Chapter Text
-o-
CHAPTER ONE
-o-
John B was up when the sun finally broke over the horizon. The embers of the fire had gone out a while ago, smoldering down into ash. He had laid there with the others, but his rest was only a pretense.
There was no respite.
Not without JJ.
The weight of it was heavy. He knew JJ had been with him all this time. Back in the OBX, JJ had been sleeping a room away. They’d been at the race, side by side. He’d been at the courthouse, dragging JJ out of the back of a cop car.
And the whole ride over to Morocco. They’d been trapped on the same boat. While JJ drank and drank and wanted to quit.
John B had had every chance. He’d been right there.
He’d done nothing.
He’d sat there and watched JJ get worse and worse and worse.
Sure, he’d tried to ignore it. He’d tried to distract JJ with happier shit. But he hadn’t once asked him how he was doing. He hadn’t talked it out. He hadn’t told JJ that it was okay, that they still loved him.
Hell, they hadn’t told JJ that they loved him at all.
No, he’d let it go. He’d waited it out. He’d let JJ do a JJ thing like they were 16 and running from square groupers.
JJ’s father had tried to kill him and John B had went and talked about fatherhood.
Because that was definitely a topic JJ was ready to discuss.
He was stupid. He was so damn stupid. He’d taken it for granted, like JJ could take any hit and just keep getting up. Like JJ could bleed forever and be okay.
Seeing him on the street. Looking at all the blood. Feeling the lifelessness of his best friend’s body.
Feeling the way his brother had given up.
JJ had let go.
JJ had been done.
And John B was too late.
The chances were spent. He’d left JJ behind. He couldn’t make that right.
He knew the others had a plan. He knew they were committed to finding Groff, getting the crown. Justice; revenge.
John B didn’t care. He didn’t want any of it.
He stared across the desert to where the others were sleeping. Cleo and Pope, tucked together. Sarah with her arm protectively around Kiara. And Rafe slumped off to the side, head turned away from them. The wind was sweeping over them, stirring the sand. The grave they’d dug the night before shifted. He wasn’t sure why they’d left a marker. He wasn’t sure who they were trying to appease.
It wasn’t that it felt right.
It was that anything else felt wrong.
That was how it was now, and John B couldn’t pretend otherwise. He had never been as good at this as JJ – at surviving. He’d rebelled against it, refused to accept it. It was what had started them on the hunt in the first place: because John B didn’t know how to let go.
All these years, he’d led them from one adventure to the next.
In the predawn light, he couldn’t do it anymore.
He had led them this far.
But the blood on his hands and the empty place by the fire – they were too much. Everything was too much. Justice didn’t matter; revenge sure as hell didn’t make a difference.
Not without JJ.
He wouldn’t lead them another step, he resolved. Not one that took them away from JJ.
That was the impossible truth. He knew he couldn’t go back. He knew he couldn’t risk it. It wasn’t right to risk all of them – to risk his baby – and JJ would agree. That was the only reason he would stand by it. JJ would kill him if he let anyone else get hurt rescuing him.
He had to wait until things settled down and the city was under control. He had to wait until the last of Dalia’s men cleared the city. He had to wait until they were safe.
He had to wait to go back for his best friend. His brother.
Brothers for life, he’d sworn, holding JJ close.
He would say it again.
He had to say it again.
The sun crept up, peeking over the horizon, and John B felt himself shudder as he clenched his teeth. He would have to face it, wouldn’t he?
The next adventure, wherever it took them. Wherever revenge and justice ended and salvation began.
He would have to face it.
Without JJ.
-o-
Kiara didn’t feel it when she woke up. She was aware, of course, that she’d been asleep. She opened her eyes, though, and the sense of it was all over it. Heavy and pervasive. Inescapable.
It was a new day.
The first day of the rest of her life – without JJ.
She laid there, staring up at the sky, wondering if she could face that. Wondering if she really knew what it meant.
Did she? Did she have any concept?
For the past 18 months, JJ had been everything to her. Every minute of every day. She’d shared her bed with him, shared her life with him. Stolen kisses when no one was looking, her hand on his thigh beneath the dinner table. Curled up in the hammock together, his hair brushing softly against her as he dozed to sleep.
And he wasn’t here.
She’d left him, abandoned him back in the city. Injured and pale and–
She closed her eyes again, feeling herself tremble. She knew what John B believed, she did. Part of her wanted to believe it, more than anything.
But she’d been there, hadn’t she?
She’d felt it when he went. She’d watched the light fade from his eyes, the blood pooling on the ground. Her chest had been pounding as his breath rattled in his chest and he managed his last words. She’d been holding him when he went limp – when he let go, once and for all.
That was the part John B didn’t fully grasp. He hadn’t been there for that. He hadn’t seen the way JJ fought and rallied – just to surrender to what he had always thought was inevitable. It was like they were 17 and JJ was slumped in the back of her mom’s car, shrugging, about how it didn’t make a difference what happened to him.
What do I got? He’d asked when she first approached him with the idea of trying to make it work. She’d worked so hard to get him to see a future.
That he had always known, deep inside, didn’t exist.
He said he got his wish.
Like 18 months of happiness.
Was all he could ask for in the entirety of his existence.
She swallowed so hard it hurt, and her eyes were burning when she opened them again. It was a weight on her chest, restricting her breathing. JJ had been flirting with death all his life. On the boat ride over, he’d been this close to jumping. When Groff put that knife in his gut, it had validated all his worst inclinations.
It had made it simple.
JJ Maybank didn’t have a future.
Because JJ Maybank?
Was dead.
It hardened her, the realization. No blind hope. No desperate denials. No soft cliches. None of it.
JJ was gone, and she had to face it. She sat up, looking across their makeshift camp. Most of the others were still asleep – or trying to sleep. She wasn’t sure; she didn’t care. Only John B sat, facing the fire, quiet and withdrawn. He didn’t look at her.
She didn’t look at him. Instead, she pursed her lips, dusting herself off from the sand that blew in the night. She tried to clear it from her mouth, but her tongue was thick with it, so she reached into her pack and took a drink of water.
