XXIV. we're gonna be timeless

      Dylan stared at the hundreds of messages that her mom was sending her. Some harsh, others from regret, and most of them was of Ainsley telling her how much she loved her. She felt incredibly guilty at the thought of hurting her mom's feelings. But Dylan never gave either of her parents a reason to not trust her. Since she was a kid, she did everything by the book to a sure that her life was perfect. She never did anything wrong even if her friends did because she was afraid of the consequences.

Maybe this one time, just once, Dylan didn't want to be that good girl anymore.

The Pogues finally arrived at the pawn shop. JJ slid the door open and immediately climbed out. "Nice job melting it down, Dr.  Frankenstein," he commented sarcastically, referring to the melted bar of gold in his hand.

Kiara climbed out after him and scoffed. "Like you could've done any better."

Dylan smiled at Pope when he held his hands out to help her scrabble out of the Twinkie. She took a hold of them and ducked so that she didn't hit her head.

JJ scoffed back. "I could've done better. I took a welding class." He defended himself.

"Oh yeah? Where—"

John B stepped between the arguing pair. "Whoa, whoa. Hey. Chill out, okay?" He intervened.

"I think you did a good job, Kie." Dylan chimed.

"Thank you, DJ!" Kiara emphasized and looked behind her. "See, I'm glad we have our own group now."

"About time." She agreed, Sarah smiling.

Sarah Cameron couldn't help but envy the girl that was always so kind to everyone. She lived a double life. They were friends and Sarah knew the Pogues didn't approve of their friendship at a point in time, but Dylan was always good at making her feeling better about it by reminding her that she loved her just like she loved all of her friends.

"Easy for you to say. You're not this going one that has pawn this piece of shit off," JJ grumbled as they walked towards the pawn shop. "How did I get stuck with this job anyway?"

"Cause you're the best liar." Said Pope.

"Why can't Dylan just use her freaky mind powers?"

Dylan rolled her eyes. "It's not freaky mind powers,  it's called manipulation. And I already lied for you once, remember?" She stated, raising her brows at him.

They vividly remembered they day where she and Kiara flirted with the man at the junkyard. JJ threw his hands up. "Exactly! You're so pretty they won't even be focused on the gold."

It didn't change her mind and only made Kiara and Pope roll their eyes at him. "We're not exploiting DJ." She scoffed.

John B nodded. "Yeah, we can do that another day."

Dylan glared at him and slapped him on the back of the head, making him laugh and flinch away. "I'm kidding! I'm kidding!"

"At least they got the pretty part right." Sarah uttered and poked her cheek.

Dylan blushed red and smiled at the praise. They entered the pawnshop and JJ smiled widely at the woman at the front desk. "Good afternoon, ma'am." He announced.

"Afternoon." She greeted back a little more blunt.

"I see you buy gold." 

"That's what the sign say, don't it?"

Dylan held back a snort and walked with the others around the door, keeping themselves calm to not look suspicious.

"Well, I sure hope you buy a lot of it, because I'm about to blow your mind."

The woman shook her head. "I ain't got much mind left to blow, so have at it."

Dylan's hands traced the dusty wooden shelves she passed by. Her dark eyes scanned the old and vintage items and her heart fluttered at the sight of old books and glass trinkets.

From the other side of the shelf, Pope saw the girl gazing at the antiques with marvel in her eyes. He walked around the crowded shelf and went to stand with her. "Think this'll work?" He asked while watching JJ still try to convince the woman of the gold.

Dylan looked over her shoulder. "Maybe. You never know with him." She responded and looked up at him,  smiling.

JJ and the woman went back and forth, her still not believing him that the gold was real. He reached for the gold but she quickly stopped him. "Hold on. We ain't done the acid test yet."

JJ paused and collected himself. "Ooh! The acid test."  He looked around at his friends and smiled. "My favorite, guys."

The two of them sent him an encouraging thumbs up.  Dylan continued to walk around the store while they waited. She began to look at all the things on the counters and her eyes fell on small cardboard box with a sign that said, 'Photos: twenty-five cents each'.  Feeling curious, she reached inside the box and looked at the photos.

