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𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲: 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿

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Pope came running up to John B's house at the Château where they all went back to after finding out that the Grady-White was Scooter Grubbs'. "Okay, so, um...we didn't see anything. We don't know anything," the Heyward boy panted as he pointing at all of them. "We need to have total and complete amnesia."

"Actually, Pope's right for once," JJ spoke up, fiddling with the lighter he had carved his initials into, before he got up from his seat. "See, I agree with you sometimes. Deny, deny, deny."

"Guys, we can't keep that money," Kiara said, feeling guilty.

"I agree. I feel icky," Cassie concurred from next to her, shivering lightly as a chill ran up her spine.

JJ sighed. "Okay, not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, Kiara and Cassandra." Cassie wanted to argue back, but she honestly couldn't. He was unfortunately right.

"We have to pass that off to Lana Grubbs. Otherwise, it's bad karma," Kiara held her hands up.

"Bad karma to be implicated in a felony, too," Pope added. "We gotta go dark."

"If that means we get to keep the money, then I agree," JJ voiced as he looked out the screen window.

John B placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, pushing up from the wall. "I don't agree."

"What? Why?"

"Just think about it. This is Scooter Grubbs we're talking about, right? Same dude that's buying individual cigarettes at the Porthole. Shit, one time I saw this dude begging for change in the Save-A-Lot parking lot because he needed gas. We're talking about a dirtbag marina rat who's never had more than forty bucks in his pocket, and all of a sudden, he's got a Grady-White?" John B went on before he held his hands up, shrugging. "Just sayin'."

"What are you saying?" Cassie questioned, wondering where he was going with this.

Soon enough, the conversation moved to outside where Pope and JJ began to fish off the dock. "All right, so think about it, Pope. How does a marina rat get a Grady-White?"

Pope inhaled sharply. "Prostitution."

John B shook his head. "Square groupers, bro. Okay, flying under the radar, no aerial surveillance. They don't do that stuff during a hurricane. What does that mean? JJ?" He pointed at the boy.

"They were straight smugglin'," JJ answered.

"Smugglin'," John B repeated. "And I guarantee there's a serious amount of contraband in that wreck."

"Hell yeah," JJ agreed before he pulled on his rod, a fish biting his hook. "Fish on!" He began to reel the fish back in and once he was able to get it, he took it off the hook and threw it at Cassie.

"Ew, what the fuck!" Cassie shouted as its sliminess hit her leg before it fell to the floor, struggling to breathe. "You idiot!" She seethed, but JJ had only been cracking up.

"You're so immature, JJ," Pope said to him, shaking his head.

"It's gonna die!" Kiara yelled before she quickly went over and picked the fish up, softly letting it fall back into the water. "JJ, you're disgusting."

The boy just shrugged. "Oops."

The conversation then moved to John B's bedroom. "For the record, if that is a smuggling ship with illegal contraband on the inside of it, it probably belongs to someone else," Pope began with the wad of cash in his hand.

"Minor details," Kiara cut in.

"They could come looking for it. Taking it would be catastrophically stupid," Pope finished.

"Right, well..." JJ got up and took the cash from Pope's hand, "...stupid things have good outcomes all the time."

"Your parents' sex must have been pretty smart then if that's the case," Cassie retorted, giving the boy a glare since she had to come back inside and scrub whatever germs the fish had off of her leg.

"I'm surprised you even know what sex is," JJ shot back at her and before she could say something back, he continued, "All we need to do right now is figure out a way to get into the cargo hold of that wreck." Cassie crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall with a pout since she wasn't able to get the last word in. "Until then, we just lay low. Just act normal."

"Right, and how exactly do we do that?" Pope asked.

Kiara shook her head. "Kegger?"

And so that's what they did, they threw a kegger at The Boneyard. Typical Pogue shit, right? No one would question it. It was perfect.

Soon enough, more and more people, Pogues and Kooks alike, began to arrive once they heard word of the kegger, not wanting to pass up on a party with alcohol.

Cassie had been one of those people whenever she heard about a party happening, either on Figure Eight or The Cut. She had her foot in both sides of the island and even though she never felt included in either, passing up on alcohol was foreign to her.

She walked around a party with red solo cup in her hand, soon to be the third one she would be drinking that day and the sun hadn't even gone down yet. Her tolerance had been high, however, due to her incessant drinking after her father's passing.

She would steal it from her mother's cabinets and the Blake woman had never noticed due to her own grieving. Well, that's what Cassie had thought anyway.

