TWO MONTHS AGO

            "The Merchant Royal, or the Royal Merchant, sunk somewhere in 1941. On board were bars of gold worth 400 million dollars nowadays. Not only that, but on board was also a cross which was said to contain a piece of cloth that had healing powers. Any questions?"

            Magnolia almost closed her eyes, that's how bored she was. She'd placed her elbow on her table and her chin in her hand, but it just made her sleepier.

            "Magnolia," The teacher said. "Anything you want to add to that? You seem awfully interested in the subject."

            "No offence, ma'am, but we've gone over this a hundred times," Magnolia replied, not shifting in her position. "I was interested in the subject, now I'm just interested for lunch."

            The class laughed, but miss Limbrey didn't find it as funny. Her cane clanked against the stone floor as she neared. "You're lucky you're unmissable. You'd have been sent away way sooner if you weren't."

           As drowsily as she was, Magnolia gave the woman a thumbs up before going back to her textbook.

TWO MONTHS LATER

            Maggie backed away from the office, scratching her arms filled with stress. She ran off the porch to the van parked in front of the house. Scratching wasn't enough.

            Bad seed. Get it out. Can't stay. Bad. Bad.

            Bad.

            With all her might, she punched the tree next to the van. It hurt like hell, but at least it worked. Maggie's panting was the only thing left that she heard, but the voices stopped. It was silent.

            That was until she heard two sets of footsteps approaching. As Maggie hid behind the van, she untied the bandana around her head to cover her bloody knuckles. Slowly, she tried looking towards the footsteps. Those were the guys that shot at them on the marsh.

            They were screaming for John to come out. This is what it does. The Royal Merchant has this sort of power over someone. It grabs you by your hair, pulls you back and keeps you in it's grip until you can breath no longer. It owns you.

            He owns you.

            Maggie knew she couldn't stay still, not again. Once the men were out of sight, she sneaked to their car and sat down in the passenger's seat. She inspected the wires and pulled some out. Maggie grabbed a small knife out of her shoe and cut a wire connected to the steering wheel.

            The men would be able to drive away for five minutes, but then, mysteriously, everything would die down.

            Maggie's head shot up at the sound of a shotgun. All she could hope for, was that all her friends were okay. At least they will be slowed down by their car for a little while.

            She saw the two shooters leave the shack with stacks of stuff in their hands and sneaked out of the car, back to her old hiding spot behind the van. When Maggie turned her head around the van to see what was happening, she saw all her friends hiding in the cage of the rooster.

            The men hadn't seen them yet, and even when Maggie exaggerated with her mouth and hand movements to keep them from being seen, they didn't. At one point, one of the men did walk towards the cage because of the noisy rooster, but when Maggie threw a stone the other way, he was focused on the sound of that.

            They left, Maggie waited a second before coming out. JJ immediately ran towards Maggie to hug her tightly, when these men entered just before she stormed out, he thought she'd be gone. Maggie hugged him back, then was met with three more sets of arms around her. Everyone was alive and well.

            They got in the van to go to their first spot, Redfield. After this, the Pogues knew they had no time to waste. JJ took Maggie's hand in his, looking at the bandana, through which he could see blood.

            He took the bandana off, only to find four open knuckles. JJ looked back up, locking eyes with the brunette. "I— It's fine." She assured him.

            But JJ wasn't so sure of that. "These are deep, Mags, who did this? Was it those men? I swear to God if they did—"

            "No," Maggie cut him off quickly, her voice lowered to a muttering sound. "I did."

            It fell silent. Until John B started again about his dad and how he believed he wasn't dead. He drove the van to Redfield Lighthouse, which empty and closed due to the hurricane.

            "You're gonna post and look out for bogeys, okay?" John B told JJ.

            "Wait," JJ replied, looking around the group. "Why me?"

            "Because you're not coming." Pope intervened.

            "Why?"

            Pope sighed. "There are Independent and there are dependent variables. You're an Independent variable. We don't know what you're gonna do."

            JJ started shouting at Pope in disagreement. John B hushed them both by raising his voice. "Listen to me for a second. Just, listen! Pope, you stand look out with JJ and Maggie. Okay?"

