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𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗪𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗬 𝗦𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡
𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕 2

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・・・・☆・・・・☆ ・・・・

JJ placed the gun on Shoupe's desk later that night, making his mouth drop. They all stared at him, waiting for him to say something. Kyla was shivering a bit since they all didn't have time to shower and change into normal clothes, so not only were they still wet, they also smelled.

"So y'all are telling me this is the firearm Rafe Cameron used to kill Peterkin with?" Shoupe asked slowly.

"That's exactly what we're telling you, Shoupe," JJ confirmed.

"And the exact firearm that Ward just used to kill Gavin," Pope added and Kyla nodded.

"I — And where's that corpse again?" Shoupe asked them, not believing it yet again.

"Didn't you look into it like I asked?" Kyla questioned, her brows furrowed.

"I checked the hospital. I went by his house. He was out," Shoupe told them, making Kyla give him a look of disbelief.

"He was out?" Kiara repeated angrily.

"No shit! 'Cause he's dead!" JJ shouted.

"Listen to yourself! It makes perfect sense!" Kiara said loudly before they all started to yell and talk at the same time.

"Just because he's not in his damn home does not mean he was a victim of a homicide," Shoupe told them to get them to shut up.

"I told you this was gonna happen!" JJ said through clenched teeth as he took his cap off.

"What are you talking about?" Kiara asked in a high voice.

"It doesn't seem at all suspicious to you?" Kyla questioned as she shook her head.

"Are you at least gonna send it in for ballistics and shit, or are you just gonna sit on your ass?" Kiara asked.

"He'll sit there and wax that damn mustache. Is that even real?" JJ said as he pointed at Shoupe accusingly.

Shoupe stood up and started to say, "I'll wax this—"

"Hey, shut up, JJ!" Pope yelled at his friend since it obviously made Shoupe even more annoyed.

"It's not fair!" Kiara complained.

"We brought you concrete evidence this time!" Kyla added and Kiara nodded in agreement.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hurt his feelings?" JJ asked sarcastically as he rubbed his eyebrow.

"Shut up!" Pope yelled at him again.

Shoupe then opened up his office door. "Get out. I got work to do."

"Are you serious?"

"And y'all are smelling up my office," Shoupe continued.

"Shit," Pope whisper-shouted as she slammed his hands down.

Kiara then got up from her seat, walking over to Shoupe with a hurt look on her face. "Did Ward bribe you? This doesn't make any sense," she said before she walked out.

Kyla then got up from her seat and paused in front of Shoupe. "What happened to, 'I suggest you listen to your sister'?" Kyla asked, quoting Shoupe from when he was arresting Pope before JJ took the blame. "Just because I'm hanging with a different crowd now, does that mean my word is untrustworthy?" she continued, but Shoupe didn't answer, so she just shook her head and followed Kiara out.

"You ain't gonna do shit," JJ said as he quickly walked past Shoupe.

"Out!" Shoupe shouted after him.

・・・・☆・・・・☆ ・・・・

Kyla sat outside of Heyward's Seafood with JJ as she waited for her sister to finish showering so that she could. "You smell like shit," JJ commented to break the silence between them, and to lighten the mood a bit.

Kyla looked over at him, giving him a look. "You smell, too, so don't even talk," she replied, shaking her head.

"Well, you smell even more," JJ said, shoving her lightly with his shoulder.

She scoffed at him. "What are you, five?" she asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Mentally, maybe," he responded, making the both of them chuckle. "No, but, uh...are you okay? I mean, you—"

"Almost died for, like, the millionth time?" she finished for him and he nodded. "I've been better," she said, looking away from him.

"Yeah, well..." JJ trailed off, taking his red cap off.

"I just can't believe that I got into this whole thing 'cause I eavesdropped on you guys at Midsummers. To think that I wouldn't even be a part of this if I had just listened to the Kook side of me is just...crazy," she told him, shaking her head.

JJ let out a laugh. "I remember 'Kook Kyla'," he said, looking up in the air as he recounted it before he looked over at her. "Very...Kooky."

Kyla looked over at him, her eyebrows raised. "I barely even talked to you when I was an actual full, bitchy Kook," she told him.

He shrugged. "I still remember. I mean, you would have to drop off Kiara to the things we had planned," he said. "And you weren't even a bad Kook, to be honest. You were more of a responsible, goody Kook."

