CHAPTER SEVEN
we might be hollow but we're brave

WHICH IS TO SAY that Briar's yet again standing on the HMS Pogue, watching Kiara and her friends make terrible decisions and saying nothing against it because at least something interesting's happening, even if they barely have enough air in the oxygen tank and someone might end up dead by dinnertime.

The top half of her sundress is peeled off, bunched up around her waist in a makeshift skirt as she lays up on the back of the skiff, sun-tanning. Briar readjusts her heart-shaped sunglasses, glaring out into the marsh where the heatwaves warp the rippling air and the baking sun turns the glittering water into an oasis of gold. Meanwhile, the others are standing around a pile of scuba diving gear, discussing strategy on how to get to the Grady White directly below them. Briar doesn't participate, mainly because there's hardly a plan, considering only one of them can go under with the quarter-full tank.

"Does anyone know how to dive?" Kiara asks, posing the million-dollar question, her tone rough with annoyance. The silence that befalls them is equal parts dismaying and awkward. JJ glances down at his shoes, John B shakes his head, and Pope shuts his eyes. Kiara sighs. "Anybody? B—didn't you go diving in Bali last summer?"

Briar pins her with a meaningful stare. The entire drive to Pope's they didn't speak. JJ had driven, Briar swiftly claiming the passenger seat, feet up on the dashboard, and Kiara relegated to the back. They let JJ fill the silence with his inane rambling, and Briar stole surreptitious glances at Kiara through the rearview mirror, her sunglasses hardly concealing the challenging glint in her eye.

Admit it, a voice in her head screams. Why won't you admit it?!

As the Twinkie shuddered over the road, Kiara outright ignored her, and has been ignoring her up until now. And this was when Briar knew nothing would change. For some unbearable reason, Kiara refused to acknowledge what had nearly transpired last night, and for some reason, Briar would always replay that moment in her head until it was burned into the back of her eyelids, the heat of the moment consuming her the way a fire devours a house.

A second, smaller and crumpled voice fluttered out of the Pandora's box Briar locked all of her emotions in, flitting across the ravine of her mind, landing upon a memory Briar tried her best to bury, a memory that Kiara killed.

Why won't you remember?

If JJ or the boys sensed anything thus far, they didn't comment. And perhaps it's better this way.

"Snorkelling," Briar corrects her, pointedly. "And considering that apparatus belongs to the Camerons, I'm not touching it with a ten foot pole. You can totally get herpes from sharing a mouthpiece."

Pope winces. "Oh, that's not..."

"That's incredibly helpful, Thorny, thank you," John B drawls, fixing her with a flat look, to which Briar taps two fingers to her temple in a mock salute.

"It's kind of a Kook sport," JJ weighs in.

"I... read about it," Pope says, tentatively.

"Great." Kiara sighs. "Pope read about it, so someone's going to die."

"Look," JJ cuts in, his tone hopeful, "you put the thing in your mouth and breathe. How hard can it be?"

"Oh my God," Briar groans, pulling herself upright. "Can we just let Pope talk? Get this show on the road. Everyone shut the fuck up. Pope—floor's yours. What does John B have to do?"

"Hold on a second," John B protests, "who nominated me?"

Briar cuts him a bemused glare. "Please. You were going to volunteer, regardless, out of main character syndrome and your insufferable need to be a hero, like, all the time. Anyway. What the fuck did I just say."

John B flips her off but says nothing to oppose her.

Thankfully, they let Pope ramble about the practical side of diving, scribbling out his calculations on a piece of scrap paper pinned against the steering wheel, how critical it is to John B's life to make his safety stop at ten feet for two minutes. Meanwhile, Kiara strips her shirt and shorts off, leaving her in her green bikini, and dives into the water without a word. Briar watches her go, her slender body arcing through the air and slipping through the rippling surface.

Pope glances between the disturbed water and Briar, lifting a brow. He leans back, nudging her subtly while JJ helps to fit the gear on John B. "You okay?"