It helped, for what it was worth, which wasn’t much. She was still dirty and tired.
And JJ still wasn’t here.
Which – it was bullshit, wasn’t it?
Part of her hadn’t believed it. She hadn’t thought it was possible.
That the sun would rise without JJ.
That life would go on without JJ.
That she existed without JJ.
That anything could be without him.
But here she was. Standing and facing the dawn.
The whole of Morocco behind her. Her future – alone – before her.
She couldn’t bring herself to grieve, but she could bring herself to get even. She wouldn’t let herself, not until she saw the fear in Groff’s eyes as she plunged a knife into his gut. She wouldn’t let go, not until every last bit of blood drained out of his body and the light dimmed from his eyes.
Next to her, Sarah roused. Kiara glanced back at her as Sarah blinked up at her, groggy. “You okay?” she asked thickly.
Kiara didn’t smile, but she nodded her head stiffly. “Not really,” she said flatly. “But I’m ready.”
Sarah sat up, eyes still bleary from sleep and struggling to focus. “You don’t have to be ready, Kie.”
“Groff already took that choice from me,” she said. “So now I’m ready to take his.”
Sarah nodded, but she looked unconvinced. She looked across the dying fire to John B. She hesitated. “Kie, maybe we should go back–”
“We all agreed; it’s too dangerous,” she said. And she felt her breath catch. There was a swell of denial, but she made herself say it. “And JJ’s dead.”
Sarah flinched despite herself, looking down as she shook.
Kiara wanted to be sorry – except she didn’t. She wasn’t. She couldn’t be.
“We need to move,” she said, pushing to her feet. “We need to get to Lisbon.”
-o-
For all of Luke’s fears about the hospitals, everyone had been incredibly kind and patient. The nurses were all nice and smiles. The doctors made a point to sit down with him showing him scans and scrawled notes like he knew what was what. Even the billing department, when they tried to take JJ’s personal information, seemed especially sympathetic.
There was no one threatening to call CPS.
The irony was that this was child abuse.
But the whole attempted murder thing was probably a more pressing concern.
As best he could gather, JJ had suffered from serious blood loss. They’d done surgery to repair something in his abdomen, but none of the parts had made it through translation. They kept assuring him JJ was alive – which seemed dumb, since he could see the kid breathing, and the little heart monitor kept beeping. But critical but stable.
The only three English words that damn surgeon seemed to know.
He didn’t know if that was reassuring or worrying, and when he sat next to JJ, there was no way to sort it. JJ still looked more dead than alive. Hooked up to the tubes and monitors, it wasn’t easy to see what sort of optimism they were trying to sell him. JJ wasn’t awake; he wasn’t breathing on his own. There was something unnatural about his complexion as the hours wore on, and the steady rise and fall of his chest was about the only thing that grounded Luke at all.
That it wasn’t too late.
That JJ was holding on.
Even if he had no idea how.
Much less why.
At this point, it seemed less like JJ’s choice and more like an inevitability. All JJ’s life, people had made decisions for him, abandoning him or dragging him along. The kid had never had a say in any of it. No wonder he had raged against it, thrown himself into the wild with reckless abandon.
Because accepting fate was hard.
Lying there, in that hospital bed, Luke had to think it was impossible. How was JJ supposed to take this? The whole town dumping their shit on him? Groff pinning him with murder? And to lose the crown and bear the brunt of it for his friends?
For what? To get a knife in the gut? To get left behind and abandoned again?
The futility of it all was too much for Luke, and he was alive and well.
For JJ–
Well, shit. What was it for JJ? What was anything for JJ at this point? As if the kid still had a chance.
No one told him to leave, though no one seemed much to do with him when he stayed. He paced more often than not, standing all over the room just because he couldn’t stand sitting still. He’d always been restless when he was sober; it was one the things he liked about alcohol. It took the edge off.
Too much sobriety made it impossible to relax.
Of course, there was probably no way to relax in your kid’s ICU room.
It was late in the day when an unfamiliar face came to the door. She was clearly a doctor, and Luke thought it was maybe shift change. But she didn’t go to JJ. She came to him instead.
“Hello, Mr. Maybank?” she asked with a refined politeness. Her words were carefully formed, the accent heavy but the words clearly easy to understand.
“Yeah,” he said, a little stiff. He glanced at JJ, not sure why he felt protective. As it was, he took a few steps closer.
Her smile was disarming, however. “I am here to talk to you about your son,” she explained. “My name is Dr. Rashad.”
She waited, as if he might acknowledge that.
All he could do, however, was regard her warily.
She either had bad news, or she was from billing and the shit was about to hit the fan. If they’d found out they were here illegally. If they’d somehow figured out that Luke was on probation or that JJ had an outstanding warrant.
“Please,” she said, gesturing to the chair he’d left next to JJ’s bed. “Sit.”
He hesitated, but her face showed no sign of dishonesty. If anything, she looked like a believable sort, and despite his instincts, he felt inclined to trust her.
Reluctantly – almost begrudgingly – he sat down in the seat. She smiled and pulled a chair from against the wall to sit across from him. Notably, she still hadn’t assessed JJ. She did, however, have a tablet in her hands, which she tapped on a few times and nodded to herself.
“Very good,” she said, rather perfunctory. She looked up again, still smiling. “Your son’s name is JJ?”
She said the letter awkwardly, like she wasn’t quite sure they were correct.
Which, they probably sounded a little wonky. He probably should have thought to provide an alias, but Luke hadn’t really been thinking of anything at the time.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s short for–”
He stopped himself. He’d never used JJ’s full name growing up, and he wasn’t about to now. Not given everything.
“Jack,” he said. “Jack Johnson.”
She tipped her head to the side, tapping a few things before looking at him curiously. “His name is not Maybank?”
“No,” he said. “I must have misread the forms. We’re Johnsons, him and me. Johnson.”
