[...]

"It's not there. Look, just— just pull the drone up." John B says disappointed. We found the Royal Merchant, but there was no gold to be found. Thunder kept rumbling. "Shit." John B adds. "Look, we can do another pass, recharge the battery. We can— we can go back down." Pope says. "We've done it three times. There's nothing there." JJ says from behind the wheel.

"Shut up!" Kie yells at him over the loud wind. "What? It's true!" "The gold could be buried. We don't know." "If it was there, it would've been found on the metal detector, okay?" John B tells her, "Somebody beat us to it." "Or it was never here." JJ finishes and we shake our heads in disbelief.

I'm taking a walk at the harbour after we didn't find the gold. I saw that they were taking out some boat that sunk into the water. I realized it was Topper's boat so I went over to him and my mom. "What the hell happened." I ask them. "My boat, sunk." Topper says smartly. "Yeah, no shit Sherlock." I respond.

"Boats like this don't just sink, Dr. Thornton." The man who takes the boat out of the water says. "How much is this gonna cost me?" Our mom asks him. "Ah, submerged 24 hours, so you're lookin' at 25, 30K." He answers. "And insurance won't cover it?"

He chuckles, "No. Not for operator error. Plug wasn't in there." Our mom turns towards Topper giving him an angry look. "Well, why— why you lookin' at me?" Topper asks her. "Why do you think?" "I did not forget to put the plug in, Mom. It's been sitting in the water a week." "I thought that when you turned 17, you'd take more responsibility for your actions."

"Mom, I did not do this! Are you kidding me? You think I'm that stupid? Why is this my fault?" "Because it usually is." She finishes and I see that it hurt my brother, so I just look down. Since we were little, Topper would always get the blame. Even for the things I did. And I do feel bad for him.

"My mom thinks that I did it. Even though there's no way I could've. I mean how? It's always my fault, no matter what. Never Maddy's fault." Topper says to Rafe and Kelce. "Well, we know who did it right?" Rafe says. "It was that little geek Pope." Kelce responds. "Pope, yeah. It had to be Pope. Rafe, if you wouldn't have jumped him on the golf course, I'd still have a boat, right?" Topper continues.

"Sorry if I, uh.. had your back after some Pogue put a gun to your head. Listen man, I'm not the enemy here. Am I the enemy here?" Rafe turns to Kelce. "No." "I didn't sink the boat. Pope did." "Okay. All right." "So what are you gonna do about this?"

"I'm so glad that they're still doing this. Keep calm. Carry on. Back to OBX life." Kie says as we walk up to watch the summer movie series. "Aren't you guys glad I made you come?" "Ecstatic." Pope answers. "My couch was pretty comfy, I'll be honest." JJ adds. "I like it, Kie." I say rolling my eyes at them.

I walk over to get us some drinks. "Hey, uhh.. can I get three Pepsis, please?" I ask the barman. "Sure."

"Hey, Mads." I look over to see Rafe walking up to me, and I sigh. "Hey, what's up? How are you?" Rafe asks me with a smirk. "I'm fine." "Good, good. Um.. Tell your boy that we know what he did." He says. "Sorry, what boy are you talking about?" I ask him having no clue what he's talking about. "Uh, he'll know." I look at him for a second before I walk away. "Bye, Maddy." "Douche." I respond.

I walk back over to the rest, "Just saw Rafe, and he said, and I quote, 'Tell your boy that we know what he did'. What is that?" I ask them. "Where is he?" JJ asks. "Right there." I answer as we turn around.

"Great, the whole death squad. Ah!" Pope says shaking. "Don't stare, bro." JJ turns his head back. "Just warning you. If they corner me, I'm coming out swinging, okay? Slice and dicin'. I'm one edge right now. If that doesn't work, I got this right here." JJ says pulling up his bag with the gun inside. "No, JJ. Not again." I tell him. "I'm sorry, JJ. Please tell me that you did not bring a gun here. JJ, there are kids!" Kie silently yells. "Kie, I didn't bring the gun. Everything's fine, okay?" "Oh wow, thank you. That's really convincing. I love that JJ."

"Founding principle, you guys. No secrets amongst Pogues. What is going on?" Kie asks. "Kie, Mads... it might go down tonight." Pope tells us. "What does that mean? What did y'all do?" I ask them. "Deny, deny, deny." JJ whispers.

The movies started and it was dark already. "JJ." Pope wishers. "What?" "Gotta take a piss." "Hold it." "I can't hold it. I drank too much soda." "It's too exposed. They'll totally see us." "I gotta go." They look behind their backs over to Rafe and Topper. "They're blocking the bathrooms." Pope says. "Come here. I know where." JJ says.

