CHAPTER THREE
( motel or meth lab )

POPE, KIARA AND AURORA STOOD OUTSIDE THE COAST GUARD ON THE DOCKS; the cruel obx sun beating mercilessly down on them as they patiently awaited John B and JJ's return. Piqued chatter and argument sounded from every direction, the scene overwhelming as one might expect after a devastating natural disaster such as hurricane Agatha. Aurora was glad the two boys had volunteered to brave the irritable, tired, sweaty, and smelly crowds inside the building; happy to wait outside with fresh air in a less busy area.

"Want your hat back?" she turned to Pope, the salt-infused ball cap still on her head; having dried and turned stiff in the sunshine.

The boy shook his head, leaning back against a wooden beam with casually crossed arms. "Nah, keep it." she smiled warmly at him, Kiara rolling her eyes behind the pair.

They straightened their backs when the two troublemakers reappeared and halted in front of them. "Any luck?" Aurora asked, receiving looks that explained it; no luck at all.

"So, what's the plan?" JJ inquired, resting his arm on John B's shoulder.

"I think I know how we're gonna find the guy who owned that boat." the Routledge boy announced, mischievously dangling the motel key in his hand. He had that familiar knowingness in his voice that they all knew was followed by a risky, often times illegal adventure.

"We don't even know whose room that is. It could be anyone." Pope immediately objected.

"I'm in." JJ snatched the keys from his fingers, in no need of convincing as he tossed them to Kiara. 

"Come on! I'll be look out!" she smiled sweetly, shrugging her shoulder to her ear as the three began to stride back to the HMS Pogue; Pope still clearly hesitant.

"If you don't want to go, I'll stay back with you." Aurora offered in all seriousness, turning to him.

"Finder's fee. Just saying." John B tempted further, patting their beloved geek friend on the shoulder; soon holding his arms to the side as he sauntered away. "And hey, at least you'll only be an accomplice! And Rory? Get your ass over here! I know you wanna come."

"Man." Pope sighed, reluctantly beginning to follow after him.

"Pope, really. If you don't wanna go—"

"No, it's okay Rory."

She was not convinced, he could tell.

"Really." he added with a smile, bumping shoulders with her until one appeared on her face too; the two heading down the dock side by side.

"Come on Bubba." John B voiced.

༻✧༺

THE FIVE DROVE UP IN THEIR RICKETY LITTLE WATERCRAFT TO THE BATTERED MOTEL, stunned to silence as they fixed their gaze upon the absolutely demolished location. There was no doubt in their minds that hurricane Agatha had hit here the hardest; it was an absolute wreck.

"Holy shit." Aurora murmured under her breath, dragging out the first word.

JJ whistled at the view. "I thought the Chateau looked bad."

"This place is a shit show." John B said, followed by a sarcastic comment from Kiara.

"Motel or meth lab?" she asked.

"You be the judge." Pope responded.

None of them could peel their eyes from the scene. Debris was launched everywhere, the motel sign laying pathetically on its side. Palm trees were spread criss-crossed across the green lawn, having snapped in the vicious winds. Mattresses had been discarded from the rooms because of the mold that would inevitably follow, and just about everywhere your eyes wandered was faced with some sort of immense destruction.

"Doesn't look like the kind of place someone with a Grady White would stay." John B noted.

"No, it looks like the kind of place someone with a Grady white would get killed." the Heyward boy's dark— but extremely accurate— reply came.

"In cold blood." Aurora added in a distracted mumble.

"This is your Captain speaking, HMS Pogue coming in for landing." JJ mimicked the sound of a voice through a radio as the neared the bank, soon springing from the boat and onto the land with a whoop; hastily tying it off.

"We good?"

"Yeah we're good."

"All right. Here goes nothing." John B sighed, the Maybank boy squinting his eyes against the harsh sunlight; propping one leg onto the bow as he kept one planted in the dirt.

"Hey. Don't let him do anything stupid." Pope gestured to JJ.

"Oh we will." the blonde boy nodded with certainty.

"I'm not making promises." John B told him.

"Yeah, I know."

"I should go with." Aurora decided, rising to her feet only for John B to step in front of her; blocking her path.

