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.*･｡. EFF IT! .*･｡.
————THE GOLD
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052.
THE IN BETWEEN.
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   Sonny Penbrook had a brother called John B.

He was annoying and self-centred, and he whined all the time about almost everything, and he always wore those neon tropical shirts everywhere he went.

He yapped excessively and sang in the shower, and had a terrible habit of making all of his problems everyone else's problems, even when they didn't offer. He rode around the island in a beaten old camper he called the twinkie, and he never hit the streets without wearing those fading converse, and it was a known fact he could talk his way out of a mess about as fast as he talked his way into one.

   He was never her real brother. Just a foster brother she'd picked up along the way. A boy she'd hardly known before sneaking into Scooter Grubs' motel room, who she liked to pretend she didn't care for, who understood her in the way nobody else could try.

   Sonny Penbrook had an annoying, talkative, undeniable mess of a foster brother called John B.

   Had being the operative word.

Because now he was gone. Dead. Lost at sea with Sarah Cameron after being hunted down for a crime he'd never committed in the first place.

And now, Sonny Penbrook was alone. Again.

"Where are they...?"

Sonny sighed, routing through the stand of boat keys. It usually wasn't this tricky to find them. She'd been swiping them for years; it was a quick in-out job.

"Penbrook?"

She flinched, nearly tripping as she span around abruptly. The action brought her face to face with an old man — one Sonny recognised well, but hadn't seen in weeks. She briefly wondered when the last time was.

The start of summer? The day after Agatha? The day she found Scooter's Grady-White?

   It was strange how everything came full-circle in the end, wasn't it? Just a few weeks ago, Sonny Penbrook had been a Pogue stuck in the middle of a murder mystery novel. Now, she was the same girl she'd been when summer started. She didn't know how she felt about that.

    "Jones," she said after a short, awkward silence.

    "It's been a while," Tim Jones said.

    "Yeah, well..." she trailed off.

   What was she supposed to say? I was on a treasure hunt? My foster brother died at sea? I've spent weeks locked in my room so I can cram my guilt down where nobody can find it? Somehow, nothing really felt appropriate.

    "I've been busy," was all she went with.

    "'Course," he nodded slowly, sighing. She noted the sad smile on his face and cringed.

   Here we go, again.

   She knew what Tim Jones wanted to say. It was the same thing that everybody wanted to say. John B this... John B that... it was never ending. Sonny was tired of it.

    "John B was..." he started.

   A good kid? A piece of shit? A murderer?

   Sonny had heard it all.

   A tension lingered in the air as she braced herself; one of longing, of misery, maybe some anger.

   Most of it was from Sonny. Maybe that's why Tim Jones decided not to finish that sentence, like Sonny knew that he probably wanted to. Everyone had something to say about John B Routledge, especially now he was gone. She would rather they said nothing about him at all, not even the few nice things from those on the Cut.

    "Headed out to the marsh?" He asked instead.

   Sonny squinted.

   She glanced at the stand of boat keys beside her, taking a slow step away from them.

   He chuckled. Sonny didn't get it.

    "Here."

   Thinking fast, Sonny put her hands up, catching the item he'd thrown towards her before it could hit her on the head. The item was cold and it clinked when her fingers wrapped around it. The fact made her frown as she stared down at it with confused, yet intrigued, eyes.

   Keys?

Was she that obvious?

    "Take good care of my LIBERTY." Tim's eyes glistened with a wiseness, a knowing only an old man could embody. She wondered what secrets he knew about their island and those who inhabited it. She wondered if he knew all of its truths and all of its lies. "You always do."

   Sonny didn't know what to say.

   Sure, she had her suspicions that old Tim Jones knew she stole the HMS LIBERTY from time to time, but she'd never known for sure. Not until now.

Jesus, she used to be good at sneaking around.

When had that changed? Before or after joining a ragtag group of misfits on the south side? And how come he never said anything? Never ratted her out? Did he truly trust her with his boat that much?

