John B has a broken wrist and a concussion. Which, in retrospect, makes everyone's reaction seem like a bit much, but he had just fallen down from something called the Hawk's Nest, so.

Kathryn visited the hospital everyday. Even if it was nothing serious, she wanted to keep an eye on him. She made it look like she was only interested in the map Sarah got for them, of course, but John B knew better. He always did.

Max only managed to work his magic on her and get her back home after a week of eating mostly from a vending machine. But since it was the day John B got out of the hospital, she obliged.

She had to deal with some things of her own now anyway.

Including the fact that Ward Cameron presented himself as John B's legal guardian and had him move with him. For everyone else, it's good news. But for Kie and Kathryn, it can't be good.

So while sitting at the Wreck, Kie's family restaurant, waiting for John B to conclude his little speech on what happened, she can't keep calm. She's a bit further away, because she doesn't feel like letting him know the extent of her sour mood.

Because surely this can't be good. She doesn't see a world where Ward is the good guy, and maybe that's on her, but still. The guy stresses out Rafe so much that he does drugs. Sure, he's kind to Sarah, but his eldest is messed up enough to be worth three kids.

JJ flicks her knee. "Quit bouncing your leg, you're giving me anxiety."

Kathryn scoffs, and flicks his arm. "Yeah well, John B's giving me anxiety, I have to redistribute it."

He makes a face at her. "What's stressing you about living in like, satin sheets and shit?"

"The part where he's living with my mom's BFF." She crosses her arms on her mesh-shirt. "I don't know why you aren't panicking."

"I'm mostly just making sure you don't, like, go on a killing spree to find Topper."

She looks at her nails, deep in thought. She should be doing that, she figures. She should be tracking him down and slashing his tires and busting his windows. But no, instead Max asked to 'keep the felonies to a minimum'.

"How's the monitoring of the felon going?" she asks him.

"Uh..." He shrugs. "Pretty sure she could just get outta here and I'd follow her."

She smirks. "Good boy."

JJ chokes on his saliva, and looks away to hide his blush. Luckily for him, Kie walks in front of them at the same time with the coffees she just made them.

"I can't believe you're living with Sarah Cameron," she says.

Kathryn heaves out a sigh as she stands up from where she was, and joins the others around a table in the closed restaurant. She sits next to Pope, JJ leaning against her chair.

Kie has been going on and on and on about Sarah as if it was their main concern. Maybe it's hers, she won't judge.

"Kie, babe, are you secretly in love with Sarah?" She shrugs. "I'd get it."

Kie scowls, not amused in the slightest. "I'm not. Stop trying to make me sound like I'm insane it's–" She huffs, looking back at John B, who winks at Kathryn to thank her for her help. "Look, you promised. You said you weren't with her."

He makes a face. "Bro, just own it," JJ tells him. "She got you."

John B stares at him. "Coming from the one who hits on Kat anytime she breathes."

JJ just shrugs casually. "It's how I show affection."

"Exactly. That's how our friendship works. Besides, have you seen me?" Kathryn leans back on her chair, ignoring the warm feeling in her chest. "Not all of us are trying to get laid with Kooks, John B." JJ snickers.

"I'm not–"

"Look," Kie interrupts before they blow this out of proportion. "If you wanna hang out with her, that's fine. But I'm letting you know now that I'm not doing anything with Sarah."

Well, at least she's clear about what she wants.

John B comically looks around. "Do you guys see her here? No, right. Okay. A little focus would be fantastic. We've got the map, right?"

Pope, who's had enough of the four arguing back and forth since early this morning, sets the map on the table. They take a quick look at it.

It's hard to even guess that this is the Outer Banks. If it dates back to Denmark Tanny, that means the mid nineteenth century and it's needless to say that it's almost unrecognisable because of how much the place changed.

"It's out of whack 'cause the guy was ganja'd when he drew it," JJ says.

Kathryn looks up at him. "The coast changed, JJ, it was two hundred years ago."

He makes a face at her, and she rolls her eyes.

"So we just have to look for landmarks that haven't changed," Pope says.

She looks back at him and nods. A reference to know exactly where Parcel Nine would be now – where the gold is.

"What about the old forts?" John B proposes.

They quickly scan the map. Kie points to a fort, just below Parcel Nine. "Battery Jasper."

🫧

"We're in Battery, right here."

They stand around the rubble of the long-since torn down fort. Kathryn climbs on an old stone wall, as if it would help, and tries to see any body of water that Denmark Tanny could have been talking about.

Thing is, there's just woods in front of them. This side of the island, as far as she knows, has not a single lake, pond, or river.

