chapter sixty seven
"hell outta dodge"

"JJ? HELLO! EARTH TO JJ?"

JJ Maybank stayed quiet though, he hadn't even noticed that Kiara was currently talking to him. His eyes were steady on the ground in front of him, he didn't even glance up to make eye contact with his best friends. After waking up buried in the mud, with a blazing headache from where Rafe had slammed some object into his head, he found absolutely nothing.

The truck with the golden cross was gone, Rafe Cameron was no where to be seen, and his girl had left nothing but a deep crimson colored pile of blood. He didn't know if she was alive or dead, and it was killing him.

So then he called Kiara, and she came racing to his aid (despite the fact that she would more than likely be shipped away to boarding school when she returned home). She hadn't even noticed his bloody shirt, nor the dark liquid that had covered his palms — she just figured it was from the fist fight he had with Rafe. But now that the blonde boy was standing in front of her, along with the rest of the teenagers, they knew it was too much blood than what would've been droplets from his bruised fists.

"JJ! Whose blood is that?" John B questioned, and it appeared like the boys voice was enough to finally tear JJ from his distracted mind. John B hooked his fingers around JJ's shoulders, giving him a gentle yet affirmative shake. "What happened? Whose blood is that, JJ? Is it Rafe's?"

Kiara had traced the rest of the Pogues to a dock, that's where John B and Pope's phones pinged off of. She had breathed out a thank god for technology, but JJ hadn't found the statement funny.

"Eve," JJ breathed out, his eyes were now staring into those of John B's, but it wasn't like he was actually looking at him, it was like he was looking past the brunette boy.

"The blood is Lynn's?" Kie gasped out, she worriedly switched towards her Pogue best friends. "Oh my god, oh my god. Is she okay?

JJ shook his head softly, his eyes were swelling with emotion, "I don't know."

"JJ, tell us what happened," Pope explained, he warmly placed a hand on JJ's shoulder for support.

"Rafe tried shooting me, but Eve...she jumped in front of me. Fuck, she didn't even give it a second thought," JJ murmured, his voice was cracking near the end of the sentence. His fists clutched together again, they were aching from the small cuts and bruises. "She was...alive, the last I saw of her."

"I'm sure she'd fine, she's a fighter," John B comforted, but there was a sparkle of doubt in his eyes, there was unease growing in the pit of his stomach. "We need to figure out a plan. Look, if Rafe had taken Lynn, then she's on the ship with Sarah. We saw Rafe a few minutes ago, with the cross, but we didn't see Lynn."

       "Then we're getting on that damn ship," JJ stated, his voice was itching closer to anger than the previous sorrow. He regretted not shooting Rafe when he had the chance, Lynn had to still be out there, and Rafe still had his grimy hands on her.

      Pope glanced over his shoulder, then back towards the crew, he curiosity perked an eyebrow up at JJ, "Hey, do you still have your gun?"

     "Of course I do," countered JJ.

      "Then I think I have a plan."

"Lynnie?"

The female voice was familiar and warm, and even though Lynn was only just now waking from her slumber of the sedative — she recognized it with ease. Sarah Cameron. Lynn groggily peeled her eyes open, even though both her mind and body were telling her to take all the rest she could suck up.

A soft groan escaped her pink lips as she rubbed her head softly, already feeling the ripple of a headache on the horizon. However, once her eyes landed on Sarah sitting right beside her stretched out body, she felt her bones relax a bit. This was a much better wake up call rather than hearing Rafe's voice the mere second she shifted.

"Sar?" Lynn questioned, she felt oddly confused, dazed. She still remembered not knowing if Sarah had been okay or not after Rafe found out she had willingly given the keys to his blonde sister, and was very much relived to see the girl right in front of her own eyes. "Oh, thank god, you're okay."

Lynn reached to wrap a single arm around Sarah's shoulder, she was barely even leaning forward — her body was screaming at her for moving too much in such a short time, so she should probably listen at least once.