"No, you shouldn't." he shook his head.

"And why the hell not?"

"Boys only."

"Sexist much?" Kiara scoffed.

"John B—"

"You gotta learn how to stop being so worried all the time, Ror." he clicked his tongue with a cheeky grin, one he knew would aggravate her.

The Pogues often found joy in pressing each other's buttons, and they knew one another well enough to know how to easily do so. And, just as he knew she would, Aurora's brows knitted and her bottom lip rose poked slightly out in an annoyed pout. The girl crossed her arms and plopped back down, looking like a toddler who hadn't gotten her way. "I'm not worried all the time." she grumbled to herself.

"Be careful." Kiara instructed him, passing him the keys. "I mean it."

A strange look appeared in the boy's eyes; detecting something unfamiliar in Kiara's voice as he nervously chuckled a speedy 'yeah' and scampered off alongside JJ.

"We gonna gonna talk about that?" Aurora raised her brows at the Carrera girl, removing Pope's hat from her head and tampering with the adjustable size velcro in the back; hoping for a better fit.

"What? The fact that you just got called a worry wart?" Kiara shot back, stalling the actual topic.

"The fact that you have been eye-fucking John B for the last 48 hours. You've been all over him, Kie!"

Pope chortled, partly because of Aurora's bold upfrontness and partly because of the bewildered look that formed on the half-kook's face; as if she couldn't believe those preposterous words.

"I am not all over John B!" she scoffed incredulously.

"Sure." the boy sided with Aurora, Kiara's wide eyes darting over to him; all of them sitting on different parts of the boat across from each other.

"Pope and I aren't snitches. You can tell us." she chuckled simply with a shrug, her gaze shifting back down to the cap in her hands; missing the small smile the boy hurriedly suppressed at the sight of her treating the gift he had given her so delicately.

"Well there's nothing to tell." she huffed, leaning back into the boat and forming a tight line with her lips before promptly deciding to change the subject.
"Let's play 20 questions."

"Okay, uhh... biggest pet peeve?" Pope obliged.

"Biggest pet peeve?" Kiara raised her brows, the passionate teenager already seeming to have something in mind. "Easy. Giving 1 percent to the environment."

"What's wrong with that?" he asked.

Her face contorted in disgust. "We only have one earth, Pope. We should be giving 100 percent. Bare minimum."

"Right... that's not fiscally sound."

"Neither is destroying the only planet we have to live on."

"Alright." he sighed, not in the mood for a heated debate with the dedicated environmentalist. "Rory?" he turned his gaze to the girl sitting on the boat's stern.

"Drugs, Kooks, bitches. Next." she easily spouted off, never removing her gaze from the hat.

"Those aren't pet peeves, those are just things you hate." he laughed at the dark-haired girl.

It was no secret amongst the Pogues that Aurora absolutely despised drugs with everything in her. She'd always been upfront and open about it. Every time JJ rolled one of his beloved blunts, Aurora nearly blew a gasket.

"Cops."

"Again, that's just something that you hate." he pointed out.

"No no no, cops!" she shook her head, suddenly serious as she hurried to her feet; their heads snapping in the direction she was fixated on.

"Shit!" Kiara cursed, crawling up from the bow and tucking her hair behind her ears.

"Call them!" Pope ordered, the three crouching low to the ground and stealthily beginning to slink over to the giant, broken motel sign: officers exiting their cars.

"I can't! Towers are down!"

"If I lose my Merit Scholarship I'm gonna kill someone!" he whisper-screamed.

"You won't, don't worry." Aurora breathed purposefully, silently running past the two with light footsteps. The three halted behind the large, metal object; peering sneakily at the officers and anticipating their next move.

"Maybe they're not going up there." Pope suggested hopefully, though all of their guts warned them they were. "Maybe they're just... maybe they're just looking for a room!"

"Look! They're going up!" Kiara panicked quietly.

Aurora's head whipped in every direction, searching and scanning for any possible solution. Her gaze landed on a big window, judging from the location that it most likely belonged to the room their idiot friends were occupying. "The window!" she whispered, pointing to the spot before racing over to it; the two quickly following her.