She seemed to be updating the information on her iPad, looking intent. “Very good, then, Mr. Johnson,” she said. “My apologies for the confusion.”
That was rich. Here he was, lying to her – and she was apologizing. He wasn’t sure if he felt guilty or amused – or just relieved for the time being.
“No, no, I understand this must be very difficult,” she said, looking at him again. “To be traveling so far from home. You are American, yes?”
The question seemed benign, even though Luke’s hackles wanted to rise. There wasn’t much point in denying it. “Yes,” he said. And then, he added, “We were on vacation.”
Her eyes widened sympathetically.
And Luke finished the half-baked story as simply as he could. “He got mugged in an alley,” he said. “I didn’t see nothing.”
Was it believable? Was it not?
Luke didn’t have any idea.
He half expected it to be a more plausible story than the truth. The fact that JJ had illegally come here after a rare artifact just to be brutally attacked by the birth father who abandoned him–
Well, yeah. They would call it a mugging instead.
But this girl apparently wasn’t here to interrogate him. She didn’t press; she didn’t doubt.
If anything, her look of sympathy only deepened. “Well, I was asked to come talk to you about your son,” she said, and she looked at JJ, face wincing gently. “I am sure you have questions.”
That was an understatement. Luke felt himself relax just a little. “A few.”
She looked back at him, smiling once more.
“I am afraid not all of my colleagues speak the language fluently enough to explain some of the details,” she continued.
As much as he wanted to relax, it was still hard. With doctors being professional. And JJ being unconscious like he was.
There was a time and place to relax.
This wasn’t it.
“Okay,” he said slowly.
She smiled once more, as if that was some kind of invitation. “I have not worked on your son’s case, as you may know. But the surgical team asked me to come talk to you, make sure you understood.”
That one made him hesitate. He didn’t dare show too much interest – but he also couldn’t pretend like he was indifferent. “He’s alive, I know that much,” he said. “But they keep saying critical but stable over and over again. It doesn’t mean anything when I see him laid up like he is.”
She nodded. It was hard to tell how trained her sympathy was, or if she was as uncomfortable as he was right now. “Yes, that is how we classify his status,” she said. “He is in critical condition, which means your son has suffered serious, life-threatening injuries.”
He swallowed, doing his damnedest not to flinch. He couldn’t help but look at the kid, under the mess of wires, and wish for more.
“But stable means that his condition is steady. He is not getting worse,” she said.
He nodded slowly, picking up on the bit she wasn’t saying. “But he’s not better?”
She shrugged. “His body has been through an extreme trauma. He lost a significant amount of blood,” she explained. “The fact that he is stable is quite good, and that is why we are cautiously optimistic about his chances.”
That seemed almost funny, when she said it. Like JJ wasn’t sedated with a tube shoved down his damn throat right now, held together by stitches.
She drew her brows together, folding her hands in her lap as she looked at him seriously. “How much do you know about what happened to him?”
Luke wasn’t sure what answer she was looking for. The nonsense the doctors had tried to explain.
Or the nightmare with Groff he was trying not to think about.
“Regarding his injuries,” she clarified gently.
He took a breath, working his jaw for a second as he looked away from JJ. “Not much, honestly. They said they did – you know. Surgery,” he said, trying to remember. “Abdominal surgery.”
There had been more, broken phrases and fragments. But he’d been so terrified that JJ was dead that he hadn’t made much sense of anything beyond the fact that his kid was still breathing.
She nodded readily. “Yes, the wound caused extensive damage to his abdomen,” she said. “I reviewed his chart extensively and looked at his scans. He is fortunate to be alive.”
Fortunate, then. Like JJ had ever been fortunate.
She didn’t seem to sense his bitterness, though. Which was just as well, as she went on to delineate the facts with a clarity Luke wasn’t ready for.
“The wound your son sustained cut through his abdominal cavity,” she said, nodding absently to JJ’s prone figure on the bed between them. “Did you see what kind of blade it was?”
His throat felt thick, like his tongue was too big. He shook his head.
She nodded. “Well, it penetrated deeply, like it was being thrust in with some force,” she explained. Then, she gestured to her side, where JJ’s wound would be. “It cut through his large intestine and nicked his stomach. That is where most of the damage was done and why the surgery was so extensive. Repairs to the digestive tract can be quite difficult.”
Luke felt himself go stiff, not sure what to say or do. It felt like he might not be breathing as his heart thudded dully in his ears.
She didn’t stop, though. “The repairs appear to be successful, fortunately, and we don’t expect any complications to his digestive system,” she said.
Right, since that was what he’d been thinking about. Whether or not JJ could take a shit in the future. He’d been so focused on making sure he was breathing.
“The force seemed to drive the blade deep enough to get to the kidney,” she said with a little sigh. “The surgical team decided to spare the kidney since the damage was not as extensive here, and kidneys are more resilient than many organs.”
Luke stared at her blankly, unsure what response was warranted by JJ’s resilient kidneys.
“The medical team will continue to monitor his urine output and additional testing will be needed to ensure that his function is returning,” she said. “The internal sutures to his stomach and intestines should heal on their own over the next few weeks, but of course we will monitor him there as well to make sure everything is working like it should.”
He didn’t half know what it meant. Taking shits; making piss.
All he knew was that JJ had nearly bled to death, and now they were cautiously optimistic.
That was bullshit. Luke had never been cautious. And he’d never had anything to be optimistic about.
“So he’s okay?” he blurted, not sure if he could take anymore.
She frowned, sitting back slightly like the answer displeased him. “His condition is very complex,” she said. “And you need to understand the potential complications. He has a very long way before he recovers–”
He shook his head. “Complications?”
“I told you, we have to make sure both his urinary and digestive systems are functioning safely–”
He sighed, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t know what that means.
“He has to make urine,” she said, a little more clearly and with finality. “And we have to make sure the digestive tract isn’t leaking into his bloodstream. The risk of infection with these wounds is high.”
He made a face, wrinkling his nose as his gaze strayed to JJ again. “So he’s not okay?”