"I'm okay?" Sarah scoffed while tightly snaking her arms around Lynn's waist, she would've protested against the action because of the pain that suddenly zipped from her wound, but she enjoyed Sarah's touch too much. "Jesus, Lynn, when my dad told me you got shot—"

Lynn jerked back from the girl's touch rapidly, immediately regretting the action — she winced as her body pricked with agony, but then switched up accusingly at Sarah, "Am I really dead or did you just say your dad? As in the supposed dead Ward Cameron?"

Sarah gulped, "I guess there's a lot I need to catch you up on."

      "Where's Rafe? Do you know where he is?"

      Sarah pinched her face together awkwardly as Lynn pegged the question, her eyes suddenly began to flood uncontrollably as the conversation before she was sedated fluttered in her mind. Rafe said he shot JJ, that he had killed him. She couldn't possibly believe that JJ Maybank was truly gone, she wasn't going to give up on him until she saw his body right in front of her own two eyes.

      Sarah shook her blonde head, messy strands of hair falling into her face as she nibbled down on her bottom lip, "I haven't seen him yet. My dad just locked me in this room a few minutes ago, then I saw you on the bed."

      "Rafe said he killed JJ," Lynn emotionlessly stated, her blue eyes weren't necessarily fixed on anything but the wall in front of her. Occasionally, her body would drift to the right or left when the massive boat would hit a rocky wave, but she was so used to the water there was no way she'd get motion sickness. "He shot him."

      Sarah's eyes widened at the news, her eyes fluttering down to her palms anxiously resting on her lap. She then felt herself snap into action, and she supportively intertwined her fingertips with those cold ones of Lynn's, warmly squeezing them, "My dad lied about trading the cross for me, and then ten minutes ago — I just so happened to stumble upon the cross. My family are liars, Evelynn, I'm sure JJ is fine."

      "And if he isn't?" Lynn aimlessly asked, her void of emotion expression was starting to crack — she was just so damn tired of crying all the time. She switched down to where the two girls were holding hands, and she envisioned that it was actually JJ's ring-littered hand rather than Sarah's. "I couldn't live...Fuck, Sar, I can't lose him."

      "And you won't," Sarah responded firmly, and it was somewhat (what it could be, at least) of a relief to hear just how certain Sarah was with her words. She tugged on the blonde's hand, curiously perking her eyebrows. "Can you stand? We're getting the hell outta dodge."

      "We're on a ship in the middle of the ocean, Sar, what do you expect us to do?" Lynn questioned, slowly peeling herself up from the bed. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt that she figured belonged to Rafe, but luckily, she was still wearing her dark blue jeans. There were speckles of blood in several areas, but Lynn did her best to ignore them. "Jump overboard and swim to shore?"

      "In boats this big, they're required by law to always have lifeboats," Sarah explained, jumping to her feet in an instant and swinging over towards where the wooden door of the bedroom was. Surely when the blonde girl tried the knob, it only jiggled. "Hey, do you see any hangers? Any bobby pins? Uh..."

      "Wait," Lynn rose her index finger towards the girl, and then she jerked her head back over towards the bed. Right between the bed screwed into the wall, was also a small little nightstand that had been locked into place by the wooden flooring. On the furniture, was a wired lamp — but if you took off the lamp shade, you could surely break off a piece of the thin metal. "Would this work?"

     "Girl, you're a frickin' genus," Sarah complimented quickly, hooking her fingers around the thin piece of metal.

      The blonde girl went back to the wooden door, sneakily snagging the metal wire through the keyhole. It only took a few seconds for the lock in clicking of the doorknob echo out, and Lynn almost wanted to comment on the fact Sarah seemed to be a professional at cracking locks — and where the hell she had learned this trick so she could pass it on to herself.

      Sarah cracked open the door into the quiet-like hallway, she glanced out both directions before she waved for Lynn to follow her. Without a doubt, the blonde girl appeared by Sarah's side in an instant.

      "We can't let them win," Lynn shook her head while she closely whispered into Sarah's ear. The two began inching down the hallway, hesitant as they came around the corner, just in case someone had been there. "Not again."

      Sarah glanced over her shoulder with confidence, "We won't."

a/n: officially 3 chapters left — brb cryin in da club