"Okay okay! Do something! Do something!" Kiara panted once they reached their target, a dumpster shoved up again the white brick wall underneath the glass panes.

"Okay, stand back!" Pope instructed, scooping up a pebble by his feet.

"You got it." the Carrera girl encouraged faintly, all of their eyes eagerly upon the large window. He gave it his best try, missing by a long shot as Kiara sent a look of disbelief and annoyance his way. "Didn't you ever play baseball?!?"

"I was on the math team!" he argued.

"Dude!"

"It's fine, just keep trying." Aurora breathed out unsteadily, frantically squatting to find another rock. "Come on, Kie."

"A mathlete?" Kiara continued to grumble, making her own lame throw; still much better than Pope's.

"Both of you, shut the fuck up! You can gut each other over trivial, pointless things later, but now is not the time. Clear?" Aurora hissed, causing their lips to instantly seal. She swiftly chucked one at the window, missing the glass pane by a hair; a frustrated groan and string of obscenities escaping her lips when she did.

Kiara finally managed hit the window, praying the noise had been enough to reach their ears. Thankfully, John B's head appeared from under the blinds within a few seconds. The three hopped urgently up and down and mouthed the word 'cops' over and over, frantically pointing to the balcony and trying to make their time sensitive issue as obvious as humanly possible. He vanished back into the room for a brief moment before the window flew open, he and JJ clambering silently out onto the slanted ledge beneath it. The officers were knocking on the motel room's door and identifying themselves whilst they gambled with their lives.

"Oh for the love of..." Aurora rolled her eyes before her anxiety had time to fully kick in, the three sprinting back to the boat. Kiara took a seat behind the wheel while she and Pope kneeled on the bow; all of them nervously watching the two inch dangerously to the opposite sides and away from the window to avoid being spotted.

"Don't fall you stupid fucking, dumb fucking idiots!"the girl hissed under her breath, gritting her teeth as she helplessly observed.

"Should we peel?" Kiara queried from behind them.

"You never leave a Pogue behind." Pope quickly declared, glancing briefly over his shoulder to look at the girl.

She still wasn't convinced. "No, seriously. Should we peel?"

He paused. "Maybe."

"Hell no we're not leaving them!" Aurora stated firmly, her eyes not leaving the boys.

"What are you guys doing?!?" Pope whispered to them as if they would hear, standing up and waving his arms in distress.

They glanced carefully over their shoulders; pressed closely against the white brick wall as John B placed a hushing finger over his lip and JJ sent them a wild, yet inaudible laugh. Of course that one found this fun and amusing.

"Oh my God." Kiara complained.

They all waited on edge and in anticipation, not being able to make any move for the time being. Aurora squinted her eyes and knitted her brows as she examined them peek recklessly through the window, occasionally mouthing words back and forth that she was unable to make out from the distance. Suddenly, a heavy, black object dropped from JJ's pocket; clanging loudly against the ledge and again when it hit the dumpster. The boys winced and shoved themselves further against the wall.

"Shit!" Aurora cursed.

The three spun around and resumed their previous positions on the boat when the blinds shot open from inside, feigning a regular conversation beneath the scrutinizing gaze of the cops despite their pounding hearts. They were almost shocked to watch them not get caught, Aurora's jaw nearly dropping when she saw the officers exit the room with their bags and head for their car; driving off and out of the parking lot.

"Shit." she let out a huge breath of relief along with Pope and Kiara, her shoulders dropping and eyes closing momentarily as she regathered herself; JJ and John B starting to climb back into the room.

"They actually got away with that." Kiara mentioned in disbelief, Pope's hands on his head. "Wow."

"You worry to much, they say! Aurora ranted through gritted teeth out loud. "Worry too much my fucking ass!"

༻✧༺

"WELL THAT WAS FUN." JJ chuckled, the HMS Pouge ambling away from the motel; Aurora not sure her heart rate had yet returned back to normal. "Could of warned us a little sooner."

"We would've," Kiara began. "Except Pope was on the math team."

"You were on the math team?" John B asked curiously, lounging behind the wheel as he glanced over to Pope sitting next to him.

The Heyward boy was too deep in thought about the events that had just unfolded to pay any attention to his question. "The cops took everything like it was a crime scene. Did you guys find anything?" he queried, on task and serious as ever.