            "Hey, wait, hold up, reverse," Maggie stopped him,."Why do I have to stay here, I'm not an Independent variable."

            "No, but you're what keeps JJ grounded," John B explained. JJ shrugged, agreeing with his best friend. "If we get split up, we meet back at JJ's house."

            "Great."

           Kiara and John B walked towards the lighthouse, leaving the three teenagers to fend for themselves. Pope slowly backed away to the van. "I'm gonna work on my merit scholarship essay and I'm trying to keep felonies to a minimum."

            As JJ was busy playing with a ball, he replied. "All right, would you just shut up already?"

            Pope went to sit in the van, leaving Maggie and JJ outside. "Can you believe this?" Maggie scoffed. "Now I'm stuck with you."

            JJ neared, leaning forward to be on the same level as his female friend. "As if you mind that so much."

            Maggie's cheeks heated up, but she managed to push it away. She pushed his face. "You wish."

            After a few minutes, Pope came back and joined JJ and Maggie in their current boring game of throwing the ball at each other. Not long after, a police siren shook them into jumping into the van and driving off.

            Maggie looked back at the lighthouse. "Shouldn't we wait for John B and Kia?"

           "They'll get up with us at JJ's," Pope reminded her. "That's what they said, remember?"

            "Hey, could you, uh, drop me off at Kia's?" Maggie asked JJ, who was driving the van. "I gotta get back to painting a restaurant." She chuckled.

            "You sure?"

            Maggie nodded. She had to keep Kiara's parents on good terms to keep living there.

            When she stepped inside the restaurant, Anna Carrera, Kiara's mom, was there. "Oh, thank God. Honey! One of them's here!" She yelled back to presumably Kiara's father. "Kiara isn't here yet, so why don't you go change and we'll eat something first, okay?"

            "Thank you, Anna."

            "Of course, dear. Anytime, you know it." Anna smiled widely.

            Maggie changed into a white baby tee and a pair of oversized shorts. Her Converses stayed on, but this time a pair of white Nike socks were under them. Maggie put her hair in a bun behind her head, but the front strands fell loosely around the frame of her face. Mainly just because they were too short to go in the bun and she had no other option.

            When she came back downstairs, Kiara was there, along with her dad who seemed pissed. The two friends hugged each other, glad to see each other alive. After eating a quick meal amongst the four of them ( which, by the way, was a very awkward meal ) they started repairing the restaurant.

            After a while Maggie saw Kiara wander off with John B following her. She thought it was strange, if something happened, Kiara would usually tell her. After watching them talk in the doorframe, Maggie pretended to be super busy when Kiara approached her.

            "Drop the act, I know you're not doing anything," Kiara laughed. She leaned over the countertop. "We're going gold hunting!"

            And back in the van they were. Turned out that JJ and Pope had been waiting outside for Maggie and Kiara ( mostly Kiara though, because she was the resistant one ) to come back. John B drove off while the sun went down.

            "Do you mind if I just relax on this one?" JJ asked no one in particular, his joint in his hand. "It's been a long day and a lot of weird stuff's gone down. I'm just gonna lay low," He leaned forward, over Maggie sitting in the middle and to Pope on the other side. "Oh, did you want a hit of this?"

            Pope declined. "I keep the signal clear."

            "Dude— okay. Do you understand that your problem is that you don't get creative?" JJ replied. "If you got creative—" JJ stopped talking when Maggie took the joint out of his hands and inhaled whatever he put inside. 

            At the same time, John B changed the subject. "Look, I— I know I was wrong about the lighthouse, all right? And— And pretty much wrong about everything else going on. But I— I was right about one thing. Okay? My dad is trying to tell me something."

            Maggie felt bad for John B. Even if he didn't want to admit it or see it, he was slowly losing his mind to this. To the Royal Merchant. Maggie sighed deeply just thinking about it. Just when she thought she'd gotten out of the mess, she was in deeper than ever before.

            And boy was she deep in before.

ignore the picture, its so not aesthetic but it visualised it so perfectly i had to put it here. its only here so that i don't have to put it somewhere in the middle bc that's eh