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────011, blood in the water.
CLEO SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED POPE'S UNCERTAINTY TO MANIFEST ITSELF into outspoken wary protest━━she just didn't know how long it would take for it to happen.
Truthfully, he lasted much longer than she would have thought, silently brooding all the way from the hotel to the van and only a handful of minutes into the short drive to Kiara's house with a plan already formulating in their minds. From there, they had grabbed Kiara's car where she drove it back to the Chateau and, with the boys' help, hauled the HMS Pogue out from the water before driving it out just a few blocks down from the salvage yard on a desolate side road with the idea of using it as bait in order to distract the security guard that JJ claimed was always staked out front of the salvage yard. It was a foolproof plan, for the most part, but in that expanse of time of conniving and planning, Cleo has witnessed the boy fidget peevishly from the corner of her eyes and, now on their way to the salvage yard, beside her in the back of the van, where he can be seen rubbing his hands over his face and digging the heels of his palms viciously into his eyes. The poor boy, Cleo had thought at some point. It wasn't easy being the golden boy of the bunch, though Cleo knew he was a good sport about it anyway.
But, at some point, Pope had voiced his concern with the whole ordeal of breaking into the salvage yard to steal a drone worth hundreds of dollars━━as if that was the one thing that overstepped his limits, but not being shot at by random stragglers. Still, Cleo understands where he's coming from. Because it wasn't stealing the drone that troubled him but, rather, the idea of how far the others (John B and JJ in particular) were willing to go to achieve their goals.
"Pope, we're not stealing the drone," John B says in an attempt to diffuse the boy's worries. It doesn't work, naturally. Pope sits across from Cleo, looking dismally out the window with his arms folded over his chest, and seated against the back of the driver's seat. Kiara is the passenger seat, and JJ is leaning against the backside of it next to Pope, currently in the midst of intricately rolling a fresh spliff. "We're borrowing it."
"'Humans are the only animal that can't tell fantasy from reality,'" Pope responds stiffly, not once turning to look from outside the window.
"Wait, did you come up with that?"
"No, Albert Bernstein came up with that but it applies to this whole treasure-hunting thing."
A beat of silence dims John B as he considers this thought. "Oh."
Twisting in his seat, Pope finally turns to look at the boy driving, a little concerned but mostly irritated. "So, which is it? Fantasy or reality?"