Sliding her sun glasses atop her head, Briar flashes him a cutting grin. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Dunno," Pope says, shrugging, rubbing at the ink stains on his fingers from the leaking pen John B had procured for him, "you seem... since last night you seem a bit checked out, is all. Topper hit you bad."

"I'm sick of talking about Topper," Briar murmurs, watching Kiara surface and swim back to the skiff in a few quick strokes, her skin gleaming bronze beneath the tangerine sun.

"I tied my shirt to the anchor chain about ten feet down," Kie says, panting slightly, as she pulls herself up into the skiff with JJ's help. Briar tracks her hands, the way JJ's gaze lingers a little on Kiara's chest for a moment too long, and the burning in her stomach sears a hole right down to the middle of her. Pope seems to see it, curiosity taking him through the tunnel.

"Alright, then. Did anything else happen when you went to Kie's?"

"So many questions, Heyward," Briar muses, taking her sun glasses off and shoving them over Pope's eyes, a dismissive gesture that could've meant: Back the fuck off. Up to his interpretation. "Go tell John B how not to die."

With an exasperated sigh, Pope heaves off his seat to deliver his lecture. Meanwhile, Kiara wrings the water out of her hair and Briar watches, in her peripheral vision, the droplets scintillating off her deep brown skin. As soon as Kiara turns to look, Briar glances away, jaw tightening.

"Hey," Kiara mutters, coming to stand over Briar now, her voice low enough that the boys—who're too engaged with John B and figuring out the scuba gear to overhear—don't catch her question. "Are we... are we cool?"

Are we cool? Three simple words, three shards embedded in Briar's chest. Kiara's smile is apprehensive, her lips curling ever so slightly, like she's testing the waters, like Briar's about to blow, or swim away, if she doesn't get it right. As if Briar's the one who's always turned away when something inexplicable happens. As much as she wants to laugh in Kiara's face, as much as she wants to scream: you know we aren't, you know we crossed that line ages ago, you just don't want to admit it. You never want to admit anything, ever.

Instead, Briar shrugs, pushing down on the ache in her heart, calling upon the steel slipping through her ribs, an impregnable fortress once more. She cocks her head, eyes flashing, pinning Kiara with a provocative smile "I wasn't aware that we weren't."

Kiara's nostrils flare as she lets out a sharp exhale. "C'mon, Briar—"

"Look, I have no idea what you're on about," Briar says, standing, toe-to-toe with Kiara now, her grin wolf-like, the stitches splitting open, a sharp pain lancing through her bottom lip as blood wells in the cut. And Briar can see it—the convoluted shadow slipping across Kiara's eyes as she fights it, forcing her eyes to stay on Briar's rather than letting them drop down. Down to the memory of that one night, the end of last summer, a time that even Briar couldn't name.

They never spoke of it, and there've been moments like last night where it'd nearly surfaced again, but someone always walked away from it first before anything could happen. And Briar's always let Kiara pull back from the ledge, even as she dangled over the precipice, the abyss yawning under her. This is how it always is. They always get too close to unearthing the memory until one of them decides to close the coffin on it, the rift between them would grow, then one of them would patch it up, and they'd keep throwing dirt into the hole to bridge the gap, smooth over the fissures, and they'd be back to being girls, together, and they'd never talk about the powder keg moment where they're so, so angry with each other. The cycle starts again.

Lately, though, Briar's found that she's tired of covering up the hole, packing dirt over the grave, smothering the body of memory.

"Great." Kiara's voice is flat. She turns away, moving toward the bow.

Briar's hand nearly snaps out of its own accord, but she stills it by her side. Instead, she says, "That's how it always is with you, isn't it. Just great," her voice tugging Kiara back around as if she'd snatched her back by the hand, anyway. Because you're so good at ignoring things, and how you never want to acknowledge anything, ever. Those words don't exactly come out, but the weight of them hangs over their heads, an anvil threatening to crush them to pulp.