"Hey, where y'all going?" Kie asks. "We gotta wring it out." JJ answers. "You gonna hold it for each other?" I ask disgusted.

I see Rafe and Topper waking over to them so I follow them with the bag knowing this isn't gonna end well. "Mads? Where are you going?" Kie asks. "Come on." I tell her.

"Yeah, that was some nice work you did on my boat." Topper yells. "I don't know what you mean." Pope says scared. "Sure, of course you don't."

"Not so burly without a gun now, are you?" Rafe tells JJ. "Take one more step, I'll rip that prepubescent face off." JJ responds. "Pope. Do you feel good, stealing shit? I mean is-is you mom proud of you? Is your dad?" Topper says. It triggers Pope so he punches him and they start to fight. Rafe also starts fighting JJ, because who is Rafe without a fight right?

I walk up and see them. "Hey kick his ass Top!" Rafe yells. "Let go of him, Topper!" I yell throwing the bag at him. He pushes me back and grabs the bag to throw it away. "Topper stop it!" I yell jumping on his back trying my best to stop him. Rafe looks over to us and sees me on his back so runs over to us and lifts me off. "Let go of me, Rafe!" I yell at him. "Stay out of this, Maddy!" He throws me away. Literally. "Mads! You okay?" JJ yells.

I go over to the bag and get the gun out, deciding not to use that I get the lighter and walk over to the movie screen. "Mads, what are you doing?" Kie yells at me. I open the lighter and set the movie screen on fire.

"Guys! Fire!" Rafe yells. "Get off of him!" I yell at Kelce who is still holding JJ. "Let's get out of here, go!" Rafe says. "Holy shit, you almost killed him, man!" Rafe tells Topper laughing. I lock eyes with Topper and I can only look at him in disgust.

Next day.

"What was your thought process, using your head?" JJ asks Pope. "I don't know, man. I just kind of acted of instinct. I was a cornered animal." He answers.

"Hey pope, someone's here to see you." His dad says. Officer Shoupe walks in. "Evening, Officer." Pope says stressed. "I have an arrest warrant for felony destruction of property. Hands on the counter where I can see 'em." Shoupe says. "Whoa. Shoupe, what'd he do?" Heyward asks. "Take a look at the warrant." "You're arresting him?" I add giving Shoupe a weird look. "You're just arresting my boy?" Heyward yells. We all follow them asking Shoupe questions.

"It wasn't him!" JJ suddenly yells as we walk outside. Shoupe looks at me, but I was actually clueless about what was going on. "It was me. He tried to talk me out of it, but I was mad because he'd just been beaten up. I was so sick of those assholes from Figure Eight that I lost my shit. I can't let you take the blame for somethin' I did. You've got too much to lose." JJ says looking at Pope.

"JJ, what are you doing?" I shake my head. "I'm tellin' the truth. For once in my goddamn life, I'm gonna tell the truth." "JJ, come on man." Pope tries to stop him. "Just shut up, Pope! Just shut up. He's a good kid. You know where I'm from." He says looking at Shoupe. "Yeah." "This was all me." JJ adds. I couldn't believe he was doing this.

"That's the whole truth?" Shoupe asks Pope. "Whole truth, I swear to God." JJ responds. "I know what you think, damn it, I'm asking Pope here." There was a long silence before Pope responds, "Yeah, that about covers it." I sigh and shake my head. Something inside of me dropped and JJ looks at me. Shoupe takes Pope's handcuffs off and put them on JJ. They get in the car and drive away.

I couldn't handle all of this anymore so I went home as fast as possible. I storm inside, seeing no one was home. Luckily. I grab a glass and pour in some water, trying to calm myself a bit down. I walk over to the table and take a seat.

Suddenly Topper walks in. I really have to try and keep my cool. "Hey..." Topper starts. "—Don't." I tell him. "Uhm.." He looks down. "First, you attack my friends, without a reason." "That's not true, your little Pogue friends touched my boat." "So you jump them and then let them get arrested. That's messed up, Topper." I yell at him.

"Are you actually forgetting that this is in fact your fault?" "My fault?!" I raise my eyebrows. "If you would've just found yourself better friends, this would've never happened." He raises his arms. I scoff at him, "Are you kidding me? You're acting like your friends are so perfect!" "You're so ungrateful! Why can't you just see that I'm trying to protect you?!"

"How is this protecting me?! By fucking sending my friends into jail?" "These Pogues are not your friends, Maddy. They're just criminals. The only thing they do is cause trouble and that's affecting you."

"You know what, Top? I'm so done with you." I say walking away from him.