Tim Jones hardly knew Sonny, he didn't know she was so good at destroying good things. If he did, maybe he'd make her hand those keys back to him. Stop her from getting her hands on them ever again. And Sonny wouldn't blame him because, honestly, she wasn't sure she trusted herself with a boat belonging to somebody else anymore. Deep in her gut, she knew she'd ruin it someday, just like she ruined everything else; that's just who Sonny Penbrook was.

But she needed this.

   She needed to get out, to feel the sun on her skin and the breeze in her hair. Sonny needed to feel normal again. She needed to go back to the mysterious girl on the marsh who didn't give a hoot about anything but smoking and surfing; Sonny missed that girl. Deeply.

So she squeezed the keys in her palm and nodded once, already heading for the door. "Thanks."

"They say the ocean cures everything," he told her.

Sonny stopped in the doorway, squeezing her eyes shut. It was quiet for a moment, before she shook her head slowly, a twisted frown on her lips.

"They say she takes everything, too."

And then Sonny was gone. Out the door, down the dock and onto the LIBERTY, heading off for the marsh where it had all begun. Summer, Scooter Grubs, the gold-game, the Pogues. And as she went, Tim Jones' words rang out in her head on loop. They say the ocean cures everything.

Bullshit. Whoever they were, they were full of bullshit. Some things simply couldn't be cured, especially not with saltwater, and if anybody believed that — truly, honestly believed that — then they needed a reality check.

The ocean was a taker. It took and it took and it kept on taking, until you had nothing left to give.

It had taken John B, it had taken Sarah, and it had taken away everything Sonny had gained that summer. It was like Topper's greedy mother, like Rafe and his lying father. The ocean was a taker. It stole. Everything you cared for, and all that you ever wanted.

The ocean did not cure.

And even if it did, Sonny Penbrook was way too beyond curing right now to even care.

————

   MURDERER

   That word had never meant much to Sonny, before. She wasn't one for mysteries or conspiracies, that was no secret, and she sure as hell wasn't one of those true crime fanatics. Those kinds of things had just never appealed to her, they weren't up Sonny's street.

   Actually, she'd always thought it was lame.

   But then she spent a summer living out a real true crime story, a murder mystery cross treasure hunt that would put Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes to shame, and now everything was different.

   So as she stood there, staring at the crimson spray-paint across the wall outside of Tannyhill, the word finally meant something to Sonny Penbrook.

   MURDERER

   She slurped her can of Sprite.

   How fitting.

    "Did you do this?!"

   Sonny turned away from the wall, blinking at the man currently storming towards her.

   Honestly, Sonny thought she'd be way angrier when she inevitably saw Ward Cameron again. Thought she would lunge and throttle him, scream and cry.

   But she didn't. Actually, Sonny felt nothing.

    "Excuse you?"

    "This," he jammed a finger towards the spray-paint. It made Sonny take a step back. "This little art-project. D'you think this stuff is funny?"

   Honestly? Yes. Sonny did think it was funny. Or ironic, at least. Because after everything he had done, and the things John B hadn't, she thought this was only the start of what he deserved. Her friends were dead, after all. They were gone, and because of him, everyone thought it was John B's fault. That he was some sort of killer when he was actually just a teenage boy. If anything, after all that, this was nothing. She didn't think he understood that.

    "You really want me to answer that?"

   Ward's face twisted.

    "No. It wasn't me," Sonny rolled her eyes. And it wasn't. This was the first time she'd been near Tannyhill in weeks. She wasn't even sure why she was here, right now. Perhaps only to torture herself. To feel even worse than she already did. Maybe to stick up her middle fingers at Rafe if he saw her through the window.

   But she hadn't graffitied his house; the thought hadn't so much as crossed her mind.

Besides, red spray-paint? It wasn't really to her taste. Too obvious. This shit had Kiara Carrera written all over it. She wasn't going to tell him that, though.

"But you know," she shrugged her shoulders casually. It made him scowl. "If the shoe fits n'all."

It didn't go down well.

    "You kids think you're so untouchable," he hissed. The words made her jaw clench, fist squeezing her soda. "Why can't you leave us to grieve?"

   At that, Sonny reeled back like he'd struck her.

   Leave them to grieve? If she wasn't so angry, Sonny might've laughed at him. Because Ward Cameron? Grieving? What would that asshole be grieving, exactly?