“Sir, I know you want answer–”
“No,” he snapped, and then he laughed, feeling half hysterical. The backdrop of the beeping and whooshing was too much, all of a sudden. It was all too much. “I just want my kid. I just want my kid to be okay.”
She drew a breath and seemed to ground herself. “We will need to monitor him closely,” she said. “His vitals are stable, which is a very positive sign, and there is no sign of infection. We will continue with a full course of antibiotics, and get him breathing on his own as soon as possible.”
“How long?” he said, eyes on her again, unrelenting and focused. Because posturing was bullshit. All of it was bullshit. “How long until he’s okay?”
“Full recovery will be months,” she said. “He has to regain his stamina, work on gaining weight. The blood loss alone is devastating to his system.”
“How long will he be in the hospital?” he said. He nodded back toward his boy, still unconscious and sedated in the bed. “In the ICU?”
“He will not be cleared from the ICU until we are able to step down his interventions,” she said, sparing JJ a small glance. “We need him to no longer be critical.”
That was fine; whatever. “So?” he asked expectantly.
“I do not wish to speculate–”
He made a frustrated noise.
“We hope by the end of the week,” she said. And then, she added soberly. “As long as he continued to show no signs of complications.”
End of the week. Okay.
That was something.
More than he’d had.
That was something.
He nodded, thinking that over and letting it parse. “And his recovery,” he ventured. “What will that be?”
“Mostly rest,” she said. “Once he is conscious, we will want to start him on liquids and light solids as soon as possible to monitor his digestion. The antibiotics and fluids are extremely important right now.”
He nodded. That much he understood.
The pills; always with the damn pills.
He could handle this. He had to handle this.
He nodded, more to himself than anything.
“So, cautiously optimistic, huh?” he said, easing back in his seat slightly.
At this, her face lightened with some relief. “He is still very weak. The next 24 hours are critical.”
“He’s stronger than you know,” he said. And he snorted softly. “He’s never had a choice.”
She nodded politely, even if she had no idea what he meant. Then, she paused, tilting her head. “Do you know more about what happened?” she asked, looking at JJ once more. “To cause these injuries? There has been talk of getting the police involved. If you said he was mugged–”
Luke tensed, pulling back just that fast as his smile fell. He shouldn’t have offered up those details; he shouldn’t have said anything. “I don’t know anything,” he said. And then, at least a partial truth, “I found him like this, knife in his gut without his papers or money.”
Her brow darkened thoughtfully. “Even more reason, then–”
“I don’t – I don’t–” he started sharply, too sharp. He got to his feet and paced away from her again, scrubbing his hand through his hair. “I can’t–”
He turned back toward her, noting the surprised expression on her face.
Flustered, he drew himself back together. She’d been nothing but polite. Nothing but nice.
She wanted to help him; she wanted to help JJ.
He believed that.
Swallowing hard, he sat himself down again. He got it in check. “I just want him to be okay,” he said. “There’s nothing I could tell a cop anyway.”
She softened at this, and after a moment, she nodded. “Do you have any other questions about your son?”
Luke had a lot of questions.
And too many damn answers.
He shook his head, shrugging helplessly. “No,” he said, feeling the exhaustion settle and the fear go numb once more. In their place, resolution. Plain and simple, just like it had been at the start. Just like it had to be to get JJ through this. “I think that’s about it.”
-o-
Leaving Agapenta was easy, in some ways. They got in the car and drove, letting it recede into the background behind them. Mile after mile, sand kicking up behind them in the car Rafe had procured – legally, she guessed. He seemed to find it easier to pay someone off than take the risk right now.
In some ways, she didn’t disagree. If they’d had the money – if they’d had the resources – they could have done this differently. They could have done it right.
She looked in the mirror, watching as the city on a hill got smaller and smaller.
When they stopped for gas, it wasn’t visible anymore. They bought food and a few supplies and looked to the road ahead. No more glances in the rearview mirror, not when there was nothing there to see.
That was how you did it in life. You left, because you didn’t have the choice to stay.
Cleo understood that practicality.
But she was tired of practicality.
The no goodbyes club was a fallacy, in the end. Goodbye wasn’t just a word; it was a concept. Just because you chose not to say it didn’t mean it wasn’t real.
This was real.
Leaving behind Agapenta.
Leaving behind JJ.
It didn’t matter if she said goodbye. She felt it, the painful loss, digging deep inside of her.
As much as it hurt her, she knew, the others were feeling it worse. This wasn’t a contest; she knew that. You couldn’t compare suffering; there was no prize for who got the worst shit in life. And she loved JJ – she did. He had been her brother, her kindred spirit. Her partner in crime, quite literally most of the time.
She liked the way he rolled joints. She liked sailing with him, the way he understood the water. She appreciated the way he approached things, pragmatic and real.
Or – he had been.
It was a hard way to shift her thing. From is to was, that JJ was like so many other people she loved. Gone.
Next to her, Pope was silent. She knew the analytical part of his brain had computed all the factors and came up with the same horrible conclusion, but logic only got him so far. The emotion had yet to hit him; she just wasn’t sure how far they’d get before it did.
Of all of them, Sarah seemed to be the only one who was crying. On and off, Cleo could hear her sniffle, and when she looked back at her, she was usually wiping her eyes.
It was testament to John B’s shock that he wasn’t comforting her. She knew those two were brothers in all the ways that mattered, and she knew that the guilt would be hitting him hard. Wait and see, had been his advice the whole trip. They’d waited. They’d seen.
And now here they were, leaving without JJ.
She almost didn’t blame him for his denial.
They all had to contend with it, sooner or later. The things they’d done. The things they hadn’t done. JJ had been falling apart for days now – weeks. And they’d let it happen. They’d let him come undone at the seams.
Denial was tempting, but it wasn’t Cleo’s thing.
Of course, if John B’s response was concerning, Kiara’s was a recipe for disaster. It wasn’t hard to see that she’d skipped denial. But she wasn’t grappling with rationale like Pope. She wasn’t feeling grief like Sarah.
