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THIRTY-FOUR BLOODY-HANDED
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They finally stopped when they made it to a safe place, all panting and out of breath. Norman was quite the athlete and even he was struggling to catch his breath. The nerves made everything worse and he had a feeling the sensation of his throat tingling and closing up wasn't from the running. Leaving John B behind was one of the hardest things he had to do in his life so far.
As they stopped a recollected, the heard the sound of a plane passing overhead, JJ recalling, "There goes our gold."
"Fuck!" Pope exclaimed with a sort of anger Norman had never seen from the boy as JJ and he began throwing things around the garage they were in. Pope was normally the mediator or the calm one of the group and it was strange to see him began to lose control. Norman was fairly sure he was right behind them on the losing control front.
"Pope!" Kiara yelled, trying to get his attention.
The boy, however, was unattainable as he grabbed a baseball bat and began bashing at whatever was in his path with unabashed anger, "God damn it! Fuck! Shit! Shit! Damn it!"
They all flinched as they watched -- none of them wanting to get in the way of Pope and his target which as of right now was a poor old microwave. Norman honestly couldn't blame him. Pope had thrown away his merit scholarship for this and yet here they were with their hands empty of gold and missing one member of their group.
"Pope!" Kie tried again. The boy threw an old metal trash can, but this seemed to be enough for him as he took a break to seemingly catch his breath and hopefully calm down, "Pope! Pope."
The boy calmed down, sitting on a bench and beginning to regain his composure. JJ shrugged, "Yeah, dude. I was wondering when this was going to happen. Here you go, Chief."
The boy reached into his backpack and pulled out his JUUL and Norman scoffed, unsurprised that this was his solution.
"Seriously, JJ?" Norman chastised, "Your solution right now is weed?"
JJ nodded, "Uh, yeah, pretty much. A little weed never hurt no one."
"JJ-" Kie began, but the girl was seemingly at a loss for words as she just shook her head.
"Relax, Kie," was all the boy offered as reassurance. However, reassurance from JJ was never to be expected.
The girl was still unimpressed, saying, "You know he doesn't smoke."
Wordlessly, Pope reached out and grabbed the JUUL. This honestly didn't surprise Norman that much considering he would probably go for some weed right now, too. Times were tough, who could blame them, really? A little escapism never hurt anybody. However, Norman knew he couldn't -- not when he was this worried about John B.
