SEVENTY ONE
◜ ◝
𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗦𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗬 𝗢𝗡𝗘
𝒌𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝒉𝒂𝒘𝒌
◟ ◞
・・・・☆・・・・☆ ・・・・
"Could've been a faulty electrical wire," Pope guessed as all the Pogues sat and watched John B's house burn completely down, all the way until the sun rose.
"Place was all wood. A tinderbox," Kiara commented disappointedly.
"Thing just went up. Boom," Cleo spoke quietly.
"Verdict's in, bro. Whoever's up there...does not like you," JJ joked to try to lighten the mood, but didn't really work. "Sorry." He then tossed a glass bottle at the house, causing it shatter.
They then all strolled over to the dock to get away from the smoke that was clogging up the air. "Sarah, when did you say the pilot was getting in?" John B asked, trying to forget about the fact that his home was gone.
"Probably like an hour? I mean, once he's here, my dad says we can leave whenever we want," Sarah responded.
"Is your dad coming with us?" Kyla inquired, hoping this wasn't some set up. After everything that's been happening with their luck, she just wanted to make one of their plans went smoothly for once.
"No. He won't be," Sarah told her and Kyla nodded slowly, feeling better about their chances.
"Okay, well, as much as I would love to ghost my parents again, I can't," Pope spoke up.
"Pope, we're talkin' El Dorado here. Can you, like, just, like, slip out the back maybe?" JJ suggested.
"Great advice," Kiara sarcastically remarked and Kyla let out a low chuckle.
"I mean, it always worked for me. How to avoid unpleasant circumstances 101. If there's a problem, you don't wanna face it, turn that face and keister around and walk the other way," JJ explained and Kyla sighed to herself quietly, knowing why JJ had to use that technique.
"I'm not doing that, okay?" Pope shook his head.
JJ exhaled. "I just want you to be there, dog."
"I'm gonna be there. I'll meet you guys at the airstrip in an hour?" Pope asked, looking over at John B.
"Yeah, we'll see you there," John B nodded.
"Okay, one hour, Pope. Not a second later," JJ told him.
"Think you should let me talk, Pope. Think your mom kinda likes me," Cleo brought up, following Pope as he began to walk back down the dock.
"I don't think it's gonna be pleasant for either of us."
"I'm gonna take a stroll back to the shack. For old time's sake. I always wanted to go to South America. Great surf, cheap weed," JJ said as he began to walk away with Kyla resisting the urge to smile at his words. "See you guys on the tarmac."
Kiara then looked over at Kyla before back at John B. "I guess we'll go pack some stuff and break the news to our parents," Kiara told him.
"I can't wait," Kyla sardonically added and Kiara raised her eyebrows before they started to walk off. "I should talk to him, right?" she then whispered to her sister, looking ahead at JJ. "I mean, he was about to apologize about the money clip thing before we had to save ourselves from the fire."
"Yeah, no, definitely," Kiara encouraged her and Kyla sucked in a breath. "Don't worry, you'll be fine. It'll only make him regret his choice to break up with you even more."
Kyla let out a shaky laugh before she began to catch up with JJ. "Hey, J, wait," she called out and he stopped walking. "Hey. Um...So, before we had to evacuate and stuff, you were about to say something to me," she reminded him.
JJ pursed his lips together, looking at her. "I'll tell you what. I'll tell you on the plane," he replied and Kyla gave him a look. "Just to make sure you get on."
"Right," she said.
"Right."
"I'm gonna hold you to that, by the way," she told him. "And if you don't do it, I'm gonna be really upset."
JJ chuckled softly. "I'm sure you will."
"I'm so glad you're not stalling right now, Jayj," Kiara cut into the conversation, shaking her head at the fact she knew her friend was still in love with Kyla but just obviously pushing his feelings away.
"I wasn't talking to you, was I?" JJ challenged, looking over his shoulder at Kiara before he kept on heading forward.
She shrugged, giving her sister a teasing look. "I just couldn't help myself."
"Thanks," Kyla mouthed so JJ wouldn't hear and Kiara gave her a reassuring grin.
The sisters then made it back to their house, rehearsing what they were going to say before walking inside. "I mean, I'm gonna be turning 18 soon, so I'm practically an adult," Kyla said aloud.
"That's good," Kiara complimented before she thought of more things to say. "I-I'll never ask for anything again."
"Yeah, I don't think you can promise that," Kyla pointed out.
"Yeah, I just realized that," Kiara replied. "Um...I'm gonna write an essay about my experiences with the Indigenous tribes in South America, and then I will use that to apply for college. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"Okay, okay, good. So we'll use those then," Kyla nodded, as a truck pulled up across from the house, even though she was feeling extremely nervous.