Some were black and white. There was one of a bride and groom with the writing 1935 on the back. Then she saw one of a little boy and girl sitting on the porch of a home together, his arm wrapped around her shoulders and she was smiling so big that her eyes were narrowed into slits. A smile stretched on her face. The next photo caught her eye the most. A boy and a girl holding hands in what looked to be a driveway, the dress she was wearing was blue and his suit was grey and white. They were holding hands and she turned the photo to the back and saw the words, 'school dance: 1958'. 

She stared at the old photo meaningfully as if the two young people would come to life. The way they smiled at the camera, the way she was leaning into him and how he was holding her hand, it was the mind of affection you only see once in a lifetime; a love you crave. It was timeless.

Dylan looked over her shoulder and she saw Pope laughing with John B as they pretended like they were playing a video game with the controllers they found on the shelf. The photo suddenly felt warm in her hand.

They heard JJ fake sniffle. "My mom," he said to the pawn shop lady. "She had all this jewelry lying around the house, and she thought it was best to-to melt it all down. To 'consolidate' it." He lied convincingly.

She weighed the block of gold and her eyes nearly widened out of her head. "Seven pounds? That's a lot of earrings." She emphasized in shock.

JJ sniffled once again. "Okay, to be honest, ma'am. . . it's really hard to see my mom fall apart with Alzheimer's." He played the sob story.

His friends pulled odd expressions as they listened in. "Alzheimer's?" Kiara mumbled to herself.

Although she looked at him like he was crazy, the woman walked away into the back room with the gold. Once she was out of sight, JJ immediately smiled and turned to his friends. "How did I do?" He quickly asked.

"I'm so proud of you!" Dylan squealed and they shared a high five.

"Alzheimer's?" Kiara repeated with a small laugh.

"Only thing I could think of."

A buzz went off in the pocket of her shorts and she took out of her phone to see her mom's name and face pop up on her screen. Dylan walked away from her friends and only stared at the screen. She felt so extremely guilty knowing that her parents and her brother were worried sick about her. But what choice did she have? She couldn't involve them. Nobody could know about the gold. It would put them all at risk.

"Everything okay?"

Dylan flinched and turned around to see Pope standing behind her with his arm rested on the shelf. He looked at her with concern. "Y-Yeah, uh, it's just my parents. We uh. . . kinda got into a fight earlier." She stammered and put the phone back into her pocket.

He frowned. "You did?"

"It was so stupid. I mean, we never fight."

"What was it about?"

"They say I haven't been home lately," she said with a shrug. "Which — I mean, they're right, but, I'm always with you guys. They know that. I don't understand why they don't trust me."

Pope shook his head. "I don't think it's that they don't trust you. They're just worried, you know? My parents have been the same way. I get the same lecture every time I come home."

Dylan breathed out a chuckle. "We're so gonna get kicked out one day."

He grinned. "Yeah. We can live together then."

She didn't miss the way his eyes went slightly wide at his own words. Dylan giggled and felt her spirit uplift.  "I don't know about that. I've seen your room. You're messy." She teased.

Pope faked a gasp. "Am not! I'm way more clean than JJ and John B."

She laughed through her smile. "No, yeah, you're definitely right. They're pigs."

Her hair was pulled back out of her face in a half up half down style and it was as curly as ever. The humility always made it more puffy than normal. She was wearing a red tank top with thin spaghetti traps and it ended just above her exposed belly button. The usual hundreds of multicolored bracelets were wrapped around her wrists along with her usual dainty necklaces. Because they had been out in the sun, her dark skin held a glow to it more than it usually did. She was simply beautiful.

Every day that passed, every second, Pope found it harder and harder to not tell her how he was feeling.  It was on the very tip of his tongue and threatening to spill but he didn't have the courage to tell her because unfortunately, they had bigger issues to deal with.