"Can we not do this now?" Kiara hisses, casting a glance over her shoulder, to the boys, Pope's curious stare landing on them. Kiara waves him off before turning back to Briar, her gaze skirting past Briar, unable to meet her incendiary stare. "We're on the clock."

Briar scoffs, but doesn't answer.

Glowering, Kiara strides to the bow of the skiff where John B stands, ready for launch, decked in scuba gear and hesitating only because Kiara's walking toward him with such intent, a deer trapped in the headlights of her stare. Kiara steps up onto the bow, and Briar curls her fingers into fists, nails digging into the heel of her palm to stave off the poison threatening to eat through her guts, biting her tongue. Then Kiara plants a kiss on John B's cheek.

JJ and Pope share a puzzled look, brows lifted, like, uh-oh, Mom and Dad are fighting again.

From the corner of her eye, Briar catches Pope stealing a glance over his shoulder at her, but she ignores him.

Stunned, John B blinks at Kiara almost star-struck, his face flushing roseate, but Kiara's not even looking at him. Rather, her spiteful stare meets Briar's across the skiff, burning with intent, a thermonuclear furnace clashing with the unrelenting fortress of ice in Briar's piercing glare, working the skiff like gunslingers, pistols at dawn.

"Diver down," someone says, but Briar barely hears it over the high pitched ringing in her ears, barely even notices John B sinking below the surface, as she holds Kiara in a contemptuous glare, that hot, ugly knot at her core cinching around her organs, jilted goddess Hera on the verge of vaporising the collateral. Kiara doesn't drop her gaze, doesn't back down, a thousand ships launching in the heat of her defiant stare.

Just as JJ opens his mouth to comment, Pope puts a hand against his chest to stop him from running his mouth, but even if he'd said whatever was clearly on the tip of his tongue, neither of the girls would've paid him any mind. When they got like this, nothing mattered, only the deadlock, only the death spiral, eyes on your girl, always. Even if you want to claw her to shreds.

The sharp wail of a siren shatters the moment, pulling both Kiara and Briar vehemently from their stand-off. Immediately, Briar spots the police boat cruising toward them with shark-like intent, can smell the tension curdling the air, the others snapping to attention—"Act normal!" Kiara hisses—and scrambling to relax, which might've been the most counterproductive instinct. JJ props his arms against the wheel, throwing the approaching cops a wave, and Kiara puts her shoulders back, stretching her long legs across the bench. Pope, however, seems to have locked up, his gaze shifting back and forth between the floor of the skiff to the cops, and back again, the anxiety radiating off him in waves. Briar's familiar with only one of the cops, Shoupe, the deputy who sometimes knocks on their door to chastise her mother for unpaid parking tickets and reckless drunk driving—he's harmless, essentially, easily paid off with a hundred dollar note slipped into his palm, her mother's sultry smirk and honeyed words poured into his ear, rapture at the doorstep. The younger but unremarkably plain female cop with her hair slicked back into an unimaginative bun at the base of her head beside him, though, Briar's hardly seen before.

Behind JJ's back, Briar slaps her bottle of sunscreen into Pope's hands, pulling his gaze to her, his expression wired with barely contained fear. "Do my back. Quickly."

Pope nods, understanding her intent to distract him from the fact that he's shitting bricks and giving their game up. Wordlessly, he takes the bottle and squirts a line of sunscreen over her shoulders. Meanwhile, the cops pull up parallel to the skiff, and Briar forces on her best smile, attempting to take the attention off of Pope.

"Evening, officers," Pope says, keeping his tone as light as possible, his smile as non-threatening as possible.