A man then got out of the car. "Hey, Kyla and Kiara," the man greeted. The sisters both shared the same look before they immediately turned around, wanting to get away from the stranger who somehow knew their names. "Hey, come back. I'm not gonna hurt you guys. I just want to talk to you both."
"Uh, no, thanks," Kiara replied in confusion.
"Just keep walking," Kyla whispered, pushing her sister in front of her as they walked up the steps on their porch.
"It'll just take a second," the man assured.
"Stranger danger," Kiara muttered before they tried getting inside. But the door had been locked. Both of their eyes widened and they started to knock on it so their parents would let them inside. "Hey!"
"Mom! Dad!" Kyla called out since the man was getting closer to them.
The door then opened up, but it wasn't one of their parents; it was another man. "Who are you?" Kiara questioned fearfully.
"Look. This can go one of two ways," the man began to say as he stepped toward them.
"Get behind me," Kyla told her sister as she put her hand in front of Kiara to guard her, stepping back before she noticed the name on the man's shirt: Kitty Hawk. She recognized it from one of the wilderness camp pamphlets their parents were showing them.
"I'm sorry, guys," Anna showed up with Mike behind her. "We're sending you both away for a little while. They say that Kitty Hawk's the best, okay?"
"Wait, what?" Kiara breathed out in shock as Kyla just stared at her parents, feeling utterly betrayed by them.
"We just need to try this, okay? We're just trying to help you both."
"No," Kiara quickly shook her head.
"Stay calm," the man told her.
"It's not forever, my babies. I love you both," Anna told them.
"No, no, no, wait, wait," Kyla voiced as the men started to push her and her sister back to try to get them to their car.
"I'm sorry," Anna apologized.
"No, no, no, no. We can't do this right now," Kiara said as she tried shoving the guards away while Anna still tried reasoning with her daughters.
"I can't believe you'd do this," Kyla said to her parents breathlessly, trying to push the guards away but they were gripping on her roughly.
"You can't send us to wilderness cuckoo's nest!" Kiara exclaimed.
"They're not gonna hurt you guys. They're good people. They'll help you both out. Don't fight it. Just go, babies. It's what's best for you right now," Mike told them as the men forced them down the stairs.
"No, please!" Kyla pleaded as she felt her eyes filling with tears for the millionth time.
"I said I don't wanna go! I don't want to!" Kiara yelled while she pushed away from the man, grabbing onto the fence. "We have somewhere to be! No!"
"Get the fuck off of her!" Kyla shouted before they were able to pull Kiara off of the fence, grabbing the both then harshly and dragging them towards their truck. "Stop! Please! We can't go!"
"Mom! Dad! Please!" Kiara begged, but it was no use. They threw them into the back of the car and locked the doors. "No, no, no, no," she said over and over again, banging on the window. "No! Mom! Dad! Please! No!"
Kyla began to weep, holding her head in her hands. She couldn't believe their own parents would do this to them, especially at a time that was so important that they couldn't miss.
・・・・☆・・・・☆ ・・・・
By the time they arrived at Kitty Hawk, Kyla's sadness had turned into impatience and outright anger towards her parents. She just couldn't believe this was her reality.
She and Kiara were brought to a cabin where they'd talk to some lady after surveying all of the girls that were there. The Kitty Hawk girls had been doing some form of work or they'd been walking in designated lines, eyeing the sisters up.
Kiara was brought into the room first while Kyla was forced to wait outside the room, being watched over by a few men so she wouldn't try to run off somewhere. They were also both forced to put on Kitty Hawk apparel, much to their dismays.
"She's trying to leave," the woman all of a sudden said after opening the door. The men immediately rushed into the room, causing Kyla to stand up urgently.
They forced open the bathroom door, grabbing Kiara forcefully. "No, no, no, get off me! Get off me! You people are crazy!" Kiara seethed as they pushed her out the door.
"Get off of her!" Kyla shouted, trying to pull the men away from her but they were too strong. "You're hurting her!"
"They're not hurting her, Kyla. They're trying to help her. We're all trying to help you both," the woman explained, which made Kyla stop chasing after the men to look at the woman.
"Helping us? By practically kidnapping us?" Kyla questioned, her nose flaring furiously.
"Your parents consented," the woman reasoned.
Kyla scoffed. "But we didn't."
"You're both under 18, so you're parents have full control over you both. I understand you will be turning 18 in a few months, but you're still only 17," the woman went on. "Now, it's your turn. Why don't you come and sit down?" she suggested, moving back to her desk and sitting on her chair.
Kyla sighed and reluctantly sat in the chair, praying that they wouldn't do anything harmful to her sister. "Based on what your parents sent in about you, I'm assuming you're a victim of peer pressure from your sister and her friends."