Kiara had stopped thinking; Kiara had stopped feeling.
Stony faced, she looked out across the desert, like she hadn’t just left the love of her life behind.
That was going to be a mess, no doubt.
All of them, every last one.
And Cleo wasn’t sure how she was going to keep it together. At this point, her only sane ally was Rafe Cameron, who was also a complete asshole who hadn’t flinched while digging Lightner’s grave. He has been awfully quick to suggest revenge, like it wasn’t self seeking.
Could she blame him?
They weren’t friends. Not even close. Convenient allies at the very best. What was it to him, to come home with one less Pogue?
Turning to him for help was reprehensible, in a lot of ways. Cleo knew that.
But JJ would appreciate the pragmatism, at least.
At least, she hoped so.
Mile after mile, sand up at their backs, hope seemed like a fleeting thing.
But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. All her life, survival was defined by moving forward. That was how you lived.
If you stopped, you died.
She thought of Lightner, the bullet in his brain. She thought of Terrance, buried at sea. She thought of JJ.
Fingers tight on the wheel, she tried not to think at all until the city grew on the horizon and the mile markers grew nearer. Rafe was at full alert, even as everyone else shrinked at it.
There was nothing to be done for it. Agapenta was behind them. JJ was behind them. Now, they had to look ahead. To Groff and Lisbon. To the OBX and Poguelandia. If they had a chance of finding JJ — dead or alive — the journey started here, in Essouria.
Without waiting for approval, she parked them outside the city. The others looked confused, like they didn’t understand.
“We need a low profile,” she explained as best she could.
Shock was a hell of thing.
Grief was worse.
Sarah’s tears. John B and his blank face. Kiara coiled so tight she might snap, fingers fondling JJ’s necklace like a lifeline. And Pope — her Pope — eyes cold and hands tight on the side of the car, like he was holding on for dear life.
Only Rafe nodded in agreement. “We should probably split into two groups,” he said. “Lower our profile.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” she said, preempting any possible debate.
She didn’t trust Rafe exactly – none of them totally did – but he had made some amends. And after leaving JJ behind, none of them had much appetite for fighting. Pogue against Kook didn’t mean as much anymore. That was a luxury they didn’t have.
“We can stagger our entrances, move through different routes,” she continued. “And meet up at the docks while we scope out the boat.”
It wasn’t even playing nice. More simply, she agreed with the idea. They were still noticeable, and with the trail of death and destruction behind them, it might pay them to be a little discreet. Being careful could be a novelty now.
“What if it’s not there?” Pope asked. “What if they took it?”
She flashed the keys at him. “Luke did nab these.”
“They’ll have more than one set,” Pope pointed out.
Not contrary, not really. But logic. Her boy.
“Cheap flights to Lisbon will be easy to procure, even off the books,” Rafe supplied.
Sarah nodded in quiet agreement. “Everyone is running out of time now.”
“Including us,” Kie said sharply. Her eyes were hard as she made a definitive nod. “So if our boat isn’t there, we’ll just take another one.”
“Right,” John B quipped tiredly. “Since that sounds like a good idea.”
“JJ would agree,” she shot back.
That shut him up. That card carried weight; too much weight. It landed, dead and hard. With permanence, under six feet of sand.
His face went pale, and he looked down.
Cleo drew a breath to clear the air between them. “Let’s just do this, yeah?” she said. “I’ll take one group–”
She looked around and made a split second decision, as best she could.
“Pope and Kiara,” she said. “You’re with me.”
Rafe nodded in tacit agreement. “I can take the others, move around to the south end of town before reconvening up by the docks,” he said.
“And we’ll take the main road in,” Cleo said with a sensible shrug. “It should work.”
Separating the group wasn’t just for a low profile at this point. As the group split off, no one said goodbye. Cleo knew that splitting them up let tensions run a little lower. Kiara and John B were going to be a problem, no doubt. Each grieving – or not grieving – in their own way. Things like friendship and loyalty only went so far, Cleo knew. When faced with this kind of loss, there was no telling what would happen.
She waited, giving Rafe and the others a head start. Only Sarah glanced back, looking anxious as they wound around the city gates. Cleo turned back to Pope, who smiled at her faintly. They both looked at Kiara. “You up for this, girl?” she asked.
Kiara wet her lips, shaking her head. “Does it matter?”
“Kie–” Pope started.
Kiara scoffed at him.
Cleo sighed. “Honestly? Probably not,” she said. “But if you need to talk–”
“I need JJ back,” she snapped, voice cold and brittle. Her eyes shone bright, but her face was set like stone. It was a question of breaking down or shutting down, and it was pretty clear which one Kiara had chosen.
Which one was needed.
They were in a foreign countries without papers. No money, no resources. They’d left behind the body of their best friend.
Options were limited.
Choice was a luxury.
Grief was a luxury.
“I wish I could do that,” Cleo said, her own chest aching. All the people she had buried, the idea of burying that dumb, blonde boy hurt worse than all of them. “But until then–”
Kiara nodded. Once and then twice. “Until then,” she agreed.
Cleo nudged Pope. “We ready?”
Pope sighed with something like resignation. “Not really,” he said. “But we might as well.”
Kiara’s expression had steadied. It had hardened. “I’m ready,” she said with a solid nod. “So try to keep up.”
And off they went.
-o-
It seemed petty, worrying about her family dynamics. The things that had mattered so much, the tensions that had kept everyone apart — it just seemed pointless now. What was there to fight about, when they’d already conceded the ultimate defeat. What grudges could possibly matter after leaving JJ behind.
Sarah didn’t have it in her anymore. To be angry. To hold a moral ground.
She just wanted to go home. She wanted to be in the OBX to have her baby and start her family. It was hard to remember what they were doing anymore. What had been so important that JJ’s life was a willing forfeit.
It didn’t matter. The crown, the treasure. Her and Rafe. Kook and Pogue.
The blood had spilled. The price had been paid.
None of it mattered.
Sarah was done.