As she walked around, she ended up spotting the one and only Kook Princess, Sarah Cameron, sitting atop a washed up buoy as the breeze pushed through her hair. "Does this bitch think she's the main character or something?" Cassie muttered under her breath angrily before she found Kiara, walking up to her. "Hey, Kiki, look who decided to stop by."

Cassie gestured over to Sarah and Kiara had followed her gaze, the smile dropping from her face. "What is she doing here?" She questioned.

"Huh?" John B replied in front of her before he turned, seeing Sarah.

"Ugh, I can't even look at her or I might vomit," Kiara commented as she took Cassie's hand, pulling her away with her so they could find somewhere else to go.

"I wonder if that means Rafe is here then," Cassie thought aloud.

Kiara gave her friend a look. "Don't tell me you still want to hook up with him to get back at Sarah. Hasn't he already rejected you?"

"Well, yeah. But, uh...we've been texting," Cassie revealed to the girl, pursing her lips.

Kiara blinked at her. "You've been texting Rafe? Since when?"

"Well, he saw me a few weeks ago when I was out shopping. We talked for a bit and then I came home with a text from him since he still had my number from when I was friends with Sarah. He said we should talk more and we have," Cassie told the girl.

"Why didn't you tell me this?" Kiara asked the girl slowly.

"I didn't wanna jinx anything. My plans have already been foiled too many times, but I think he might actually be into me now," Cassie explained.

"And what makes you say that?"

"He's just been saying, like, things you wouldn't say to someone you weren't interested in. Like, 'You looked good when I saw you.' Or-or, 'We should hang out soon.' I mean, you don't say that to someone unless you're into them, right?" Cassie said to the girl.

Cassie had never been in a relationship before, only a few hook-ups here and there at parties. She never really knew what the signs were if someone liked you until their tongue was already in your mouth.

Kiara began to nod. "Yeah, it does seem like it," she answered, even though her tone had been wary.

Cassie caught onto it. "What's wrong? You seem on edge."

"Well, I just don't want you to get hurt, that's all," Kiara admitted. "I mean, we both know Rafe. He can be an ass sometimes, you know?"

Cassie sighed. "Kiki, don't worry. It's not like I actually like him or anything. I mean, yeah, he's hot but I'm only really doing this to get back at Sarah."

Kiara gave her a lopsided frown. "Okay, well, still...Be careful."

Cassie nodded. "I will. Don't worry."

Kiara then gazed past Cassie, her eyes widening. "Holy shit, he is here."

Cassie immediately looked over her shoulder, seeing the Cameron boy holding a red solo cup and talking with some Kooks. His eyes then moved over to meet with Cassie's, causing him to give her a wave. She instinctively waved back before she turned back to Kiara frantically. "Oh, my God, what do I do?"

"I don't know, but you need to figure it out fast because he's coming this way," Kiara told her under her breath before she started to walk away. "Good luck."

"What? Hey, Kie, don't leave—"

"Hey, Cassie," Rafe greeted from behind her, causing Cassie to shut her eyes and breath out quietly before she turned around, smiling up at the boy. "I didn't know you were here."

"Yeah, uh, Kiara and her friends actually started the kegger," she told the boy with a nod.

"Oh, really? You've been hanging out with them a lot lately or...?" He trailed off before he took a sip of his drink.

"Uh, no, not really," she shook her head. "They just happened to tag along when I was hanging with Kiara today, so..."

That had been a total lie. Since being friends with Kiara, she had hung out with the Pogues more and more. And even though she didn't care that they had been Pogues, a part of her was always worried that some Kook would see and immediately think low of her.

And she couldn't let that happen. Not when she was so busy trying to get revenge on Sarah Cameron. She had to have some sort of power and the only way to have that was if you were seen as a true Kook.

That's why she had still spoken to people like Kelce, or Rebecca, or Jenna — to name a few people off the top of her head. She was still well-regarded amongst the Kooks just because of her name, but that didn't mean they actually liked her. And that didn't mean she liked them either.

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense. They're like her little guard dogs," Rafe joked and Cassie forced out a laugh. "Anyway, uh, just thought I'd come over and talk. I actually wanted to see if you wanted to hang out today, but the towers went down so I didn't get to text."

"Oh, really? You wanted to hang out?" Cassie asked, perking up.

"Yeah," Rafe confirmed before he looked her up and down, seeing the bikini she was wearing from underneath her coverup. "You look good."

Cassie felt her cheeks redden at the compliment. She wasn't sure if it was because she was never used to compliments or because Rafe had been saying it. She hoped it had been the first one because she really did not want to like him like that. "Thanks. So do you," she smiled.

Rafe laughed, shaking his head and rubbing his nose. "Oh, c'mon, nah. You're just saying that 'cause I said it."

