chapter thirteen
"mission successful"

"ALRIGHT, BRO, I SEE YOU vibin' on Kie, okay?"

The two male Pogues that were standing outside the storm drain with their girl (space for Pope) friends as they were shifting through the water for the murder weapon. JJ had sparked up the conversation about Pope crushing hard on Kie, desperate for some gossip of his best friends.

"Give me the details, are we talking first base, second base, third base?" Rambled off JJ as he extended three fingers near the end of his sentence.

Pope grumbled, "Try not even in the same ballpark."

"What do you mean by that?" JJ questioned, furrowing his dark blonde eyebrows together, shaking his head off. He was trying to stay distracted, the last thing he wanted to think about was Lynn in that sewer and how worried he was for her, but he was trying his best to keep the protectiveness to a limit.

"It's like we're not playing the same game," Pope explained, but JJ still seemed utterly confused by the words. "I tried to be edgy, out-there Pope, and she didn't like that. So, I tried being straitlaced Pope, and she didn't like that!"

"I understand!" JJ exclaimed, wrapping his hands around Pope's shoulder to try to tug him out of his rambling. "Pope, think, I know you can do that, alright? Like, light some candles, put on some Otis Redding, yeah! That's what I do with Evie. My Girl is our song, bro."

Getting off topic.

"Play guitar! Play Otis Redding on guitar!" JJ pointed out, but Pope only seemed to be further confused and annoyed, deadpanning at the blonde boy he called his best friend. "When I played guitar for Eve she gave me this sweet little treat with her—"

"NO!" Pope shouted, shoving his hands up quickly to cover them. "I can't play guitar, I can't do any of those things!"

"So, you're not sure what you're feeling about him?"

Lynn nearly threw up in her mouth as she rose an old banana peel from the water, and she had to actually cover her mouth to keep it inside, and her eye twitched disgustedly as she tossed it off to the side. She was hoping Kie was having more luck.

"Feelings are confusing," Kie finished, and Lynn pursed her lips out, thinking it was a completely adequate response to her question. "Wait, guys, I think I found something!"

Lynn tossed over her shoulder to get a glance at what Kie had managed to grab, but both of her hands were still under water, almost like she was fighting with it. She prayed that it was in fact the gun, because she didn't know how much longer she could do this.

"Wait, you got it?"

"Is it the gun?"

The girls didn't respond as Lynn peered closer to Kie, her head tilting off to the side as she stared confusingly at the water, but as Kie finally tugged the object upward — a scream echoed out. The sound nearly took Lynn out from how deafening it was, mostly because Kie was right beside her. The two girls squirmed around in the water, desperately trying to get away from whatever dead thing it was.

"You guys, there's something dead in here!" Kie shrieked out, extending her fingertips out as she cringed up. "Oh my God! There's something dead, I repeat, there is something dead in here!"

"Wait, Kie!" Lynn shoved the girls shoulder to gain her attention from smacking the water all over the place, her eyebrows furrowed, and her eyes switched towards the opposite side of the drain that they had entered in.

"What!?" Kie cried out, tugging her arm away from Lynn's grip, but that didn't stop her distracted gaze. "Evelynn, WHAT?"

"The water," Lynn whispered, her affected ears from Kie's squeal tuned in, and there it was again, that rushing water noise. Lynn shot up with lightning speed, shoving Kie's forward towards the exit, the brunette stumbling at first. "Kiara, go, go!"

Within a second, the water had knocked Lynn from her standing position, her head just barely dipping below the surface before she jerked it back up — gasping quickly for air. She would've whined for hours upon hours about the fact that her hair had been dipped in that revolting water, but the impending fight for her life seemed more crucial.

"Oh, shit," Kie squealed as she rose her hands to cover herself the best she could from the water. "Guys! Guys, the water!"

Kie bumped her back into the metal ladder they had first spotted when they arrived in the deeper sludge water, and her eyes jerked towards the bright sunlight that had been seeping through a manhole. Instantly, Kie started tracing up the steps as quickly as she could manage, but when Lynn wasn't right behind her, she wrapped her fingers around her small hand.

Lynn noticed where Kie had been going, and the two softly let go of each others hands as she began to climb up the ladder below Kie, but once her fingertips slipped in between the grates of the manhole — she realized it was much too heavy for her to lift.

"The waters coming up!" Kie screamed, her face hovering by the top of the manhole to get her words to echo louder, just in case the guys hadn't made it to the right one. "Guys!"

On the surface, both of the boys were scrambling as if their lives depended on it, in reality it probably like was their lives were on the line — they wouldn't want to imagine life without either of the two girls in it.

JJ made it to the manhole covering first, hooking his fingers around the rusted metal, "Evelynn! Evie!"

Even though she was slightly below Kie, she could still hear the muffled words that belonged to her JJ, and just as she was about to shout back — the rushing water floated above her head. She got one last gasp of breath before it raised much out of her range, but she kept her fingers glued to the ladder so she wouldn't be pulled elsewhere.

Was she going to die like this?

Her eyes were squeezed shut, not daring to peak open in the probably disease riddled water, but did that mean she was never going to get another glance at JJ? She wouldn't feel the softness of his kisses or the gentle touches she craved?

It felt like an eternity that Lynn had clasped her mouth shut, but her lungs were begging to let any amount of air into them, but she refused to let it win. Then, she felt something tug around her wrist, pulling her straight up, and there it was.

Lynn could breath again.

She gasped out as if it had been minutes she had breathed, spitting out any type of water that had managed to sneak into her mouth onto the gravelly cement nearby. She had to blink several times to adjust, her chest heaving up and down as if she were having a heart attack.

Lynn felt arms wrap strongly around her shoulders as she was on all hands and knees, and she glanced over her wet shoulder to spot JJ so warmly hugging her, almost like a bear — a completely soaked bear. But she didn't hate it, in fact, it was the only feeling of comfort in the moment.

"You scared the shit out of me," whispered JJ near her ear, where Lynn thought it should've been her that was left completely breathless, but she didn't mind it. "I fucking love you, dipshit."

"You're the...dipshit," Lynn replied through her heavy pants of breath, shoving JJ's arm playfully, but that didn't seem to stir him away in the slightest bit. "Y'all couldn't lift a manhole? I was gonna die."

"Great, this whole thing was a waste of time," Kie groaned, throwing her head forward as she leaned a bit more on her knees, her head falling in her palms.

"Oh, was it?" Lynn pushed her lips out, playfully knitting together her eyebrows in her friends directions, gaining everyones equally confusing expressions. "I, in fact, would've called this mission successful."

Lynn tugged on the back of her shorts waistline, swinging out a silver and black handgun that was previously tucked so nicely.

"No fucking way!" JJ gasped, pulling out a worn bandana from his pocket, the one that looked as if it could've been the same one from that day where Pope and she dropped the two Kooks boats. "That's my girl!"

Lynn shrugged as nonchalantly as she could, but there was still a completely prideful grin spreading across her face as all the Pogues celebrated in their own individual ways — Pope threw his arms up excitedly as he let out a whoop, JJ was actually punching the air with so much enthusiasm, and Kie was laughing wildly.

"We're gonna get this son of a bitch, man!"

a/n: i hope y'all really enjoy this story, i feel like i waste so much of my free time on it where people don't actually like my writing ,,, eh