"Does that make me a responsible, goody Pogue now?" she asked, arching a brow at him.

"You're more responsible than any one of us, but if you were a real goody, you wouldn't be doing any of this," he truthfully told her. "I mean, you would have probably told the police, or one of your old friends, what we were planning instead of revealing yourself to us that night you were eavesdropping. When you did...I realized that you weren't even the person I thought you were." He looked away from her, staring at nothing in particular.

"Well, who did you think I was?" Kyla asked, still looking over at him.

"I dunno. First, I thought you were Kie's hot older sister," he started to say.

She scoffed at him, shoving his arm with her hand softly. "You're so stupid," she said, rolling her eyes at him.

"Then, I thought you were Kie's hot, but annoying older sister," he continued, a mischievous smile growing on his lips as he looked over and saw the fake annoyed look on the girl's face. "And then I thought you were Kie's hot, but annoying and stupid older sister since you started to date Rafe." Kyla narrowed her eyes at him, but let him continue. "And now...I think you're Ky, the beautiful Pogue Princess that's actually really smart and really helpful, and who knows how to hold her own when it comes down to it," he told her, making her annoyed expression drop as she looked into his eyes.

Is he being serious? Kyla thought since she wasn't sure when JJ was being serious half the time. She then let out a short laugh, looking away from his blue-green eyes. "I can't tell if you're being serious, but thank you for your changes of thoughts about me."

"Why wouldn't I be serious?" JJ asked, making her look back at him to meet his eyes once again.

"Well...because you usually aren't unless it's something really important," she pointed out.

"Then I guess this is important," he told her, making her furrow her brows and open her mouth to say something, but she couldn't find the words. "Ky, you're my friend now and you literally almost just died trying to get evidence for Shoupe that he doesn't even care about, so I think you deserve some honesty," he explained genuinely.

She let out another short laugh, a smile making its way up to her face. "Well, then I guess I was wrong about you, too," she admitted, brushing a piece of her dirty hair out of her face.

"How so?" he asked in a teasing manner.

"I thought that you were this...ladies man that only cared about hooking up, smoking, and drugs," she said, shaking her head.

"Hey, I do still care about those things," he told her, holding his finger up.

She laughed. "No, I know, but I thought that's what you only cared about," she told him. "You're actually a really great and loyal friend that's committed to everything you do. Well, maybe not school, but that's besides the point." The both of them laughed, looking away from each other at the same time. "And you're also easy to talk to," she added, making him look over at her while she stared ahead of her.

"You're easy to talk to, too," he told her with a smile, making her look back over at him.

"Well, I am the mom of the group, so I have to be," she joked, making the both of them laugh once again. "And speaking of being a mom and wanting to get into everyone's business, what do you think is going on between Pope and Kie?" she asked, changing the subject.

JJ shrugged, shaking his head. "Pope says he has no idea. I mean, he said one second Kie is all over him, and then the next second she's not. But she's only all over him if she's high or buzzed," he told her.

"Oh, so you and Pope have been talking about it without me?" she asked, pretending to be offended as she arched a brow.

"No, no! No, it's just...guy talk, you know? It's like girl talk, but with guys," he explained. Kyla gave him a weird look before she burst out laughing. "Oh, come on, that's what it is!"

"Yeah, okay, sure, sure," she said sarcastically, shaking her head once she had calmed down.

"Oh, come on, it's not like you and Kie haven't talked about Pope. I mean, that's why you're asking me, right? She told you ask me to see what Pope had to say, so then she could plan the next conversation they have. Am I wrong?" he asked.

"Completely," Kyla told him bluntly, making him furrow his brows at her. "Honestly...she hasn't even said anything to me about it. I think she's waiting to figure out her own feelings before she comes to me for any advice. I mean, that's what I would do," she told him, shrugging.

"But you and Kie are, like, totally different," JJ pointed out.

"Okay, that's true," Kyla said with another shrug. "But, we are sisters, so I would assume she would come to me for advice if she needed it. But she likes to figure things out on her own, so who knows? One day they might just announce that they're together without even talking about it to us."

"Now that...would be funny," JJ said with wide eyes, imagining it.