If it weren't for the fact that she can feel the tension in his body emanating from the flat of his palms pressing against her back, she might've figured that Pope just wasn't used to dealing with cops, considering he was such a rule follower if not for John B and JJ. Plus, the promise of his scholarship was only just that for now: a promise that could be snatched back on a whim. Granted, Briar knows that there's a deeper reason. Unlike JJ, who's comfortable committing felonies as though checking them off a bucket list, or John B, who's got Sheriff Peterkin to look out for him knowing his living situation, Pope's always been on the fritz around cops, a deer with its ears perked up waiting for the glare of a shotgun, ready to flee at a moment's notice, some primal instinct stirred from within. It's an alertness cultivated by conditioning, big, friendly smiles, hands where we can see 'em, no sudden movements, no reaching for pockets, cooperate and speak in soft tones. Pope's always worked much harder than the others to keep out of trouble, the stakes raised to heights none of them can comprehend, because they're not a working class black boy in this trigger-happy world.

"'Sup, Shoupe?" Briar says, throwing the deputy a toothy grin and a wave as Pope's hands work her back, smearing the sunscreen down her shoulder blades. JJ helps the cops tie their boat to the skiff so they can talk. "Did you get my Mom for drunk driving again?"

Taking his sunglasses off, Shoupe appraises Briar with a paper-thin smile. "Nah. Not today. You got a little something there, Briar." He taps his bottom lip, and Briar feels it, one-two, pulsing against the cut that's already cracked through the scab once more. "You got hit or something?"

Briar shrugs. "Stunting accident at cheer camp. Nothing new."

For a moment Shoupe squints at her, unconvinced, but eventually moves on. "You kids know the marsh is closed?"

"No, wow," JJ says, casting Briar and Pope a side-long glance. "I didn't know that."

"Why is it closed?" Pope asks, his tone considerably more level.

"We're conducting a search out here," says Shoupe, "boat went down. You seen anything?"

"What kind of boat?" Briar asks, innocently, as if the HMS Pogue wasn't sitting on top of the pot of gold. Yawning, she cat-stretches her hands over her head in a way that pushes her scantily-clad chest out and sometimes invokes glares from the Figure Eight moms at the Island Club and makes her math teacher turn all red and cross his legs. It has the same effect for the cops as they take the bait. The mirthless female cop fixes Briar with a borderline reproachful glower. Shoupe glances away, his ears turning red discomfort feathering at his jaw, even as he receives a chorus of 'no's from the others. Briar cocks her head, saccharine smile twisting her lips.

She pats Pope's knuckles, deciding he's quite done with the sunscreen, and draws his hands over her shoulders, twining her fingers with his, to keep him from fidgeting more.

"Grady-White," Shoupe says, shortly. "There's supposed to be five of you, no? Where's the other boy you kids always hang with? He here?"

"He's working," Kiara says, sweetly.

Shoupe considers them for a moment, shares a glance with his partner. "I'm going to check your little boat out."

"Yeah, hop aboard, check her out," Pope says, the pulse in his wrist jackrabbiting against Briar's shoulders, as Shoupe boards the skiff. Briar lets Pope's hands go as they step aside to give the deputy room to move around.

"You got another one of these?" Shoupe asks, lifting up a life jacket discarded on the floor of the skiff.

"Yeah, uh," JJ says, and Briar can read the irritation in the taut line of his lips, never one to trust the cops, barely restraining the urge to deck Shoupe for snooping around their space, "in the hold."

"Show him," Kiara murmurs, gesturing to Shoupe.

JJ nods, and bends down to lift up the lid on the cargo hold, doing as told. Shoupe nods in approval, and casts his gaze toward the bow. As he crosses over, the others go rigid, their skin prickling with warning. Briar doesn't know how much time John B has left, or if he can see Shoupe's silhouette standing over the safety stop, but she hopes for their sake that Shoupe doesn't see past the glare as he puts his sunglasses on and leans over the tip of the boat to scan the water for any discrepancies in their story. Thankfully, the evening sun casts a sheen of undulating gold over the surface, obscuring the bloated phantom of the Grady-White embedded in the dirt a dozen or so feet beneath them.

Briar flicks the female officer, who's glaring at them with such intensity, a feline grin, hopefully to disperse some of the tension building up on the boat. "How ya doing, girl?"

"Peachy," she says, flatly, not wishing to give in to Briar's efforts to distract her.