Too bad the people around her didn’t share that view. Kiara was all but dead inside, unwilling to face her grief. Pope had taken a hard stance, turning his logic to cold pragmatism, and suddenly Cleo was the sane one, knife and all.
In many ways, she was glad they’d split up. It was hard enough leaving JJ behind. Being here, with the strange empty versions of her friends, just made things impossible. That wasn’t what grief looked like. That wasn’t how they could honor who JJ had been, what he meant to them. Sarah was well and truly done.
Of course, being with John B and Rafe wasn’t better necessarily.
John B was set in total denial, clinging to the idea that JJ was still alive despite the overwhelming evidence. Rafe, despite the progress they’d made, was still an asshole. He didn't care about JJ, but he did care about Groff, and his flippant willingness to use JJ’s death to move them forward was probably going to be a problem.
“We should really slow down,” John B said as Rafe led them through the alternate gate as planned.
“Right, since we’re not short on time,” Rafe sniped back, not slowing at all.
John B scoffed, keeping pace anyway. “We need to be careful. Slow down.”
Rafe shot him a look. “That’s cute. Maybe if you’d had this talk with Maybank — you know ever — all of this could have been avoided.”
Sarah’s hackles raised. Rafe was an asshole, but using JJ as a talking point now. Like this.
With John B.
Well, violence was off the table after all.
John B didn’t agree, apparently. He drew to a stop, dragging Rafe with him. “What did you say?” he asked, fists tight in Rafe’s cloak.
Rafe smirked, like this was a fistfight at the boneyard over beer and bragging rights.
Not a confrontation in Morocco, in the wake of JJ’s death.
“Just that you don’t need to lecture me about being careful,” he said, sneering down at John B. “Maybe if you hadn’t left me out to dry, I could have helped–”
She saw John B’s fingers curl into a fist, almost out of reflex. Rafe could sense the punch, and he leaned in with a grin.
Before Sarah threw herself between them. “This is not what we’re doing,” she said, a hand on John B’s chest as she stared him down. “You know this isn’t going to help us.”
John B allowed her to push him back, but the fury etched into his features didn’t fade. “And this is?” he said, and he shook his head. “I still think this whole thing is dumb. We shouldn’t be going to Lisbon without JJ.”
“Right,” Rafe said. “His dead body would be great in customs.”
John B surged forward again, and it was all Sarah could do to stop him. “This isn’t it,” she said, holding her ground and willing him to meet her gaze. “John B, this isn’t it.”
It took him a minute, wild-eyed and desperate. The anger faded as he looked at her, quelled to hurt instead. She licked her lips, and gave him a sympathetic nod. “Going after Groff is the only way to help JJ,” she said softly. “You know that.”
Dead or alive, she thought to herself as she swallowed hard. They needed at least that much common ground.
John B’s chest heaved, tears welled in his eyes as he worked hard to rein in his frustration.
“We’re going to help JJ,” she reassured him, voice lower as she nodded.
And finally, he nodded back, releasing the tension as he eased back a step.
With John B under control, she turned to Rafe. The softness vanished from her face, and she grabbed Rafe’s shirt front so fast that he yelped in protest. “You will never use JJ’s name like that again, do you understand?” she said, eyes burning into him as her own heart thudded loudly against her ribcage. “And if you do? If you try to use him in an argument or make light of anything that he’s done or been through – I will cut you off in an instant, no questions asked. As far as I’m concerned, my baby already has two uncles – JJ and Pope – and you? You are superfluous.”
His eyes widened slightly, face falling in surprise.
She shoved him – hard enough for him to stumble back a step. “Family is a choice, Rafe,” she said, taking a long slow breath and letting it out. “So you choose it, right here, right now, or we’ll do this without you.”
Rafe didn’t need her to go after Groff. Rafe didn’t need any of them.
But Rafe didn’t really want Groff. He didn’t really want revenge or justice.
No, what Rafe wanted most, was family.
Their father was dead. Sarah had buried him in South America.
Rose was gone. Wheezie was with her.
That left Sarah.
And if he wanted Sarah, he would have to take the Pogues.
Even JJ, whether he was breathing or not.
Rafe’s face hardened, lips pursing as he looked at John B over her shoulder. He seemed to contemplate it before looking back at Sarah. “I’m sorry,” he said, the words reluctant but not forced. “No one could have seen that coming, what Groff did. Not even JJ.”
She let go, feeling the pressure ease in her chest just a little. Behind her, John B stiffened. “Groff’s a psychopath.”
“Agreed,” Rafe said, nodding a few more times. “And if we want to catch him, you’re going to have to listen to me. That’s not a power play. But I have the intel. I have the money. And frankly, right now, I have better perspective than any of you.”
It wasn’t gentle, maybe.
But it also wasn’t wrong.
This time, John B nodded back. “Fine,” he said. “You lead. I’ll follow.”
Rafe took that for what it was, turning back to the gate. “We just need to move fast, and keep a low profile,” he said, starting them forward again. “Keep to the edges of the market, and we’ll make our way to the docks.”
Sarah took John B’s hand as they moved, squeezing it slightly. She looked at him, trying to smile.
He didn’t smile back.
But he didn’t stop either.
That was something, at least. She wasn’t sure what, but it was something. Her husband and her brother. Joining forces.
The peace between them was tentative at best.
She could only hope, as they finally made their way into the city, that it could last.
For her sake, for the baby’s sake.
For JJ’s sake.
This awkward truce had to last.
-o-
Pope had never been the outgoing type. He wasn’t shy necessarily. He would always raise his hand in class, and he knew how to look adults in the eye, talk to them like a man.
But he didn’t like to be the center of attention. He didn’t enjoy being the life of the party, and he was never good at being on display. He was prone to awkwardness when people watched him, and he lacked the smooth confidence John B possessed and the easy nonchalance JJ often exuded.
He had more common sense than the two of them combined, it was true. The two of them had never had more than a shared brain cell.
But could never sell it. He couldn’t talk people into things. When cornered, he panicked and acted like an idiot. His ability to sell a lie was nearly nonexistent.