   He'd won.

   The gold-game, the cops' favour, the accusations against John B, against himself — Ward had won everything, and he hadn't cared for a second about what the rest of them had lost. Sure, maybe it had cost him his daughter, but Sarah's death was simply a consequence of his actions. Because of what he'd done, the murders that he and his son committed. That was his own damn fault.

   And for him to say he was grieving?

   To think he had the right?

   Sonny felt her blood begin to boil. Scratch what she'd felt moments ago, or lack thereof. Now, Sonny was ticking away, a bomb ready to explode, and if Ward Cameron wasn't careful, then he wouldn't be the only one with murderer spray-painted across their garden wall.

    "Count yourself lucky," she spat. "If it was me with the spray-paint, I wouldn't have written something that nice."

   For a moment, Ward looked scared. Like he feared what cruel things she would write.

   Perhaps, in that moment, he realised she knew the truth. That she wouldn't be so easily fooled. That she wasn't the sort of issue that could be solved with money and power. Sonny was a Kook, after all, even if not by blood. She wondered if that terrified him.

   But then he shook his head, "I don't know what lies your foster brother told you, but I'm not—"

   Sonny wanted to hit him.

   She was shocked she hadn't already.

    "Who do you think you're kidding?" Her face flushed in anger, cheeks hot and fiery.

    "Sonny—"

    "You're a murderer!" She yelled, "Just like your son!"

   Ward's eyes flashed, "Don't you—"

    "I know what happened on the tarmac!" Sonny was too gone now, too heated to shut her mouth. She was surprised she hadn't strangled him. Just looking at him made her sick. Ward was scum of the Earth. "I know what he did! I know Rafe killed Peterki—"

    "Shut up!" Ward sprang forward, slamming a hand over her mouth. Sonny let out a muffled shriek and tried to back away, but his grip was tight. "Just shut up!"

   Sonny's eyes widened.

    "You don't know what you're talking about, Sonny!" The man seethed close to her face.

   There it was, that crazed look in his eyes — the same one she'd seen in Rafe's. That was the look of a man without a conscience, without sanity. The look of evil that hid behind carefully constructed masks.

   The last thing Sheriff Peterkin ever saw.

   But Sonny would be damned if it was hers.

   So, before things could escalate, she raised her hand and launched her soda in Ward's face.

"Shit!" He swore.

Sonny breathed out hard, watching him stumble back a couple steps and try to wipe the soda from his eyes. It took Sonny a moment to realise what she'd done and when she finally did, she couldn't help but smirk.

Something about it was slightly cathartic. It felt like the faintest form of justice, the only kind she'd received in the weeks since everything had happened.

Maybe that was why Sonny had walked past Tannyhill. Because the marsh had done nothing to heal her like she hoped it would, because she hoped to tell Ward what she thought of him, what she knew him to be, and to throw her Sprite in his face and watch him finally start to lose it. If nobody would listen to them, if they refused to see Ward Cameron for the monster he was, then maybe this was a decent substitute. For now.

   But at the same time — maybe because the world hated Sonny with a burning passion — a police siren wailed and a Kildare County cop car pulled onto the road beside them.

    "What the hell is happening here?!"

   Ward started yelling.

    "She attacked me, Shoupe!" He howled, hands over his eyes. Sonny thought it was pathetic; crying over some soda. This was a grown man, a killer, and some sugary water was what took him down? Was she meant to believe that? "She came to my house and attacked me!"

   Shoupe got out the car and ran over, trying to see if the damage was severe. After a moment he sighed, turning to Sonny with an expectant stare.

     "Sonny?" He asked, "S'that true?"

   Sonny didn't say anything, at first. She just glared with a spite that she hoped shook Ward Cameron to his core. She knew he had heard what John B last said to him. We're all coming for you. Watch your back.

   And Sonny would. She would get him one day.

   But not today.

    "Guilty," she eventually said, holding up her empty can. Sonny shrugged, "Take me away."

"Jesus Christ," Shoupe muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. The way he looked at her made Sonny wonder whether she reminded him of someone. "And this?" He pointed at the wall, "This your doing, too?"

"I'm not that creative," Sonny drawled.