"Oof," Briar teases, crossing her arms over her chest and surveying the female officer with a cool once-over. No one was uncrackable. You just had to hit the right spots. She can hear Kiara's sharp intake of breath, knowing exactly what Briar's trying to do. "Not a talker, huh? But I bet being a cop is tough, you're on the clock all the time. I know some great spas with killer massage packages. Or those places where they strike this huge tuning fork and the sound waves unwind all that stress in your shoulders, straightens you right up. Something about the frequency makes you less... uptight."

"Is that so?" the officer says, annoyance whetting the edge in her tone.

"Yeah, totally," Briar hums, bares her teeth. "You get all relaxed, and your sex life improves tenfold, too. Maybe it could help you, y'know? All work, no play makes Jack a dull boy."

The female officer pins Briar a deadpan look, like, you're sixteen, what would you know of a sex life? To which Briar only lifts her brows, the challenge gleaming in her icy stare. Granted, the officer doesn't take the bait. She's a grown woman, and she's seen it all. High school warfare tactics don't work on her the same, but Briar already knows this. It's just fun poking the bear knowing she's not going to get mauled.

Just then, Shoupe turns away from the bow, strides back to the police boat. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

They mutter their assent, relieved that the cops are finally leaving them alone.

"You let us know if you see anything on your way out," Shoupe says, his voice filled with false cheer.

"Will do, will do," Pope says, untying the skiff from the police boat.

"We'll be gone soon, sir."

"Yes, you will," Shoupe quips back.

In a minute, they're off, engine roaring, cutting through the water, away from the marsh. As soon as the police boat disappears round the bend, they rush over to the side of the skiff and peer over the edge.

"You think he drowned?" Briar mutters. Kiara flicks her a bemused glare, to which Briar merely rolls her eyes. Big bad captain Briar reeled in by her lieutenant Kiara, once again.

"He's definitely run out of air by now," Pope says, solemnly, combing the water for a sign of John B.

Almost immediately, John B surfaces, his masked head bobbing in the waves. Their collective relief hangs palpable in the release of breath they share as they hauled John B and the bulky scuba diving gear back onto the skiff, glancing over their shoulders for the cops. As soon as John B pulls his mask off, grinning back up at them, his eyes glimmering with some barely contained excitement, as if he, alone, harboured this pearl of a secretion his tongue they'd have to prise open his clammed mouth to reach, the ballooned tension ruptures. Balance restored now that they are just five, again, back in equilibrium.

"Did you find anything?" JJ asks, his eager voice sanded with anticipation.

"Did I find anything?" John B echoes back, panting, his face florid. Then he heaves a massive, black duffel bag over the side of the skiff. It slaps against the top of the ladder at their feet, squelching, water splattering across their shins, the resonant thunk of its weight against the skiff striking directly into their chests. Of course, it could've just been waterlogged, but there was undeniably weight to it, and as JJ relieves John B of the duffel bag, he casts Briar a wide eyed stare, mouth open in a perfect O-shape, and drops it onto the floor.

"You okay?" Kiara asks, peering down at John B.

"Yeah," he says, his voice ragged with exhaustion. "I ran out of air."

"You scared the shit out of me."

While it's a perfectly normal thing to say to a friend who's been underwater for longer than humanly possible on a nearly empty oxygen tank, Briar rolls her eyes and moves to stand behind Pope, a physical barrier between her and Kiara, trying to shake the image of Kiara's soft smile and John B's dazed expression from moments before, when she'd kissed him on the cheek. As if. As if that would turn into anything. Briar knows Kiara down to the molten core. If they ever spoke about boys, it was all from Briar's side, and only ever mockingly. Kiara has always been too consumed by her own environmentalist agenda to care about the teenage landscape of dating. And Briar knows, deep down, that Kiara isn't into John B. Romantically or sexually. He's a Pogue, one of her own, an extension of herself, more than a friend, but never a lover—just like the others. Kiara would never compromise that.