"I guess I would find it kinda cute," she said, looking up in the sky. "I mean, my first, and last, boyfriend I've ever had turned out to be a killing psychopath that cheated on me with my ex best friend, who also happens to be a psychopath, so I guess my judgement in love doesn't really count," she joked, making the blonde laugh before he realized something.

"Wait. Hold up. You've only ever dated Rafe?" JJ asked, his eyebrows raised.

"Well, yeah. I mean, before he went all crazy, I had a crush on him for years," she admitted, not caring if JJ knew since she obviously didn't like Rafe like that anymore.

"Wow, I thought people were just joking about that since you guys were known to be the 'it' couple," JJ said, his mouth parted after he finished.

"The 'it' couple?" Kyla repeated in confusion, looking back at him.

"Yeah. Everyone was jealous of you two. I mean, all the guys I knew had a crush on you, and all the girls I knew had a crush on Rafe. Except for Kiara," he told her. "But then when Sarah and Topper became a thing, they all started getting jealous of them, John B included."

"Well...that's news to me. I didn't know people thought that," she told him, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Well, the four of us, before you and Sarah joined the group, never thought that way since we kind of knew you a little better 'cause of Kie, but yeah, people would talk about you two all the time. I bet when you two broke up and he got with Tara, people started to spread rumors," he pointed out.

"Wow," Kyla said breathlessly. "That's...crazy." She then looked away from him, staring out into the distance as she thought about her relationship with Rafe before it took a turn for the worse. They used to be so happy together and everything seemed...good. She remembered them swimming in the ocean together, splashing each other while also trying to get away before it just turned into a play fight. She smiled sadly to herself as she continued to think about it.

JJ noticed her switch of mood and asked, "You really liked him, didn't you?"

"I loved him," she admitted, looking down. "I loved him so much that I didn't even see when he started to change. I would defend him and I would...blame myself for things that were his fault. I...I should have known."

"How could you have? As cliche as it sounds, you were 'blinded by your love' for him," JJ told her, examining her side profile as he spoke. "I remember when you came into The Wreck that night after getting done crying since Rafe was trying to force you to...you know..." JJ trailed off and she nodded, knowing what he was talking about. "And you defended him, even though Kie told you that what he did wasn't okay. Honestly, I — We should have done something about it."

She looked over at him, shaking her head. "No, JJ, it wasn't your guys' place to. It was just..." she trailed off before she cleared her throat. "It already happened and we can't go back to it now, can we? I mean, now we all know the person that he is, right?"

JJ nodded slowly. "Yeah. No, yeah, we do."

"I just wish I knew sooner. I wish knew about Tara sooner as well. I mean, they literally told me they hooked up in the car right before Rafe murdered Peterkin! They're just—"

"Evil," JJ finished for her and she nodded. "Wow. And to think that I used to think that Topper was the worst twin out of the two."

She shook her head. "Definitely not. At least Topper has some sense of morals."

"Keyword: Some," JJ joked, making the both of them let out a soft laugh.

Kyla then sucked in a breath and said, "Thank you, JJ." She then leaned to the side and wrapped her arms around him, enveloping him in a hug. "I feel like every time we're alone together, you always seem to make me feel better even though we're talking about some depressing shit."

JJ let out a breathless laugh, slowly putting his arms around her as well. "Guess we have to make it a tradition now, huh?" he said as they still hugged.

Kyla rested her chin on his shoulder, smiling. "I guess we do."

Someone then cleared their throat and the two pulled away from each other to see that Pope and Kiara were standing behind them. "Oh, you're done showering," Kyla pointed out once she saw that Kiara was clean.

"Did we interrupt something?" she asked, completely ignoring her sister's comment. It almost seemed like she was...mad.

Kyla looked over at JJ, who was shaking his head. "No, we were just talking," Kyla told her, standing up as she gave her sister a confused look.

"And hugging, apparently," her sister added with narrowed eyes. Pope stood next to her with an awkward look on his face, not knowing what to say.

"Well, yeah, duh," Kyla replied, not picking up on what Kiara was trying to say. She glanced back over at JJ, who was scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. She furrowed her brows, glancing at everyone in confusion. As she mentioned before, she wasn't that well versed when it came to love. "Am I missing something here?"

"Nope. Nothing at all. You can go shower now," Pope told her quickly, wanting to end the awkwardness.

"Okay, then..." Kyla trailed off with a nod before she walked off.