"Did we find anything..." JJ sat up on the bow, eyes drifting casually to the sparkling waters surrounding them. "I don't think so." he mentioned sardonically before reaching into his back pockets, revealing a gun in one hand and a thick stack cash in the other. "Oh, yeah! We did!"

"What the hell!?" Pope exclaimed in disbelief, springing instantly to his feet.

"Holy shit." Aurora mumbled, her eyes glazing over in wonder at the crisp, green dollar bills; amazed to see something so sacred in such vast multitudes. At the hands of JJ Maybank, no less. She was slightly ill at ease over the weapon, but the intrigue the money had stirred within her was enough to distract her from the sleek gun.

"Dude, what the hell!?" Kiara voiced unhappily, features scrunching in disgust.

"Dude, chill, come on." the reckless blonde rose to his feet, walking the few steps between him and the Heyward boy; who was pacing around the compact area.

"Why would you take that from a crime scene?!" Pope yelled, wide-eyed and panicked.

"Are you serious?" Kiara nodded angrily to the boy behind the wheel, the smile falling flat off of John B's face.

"I'm gonna lose my Merit Scholarship!" he continued.

"Hey, hey, hey. Sh, sh, sh, sh." JJ hushed him, his hand around the back of Pope's neck and the other tapping the cold, metal nose of the gun to his face. "At least your still have us, right?"

With a huff, Aurora rose to her feet, yanking the Maybank back by the shoulder; getting him to automatically lower the firearm. "Cut it the fuck out, JJ." she demanded. The blonde raising his hands in surrender with a lazy grin, backing away.

"I'm living the nightmare." Pope declared, plopping back down next to John B; Aurora joining him in solidarity.

༻✧༺

THE POGUES WATCHED WITH ANOTHER LOCAL OR TWO FROM THE CUT AS A BODY— SCARILY PALE AND TINTED light blue— was wheeled from the dock in a stretcher. None of them could make out who it was from where they sat, but the second a sobbing woman hared over to the lifeless man, Aurora knew.

"Holy shit."she mumbled, her wide eyes watching Lana, the crying woman, reach the stretcher and whimper her dead husband's name; stroking his face.

"What?" Kiara whispered, sitting right next to her.

"Whose that?" John B asked, his knees pulled to his chest, arms hanging loosely around them.

"It's Scooter Grubbs. Check out this pic I got." a girl informed him, showing her phone to the group as if sneaking a photo of a newly deceased man and his heartbroken wife was something to boast about. "Dead body. Insane."

"Rory, what's wrong?" Kiara asked again, the boys' gazes finally falling to her.

"I know her. I know him." she replied. A scowl appeared on her face when the teenager next to them continued to obnoxiously take pictures; the girl's smile vanishing when Aurora stood angrily from her seat and ripped the phone from her fingers. "Delete these now before I trash your phone in the bay. And learn to show some fucking respect. Got it?" she seethed, only handing the device back when the young girl nodded frantically. Quickly, she moved on; approaching Lana unsurely. The friends exchanged glances before Pope decided to follow her.

"Mrs Lana?" she asked quietly, the man being rolled away from his wife as Lana spun to face her; eyes puffy and red, face stained with shimmering tears.

"Aurora?" her voice cracked and wavered, unsure of what to say or do; Pope stood awkwardly by.

"I just... I'm sorry. Can I do anything?" the girl asked sadly, a sickening amount of sympathy etched into her furrowed features. Lana shook her head, unable to even mutter any kind of a response. "I'm so sorry." she whispered again, Lana giving a strained nod as she choked back tears; shortly walking away.

"Rory?"

She jumped at Pope's voice, whipping around to face him. "Shit! I didn't know you were there."

There was a beat.

"How do you know her?" he queried softly.

"They were... my parents know them. They used to spend time together when I was younger." she crossed her arms, eyes trained on her shoes. The words made her feel guilty. Even though they were technically the truth, she was still greatly withholding; the burden heavy on her shoulders.

Pope was surprised. Seldom did she ever even mention the mere existence of her parents. He was hesitant to ask his next question, but felt compelled enough to push through it. "Are you okay?"