Which meant this? This subterfuge?
Was really not his thing.
He understood it, intellectually, what they were doing.
And he hated every minute of it.
He was sure everyone in the market was looking at him. He was positive that there were multiple calls being made to the authorities right now. They would be ID’d, they would be arrested. They would be caught without papers or identification, and when they did finally figure out who they were, Pope would be shipped back to the states in cuffs due to his outstanding warrant. They wouldn’t find Groff. They would never get back to Poguelandia, and JJ would have died entirely in vain.
“Hey,” Cleo said, tugging his arm as they moved, side by side while Kiara took the lead. “You’re doing that thing.”
He huffed, keeping pace on numb feet. “What thing?”
“Your logic spiral,” she said.
He made a face. “My what?”
“Your logic spiral,” she said again, matter of fact.
Still moving at a good clip, he shook his head. “I don’t have a logic spiral.”
“You do,” she said. “You think through every possibility and every contingency, until you’ve worked yourself into a corner. And then you feel helpless and miserable because you’ve reasoned your way into a problem with no solution.”
That was–
Okay, a pretty accurate assessment.
He frowned at her. “Well, we have to think a little bit,” he argued, almost out of reflex.
Old habits, they–
No. Not that.
He took a breath and focused. Cleo was as right as she was wrong. He was overthinking.
But it wasn’t going to stymie him anymore.
“I just want to be smart,” he said. “And this? This is too conspicuous. We need to be blending in.”
Cleo bobbed her head in agreement, eyes on Kiara in front of them. “You don’t need to convince me.”
Whatever reluctance Kiara had had seemed to be gone now. With a plan set in front of her, Kiara was charging forward – blindly. The same kind of persistence that had defined JJ.
JJ had never stopped, never slowed down.
Not until Groff’s knife hit him in the gut.
That was a logic spiral he would not indulge. He wouldn’t think about the knife cutting through JJ’s intestines or lodging in his kidney or liver. He wouldn’t think about the amount of blood JJ lost, or how much it must have hurt as his body shut down. He would have known he was dying. He would have known his time was running out.
He would have known he finally found a problem he couldn’t bullshit his way out of.
He would have known he was never going to go home again.
No, he definitely wasn’t going to spiral about that.
“Does she seem–?” Cleo asked, nodding forward at Kiara.
“Off?” Pope said, the sweat on his forehead starting to dribble down his face. “Just a little.”
“Just wanted to be sure I wasn’t overreacting,” Cleo said, wincing as they navigated around a few stalls with near reckless abandon.
It was like a switch. Just yesterday, Kiara had been lecturing JJ about being careful, not being reckless.
Today, Kiara was the one moving at breakneck speed like they had nothing to lose.
It was an idea none of them would ever approach the same way. He could still remember JJ, saying that at the Enduro. Before he’d proceeded to lose their money, their home, his family, his entire sense of identity, and finally – mercilessly – his life.
They kept moving, and Pope did what Pope always did: he rationalized.
“I mean, everyone copes with grief in different ways,” he said. “It’s not abnormal–”
Even as he said it, Kiara turned back with a scowl.
“Enough talking,” Kiara said, glaring back at them. “We need to keep moving.”
“We’re moving, we’re moving,” Cleo said, jogging a little to keep up. “Cheese on bread, girl!”
“Running is only going to draw attention to us,” Pope muttered, reluctantly moving faster to keep pace. He glanced around, the fast pace making him feel conspicuous. The goal had been to keep a low profile. What they were doing was anything but. “We should be careful–”
Kiara laughed bitterly. “We’re a little past careful, Pope,” she said, moving faster still as she rounded a corner and nearly took out a man carrying a large basket. The man yelped, dropping some, and Kiara didn’t even pause to apologize – much less help pick it up.
As she moved on, the man yelled after her – and before the crowd could turn on them, Pope was quick to intervene. “Sorry,” he said, scrambling to pick up a few of the fruit pieces. Cleo paused to chase down one or two more. “Here–”
They put them back in his basket, even as the man ranted at them. The language was foreign, but the anger was pretty easy to translate.
Pope put in another few pieces and got up, hands up. “Sorry! Sorry!”
Cleo smiled, as sweet as she could. “Désolé! Désolé!”
The man didn’t look especially convinced, but Pope suspected that sticking around was only going to make things worse. He held up his hands, feigning as much innocence as he could, while Cleo tugged him forward, back into the crowd.
The man shouted after them once more, but the crowd closed in around them again, and Pope felt his cheeks burn at all the unwanted attention. He kept his head down, Cleo’s hand clutched tightly around his, as they hurried forward after Kiara.
For her part, Kiara hadn’t slowed. She was still moving, at blind, breakneck speed, barely sparing a glance back at them. She glared, waving them forward, before she picked up her pace again.
“How the hell are we going to keep her in check?” he hissed.
“How have we ever?” Cleo muttered.
“She’s out of control–”
“She just lost the love of her life,” Cleo reminded him.
“We all lost JJ,” Pope said back. He knew the point she was trying to make, but sympathy was hard. When his own grief was so raw, he didn’t know how to face hers.
Cleo braced his arm with a gentle nod, even as they kept moving. “I know,” she said. She inclined her head to where Kiara had paused, waiting for them at the end of the street with obvious exasperation. “But imagine if it were me.”
He slipped an arm around her, lips flattening as his legs kept moving. “I thought it would be.”
“And?” she reminded him softly.
As if either of them could forget.
The bullet cutting through her arm. The blood running down her hand.
And Pope’s hand, steady on the gun as he pulled the trigger and a man died.
He pulled to a stop.
Kiara could wait.
For a second, all of it could wait.
He looked at her.
He looked at Cleo.
He wasn’t sentimental, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew this was the love of his life. He knew this woman was his world, the only one he’d ever want. She was everything. It defied logic. It eclipsed reason.
Maybe it was sentiment, after all.
Pope just thought it was the single defined variable. The constant that made every other calculation make sense.
