CLEO FOUND THEM AN ABANDONED HOTEL WHERE THEY COULD STAY. They slept there that night, Bree finding a comfortable spot next to Cleo. When she stirred, she seemed to be one of the only people awake. She glanced up to see that JJ was already awake, a peculiar sight since he was usually the one sleeping until noon. However, was was even more peculiar was that he was fiddling with a phone. She asked, "What is that?"

"This is a little souvenir that I plucked from Portis' pocket," he answered, not looking up from the device.

She stared at him in complete and utter disbelief while the others slowly began to wake up to as a result of their talking. She was just baffled by the fact that he had had a phone that entire time and just did not tell them. "You have a phone?"

"I forgot I had it. It was in my back pocket. That's my bad," he defended, and she just rolled her eyes before lying back down for a minute. It was too early, and she had not gotten enough sleep for this.

"Oh my God, dude. Can we go anywhere without you stealing?" Pope groaned, and he slowly sat up, holding his hand out for the blonde boy to bring him the device. He was probably the only one that knew what to do with it anyway. "Let me see it."

JJ made his way over to his friend excitedly, replying, "I steal shit. That's my job."

"How'd you get this unlocked?" Pope questioned once he got the phone in his hand. Bree was curious as well because there was no way that the Maybank boy just tried random numbers until something worked. He answered that the man had no passcode on his phone to begin with.

Bree and Sarah stood up and made their way over to watch over Pope's other shoulder, and Cleo called, "What are you looking for?"

"Any information that'll help us negotiate with this guy," the Heyward boy answered. They needed dirt or some sort of incentive if they were going to get Kie back. "The only problem is that I don't see a Carlos Singh in the contacts. That's the problem. It's just a bunch of nicknames and shit."

"Wait Didn't Portis call him something else?" Sarah reminded them, thinking back to everything that the man had said when they were back at his house.

"Right. Yeah, he called Singh something when we were jumping his ass," JJ responded, and he began rambling while the others were trying to think. "It was like Rockfish or...Can't remember. Oh shit! No, no, no. Catfish? What was it? Holy crap! Um..."

John B put a stop to whatever the hell he was talking about. "Kingfish."

"Kingfish. There he is, Kingfish," Pope informed them, showing JJ the phone. They had his number and a way to contact him. The only problem was that they had nothing to negotiate with.

"And we in business. All right, phase two. Text him, okay?" the blonde boy told him with an inhale. Pope raised his eyebrows up at him, asking what the hell he was supposed to say. "You know, you said it. Negotiate, right? Pretend to be Portis, ask him to meet somewhere in private. That was... that's really important. Just solo. Bam! We jump his ass, tie him up, and then politely request for Kiara in return for his life. That's the plan."

They all stared at him for a second, wondering if he honestly believed that Singh was going to meet with Portis after some cryptic message and not bring backup. Sarah agreed sarcastically, "That's gonna work."

"Okay, I'm gonna say it. We should think this through," Pope suggested, and the rest of them seemed to agree with him on that. They could not just send him a spontaneous text. They needed something that they knew would work and not make everything worse.

"What's rule number one?" JJ asked, and they fought the urge to prematurely roll their eyes because they already knew that he was going to say something stupid. "Thinking never helps when you already have the idea."

Bree just shook her head at him, and when he noticed, they had a silent argument that involved making faces at each other. Sarah stopped him. "No, hang on. I agree with Pope. This could make things ten times worse for us and Kiara."

"How much worse can it actually get?" John B asked.

Both Bree and Sarah furrowed their eyebrows at him. They could, oh, I don't know, kill their friend. There were plenty of ways that it could get worse. Sarah answered, "I can think of a few ways."

"Okay, great. While you're thinking, why don't you just let it rip?" the Routledge boy said, gesturing to the phone in Pope's hand. The boy looked back at him in defeat and kind of disbelief, but he allowed JJ to remove the device from his possession.

As he began typing, JJ replied with a satisfied, "Thank you."

《✵》

THEY WAITED ABOUT AN HOUR BEFORE RECEIVING AN ANSWER. Bree spent the time leaning against JJ's legs and drawing pictures in the dust on the ground while he stared at the phone and mindlessly played with the ends of her hair. Such a situation would have been incredibly awkward a month ago, but it felt natural at that moment. All of a sudden, the blonde boy jumped, causing her to spin around. "Yo, he's texting! He's texting!"

"What's he saying? What's he saying?" John B asked, and everyone got up from their positions to look over at him curiously.

"It's doing the little bubble thing," he responded, sounding stressed and excited at the same time. Tehy heard the text come in, and he leaned down so that Bree could see it as he read out. "'Send me your location. I'll come meet you.' That's exactly what we wanted! Here, check it. Boom!"
He tossed the phone over to the Routledge boy, who caught in and looked down. Sarah asked, "And say what?" She had a point. There was no way that they could give the man who kidnapped Kiara their current location.

"We can't give Singh our location," Cleo pointed out, shaking her head. She exclaimed, "Just give him some random place."

"All right. Where do we want to send him to?" JJ responded, catching the phone as John B threw it back to him. Bree climbed up on the ledge that he was sitting on so that she could watch what he was doing over his shoulder.

Pope thought for a moment before coming up with a solid answer. "What about the horse tracks? I saw them yesterday. It's wide open. We can do surveillance." It was a good place. They would be able to get a clear view of everything before entering the situation.

"Yeah! Now we're working. Now we're jelling! I like it," the Maybank boy replied with a smile, and he added, "And if we have to make a getaway, we'll hop on some horses, guns-a-blazin'." They all shot him a look. "Scratch the horses."

"John B, we can really plan this out, man. What are you thinking? Maybe sneak from behind and use JJ as bait. Just put him in the middle of the field," Pope thought out loud. However, said boy was not listening because he and Bree were staring at the phone in shock and slight terror.

"Uh, little announcement," JJ called to them, and everyone looked over at the two staring at the phone, not liking the looks on their faces. He read, "'Never mind. I just tracked your location. And I'm sending my men. They'll be there in ten minutes to pick you up.'"

There was a moment of silence between all of them, and John B looked like he was trying to calm himself down so that he did not punch his best friend. "Wait a minute. Did you turn off your location?"

"So..."

The place filled with yells as they all crowded the phone, trying to take it back from him, panicking. "You didn't turn the location off? Turn the location off! This right here is why you need a plan!" It didn't matter if they turned it off then. Singh's men were already on their way.

"Everybody relax for a second!" John B shouted, and JJ made his way over to sit down across the room, putting his head in his hands. Bree felt really bad, but they really needed to figure something out. "Let's just think about this! It's done, okay? Now, we gotta figure something out."

"And hope he doesn't kill us? What're we gonna do?" Pope questioned, clearly panicking.

"Well, y'all, I know you guys might not wanna hear it," JJ started, and they all looked over at him, some with done expressions and others with hopeful ones. Sometimes, his ideas were really incredibly stupid and other times, they were so incredibly stupid that they just might work. He pulled his hat over his head, and he looked really unserious. "But we got home-field advantage. We can turn this around. We're gonna booby-trap this shit. We're not running from this dude. This is our best chance to get Kiara back. It's gonna work, all right? We got ten minutes. Come on!"