Letters She Wrote | Outer Banks

𝐱𝐱. 𝐡𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦

[ xx. hack the system ]

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THE BALMY NORTH CAROLINIAN sun was hot against Willa Deveraux's exposed and darkened skin and the steady, salty breeze of the murky water below did little to cool her down from the growing heat. With August steadily approaching, the shifting coast was only bound to get hotter in the days to come. And stormier, too. The many townspeople of the Outer Banks knew that the ravaging heat wave was imminent and rather than try to properly rebuild what Hurricane Agatha had already broken down, many were ultimately bracing for the worst that was still yet to come.

When another bustling shop on the marina passed out of the corner of Willa's vision, she did not bat an eye at the many employees that were hurriedly trying to board up its windows. Small business owners were doing whatever they could to salvage their stores and their struggling reputations, and while Willa wished that the rich might put aside their snootiness for a single hour to aid those in need, she did not hold out hope. Kooks liked to pretend they were generous, but they were only ever giving to their own egos.

There was one business that continued to rattle around in the back of Willa's mind, though; her muddled attention unable to subside from that fact that there was one person that likely needed her help from the storm. But that extended offer of help would have to be put hold on for another day. Now, she had other issues to attend to.

Willa Deveraux had been foolishly naïve to believe she would actually have a day of rest and relaxation after all of the chaos she had previously been through. The calm could not reach her when she was still in the swells of a darkness that only festered with each passing second, growing heavier and heavier with each breath that she carelessly took. Then again, despite the gloom that pulled on her shoulders, steadily like an anchor crashing towards murky sand, Willa was almost relieved that she was not alone right now. The silence of her own home would have surely gotten to her. Willa knew better than to believe that she might not accidentally strike an unsuspecting member of her own family, believing one of them to be the gunmen, just as she had almost done to Hudson earlier that morning. Her hands were still coiled tightly into fists at her sides as if she were still holding onto the knife.

"You want a drink?"

Willa's light eyes snapped away from the darkened water below and she promptly glanced over her sunburnt shoulder, feeling the softest of knuckles brush against her bare bicep, to see none other than John B. holding his beer bottle out to her from where he sat behind the wheel of the HMS Pogue. The bottle was half-empty, but condensation dripped steadily down the cooled, coppery neck, declaring its freshness and Willa was more than eager to take a sip. "Thank you," She breathed out quietly as she passed the bottle back to the sun-kissed and bruised brunette boy. Settling back into her space on the edge of the rickety motorboat, she tried to not think too greatly on the fact that all she currently had in her system now was a raspberry flavored energy drink and a swallow of booze.