chapter 18.
only bad thing about a star
is they burn up.

୨୧

CHARLESTON.
present.

Josephine maybank was going to die. she would drown in this underground crypt with two others and rats would eat their decomposing bodies and no one would ever find them. their skeletons would remain forever in the chamber, just three more to the cellars ever growing collection.

and to make matters that much worse, she'd be dying with sarah cameron and pope heyward. her dignity would be shot.

jo shudders. she had to get out. "move." she shoves past the older teens and ducks back under the stone overpass, lunging for the ladder. she can't swim, and she wasn't letting the other twos get higher than she; she was smallest, after all. the water would take longer to devour them.

sarah and pope quickly follow, joining the younger girl in clinging to the rusted metal and shouting for rescue. "help! cleo, john b!"

"the waters rising, we're gonna drown!"

"please, help! can anyone hear us?" there's a muffled shout from the other side of the stone and sarah quiets. "shh, shh, did you hear that?"

"hey, guys!" john b's voice shouts. "we got you!"

josephine could faint from the relief she feels coursing through her bones. "john b!"

"hurry! it's filling up!"

suddenly there's a loud crash and the stone above crumbles. "shit!" josephine curses as dust rains atop them.

pope huffs, jumping from the ladder. "get down, get down." sarah hurriedly climbs off, helping jo as the rungs grew increasingly slippery.

they stand clear of the ladder just as cleo warns, "get out the way! we're coming!"

there's a second loud crash, this one sending rats tumbling from the high walls beside the ladder. "oh, shit." josephine curses anxiously. sarah shudders as well, shuffling to the side. "no, no. rats, rats!"

john b continues smashing the stone from above until the grave cracks and moonlight pours inside the dark tunnel. "hey, you good?"

"sarah, grab the rope!" cleo is standing over the opening, dangling a rope down into the crypt. joey lunges forward with a scoff. "children first!"

𓇼 ⋆｡˚ 𓆝⋆｡˚ 𓇼

The teens return to kildare nearly seven hours later and jo is beyond relieved to see her brother waiting in the garden. he joins them at the van as soon as they disperse. "find it?"

"mission failed on all fronts." pope shakes his head. "there was something there, but we didn't get it."

josephine excitedly rushes to her brother. "jj! you'd never believe what we just did! we were in a church and i accidentally got baptized and pope found a hole in the floor and—"

"that's great, jo, but—"

"—we crawled through the tunnel and there was a shit ton of rats but i only freaked out a little bit and then there was this guy with a gun and a lady with a really strong accent so we hid but they almost found us 'cause—"

"josephine." jj cuts her off and jo stops her rambling. he never calls her by her full name, not unless something is seriously wrong. she pales. "what?"

"uh, let's go over there, okay?" he tilts his head to the side in direction and jo nods nervously, following him around the yard.

"what happened?"

jj lets out a huff of air. "nothin'. it's nothin' to worry about."

"bullshit." josephine quirks an eyebrow. they'd been separated for four years and she could still tell when he wasn't telling the truth. "don't lie to me."

jj hesitates as though afraid to reveal the truth. "it's dad."

"oh, fuck." jo curses, eyes wide. "he's back?"

"yep, he's been holding up at barracuda mikes." jj notices the panicked look in his sisters eyes. "no, he's not trying to come back. it's not about that."

"then what the hell is it about?" josephine leans against the wooden fence surrounding kie's garden. she's growing increasingly impatient. "jj, spit it out!"

jj scratches at the back of his neck. he refuses to meet her eyes. "he told me he wasn't our real dad."

josephine scoffs. "yeah right, as if we'd be so lucky."

"jo, it wasn't a joke." the older boy exhales, finally turning around to face her. "he was being...i don't know what he was being, but...here. look at the letter wes genrette wrote me." he fishes the envelope from his pocket and thrusts it at jo, who scrambles to open it.

"you mean the letter he wrote us." jo corrects sassily, scanning over scrambled words. "fancy language." she gets to the bottom and nearly chokes. "the albatross... isn't that the name of the boat his daughter died on?"

nodding in confirmation, jj takes the letter back. he's growing more animated the further he explains. "it said, 'talk to your father.' and then luke said that wes genrette..." he trails off, licks his lips. "is our grandfather."

"our what?" jo stitches her eyebrows together. "j, that makes no fucking sense. that would mean groff would have to be..."

"our dad." jj nods. "and i know, it doesn't make any sense." he nervously clutches his chest, arriving to the hard part. "jo, do you remember that painting at the genrettes house? of his daughter?"

"that one that drowned with her baby?

"yeah." the older blonde runs a hand through his hair, suddenly finding kie's marijuana plants quite interesting. "he said she's your mom, and you're that baby. he says the baby didn't actually die."

"that makes even less sense. is dad on drugs again?" jo crosses her arms. "how could larissa genrette be our mom?"

"no, joey. she's your mom." jj corrects gently. "my mom is evelyn. i guess she had an affair with groff had an affair while she was still with luke."

josephine feels dizzy at his mention of luke's past girlfriend. evelyn had left before jo was old enough to remember her, but she had always been told that was her mother. "but... i thought she was my mom, too." jo suddenly feels faint; her entire family may have been fake.

"yeah, that's what i thought, too, because that's what luke always told us. but turns out, he's just a lying son of a bitch."

jo speaks slow and unsurely. "so if larissa's my mom, and chandlers your dad, how the hell did we end up with luke? i mean, he's not exactly a social workers wet dream." this is an intense overstatement. luke maybank had the parental skills of a hamster that ate its young.

jj launches into luke's elaborate story on how the three of them allegedly became a family; from evelyn leaving, to jj's true father, to working for the genrettes, all the way to chandler showing up on his doorstep with baby josie, who's actually joey. by the end of it all, josephine is only slightly shocked her brother is not blue in the face.

"but hey, at least we aren't related to that sack of shit." jj closes with a shrug. he's choosing to look on the bright side for once in his miserable life.

"no, we aren't that lucky. it's probably all complete bullshit." josephine suddenly grows angry. she'd fought four years to return and now the father who caused her removal in the first place is trying to tell them he wasn't even a father. jo is beyond pissed; she can't believe her brother is falling victim for another one of luke's elaborate lies.

"he's only trying to work some inheritance scam. that's all he's tryin' to do." joey crosses her arms tightly around herself and paces the small garden. "he's trying to get some money, trying to use us for a quick buck, jj. he's done it our entire lives!" she snatches the envelope back from a still jj. he's slightly stunned by her outburst; she's not sure she can ever again believe anything her brother says. she's held a grudge for four years and has no desire to let it go now. "that's all he's fucking doing." jo curses, watching the optimism drain from her brother.

jj had hoped she'd see the good in this news. he's tired of her constant stone-faced glare; it's quite intimidating. "fuck, jo. i don't know. maybe we did luck out." he squints in the afternoon sun. after all they'd been through, the universe owed them this much, didn't it?

"hey! maybanks!" popes voice rings out from the front porch. "what's taking so long?"

josephine lets out an annoyed huff, starting up the yard when jj stops her. "hey, jo? can we, uh, not tell anyone yet?"

"why?" not that josephine really gives two shits about what her brothers friends do or do not know. "j, you know it's total bull—"

"yeah, i know. it's all bullshit, but i just don't want them thinking i'm even half a genrette. can we keep this between us?"

"yeah, fine. between us." josephine tries to mask the sting she felt hearing the word "half", when she herself may be a full genrette. jj was all the blood family in the world she had left, but even that was limited; they weren't even full blood.

josephine suddenly felt just like she had the past four years; empty and entirely on her own.