"That's not true," Kyla shook her head, making the lady raise her eyebrows. "My parents probably told you that Kiara and I had a rocky relationship for a long time until we started getting along which just so happened to be at the time we were going on all of our...adventures," she began and the lady nodded. "I chose to be a part of that on my own free will. And I became friends with her friends at the same time. I was never forced into being friends with them. The original friends I had were pieces of shit who betrayed my trust in more ways than one. Kinda like what my parents just did today."
"So were you bored with your privileged life?" the woman concluded, raising a brow.
"Are you trying to say I'm ungrateful?" Kyla questioned, her eyes staring daggers into the woman. "Because I'm not. I just recognized that the life I was living was artificial. All the friends I had were fake. They actually hated me, to be honest. I mean, the one I thought was my best friend slept with my boyfriend multiple times and then tried to kill me multiple times. So, yeah, I may be rich and live in a nice house, but that doesn't mean my life didn't suck. I had to give up those things for my real friends all because they were lower class people everyone was prejudiced against."
"For good reason, though," the woman argued before she flipped through some pages. "It says here these friends, 'Pogues' as they call themselves, have been arrested multiple times. One even stole from your own father."
"Did you just not listen to a word I just said?" Kyla responded since the woman didn't even react to the fact that her ex-friend tried killing her and instead, focused on the Pogues' bad behavior. "Of course you didn't because no one just seems to fucking listen to me anymore. If I was 18 would you listen? Would you actually see me as a fucking human being instead of just some subject to mind control for weeks, even months on end? If so, you're a horrible person and this whole entire system deserves to be shut down. You're helping no one. You're just exposing the fact that no one listens to teenagers, especially young women. You should be ashamed of yourself and quite frankly, you should be the one getting help," Kyla scolded, not even realizing she had gotten out of her seat in the middle of talking.
The woman stared up at her, her eyes narrowed. "Hm, I see. You don't have a particular disorder, but you do seem to be narcissistic and egotistical since you fail to realize your flaws. Don't worry, these are easy fixes here at Kitty Hawk," she told her, ignoring everything she had just said again, which made Kyla's eyes widen in shock at her audacity. "Clyde! Bring Ms. Carrera to the Reflection Cabin, please!"
"The Reflection Cabin?" Kyla repeated before a man opened the door, making his way over to her. "Hey, don't you dare touch me!" she warned, but the man didn't listen. He grabbed both of her arms and began dragging her out of the office. "Stop! Get the fuck off of me! You assholes!" she screamed as she tried to fight against him, but more men came to his aid and helped contain the girl.
She continued trying to fight until they reached the Reflection Cabin. They unlocked the door and threw Kyla inside, immediately closing it and locking it after. "Fuck all of you!" she insulted loudly, hoping they had heard her. She just didn't care. She had nothing anymore apart from her sister.
"Kyla?" she heard someone ask behind her quietly.
Kyla turned around, seeing that it had been Kiara. "Kie, oh my God," she breathed out, going over to her and enveloping her in a relieved hug. "I was scared they'd do something to you."
"Nah, they just shoved me in here. What'd you do to that bitch to get thrown in here?" she queried, releasing a small sigh.
"I told her she should be ashamed of herself and that she would be the one getting help for being in charge of this place," Kyla answered, pursing her lips. "What did she say to you? Because she called me egotistical for being right, so..."
"She diagnosed me with ODD, which is Oppositional Defiant Disorder. She wants to give me medication," Kiara told her, shaking her head angrily.
"Are you serious? No, there's no way I'm letting that happen. That is bullshit," Kyla seethed. "They can't just diagnose you with some disorder all because you're doing something that our parents and other people don't agree with. That's just not fair."
"I know, I know. But there's nothing we can do. If we go against them, it'll just give them another reason to shove medication down our throats," Kiara spoke, sitting down on one of the beds in the cabin.
Kyla let out an ironic chuckle. "Yeah. Well, since we'll probably be here for a while, even when I turn 18 since they just don't seem to care...on the bright side, maybe you'll find a girlfriend," she said, trying to brighten the mood a bit. She seemed to be influenced by JJ at that moment.
Kiara laughed out loud. "That's funny. For all we know, this probably some type of conversion therapy camp, too," she pointed out, shaking her head.
"Wouldn't be surprised at this point," Kyla replied, rolling her eyes. "How long do you think we'll be in here, though?"
"I don't know. Probably until they think we've done enough reflecting," Kiara said in a mocking tone, raising her eyebrows.
"Hm, well, I have a lot of reflecting to do, so it's probably gonna be a while."
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top