BARRACUDA MIKE BROUGHT THEM TO SOUTH AMERICA. Apparently, JJ owed him ten times what they lost when they abandoned the truck, so they honestly were just going to have to pray that Big John somehow found El Dorado. They took a bus into town and talked to some guy that told them that the City of Gold was cursed and that everyone that went up never came down, so that was nice.

"Welcome to Tres Rocas," JJ announced once they arrived at their stop. He looked out the window and glanced around at the little village. He sighed, "This place makes the Cut look like the Taj Mahal."

"I'm surprised you even know what the Taj Mahal is," Kie commented.

Bree clapped her hands together, ready to get a move on. Their friends were somewhere around there, and they needed to find them before it was too late. She asked, "All right, so how we gonna find them?"

"Tres Rocas is fairly small. Don't worry about it. We'll find them," Leo assured them, and they all nodded, trying to be optimistic about it. With their luck, they'd be separated forever and somehow end up staying in South America forever because they had no way back.

However, Bree glanced up, and her eyes widened when she looked up and saw none other than Pope and Cleo sprinting down the road at them. She laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me. We haven't been here for two minutes!"

"Cómo estás, amigos?" JJ greeted, sticking his hand out the window. Pope high fived him but then continued his run away from the bus, lingering for a moment and waiting for them to join him.

"Run! We gotta go!" Cleo shouted, and the four people still in the bus just groaned in disbelief. No way they were already on the run. They had been there all of ten minutes max. She urged, "We gotta run!"

She and Pope ran around to the other side of the bus so that they had some cover while the others got out. Kie groaned, "Already? We just got here. What's happening?"

"Singh's men are right behind us. They're after us. We gotta think of a plan," Pope answered, and he was talking a mile a minute, clearly panicking. Bree was wondering what the actual hell could have happened in their mere hours of separation that caused such chaos.

JJ looked around, scanning his brain for something that they could do. Knowing him, his idea would be insane and would require an extreme amount of luck to pull off and get out of there alive. He offered, "Okay, why don't we just hijack the bus?"

"This bus?" Leo questioned in disbelief, gesturing to the one they just got off of. It took them, like, eight minutes to travel a mile in that bus. It was not going to do anything. They could easily outrun it. "The one that only goes ten miles an hour?"

"I'm just spitballing, Leo, okay? I didn't think you were gonna be so negative, God!" the Maybank boy retorted, rolling his eyes. They sounded like children arguing, but JJ kind of always sounded like that.

The brunette boy groaned, "It's not negative. It's realistic!"

"Guys! Shut the fuck up! They're coming now! Hide!" Pope ordered, and they all jumped into action. Bree pushed JJ and Leo behind a fruit cart, and the others followed suit. The ducked, barely peeking over so that they could see what was happening.

It was quite obvious who Singh's men were, and some of them were the guys that they had kidnapped back at that hotel when they were trying to get Kie back. They had weapons and were pushing people around and yelling. Once they finally left, Cleo stood up and sighed, "Welcome to South America."

Mike got them a boat and reminded JJ once again of the deal, and they were on the Orinoco and headed toward where they hoped John B and Sarah would be along with El Dorado. Pope and Cleo had gotten the coordinates and map from the Routledge boy before they split up, and they were headed down the river.

"Okay, guys, I think this is El Tesoro. The trailhead to the mountain is supposed to start here," Kie announced, looking down at the map and examining their surroundings to figure out where exactly they were.

"Oh, shit," JJ breathed out, and all of their headed whipped around to look at him to see him staring at what seemed to be a sort of river camp on the shore. There was a man lying in a boat, and he explained, "That's one of Singh's guys. What are we gonna do? We gotta get past them somehow."

So, they parked the boat and hiked up to this metal shack kind of thing. It was one sided, and it seemed like a barricade that you could shoot through, at least that was what they were going to pretend to use it for. Pope got some firecrackers ready, and JJ tossed the men a note that said, 'In five seconds, you will hear a gunshot. That's your warning. The next shot will be at your head.'

Then the 'shot' happened, and the man jumped to his feet, yelling something at his friend. However, that backfired, literally, because the guy then grabbed his gun and began shooting in a circle. JJ grabbed Bree's arm and yanked her down while Leo yelled, "Pope, return fire! Return fire!"