Although, lately, something has shifted beneath the sands on Kiara's psyche. Briar can still read her, can still divine every thought and ever impulse on her sleeve, but she's been failing to grasp the logic behind them. Granted, Briar has an inkling that the reason for Kiara's recent idiosyncrasies had to be tethered to the last day of the previous summer. Something between them had shifted, and they'd crossed over into something they couldn't take back. But, as always, here Kiara was, backtracking again, always looking over her shoulder and wishing she could've been different now that the magic's worn off.

"Okay," Pope says, turning round to face Briar, concern knitting the point between his brows, ever the more perceptive of the three boys. His voice is low enough that it doesn't permeate the bubble of animated chatter between the others, only audible to Briar, to the wind whisking her hair over her face. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"No." Briar shakes her head. "We're not doing this. We don't do this, Pope."

"Because you don't let us," Pope points out, a corner of his mouth twitching up into an impish smile, knowing he's right. Knowing she's a prideful creature who can't ever admit that anything hurts. Because then everything hurts.

Briar rolls her eyes, again, and just as she's about to snap back with a retort, Kiara's warning rips through the festive atmosphere.

"Guys, bogey. Two o'clock."

Pope wrenches around, and Briar follows his gaze to the rogue boat speeding toward them, the same way the police boat came. "Do you recognise that boat?"

"I've never seen it." Kiara frowns, squinting into the horizon. "What are they doing here? The marsh is closed."

They're far enough that none of them can see its occupants, nor can they directly confirm if the other boat's spotted them in the middle of the marsh. Briar pulls her sundress back on. Her state of undress might've been uncomfortable for the cops, serving the Pogues in their favour, but something in her gut tells her that it won't help them this time.

"Let's not stick around and find out," JJ says, already heading toward the bow to draw up the anchor at John B's command.

"Should we wait on them?" Pope asks, glancing back at them.

"If you want to die, yeah," Briar drawls, watching the boat draw closer, its operators much more visible now. Both men, clad in black, their faces misshapen as the rot on a bruised apple, as though they'd taken hits before, as if they knew what it looked like to watch the life drain from someone's eyes. "Just look at those goons. They're not here for a tea party. JJ, you got the gun?"

"Don't answer that, JJ," Kiara cuts in, slanting Briar a flat look. "John B, we need to leave. Now."

"Don't wait for me, guys," JJ calls over his shoulder as he reels in the anchor.

As if on cue, the other boat roars in response as John B guns the engine of the HMS Pogue, pulling them away from the sunken Grady-White and its poisoned energy. They peel into the marsh, picking up speed as they follow the snaking channel. Knelt on the floor of the HMS Pogue, Briar twists round to watch the other boat as it follows them straight into the channel. Overhead, the others share an alarmed look.

Death hasn't fazed Briar in a long time. Not since she earned that scar on her forehead from Topper in the swimming pool. But as the other boat looms closer, shadowing their heels, cutting through the marsh with all the ominous intent of a shark's fin slicing through the surface as it hunts down its mark, she can feel the withered edges of its cloak fluttering against her cheek. There's a blaring siren in their heads now, danger eminent, and the panic ringing through the air only spurs their hunter on, the engine growing louder and louder. Briar can only imagine what the collision would sound like.

"Shit shit shit shit shit," JJ hisses under his breath.

They fly through the marsh, John B nudging the engine into full-throttle, the water turning to white foam around them. Over the roaring of the engine, the white noise a mounting static in her head, Briar hears, just imperceptibly, a whimper in the back Kiara's throat, much closer than before. As the boat took the bend, tipping over to the left precariously, Kiara's shoulder found Briar's, magnets clasped together in the midst of disaster. On instinct, Briar slips her hand into Kiara's, the anger receding now, replaced only with a ferocious protectiveness, like a possession. Kiara tightens her hold on Briar's hand, shuffling closer now.

A gunshot rips through the chaos, and Briar's head jerks violently as if she's been shot. The sound of it barely grazed them, and upon a single glance over her shoulder at the long barrel of the sniper's gun in one of the men's hands, Briar knows that the next shot won't be a mere warning.