"Isn't it crazy how time forgot about all these precious things?" She uttered while her amber eyes gazed at the antiques. "These belonged to people way before us. Some even before we were born. Think about the life these people had."

She spoke so patiently that Pope had no choice but to listen. He loved listening to her talk. He followed her gaze as her hands traced the dusty old books that he had never heard of before but other people have. "Timeless." He spoke simply.

Dylan looked at him again and her eyes glistened. Then, she smiled. "Yeah, timeless."

Soon, the woman at the front desk came back and the friend group scattered again, letting JJ take back the lead. "So. I,  uh. . . I talked to my boss and, uh . . . this is what I can do." she explained and gave him a piece of paper with a price on it.

"Fifty thousand?" JJ said like she was kidding. "Ma'am, I know for a fact that this is worth 140, at least!"

"Well, sweetie, you in a pawnshop. This ain't Zurich. Do I look Swiss to you?"

"Ninety, or we talk."

"Seventy. Half price. . . and um. . . I don't ask questions about where you got this." The woman negotiated, giving him a stern look with her eyes.

Dylan watched from across the shop, staring at the woman with narrow eyes. She was acting shady and then she began to do the math in her head. A single pound gold bar is approximately around $22,000, a little bit over, and the bar was seven pounds, which would round up to nearly $160,000. Though they were in a pawnshop, the gold was worth more than the seventy she was offering, which lead Dylan to believe that she knew something.

Or she was being paranoid. Criminal Minds intuition.

". . . I have to send you to the warehouse.I have the money there. Is that all right?" The woman continued and Dylan snapped out of her thoughts.

JJ glanced at the friend group in thought. "Where is this warehouse?"

Dylan sat in the passenger seat of the Twinkie. Her eyes watched the trees they drove by as she was in deep thought. She got an unnerving feeling in her stomach. Something wasn't right, she knew it, she just couldn't put her finger on it.

"So they keep the money out here?" Pope asked, breaking the silence.

"That's what she said," JJ confirmed. He laughed to himself. "That's what she said—"

"Stop." Both Pope and Dylan said in unison, making him go quiet.

Sarah gave them a weird look. "That's scary." She muttered.

"They've been doing it since middle school." John B told her with a hum.

"I've never even heard of Resurrection Drive."

"Cause you're rich." JJ stated smartly.

Kiara gave him a look. "You've never heard of it either." She defended the girl.

John B glanced to his right and saw the pinched look on his best friend's face. "You good, DJ?" He asked.

Dylan cracked her knuckles and her eyes still settled on the many trees. "I just have a bad feeling." She pondered.

He looked between her and the road. "B-Bad feeling? What do you mean?" He stuttered.

"I don't know, it's just. . ." She shook her head. "I'm probably just being paranoid."

"There's nothing but weeds out here." Kiara spoke with a huff as she saw the hundreds of similar trees around them.

"All right, just 'cause it's just weeds, doesn't mean it's like—"

JJ was interrupted by the sound of police sirens. They all froze. "Cops? All the way out here?" The girl questioned.

"God! Are you kidding me?"

"What did we do?"

"Why are we getting pulled over?"

The unsettled feeling grew stronger and Dylan sat up straight. The hairs on her body stood up.

"Chill guys. Hide the stash." John B quickly said.

"JJ, did you bring the gun?" Dylan asked, suddenly remembering the boy's gun fetish.

"No, okay? Everyone told me to leave it back at the place." He responded and they all sighed in relief.

They froze again when the door on John B's side opened and a gun was pointed in his face. Dylan froze in her seat. "Why don't I go ahead and see them hand in the air." A masked man ordered, his accent loud and piercing.

Pope immediately looked at Dylan and saw her frozen in fear. She was in the line of shot, that if John B were to move, she would've been hit.

"All of y'alls hands up in the air right now!" The man yelled louder.

Dylan threw her hands up immediately, letting out a shaky breath. She turned her head slightly to her friends and they looked at her.

"You, out of the car. Lets go!" The man shouted at John B.