"So if this is parcel nine, then it's somewhere northeast of here," Pope says, gesturing to his left.

Kie points in the direction he indicated. "Somewhere there."

"Right."

JJ frowns. "Over there? Guy's, that's not Tannyhill, that's a subdivision."

"Tannyhill used to be the entirety of the island," Kathryn dismissively explains. Her dad told her that, she thinks. "It just got sold into smaller pieces over time. Parcels of lands. There might be some sort of stone wall rounding the place to show the demarcation, but that's about everything we've got going for us."

Pope looks back at the map. "So we're just looking for an old stone wall."

They get back into the Twinkie, John B behind the wheel and Pope showing the way with the map.

"Okay, so the road should split up here," he says. It does. "All right. You're gonna take a left."

John B does as he is told, and stops the Twinkie.

Kathryn looks out the window. "And here's our stone wall."

Covered in moss and growing leaves, the wall should be old enough to be the one they're looking for. They just have to find a body of water somewhere around there, and theoretically, the gold should be here.

And then she notices the house behind them, half-hidden by trees.

"Oh, you're fucking with me."

"Not the Crain house," John B whines.

On Halloween, as kids, they used to trade stories about the Crain house. Someone was killed in there, and they were children, easily impressionable. They walked past it a couple of times, to scare themselves, and it worked.

Considering the state of decay of the house, it's easy to see why.

Even now, at sixteen, when Kathryn gets out of the Twinkie, she can feel her heart race.

"Are you kidding me?" Kie says between clenched teeth.

JJ walks up next to Kathryn. "Worst-case scenario."

"Why'd it have to be here... of all places?" Pope adds.

Kathryn huffs. "Because we can't have anything nice, that's why. Look for gold, get fucked by the haunted house."

JJ turns to her. "I heard that Mrs. Crain buried her husband's head on the property."

Her eye twitches, panic settling in her stomach. "You're going to join him if you keep this up." She turns back to John B. "With much love, bee, I'm not going in there."

He sighs. "We have to."

"It might not actually show, but I kinda like my life right now?" she insists. "I'm not sure I want to die."

"You're fucking with us," JJ says, maybe even more scared than she is. "We're not really going there, right?"

"Just – just get inside."

John B actively has to tug her forward to make her climb the small stone wall.

The second Kathryn's feet hit the ground, she shakes herself and heaves out a sigh. "Let's just get it over with."

The huge yard of the Crain house is completely abandoned, vegetation growing everywhere. It's like walking in the middle of a post-apocalyptic place where nature has reclaimed her territory.

Her imagination does nothing to help her calm down. "Just so we're clear, because I'm starting to doubt your mental capacities," she says, uneasy. "You guys know whose house this is, right?"

"Oh, yeah," JJ says immediately. "No, I do."

"Honestly," John B starts. "I don't really believe the stories of this place."

Kathryn, JJ and Pope turn towards him, looking at him as if he's the biggest idiot on earth. He might as well be.

When he rolls his eyes, they start walking again, Kathryn at the front to speed up the process of exploring the backyard of a killer.

JJ catches up to her. "Which stories did you hear?"

She slows down, feeling goosebumps forming on her skin. "That she killed her husband with an axe, buried his head and never left her house ever since." She looks around. She feels watched. "My dad liked that story."

He nods quickly. "Yeah, no, heard the same."

Kie turns to them, smirking a little. "On certain nights, when the moon is full..." She wiggles her fingers at them while turning back. "You can see her in the window!"

Kathryn swats her hands away. "Dude, don't joke with that!"

"It's not funny, 'cause it's all true," JJ agrees. "I swear to God, guys, this is all real. I knew Hollis – Jeez!"

JJ protects himself from a statue, his scream making Kathryn jump behind him to hide, pushing him forward and giving him up to sacrifice for anything that comes from them. Everyone stops, looking at them oddly.

He turns to her. "Were you just going to leave me to die?"

"It's a statue!" she fires back. "What's it gonna do, stare at you to death?"

"Wait," Pope interrupts before the bickering resumes. "You knew Hollis Crain?"

Hollis Crain is the daughter of the owner of Crain House. Allegedly, her mother's the killer, and her dad's head is somewhere in the backyard.

JJ turns to him. "Yeah, dude."

Kathryn settles down, and crosses her arms, dubious. She never heard that story. "How do you even know Hollis Crain?"

"She was my babysitter. She told me all about it. Told me the truth... about her mother and what happened in this house."

He lets the suspense build. "This isn't a podcast, JJ!"

He sighs. "So as a kid, she heard all the stories that her mother killed her father, and... she was a murderer and all. Hollis didn't believe it. Until that night."

