THE AXE IN POPE'S HAND HIT THE TREE WITH AN UNEXPECTED FORCE.

They were standing in front of the plant that had grown in the backyard of the Chateau because they though that that seemed as good a place as any to have a memorial for the friends they lost. The Heyward boy was chopping away the bark of the tree to form a heart.

After he finished, JJ used a blowtorch to heat up some sort of tool that he used to burn the wood and form letters. He took a step back when he was done, raising his flask in the air and causing the others to do the same with their respective drinks. He sighed. "To John B."

"And to Sarah," Kiara added, glancing over to the Callaway girl that was standing next to her. Bree gave her a grateful smile before bringing the beer bottle in her hand to her lips.

The heart on the tree had John B's name on it along with the years he lived. The one thing that all of their eyes lingered on was the 'P4L' below his name. Pogue for Life. In the Routledge's and the Cameron's cases, it didn't last very long.

The four had made a box that contained things that belonged to the dead. Some of them were things given to them or stuff that made them think of them. They buried the box next to the tree because it was the only thing they could bury since they did not have bodies or anything.

Bree was basically homeless at that point, crashing with whoever would have her. she stayed at the Carreras for a while, but Kie's parents did not seem to happy about having her there although they would never blatantly kick her out. So, she had to leave on her own. She did not want to stay somewhere that she was not wanted.

Pope and his family always enjoyed having her around, but she still could not but feel like she was intruding on their family time. They were amazing people, and she really did not want them to end up hating her.

That eliminated two of her options, and JJ had been staying at his house a lot more recently since they were all still processing the death of their friends. That meant that the brunette girl was usually all alone. After she left the Heywards', she found herself back at the Chateau, and she was so exhausted that she had just decided to crash in one of the hammocks.

She had done that almost every night since.

If she was not sleeping there, she was laying on the beach, and when it rained, she would sometimes go inside. She struggled on those night because it reminded her too much of past times such as listening to the tape John B's father had left for him and being attacked by the men that were looking for the gold. Neither of them were particularly present since they were nearly killed and sent off on a wild goose chase.

All of the Pogues had their own ways of coping with what happened, and most them involved wallowing in despair and staring out the window while eating ice cream. On the other hand, Bree's included keeping herself busy.

The Callaway girl had bought a motorcycle after her mother left and left her with nothing but an envelope of cash that JJ kept trying to steal. She had built and rebuilt that bike at least five times that week. The Maybank boy had walked her through it the first time, and she had spent all of her time doing just that. She blasted music so loud that she couldn't think, and she focused all of attention on the bike.

Even though that worked sometimes, it did not stop the loneliness from creeping in.

《✵》

DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT LIKE THEIR WORLD'S STOPPED, LIFE WENT ON. It was also August, so that meant the one thing that they were all dreading.

It was time to go back to school.

That would not be as awful if Bree was going to somewhere she was used to — the Kook Academy. Well, actually, being at the Kook Academy would make it a lot worse because pretty much all of the Kooks she knew absolutely sucked. The point was that she was at a new school, and two of her best friends in the world were dead. On top of that, everyone believed that said best friends were murderers and that the other people in the group helped them escape. Only half of that statement was true.

So, as they climbed out of Kie's car, Bree declined JJ's offer of his flask. She told him, "I don't need to be drunk on my first day of school. There's no way that that could end well."

"If I black out, just don't remind me," the Maybank boy requested as they closed the doors of the vehicle and pulled their bags over their shoulders, or, in JJ's case, grabbed his singular folder from the back seat.

"That's not funny," Kie scolded him with a glare, and the group of four started toward the building. As they walked by, they heard voices whispering things that were obviously about them. They were saying things about John B and Sarah and that whole story. Right in front of the school, there was a memorial of sorts for the Routledge boy where people had put flowers and hung pictures of him. The Carrera girl looked around. "I feel like people are staring at us."

The rest of the group copied her actions, glancing around everyone in front of the school with them to see that they were, in fact, staring at them. Bree replied, "That's probably because they are."

"Oh, yeah," the blonde boy agreed. Pretty much everyone that they could see was looking at them, and not in a good way. Their eyes either held hatred for helping a 'murderer' escape or pity because their friends died.

Pope sighed before pushing past them and walking in front of them. "Guys, I can't be late."

"Hey, hey," the raven-haired girl called, causing him to stop and turn around to face her to see what she had to say to him. He was being oddly distant that day. "We gotta stick together."

"I like that idea," the Callaway girl mumbled since she was a little nervous for her first day at school with the Pogues. She was so used to uniforms and fancy shoes that she felt a little weird without them, but it was a good weird.

Kie reached out her hand to Pope, and he grasped it in his after a sigh. Bree smiled and looped her arm around her other arm so that they were all connected. Then, JJ grabbed her hand, and they all walked into the school together. As they entered, the Maybank boy looked to her and said, "I know that it's a lot fancier than the Kook Academy, but you'll get used to it."

They were in history, and the teacher was rambling on about something or other. Pope was actively taking notes, and Bree and Kie would write down something every couple of minutes after blanking out.

"...and the slave becomes the new ruler. Now, Diocletian splits the sprawling Roman Empire into four separate kingdoms," Mr. Sunn told them, but then, he was interrupted by a phone buzzing. Actually, it was four phones buzzing. Pope grabbed his phone from off his desk and held it, Bree hid hers behind the person in front of her, Kie hid hers in her lap, and JJ hid it behind his one folder. "Whose phone was that?" He did not get an answer. "Nobody? You will be tested. Now, to recap, who was Diocletian? An ex-slave who became the ruler of the Roman Empire."

"Did you get it?" Kie asked the three of her friends, and the brunette girl glanced down at her phone to see that she had gotten a text from an unknown number. She assumed that that was what her friend was talking about.

Her and JJ nodded while Pope replied, "Yeah."

JJ snuck around the back and crouched down next to the three of them. They all held their phone up next to each other, and they gasped at what they saw because there was no fucking way that it was real. It was a picture of their two previously mentioned dead best friends, and it could only mean one thing.

John B and Sarah were alive.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

first chapter of act two! how we feeling?