WHEN BREE WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, SHE FELT A WEIGHT ON HER LEG. She furrowed her eyebrows as she opened her eyes and realized that she had never left the hammock the night before, and the weight was JJ's arm draped across her shins. She took a moment to just stare at the sleeping boy. He looked so peaceful as he slept unlike how he looked the night before.

Deciding that she should probably get up before Kie noticed that she was gone, she gently reached over and lifted his arm off of her and put it next to him on the hammock. She then carefully climbed out of the contraption, and if you've ever tried to get out of a hammock that had someone else in it without waking the other person, it is not an easy task to accomplish. She did though, but not without tumbling to the ground.

She got up, brushed the dust off of her, and made her way back to the house. She crept into the bedroom, careful not to be to loud with the doors. She almost closed it and spun around only for her eyes to widen when she saw Kie sitting on the bed, wide awake and staring up at her. She forgot about the door, leaving it cracked as it slowly began to swing open again.

"Hey," she muttered in greeting, trying to not sound to suspicious, and she knew that she had been caught.

"So, I woke up last night, and when I saw that you weren't here, I went to go look for you. You know, to make sure that you hadn't been kidnapped," the Carrera girl informed her smugly. "And you and JJ looked pretty comfortable."

Bree rolled her eyes at the accusation. "Not this again."

"Aha! So you admit that there's a 'this?'" Kie asked, standing up and pointing a finger at her friend as a smile crept onto her face.

"What?" the Callaway girl questioned, furrowing her eyebrows because she was making absolutely no sense at that moment. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The raven-haired girl shrugged before flopping onto the bed once again, and Bree went to sit down next to her. "I'm just saying that the two of you have been extra cozy lately. I think you were talking in your sleep."

"Oh, really?" the brunette girl quizzed with an amused expression.

"Yep," Kie told her with a nod before changing her voice to more high-pitched and breathy. She put a hand to her head and sighed dramatically. "'Oh, JJ, kiss me, love me, hold me.'"

Both of them began giggling like crazy at that. She raised her eyebrows at her friend through her laughter, clutching her chest because it was beginning to ache. "Is that what I sound like?"

"That's exactly what you sound like," the curly-haired girl confirmed.

Deciding to turn the tables back in her favor, Bree mentioned, "While we're on the subject, don't think I haven't noticed the stolen glances between you and Pope recently."

"Stolen glances?" Kie questioned with a confused expression, trying to shift the topic away from where it was heading. "What are you, 80?"

"Don't change the subject," the Callaway girl ordered, shaking her head at the other female who was clearly getting a little nervous, and Bree could tell that something was definitely going on.

The Carrera girl threw her hands up in the air defensively. "I'm not."

"'Oh, Pope. You're so smart,'" Bree breathed out in the same voice that Kie had been teasing her about the Maybank boy with just a few moments ago. She was getting her payback.

Kie lunged toward her friend, trying to cover her mouth since there Heyward boy was still somewhere inside the house and could walk in at any moment. "Shut up!"

"'You just know everything,'" the Callaway girl added in the voice with a giggle after catching her friend's hands before they could reach her face. "'I want you to kiss me—"

"I am actually gonna kill you," the curly-haired girl told her, cutting her off. She climbed on top of the girl, pinning each of her arms on either side of her with each leg so that she couldn't fight back. Then, she used her hands to cover her mouth, and they were both dying of laughter.

As Bree was struggling under her friend, they heard a noise from the door. They both froze and whipped their heads around to see none other than JJ Maybank standing in the doorway, staring at them with a bagel falling out of his mouth.

That was when they realized what it looked like which made them laugh even more.

《✵》

"HOW'S IT FEELING?" POPE ASKED KIE, LOOKING UP AT THE GIRL. She was currently sitting in a bucket that was hanging from the tree because they were testing out their contraption to get the gold to see how much it could hold.

Kie looked up at the tree and the wire. "Feels good."

"Taking you down," he informed her before reaching over to begin lowering her slowly and safely down and back to Earth. So far, all of their tests had been successful which was great because they couldn't risk any of the gold falling into the muddy water at the bottom of the well. They might never be able to get it back then.

Bree was sitting next to JJ on the side of the hot tub, their feet dipping into the water. They had not spoken about the previous night. The Maybank boy said, "John B pulling a Houdini."

"Yeah, where is he?" the Heyward boy questioned, and it was a good one. They hadn't seen the Routledge boy since he told them that he had to go fishing with Ward. "I got my scholarship interview tomorrow. We gotta get this done."

"Speak of the devil. Hey!" the blonde boy called, and they all turned to see John B walking toward them. Something was wrong, though. They could all tell almost immediately.

He just walked past the silently and with a determined look on his face. He didn't even spare them a glance as his best friend informed him, "Dude, I set up the entire winch to pull up the gold and everything."

"No, he did not. I did that," Pope corrected, shooting a glare at the Maybank boy who was lying his ass off like usual.

When the brunette boy still didn't answer and just barged into the Chateau, Kie yelled at him jsut as she was safely back on the ground, still in the bucket, "Hey, John B!"

"Okay, that's it?" JJ asked.

As the other two approached them, the two in the hot tub dried off and slid their shoes back on, getting ready to follow them inside as Bree quizzed, "What's that all about?"

"I was gonna ask y'all the same question," the blonde boy informed them, making it clear that none of them had any clue about what was up with the Routledge boy.

So, they just followed him into the house and were met with the sounds of clattering, and it was obvious that he was looking for something. They just didn't know what. Pope walked behind him. "You all right, man? What's — what's up?"

"What are you looking for?" Kie asked him just as he slammed a china cabinet closed in frustration. It was his house, so whatever he was looking for was something that he didn't use a lot.

"Bro, what's going on, man?" JJ now seemed genuinely concerned about his friend because none of them had ever seen him like this. The brunette boy threw the cushions off the couch to reveal the gun laying under them. He picked it up and stared at it for a moment as his friends' eyes widened. "John B, what do you need the gun for?"

The Callaway girl shook her head. That gun had done them no good ever. "Just...no."

"Talk to us!" the Maybank boy ordered, stepping in front of John B in an attempt to get him to stop and explain to them what was happening. He just shoved him hard, anf the blonde went tumbling onto the bed next to him.

"John B, chill!" Kie gasped at his actions as he pushed past them and headed toward the exit. "What are you doing?"

Pope tried to stop him but failed, and the Routledge boy shoved him lightly into the table on his way out of the building. That was when they knew something was really wrong. He had gotten into spats with JJ plenty of times, but never once had he gotten physical with Pope. "What, are you JJ now?"

"Are you okay?" the Carrera girl asked, pausing to check on him.

However, Bree stormed out after the brunette boy with JJ on her tail. After Pope recovered, he and Kie followed after her too.  "John B, what the hell are you doing?

"John B, what the hell?" the curly-haired girl exclaimed when they saw him climbing onto a motorcycle outside and revving it up. He still had not said a word.

"Ward knows about the gold!" he explained frustratedly, his voice cracking as he turned around to give them one last look before he dropped one of the biggest bombs that Bree had ever heard. "He killed my dad."

They all froze, taking in the information, and he took his chance to drive off. Kie snapped out of her trance quickly though, running after him. "John B!"

"Shit."