Cassie began to shake her head. "No, no, really...you do," she told him again, keeping eye contact with him so he would know she wasn't lying.

Rafe stopped laughing and kept her eye contact, his blue eyes meeting hers. He knew that he had rejected her in the past, but for some reason, he had started to realize how pretty the girl had been in front of him. Maybe because they had both grown up from the first time they met, but he was starting to view her in a different light.

However, before he could say anything else, Cassie felt an arm drape around her shoulder. "Well, what's going on here?" The person inquired and she looked over, seeing that it had been JJ Maybank of all people.

"Ugh, get off me, JJ!" Cassie exclaimed as she shoved JJ's arm off of her.

"Hey, hey, calm down. I'm just trying to be friendly," JJ said to her even though they both knew he had ulterior motives. He then turned to Rafe, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "Hey, Rafe, what up?"

"Hey, man," Rafe replied, looking in between the two of them.

"You, uh, you two chattin' it up over here or...?" JJ asked curiously with a hint of a smirk on his face.

Cassie crossed her arms. "Why does it matter?" She slowly questioned, glancing over at Rafe.

JJ shrugged. "Just wanna make sure there's no funny business going on. Don't want the cops being called for public indecency, you know?"

Cassie's eyes widened at that before she looked at Rafe, who had visibly gotten angry by his words. "Hey, who the fuck do you think you are, man?" The Cameron boy questioned, stepping forward. He honestly didn't care if JJ thought they were flirting or not, he just didn't know why a stupid Pogue was getting into his business.

JJ went to go respond before Cassie stepped in front of him. "I'll deal with him. Stay here," she quickly said to Rafe before she turned around, gripping JJ's arm harshly and tugging him away. Although she liked a good fight, she didn't feel like dealing with one at that moment.

"Ow, ow, ow! You're hurting me!" JJ yelped before he pushed her hand away.

She glared at him, steam practically flying out of her ears. "What the hell are you doing, JJ? Are you trying to be an ass?"

"Well, yeah, I thought that was obvious," JJ answered before she shoved him. "Hey! Sorry, it's just that I'm a little confused as to why you're trying to mack on Rafe Cameron."

"I'm not trying to mack on Rafe Cameron. We were just talking," she told the boy, not seeing why she had to explain to JJ anything that she did.

"Oh, really? Just talking? Yeah, okay, just talking," JJ reiterated as he shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Rafe doesn't just talk to girls. He wants to fuck them."

"You would know, wouldn't you?" She shot back and be pursed his lips together. "And why does it even matter if I was mackin' on him or not? Which I wasn't."

JJ scoffed at her. "Why does it matter? Uh, it matters because he's a Kook jackass who think he's better than us." But when he said us, he was referring to himself, John B, Pope, and Kiara, not Cassie. And she knew that. "You hooking up with him would be a total betrayal of trust."

"Since when do you trust me, JJ? Because I sure as hell don't trust you."

"I'm not saying I trust you. I'm talking about Kie," he clarified which made Cassie furrow her brows for a moment. She didn't realize that JJ had actually seemed to care about the girl rather than only wanting to get in her pants. "How would she feel if you found out you hooked up with Sarah Cameron's brother? Which, by the way, don't you hate her, too? So now I'm confused."

"First of all, Kie knows. And second of all, I'm not gonna hook up with him," she half-lied to the boy, not wanting to get into the fact that the reason she had been talking to Rafe had everything to do with Sarah.

JJ gave her a bewildered look, slowly shaking his head. "You're so fucking weird, Cassie. One second, you're hanging with us and the next second, you're hanging with the Kooks. I mean, why do you even hang out with us if you wanna live that Kook life so bad?"

Cassie scoffed at him, but he had lowkey called her out even though she didn't want to admit it. "I don't have to explain anything to you, JJ."

"Fine, don't. Just keep being a fuckin' Kook," he said to her and she sneered at him before he backed up, walking away. There it was again: him viewing her as just a lifeless Kook instead of a human being.

"Fucking piece of shit. I need another drink," she muttered under her breath angrily before she sharply inhaled, turning around to go back to Rafe.

"Hey, you good?" Rafe checked up on her since it looked like the two were having a heated conversation from where he stood.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that, though. He's a total dick."

"Yeah, obviously. Why does Kie even hang out with him?" Rafe shook his head, his lip curling slightly.

"He's kind of a package deal with John B and Pope, unfortunately. Anyway, I need another drink. Want one, too?"

authors note!
writing cassie's and jj's banter is
so fun, i love writing enemies to
lovers sm. im a whore for angst 😁
anyway lmk if you liked this chapter!
and don't forget to vote and comment
thank u!!