"Holy shit!" Kiara cries, clinging tighter onto Briar's arm, tugging her lower to the floor of the skiff, pressing against each other for shelter.

"What the fuck was on that Grady-White?" Briar snaps.

JJ shakes his head. "Someone's willing to kill for it. That's all we need to know."

Another shot rings through the marsh, startling birds from the greenery.

"Oh my God, we're gonna die!" Pope exclaims, arms pulled over his face as he cowers against the bench.

"I'm not fucking dying on this boat with you losers," Briar hisses, flattening herself against the floor of the skiff. "How much of the marsh do we even have left before we're cornered?"

"Worried about your browser history, Thorny?" JJ remarks, his voice verging on hysteria as he peeks over John B's shoulder to the boat in hot pursuit. "Rookie mistake—always clear your history after every search."

"Now's not the time, JJ!" Kiara snipes, she turns to Briar, pursing her lips, resolve set into the hard gleam of her eyes. "I have an idea."

"It better involve the gun."

Kiara rolls her eyes, already rising to her feet. "No. We can kill their engine. Just trust me on this."

On reflex, Briar clamps a hand over Kiara's wrist, adrenaline surging through her veins, turning her blood to slush now. "You're going to get shot. Stay low."

Crouching low, Kiara scrambles toward the cargo hold, ushering Pope out of the way, to which he merely slides off the bench and lands half on top of Briar, much to her chagrin. From inside the hold, Kiara procures a wide net, one that Briar's seen John B cast out into the sea for fishing. Briar feels Pope flinch against her side, his arms coming down to shield her head. She catches his fearful look and, as much as she wants to throw him off of her, as much as instinct screams for her to put space between them, she threads her fingers through his and lets him cut off the blood supply to her hand.

"You were right," Briar whispers, pressing her cheek against his, her heart hammering against her ribs, reverberating in every bone in her body. She's sure Pope can feel it, as she can feel his, his own heart thumping against his chest, punching against her back. She shuts her eyes, lets the world fall away. Does what she does best, and cuts out all the noise, even though the fear's turned her entire body to ice, even though she's numb and shaking, the steel slipped from her bones. "Something happened. I'm only telling you this because I'm so fucking freaked out right now, Kiara might die, and you're tweaking, too, so. Don't get any ideas about being let into my life or...whatever."

Pope's breath hitches. "Okay. Is this about Kie?"

"No," Briar says, her voice low, dark, and for once admitting there's a wound doesn't feel like she's bleeding to death, but she doesn't know how else to describe the feeling either, "but it's not not about her either."

Instead of saying: you are so fucking confusing, what the hell does that even mean, Pope hums, considering her admission. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Maybe."

"Now or later?"

"Maybe later, scholar, we might die."

Pope laughs, manic, disbelieving. "Most people would think you're just trying to be difficult, given the absolute lack of information, but I know this is your version of a cry for help. It's a great start, Briar."

"Shut up." Briar's starting to think opening up might be a terrible mistake.

They watch as Kiara hurries past John B toward the stern, ignoring his warning shout to get back as a third gunshot tears through the din of the roaring engines, the bullet ricocheting off the metal railing in front of John B, nearly clipping Kiara's head.

"Fuck! Help me with the net!" Kiara cries, ducking down low. "Briar!"

Without thinking, Briar wrenches herself out from under Pope and crawls toward the stern, where Kiara's struggling to unfurl the tangled net, her hands quaking with desperation. Briar starts working on one side, trembling fingers tearing through the stubborn knots. It's then that Briar forgets what she was so angry about earlier, what her and Kiara weren't arguing about. Now, as she undoes the matted net, she forgets everything else but survival, but the ferocity of the fear that Kiara could be dead in a second if she didn't get this done tearing through her body. It's a nearly impossible task, but they work on opposite sides until they get to the middle, the net unravelling between them.

They each take a corner and cast it out into the water, stretching it as wide as possible to bisect the channel, cut their pursuers off in the middle.

