dark road, spotting the light sat at the very end of it. "nose goes." he called, pinning his finger up against his nose before she could.

"you guys actually have the worst ways of deciding things." kiara chuckled as she helped jj up over the wall, furrowing her eyebrows as he fell flat onto the floor.

then, she climbed over the wall which meant nalani had to venture to get oscar's flashlight all on her own. she began to step out of the car before turning back, biting on her lip. "can't we go together? i'm literally terrified of the dark, you know that!"

"nose goes, sister." he laughed, pushing at her shoulder.

"ew." she murmured as she stepped forward cautiously, "don't call me sister. that's disgusting."

she finally built up the courage and ran down the street, picking the flashlight up at the end of it before running back and closing the car door quickly behind her.

"wasn't that bad, was it?" he teased, taking the light from her hands and turning it off.

nalani slumped down in the seat opposite to him while rolling her eyes. "it was."

they sat in silence for around thirty seconds which always meant that someone was about to make it super awkward. usually, that was oscar. in this case, nothing changed.

"lani?" he avoided her gaze, shuffling around in his seat awkwardly. "do you remember when we were at that movie thing...before you burnt kelce? y'know when we were sat in the thing-"

"i remember, get to your point." nalani huffed.

"um." oscar licked his lips, "y'know what? never mind! it's okay."

nalani rolled her eyes, knowing her best friend all too well. she knew exactly what he was going to say and she knew what she was going to answer. "i didn't hold your hand because i just...didn't want to. i'm sorry if that makes you feel bad, but i don't think of you differently-"

"right, okay."

"oscar!" she sat up, looking him directly in the eyes. "we are thirteen, stop acting like we are going to get married. i just want things to stay as they are right now."

"what does that even mean?" he furrowed his eyebrows, crossing his arms over each other.

she sighed, "it means i'm not ignoring what you are saying. i'm taking it into account but i'm not doing anything and that's fine, because i'm just a child."