“And I would have done anything,” he murmured, brushing his lips against her.
She closed her eyes, leaning up into him. Then, she nodded back gently. “There’s nothing she can do, though,” she said, and they both looked back at Kiara, who was waving them over impatiently. “JJ’s already gone.”
It was impossible to deny.
But it was impossible to accept.
JJ had been the very definition of life. That’d been the point with JJ. Living when it was hard. Living when it was impossible. Living.
So why had Pope stood there and said nothing when JJ confessed he wanted to die?
Why had he never kissed him on the cheek and told him he loved him?
Why?
“Come on,” Cleo said, pulling him along to catch up with Kiara, who was glaring that them expectantly, tilting her head for them to catch up with her. “We should go.”
He’d pulled the trigger once now.
He would pull it again.
Until they all got home, safe and sound.
He didn’t think of JJ, who would have to come home in a body bag.
One way or another.
-o-
John B had resolved to do what needed to be done. He’d come too far to quit now. He was too invested. He owed his friends this much.
But he knew, better than anyone.
Good intentions didn’t mean shit.
Screw that, good intentions sometimes led to the worst outcomes. He knew that. He’d lived that.
And he couldn’t do it, okay?
He couldn’t do this.
If he left without JJ—
If he left JJ behind—
It was like signing the death certificate. It was closing the case. It was letting go.
Holding onto his dad had nearly ruined him. It has nearly ruined everything. He’d made life harder for everyone. It had made him reckless and stupid.
But he’d been right.
That was the horrible, incontrovertible truth. John B had been right about everything.
If he was right about that, then maybe he was right about this.
He had to be right about this.
Which meant—
His feet slowed, falling behind Rafe’s lead through the back end of the market.
It meant—
Sarah turned back toward him, beckoning him forward before her face fell with a frown.
It meant—
His body locked up, and his head went light as everything went hollow. The world grew distant, the sound of the market dissipating and the sunlight blurring his vision.
This had happened before. Once, after his father went missing. Standing at the police station. Peterkin had held a file in her hand, saying there was just no sign, no evidence.
I’m sorry, son. I don’t think your daddy is coming home.
It had all rushed after that. The emotions, the denial. He blinked and he was flat on his ass, someone pushing his head between his knees. The idea of it faded. The idea of it became impossible. His father wasn’t dead, he wasn’t, not until John B buried him with his own two hands.
JJ wasn’t dead. He hadn’t buried JJ. JJ–
“John B?” Sarah’s voice called. “Hey, John B–”
And it came in a rush again. Fast and furious, his mind blanked out. The idea of it took hold, hard and fast and horrible.
He thought of JJ, bleeding out in the sand. He thought of wrapping his body in a carpet, carrying it out of the city. He thought of digging a shallow grave in foreign sand, and burying him here, leaving him behind once and for all.
He thought of going home to the OBX without him.
He thought of a whole life without JJ.
It didn’t make sense; it couldn’t make sense.
He needed JJ. JJ had been the constant, since the third grade. Every up, every down. Every win, every loss. He had survived because of JJ.
He knew what everyone thought, that he was the one carrying JJ’s dead weight.
But they were wrong.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
And if JJ didn’t go home – then John B didn’t want to go home.
That was it; that was all. That was everything.
“Oh, shit,” Sarah said, and her hand braced his arm. “John B?”
He gasped, legs giving out. He caught himself, but barely, holding himself up shakily on the wall. His vision had tunneled – nearly black – and he felt like he was just barely breathing. The market was a blur in front of him, and Sarah’s face was oddly haloed in front of him. Her mouth was moving, but he couldn’t make it out.
“We have to go,” her voice filtered in, distorted. “We have to go.”
But this was wrong. This was all wrong. This was the cops, giving him papers on his dad’s death all over again. He had known it then; he knew it now.
His father hadn’t been dead.
And JJ wasn’t dead.
He couldn’t leave him behind. He had to take him back home, back to the OBX. He had to tell him it wasn’t his fault, and he needed to sit him down and ask him how he was. He needed to hug him, hold him, and tell them they’d always been brothers, since the start. He needed JJ to know that he loved him – just him – and there were no strings attached.
JJ didn’t have to fix anything. JJ didn’t have to save anyone. JJ didn’t have to give himself up.
He just needed to live. He just needed JJ to live.
“John B,” Sarah said, her other hand gripping him by the shoulders now. “We have to go. Please–”
“No,” he said, voice finally working again. The next breath was fraught, and he could feel the tears burning unshed in his eyes. “Sarah, this is a mistake. We can’t leave. We have to go back for JJ.”
It wasn’t just a desire. This wasn’t a whim.
This was a conviction. This was a need. Deeply seeded.
“John B, we can’t,” Sarah said, face scrunching. Confusion. Concern. “We have to get to Lisbon–”
He wanted to laugh, but he wasn’t sure he was breathing properly. They had to? Why? To get Groff? To get the crown?
Didn’t they get it? That it didn’t matter?
JJ had nearly died for this.
And it wasn’t worth it.
None of it was worth it.
“Sarah,” he said. “Please, we can’t leave JJ behind.”
Her face twisted, almost in agony. “John B–”
She looked just like Peterkin had. That flash of sympathy. That pity.
The way everyone was so, so sorry.
But if he could just sign the papers. If he could just move on.
If he could just leave Morocco.
“Please,” he said. “Sarah, we can’t leave him.”
She turned, looking behind her in distress. “We have to move,” she said. She bit her lip, turning back to him. “John B, we have to move.”
She loved him, but she didn’t get it. She didn’t understand that denial was all he had. She didn’t understand that the world didn’t make sense without JJ.
She didn’t understand that he wasn’t dead.
He couldn’t be dead.
She didn’t understand at all.
“We can’t stay here; we have to move,” she said, tugging his arm. “We can talk about this when we get to the boat. Can you move?”
No, he thought as the panic seized his chest. He could laugh, he could cry. He could lay down right here and die. No, he couldn’t move. Not without JJ.