"Not that creative..." he shook his head, annoyed with her response. "Just get your ass in the car. When I'm done here, I'm taking you back home."

Great.

That was sure to go down well with Nat and Ed. After a whole three weeks ignoring their existence, and everybody else's, she'd be brought home in a cop car— sirens and all.

At least it was better than jail.

"That's it? She attacked me!" Ward yelled.

"Please," Sonny scoffed at him, "If I attacked you, you would know about it."

"Sonny!" Shoupe pointed, "Car!"

With a final glare, Sonny marched over to Shoupe's SUV and climbed in, slamming the door behind her. She sank in her seat, her arms crossed, and listened to them talk. It was closer to arguing, really.

"We both know who did this, Vic!"

    "They're definitely upset," Shoupe observed.

   Sonny thought that was the understatement of the year. They were more than upset. The Pogues were furious, and these people had seen nothing yet.

    "Dangerous is what they are!" Ward threw his hands up. "You know what that John B did! He attacked me! He killed Peterkin! Because of him my daughter is dead, and now his little friends—" he gestured towards the car Sonny sat in, a frown on her face. "—are attacking me too!"

   Because you deserve it, asshole.

    "These kids, they're part of his sick gang, so I need you to do your job and shut that stuff down." Ward pointed at him, eyes narrowed. "Understand?"

   Shoupe sighed, "I am doing my job—"

    "Are you?"

    "I will talk to them, okay?" The officer assured, "And I'll start with the Penbrooks."

    "My family is being terrorised. Do you understand?" Ward went on. Sonny had to stop herself from getting back out of the car, she feared what she would do if she did. "We are the victims here, and we're being terrorised. S'that sound very fair to you? Meanwhile they get to run around, say any goddamn thing they want about me? About my family? Does that really sound fair to you, Shoupe?"

   Fair? Did he even know what fair was?

   Did he think what happened for John B was fair? Framed and hunted for a crime he didn't commit?

   What about Sarah? When she was forced to flee because everyone in her family was a liar?

   Did he think what happened to the Pogues was fair? To Natasha and Ed? To Sonny? Losing someone important to them? Watching their name get dragged through the mud even after they were gone? Left with nothing but an empty hole in their lives where they used to reside? Was that fair? Was that deserved?

   Keep it together, Sonny sucked in a breath when the space behind her eyes started to sting. Keep your shit together, Sonny. Ward Cameron isn't worth it.

    "You know why they get to do that?" He asked Shoupe, "Because of you."

   But Shoupe wasn't taking it. He finally snapped at him, a hand leaving its spot on his belt to jab a finger at him. "That's bullshit and it ain't fair, okay? 'Cause we're trying the best we can with what we got—"

    "You know what we're trying to do?"

   Shoupe's jaw clenched.

    "What, Ward?"

    "We're trying to heal. And we're still being attacked." The man sighed, "So, all I'm asking is for you to wrap this up, so that we can move on."

    "Look," Shoupe stopped him from walking away, "If we wanna do it right, it might take longer than you want, okay?"

   Sonny almost believed him, too.

    "Vic," Ward brought her back to reality, "You know that little interim you have in front of your sheriff's title there? I'd like that to go away. I do," he shook his head slowly, "This is not how that happens."

Was that it? Why Ward was a free man?

Because Shoupe's job title mattered to him more than the chance to catch Peterkin's murderer? His Sheriff? His friend? Shoupe would let her die in vain, because Ward Cameron's thumb held him down too tight?

   Shoupe nodded obediently, muttering something as Ward returned to his yard. With a heavy exhale, he scrubbed at his face and walked back to the car, hopping in and starting the engine. For a moment, neither of them said anything. It was silent until Sonny glanced at him, eyes more glossy than she would've hoped they would be.

    "He's not trying to heal," she told him.

    "Sonny—"

    "He did this, Shoupe—"

    "Stop," he raised a hand. She fell silent. "I don't— I don't wanna hear it, alright?"

   Sonny swallowed hard.

    "Why won't you listen?" She whispered.

   He didn't have anything to say back to that. So, instead, Shoupe released the handbrake.

    "Buckle up. You're going home."

━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━

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