"You guys. We gotta go." John B was suddenly racing over to them, interrupting their conversation and unknowingly stealing away her opportunity to respond.

"Can you give us a minute?" Pope asked through gritted teeth, though it sounded more like an aggravated command.

"Scooter owned the Grady White." he told them in low voice, Aurora's now shocked gaze shooting over to him in disbelief. When her and John B's eyes met, she knew they were thinking the same exact, slightly horrifying thought.

How in the hell could someone like Scooter Grubbs afford a brand new Grady White?

༻✧༺

"OKAY." Pope panted, jogging urgently up the porch steps to the Chateau and bursting through the screen door. John B leaned against the door frame, JJ on the old love seat fiddling with his trusty silver lighter, and Aurora and Kiara sunken lazily into the sofa. "So, umm... we didn't see anything. We don't know anything. We need to have total and complete amnesia." he instructed them seriously, plopping down in between the two girls; briefly eyeing the blank page on Aurora's journal.

Though she was far from the talkative one of the group, the dark-haired girl had been unusually quiet from her spot on the couch. Images of Lana sobbing and the open, bloodshot eyes of Scooter Grubbs flashed unforgivingly through her head and stole her voice. Her poetry notebook was open in her lap; the only way she knew how to cope. But despite the imagery being so fresh and raw, and despite how she longed to write something about how even her tears had looked beautiful and glittered beneath the sunlight for a positive twist, she couldn't bring herself to pick up the pencil.

"Actually, Pope's right for once." JJ stated, all of them turning their heads to see him rising from his spot. "See? I agree with you sometimes. Deny deny deny."

"Guys, we can't keep that money." Kiara threw in her two cents.

"Okay, not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, Kiara." JJ sassed.

"We have to pass that off to Lana Grubbs. Otherwise it's bad karma." she continued.

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

"If that means we get to keep the money, then I agree." the Maybank nodded, gazing out the screen door with his back facing them; shoulder to shoulder with John B, who stood the opposite direction.

"I don't agree." the Routledge boy said unexpectedly, walking to the other side of the large porch.

"What? Why?" JJ knitted his brows.

"Just think about it." he began, pacing around and using his hands to further emphasize all of his many words; a warning sign to his friends he had a mouthful to say. "This is Scooter Grubbs we're talking about, right? Same dude that's buying individual cigarettes from 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 40 bucks in his pocket and all the sudden he's got a Grady-White? Just saying."

The seemingly never-ending day carried on, all of them eventually making their way to the tiny dock behind the Chateau in hopes to ease their minds with the best therapy they knew; fishing.

"Alright, so think about it, Pope. How does a marina rat get a Grady-White?" the Routledge boy was still trying to make his point.

Pope inhaled sharply, clearly not wanting to entertain the conversation their friend couldn't seem to let go. "Prostitution."

Aurora chuckled dryly.

"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?" John B corrected.

"They were straight smuggling." the blonde answered simply.

"Smuggling. And I guarantee you, there's a serious amount of contraband in that wreck."

"Hell yeah." JJ added, not even a second later shooting up and jerking back to reel in a hefty tug on his line. "Fish on!" 

By the time they finished fishing, they were still all debating on what to do with the cash and how to go about the extremely formidable information they had gathered. It was no light task.

"For the record," Pope began as he sat down on the blue sheets of John B's bed, seizing the money from JJ's grip. "If that is a smuggling ship with illegal contraband on the inside of it, it probably belongs to someone else—"

"Minor details." Kiara dismissed, feet propped up on the bed.

"—they could come looking for us. Taking it would be catastrophically stupid."

"Right, well, stupid things have good outcomes all the time." JJ grinned, leaning over and taking the bills back from Pope; spreading them out and running his fingers over them in all their toxic glory.
"All we need to do right now is figure out a way to get the cargo hold out of that wreck. Until then, we just lay low. Just act normal."

"Right, and how do we do that?" Pope sighed, unconvinced.

Momentary silence settled over them before Kiara suggested a bright idea."Kegger?"

author's note !

OBX 3 TRAILER.
HOW WE FEELING ABOUT IT???

word count 4,031