John B slowly got out of the van with his hands raised. When they walked around the van, Dylan quickly scrambled to the back. Pope grabbed her hands and felt how shaky they were. "Hey, hey, it's okay. It's okay."

"Let them out!" Dylan heard him demand and John B slid open the van door.

He ordered them to get out of the van. Dylan was still frozen in fear, her brown eyes widening.

"Dyl, come on." Pope whispered to her.

She shook her head, the attack that happened on the golf course fresh on her mind.

"DJ, you have to." Kiara whimpered in fear.

"Let's go, pretty girl!" The masked man shouted at her.

Dylan gradually got out of the vehicle, not making eye contact with him. She knew something was wrong. She could feel it in the pawnshop.

JJ got out of van. "Look, we're–"

"Shut the hell up!" The man shouted and pointed the gun at him even further.

"All right! Just relax!"

"JJ, shut up!" Dylan hissed, feeling extremely scared

"Shut the hell up! Shut up! Blow your damn head off!" He hollered and Dylan felt herself backing into Sarah, who was too full of fear to notice. "Lay down in the ditch! Lay down in the ditch! On your goddamn hands and knees! Now! Down! Put your face on the ground!"

Whimpering, Dylan slowly dropped to her knees. She laid on the ground and turned her head to the side,  meeting Pope's eyes. He mouthed multiple times to her that it was going to be okay, but it wasn't going to be okay. She reached her hand over and out it on his,  looking for some kind of comfort.

The masked man hopped inside of the van and she immediately knew he was looking for the gold.

"No, no, no, no." John B muttered in panic and stated to slowly get up from the ground.

"John B, don't be a hero, man." Pope hissed at him.  He kept a firm grip on the shaking girl's hand.

John B being John B, he didn't listen. He got up from the dirt and snuck away to the police car as the man jumped out of the van. The gold was held tightly in his hand. He pointed the gun at them again. "Y'all stay just like that unless you want your brains blown out all over the road, don't move your goddamn heads, okay?"

He walked past them in a line. When he stopped at Dylan, he smirked behind the mask and bent down. "What's your name,  pretty girl?"

"Don't talk to her." JJ snapped, resulting in the gun being pointed at him again.

"Shut the hell up! I said what's your name!"

"Dylan." She squeaked. She squeezed Pope's hand again. "M-M-My My name's D-Dylan." She stuttered.

"Dylan." He repeated seductively and the young girl wondered how many times she was going to be sexualized on this stupid treasure hunt.

He stood up and walked away from them. Dylan released a shaky breath and her eyes squeezed shut with tears. She hid her face in the ground.

"DJ, don't cry. It's okay." Kiara whispered to her,  feeling like she was going to cry herself.

"I love you, Dylan." Sarah whispered too in hopes that the words would make her feel better.

Things escalated when John B popped out and got ahold of the masked man. The Pogues got up swiftly and JJ ran over, only to be hit across the face. John B clocked him in the back of the head with the gun and sent him falling to the ground. 

Dylan felt Pope move past her and he went and searched inside the car. Sarah hit the man with the car door while Kiara and Dylan took turns kicking him. "I got the gold!" Pope shouted.

JJ bent down and pulled down the mask, revealing who it was. Barry, Rafe's drug dealer. "I know this piece of shit. He's a basehead."

"Probably knows my brother." Sarah sneered.

"He sells coke to my dad." JJ added and took the gun,  hitting him in the face with it.

Dylan backed up when JJ's anger started to increase.  John B grabbed his friend and dragged him away. She stared at Barry in terror and Pope grabbed her hand,  pulling her away with everyone as Barry shouted at them.

When they got in the van, Dylan crawled to the very back and sat down, bringing her knees to her chest.  Even the security of the jacket she was wearing wasn't enough. She laid her head on her knees. She didn't want to cry. She didn't want to feel like the weak one of the group but she had been sexualized so much in so little time that she was beginning to feel gross. 

She was only 16.

Pope came and sat beside her. He wrapped his arms around her and brought her close to him, letting her cry silently against his clothed chest.