"Get down!" Kiara shouts, pulling Briar to the floor, their foreheads pressed together, twin smiles slashed across their lips, all teeth and breath caught in the chest.

A loud sputtering noise erupts from the other boat, and Briar sees it lurch forward, slowing down drastically as if they'd jammed the brakes. Briar meets Kiara's bewildered gaze across the skiff, and a seed of pride blooms in her chest, alongside the relief. As they disappeared round the bend, leaving the other boat behind, they heard another gunshot, but it was way off its mark, and they were already speeding away, leaving the other boat in the dust.

Hysteria bubbles up in Briar's chest and her sharp laugh slices the air to ribbons as she shares glances with the others, as if they can't quite comprehend what they'd just witnessed. As if the chase and the near death-experiences happened to someone else and they were merely spectating, their bodies slowly catching up to the unfolding memory as the adrenaline shakes wear off. Pope presses a hand over his chest, as if searching himself for gunshot wounds. JJ lets out a bellowing cheer, and slaps Pope's hand with a high-five. John B's smile is skeletal, still pushing the skiff through the marsh, not daring to slow down. Both hands on the top of her head, Kiara lets out a relieved laugh. In a blink, she's halfway across the skiff, throwing herself into Briar's arms.

"We're fucking saviours!" Kiara murmurs into Briar's neck. "That was insane!"

"I can't believe you didn't actually get shot," Briar says, closing her eyes. Right now, her blood is singing, her veins live wires charging her heart through her body, and all she can feel as the adrenaline ebbs from her body is her heartbeat thrumming through her bones, a metronome echoing into her head. You're alive you're alive you're alive. She's never been more aware of it. Kiara's arms wind around Briar, tight, tight, tighter, as if trying to fuse them together, and Briar breathes her in, saltwater and coconut shampoo, and the ugly feeling that'd been balled up inside her since this morning is gone, dissolved into the wind whipping their hair around each other. Just like that, they're each other's again.

Just like that.

Later, as the sun dips below the horizon and the sky begins to darken like a bruise, they pile onto the pier and gather around the duffel bag that John B had fished out of the cursed Grady-White and they'd all nearly died for. When John B pulls out a compass from the metal canister it'd been nested in, its rusted, copper shell gleaming in the half light, the silence that strikes them is a sledgehammer to the chest.

"Oh, wow. Yup. That's about right." Pope sighs, throwing his hands up in disappointment. "Good job, everybody. We found a compass."

"Dude, it's not worth anything," says JJ, his tone dry with mild irritation.

"I don't know. Someone tried to kill us for this," Briar muses, leaning over to scrutinise the compass, its dull face, the looping engraving on the shell. At first glance, Briar would've been inclined to agree with JJ. It would fetch nothing in a pawn shop, and the needle didn't do anything except spin toward North, rattling around behind the glass.

Until Briar caught the look on John B's face. The slow smile creeping across his lips, that secret locked behind his teeth gleaming on the bed of his tongue. His voice is barely above a whisper, tinged with hope.

"This was my father's."

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
not my best writing but... we move. FUCK THE PILOT. i spent way too long on it. i just want it DONE.

also! omitting the whole scene where they ogle kie as she takes off her shirt and dives into the water to tie her shirt at the safety stop. like. THERE WILL BE NO "THEY'RE ALL INTO HER" bUSINESS IN THIS FIC. kiara carrera is a bestie. their friendship is more than the boys wanting to fuck her lmao. (briar is the only one who gets to want that 👹. but that's a separate issue entirely.)

also ik that briar and jj dont really seem to have much chemistry but ... let's just say that briar's a very unreliable narrator. and it's only the fucking pilot episode 😭😭. things will happen. I promiseeeee we'll pick up the pace soon.

✷

SUNDRESS ── jj maybank / kiara carrera
Chapter Seven,   WE MIGHT BE HOLLOW BUT WE'RE BRAVE.
⚓️          S1.01: PILOT