All good things must come to an end, but if you don't want something to end, can't you just stretch it out? I mean, look at Maggie, she's been stretching out her fate for a while. Two months, to be exact.

            No need to worry, folks, she's not terminally ill of some sort. She more, like, runs from her haunting past. Maggie likes to imagine it might leave her alone, but back at home it's waiting for her to rejoin. Waiting for her revenge.

            For a while the brunette actually wanted to leave and collect her revenge, but she decided to hold on and wait, and then she decided to wait, and wait again until two months passed and she's still waiting.

            Waiting doesn't actually seem that bad when you found yourself a group of friends who — can be questioning at times but — love to do dangerous stuff to keep you on your toes.

            Dangerous things such as now, John B — the brunet of the group — climbed on top of an old boathouse in renovation, drinking from a can of beer and balancing on one converse-covered foot.

            "That's what, a three-story fall to the deck?" Pope calculated. Pope might actually be the only guy in the friend group who hasn't 100% lost his mind. He's responsible and cares about his future, that's more than the other two could ever do. "I give you about a one-in-three chance of survival."

            Maggie took a drag from her joint and passed it to her blond friend as she watched John B put his finger in his mouth and hold it up in the air. "Should I do it?" He asked around.

            JJ passed the joint back to Maggie after having taken a drag from it as well. Pope grabbed a drilling machine from a pile of supplies beside him. "Yeah, you should jump. I'll shoot you on the way down."

            "You're gonna shoot me?" John B made finger guns at the dark skinned boy.

            "Come on, Pope. We all know you out of everyone here would not shoot anyone for the life of you." Maggie added. Her voice always stood out wherever she went with the three boys and the girl, all because of her accent.

            Maggie's father moved them when she was eight for a reason she'd rather not mention, but the British accent never left her voice.

            Kiara — Maggie calls her Kia — walked out from under the boathouse. She didn't care about their banter, only about the planet. "They're gonna have Japanese toilets with towel warmers."

            "Of course they are." JJ replied with a hint of sarcasm. "Why wouldn't they?"

            "This used to be a turtle habitat, but who cares about the turtles, I guess?" Kie continued complaining.

            Despite of JJ's struggle to keep her in her spot, Maggie jumped down from the railing she was previously hanging against to put an arm around Kie's shoulders. "I care. You care. Taylor Swift would probably care if she was here."

            John B continued to pretend like he was rich and didn't care about the planet to taunt Kie. "I can't have cold towels."

            "Can you please not kill yourself?" Kiara asked the balancing brunet.

            JJ cared about different things. "Don't spill that beer," He took a sip of his own beer. "I'm not giving you another one."

            For a minute John B lost his balance, resulting in him dropping his beer can regardless. JJ immediately commented on it like the idiot that he is.

            Kie and Maggie turned their heads to each other at the same time and bursted out laughing when they met eyes.

            Pope leaned over the railing and saw an angry face staring back at him further away, screaming. "Hey, uh, security's here. Let's wrap it up."

            "Boys are early today." JJ pointed out. Everyone started talking simultaneously, so hearing what each of them had to say became hard for Maggie. She just laughed, flicking her used up joint onto the pile of the constructor's supplies and ran behind her friends.

            Maggie was grateful for the group of friends. They let her believe nice people existed and they were her perfect excuse of staying longer. None of them asked questions as to where she came from, because they didn't care about that part. They cared about her. The Pogues cared about Maggie, not Magnolia Clarke.

            The five teens ran through the building, away from Gary, the security guard and a few others. Gary had been running after them since summer started. Every single day. You could say they got to know each other's names.

            Gary and the guards yelled instructions at each other to catch the teens that were screaming so joyously. Maggie ran behind JJ, she was faster than him, but she stayed behind him to make sure he wouldn't fall behind.

            Two guards locked him in, saying they had him. JJ managed to worm his way out of their grip. "Not much of a hugger, man."

            Maggie ran passed the two confused guards. When she noticed one of them was quick enough to catch up with her and JJ, she stopped running to make him trip over her foot.

            JJ chortled at her move, adjusting his cap while looking at the guard trying to get up. He grabbed Maggie's hand to run outside faster together. The sky was already turning orange when they ran out front, where the rest already was.

            John B and Kiara had already jumped over the fence and Pope was just about to do so as well. "Go, Pope! Go, go, go, go, go, go!" JJ supported the black boy. Pope jumped the fence and fell over on the other side.

            JJ and Maggie let go of each other's hand to jump the fence simultaneously. JJ had so much experience jumping fences, it was easy for him, for Maggie it went smoothly as well. She has had lots of training in these sorts of things.

            Pope groaned on the floor, JJ patted him on his back and ran past him. "Get up, Pope, fatso's coming." Maggie stayed behind, though. She pulled him off the ground and with her into the van. She pulled the door half-closed behind her.

            Gary jogged after the van, trying his best to keep up, but Maggie could see in the way he ran he wouldn't continue much longer.

            "Check out Gary, gunnin' for a raise." John B looked back to the panting security guard through his rear view.

            Maggie looked back from her seat in the van, she opened the door a little wider to stick her head through it and waved at Gary with a mischievous smile planted on her face.

            "Hey, Gary!" JJ greeted condescendingly. "Wait. Slow down."

            He attached his hand to the van's roof, hanging from it and also sticking his head out of the door. Unconsciously, he pushed his chest against Maggie's back.

            "Guys, you're gonna give him a heart attack." Kiara rolled her eyes.

            JJ's breath hit Maggie's neck — giving it chills — as he teased Gary. "You're so close! You can do it," He threw his empty beer can at Gary, Gary caught it. "There you go!"

            Maggie stretched out her arm to the poor security guard. She pouted mockingly. "Aw, you need a raise, mate."

            "JJ, stop. Stop, Maggie." Kiara pulled JJ back in the van and with that, she also pulled Maggie back, because JJ's arm had slid around her chest just in case she'd lose her grip.

            "Oh, come on," JJ disagreed. "This sort of initiative is just begging to be punished." Maggie and JJ cackled as they high-fived, not paying attention to anyone else in the van. Right after their hands let go, JJ put his arm around her shoulder and started talking about his last weed.

            He had his weird stuff, but JJ was a real sweetheart once he liked you. Once he was sure you weren't a bitch, or worse, a kook. He had a serious problem with kooks. According to him they were all arrogant and malicious.

            Maggie wasn't as blunt in it as him. She didn't hate someone just because of the state of their financials, whether they were rich or poor. At the end, it were the poor giving her a roof over her head when she arrived in the Outer Banks with just her boat and a backpack full of supplies.

            She didn't think money defied your personality. If you are rotten inside, you will be with or without money. Although there were a few people that made her doubt that statement.

            Like kook royalty: the Cameron family. Kiara absolutely despised their middle child, Sarah. Maggie had never met her, but if Kia thought so poorly of her, there must've been something wrong. Rafe, the eldest, was the worst.

            He hated the pogues just as much — if not more — as JJ hated the kooks. It often caused fights to unveil on the small island.

            I guess sometimes you could be considered lucky to have received years of experience in certain things, even when you can't exactly show it all the time.

rory speaks !!
this is shorter than i'd hoped but i thought it was a good ending of the chapter so i stopped. see this as a sort of prologue for the plot of the story ig

also forgot to mention in the synopsis but maggie stays at kie's house bc she had spare rooms 😙 (we'll get to that later i suppose)