He pauses again. "What night?"

"It all came back to her. When Hollis was six years old, she heard her parents arguing downstairs. So she goes downstairs to see her mom washing her hands in a sink... full of blood. Her mother just says that she cut her finger. The next morning, she says her father and her split up. But then, Hollis noticed something. Her mother going into the parlor constantly, in and out and in and out with plastic bags. Weeks pass, and Hollis decides to use the outhouse. And as she's using it, she looks down, and there, in the outhouse..." He turns to Kathryn and gets closer, looking her in the eyes. "Is her father's head, looking straight back at her."

There's a moment where Kathryn's brain seems to restart, and she ignores the heat in her stomach at their proximity, before she shoves JJ away. "Don't lie to me."

"KD, I swear to God."

"Did she call the police?" Pope asks.

"She didn't have time–"

John B walks past JJ and Kathryn, interrupting the former. Kathryn follows after him, now more than concerned because of JJ's little story.

"Wait!" Kathryn takes a hold of his arm. He turns back to her, exasperated. "You're sure you want to break into the property of an axe murder with a cast on?"

John B frees himself. "I don't give a shit if she's an axe murderer, okay? I got nothin' to lose, right?" He looks back at the others. "You comin' or what?"

Well, that's a new attitude. She doesn't know where it's coming from, but she doesn't like it. "Get a grip, JB," she tells him. "Is living with Ward so bad that you actually have a death wish now?"

He rolls his eyes and starts forward, Pope and Kie following him, leaving JJ and Kathryn behind. She looks at him intently, frustrated.

JJ shakes his head at her. "Don't ask me anything, I dunno why he's like this."

Kathryn only sighs, and they move forward to catch up with the others.

The Pogues crouch down as they near the house, and stop when John B turns to them. They're close enough now, they could see inside if the curtains weren't drawn. Why are they drawn anyway? What's Crain trying to hide?

JJ is getting to Kathryn's head.

"So here's the plan," John B says, cutting her thoughts short. "We need to look for the wheat near the water like it said in Denmark's letter."

"Okay like, what kind of water?" Pope asks. "Like, pond water?"

JJ chuckles. "Bong water?" Kathryn slaps the back of his head. He yelps.

"Thanks, Kat. It – it just said 'look for water', okay?" John B says.

Kie frowns as she stands up, walking away. "That's the shittiest secret message ever."

He follows after her. "You wanna complain a little more, Kie? Nobody said it was gonna be easy."

The three others are left behind, wondering if Kie and John B are slowly going to drive each other mad. They're not particularly overjoyed by any of this, but hundreds of millions are in the cards here.

Pope points to their right. "I'll search the northeast quadrant, you search the northwest."

He leaves immediately after that, and doesn't look back, not even when JJ calls out, "The decapitation quadrant!" after him.

JJ and Kathryn share a look. This is suboptimal, as Pope would say. Anxiety and irritation are rarely a good mix, especially for Kathryn. And so far, she knows only one thing which can effectively calm her down.

She extends her hand towards JJ. "Breathe a word of this to the others and I'm killing you."

JJ considers her. He's not really hesitating, more like reflecting on why he's ready to beg on his knees for her to take his hand. "Got it."

They interlace their fingers together, and it would feel like pieces falling into place, if Kathryn listened to herself for more than a minute. But it has the expected effect.

His cold hand against her warm one calms her down. But, still, they're not exactly searching for water. It's more like they're looking out for anything that might kill them.

Kathryn feels something brush against her lower back, and she scowls at him. "Mind your friggin' hands, JJ."

He looks back at her. "What?"

"That's my arse."

"What?"

"You just touched my–"

He holds up his other hand, nowhere near her ass. "If I did, I'd know it!"

Things happen quickly. Kathryn and JJ lose all the colours in their faces. And then JJ, afraid that she might freeze and leave them stranded there for long, agonising minutes, picks her up and throws her over his shoulder, before he starts running again.

He runs until they find the others, despite Kathryn hitting his back and wiggling her legs around.

He sets her down. She holds up a finger, panting. "Never do that again."

"I didn't do anything!"

Kie stares at them. "What was that all about?"

"That was something," Pope agrees.

JJ and Kathryn both turn to them at the same time. "Shut up!"

"Shh!"

They finally turn to John B, crouching in front of a small door in the house, most likely leading to the cellar. Kathryn notices the light in his eyes. She winces.

"You're going to make us go inside, aren't you?"

Author's Note: Happy pride month y'all!

Editor's Note: Every month can be pride month if we're brave enough