The next firecracker seemed to work because the men freaked out, climbed in their boat, and sped off down the river. Leo laughed excitedly, high fiving both of the other boys while Kie giggled at him. Cleo stopped them from getting to comfortable. "Hey, hey. Ain't no time for celebrating. We didn't do nothing yet."

"That's fair," Kie added as the girls stepped through the three guys.

"I thought we did something," JJ said, looking back to Leo and Pope, who nodded in agreement, proud of themselves. "Well-done, soldiers."

《✵》

"I THINK I'M DYING," BREE PANTED AS THEY HIKED. They had been moving non-stop for an entire day, and none of them were doing too hot. Actually, Leo seemed to be having fun with the machete up front, after having argued with JJ for half an hour over who got to lead. They decided to switch off, which led to more arguments over how long it had been since none of them had a working watch.

Cleo was doing a lot better than the rest of them, and Pope was close behind her. They had all barely said anything to each other, too exhausted to walk and talk at the same time. They were just focused on getting to their friends and the El Dorado. They hiked and hiked, and Bree had this sinking feeling the entire time that they were headed the wrong way.

But then they heard voices. Familiar voices.

And there was John B. JJ was about to call out to him, but Bree clamped her hand over his mouth quickly once she fully scanned the scene. John B and Sarah were standing in front of Big John, and Ward fucking Cameron was pointing a gun at them. The other Pogues crouched down so that they were hidden, and they needed to agree on a plan.

"All right, so, what are we gonna do?" Pope questioned as they all stared at what was happening in front of them. There was not much they could do without just charging them. They were in the middle of nowhere.

JJ glanced at them. "Is this ride or die?"

"P4L," Cleo responded, reaching into her belt and pulling out her machete. The rest of them mimicked her words and actions in agreement. Bree took a moment and thought about how it got to that point. A year and a half ago, she was sure that the Pogues hated her, and she was one of the Kook princesses. If you told her that she would fall for JJ Maybank, she would've laughed in your face. Now, there she was, ready to die for them because they were her everything.

Ward cocked the gun, and they took that as their cue. They all just began yelling and running in, causing the man to spin around and point the gun at each one of them in confusion. They were all shouting things like, "Put it down!" or "Drop the gun, Ward!"

"Come on. You're outnumbered, Ward," JJ pointed out to the man. If he shot any one of them, the rest would be on top of him before he could fire again. There was no way that he was making it out of there on top.

Pope nodded. "What are you gonna do, shoot us all?"

"Stop. Enough," Sarah announced, and her father spun around to face her. He did not put the gun down, and she stepped forward so that it hit her, pressed right against her heart. She shook her head confidently, and her eyes filled with tears. "You're not gonna kill all of us. I know you won't. I know you. You forget that I know you. You can't."

"I couldn't. I couldn't do it," Ward sobbed out as Sarah removed the gun from his hand, but then his face fell.

"Yeah? Well, I can," one of Singh's men announced, coming up from behind them. Everyone's eyes widened, wondering how the hell he got up there. He was such a random person to be there, too. If anything, bree had expected it to be Singh himself. John B lifted his gun and pointed at him, but the man turned his weapon on Big John.

The older Routledge just shook his head at the man. "Take it easy, bud. Your boss is dead. You got no reason to do this." That surprised the Calloway girl. She had not known that Singh was dead, but was she awful for being glad to hear it?

"I can think of a few reasons. Toss it!" he ordered, and John B relented, releasing the gun so that it fell to the ground. The man moved to grab the gun, and he turned his weapon on Sarah. "Thought you'd end up with the gold, eh? All right, nobody move. My mate back there is dead. Because of you. You go first."

"No," Bree muttered when she realized what was happening. Ward glanced back and forth between his crying daughter and the man threatening to take her life, and there was only one thing he could do. He took at least three bullets while sprinting toward the man, but he made it, crashing into him and throwing him off the cliff so that they both plummeted to their deaths.

Everyone froze in shock as the forest fell silent around them, and then they slowly crept toward the edge. Both men were at the bottom, and there was no way that they survived the fall. There was whimpering, and Bree looked over to see the blonde girl beginning to sob.

"Hey. Hey. Big John? Big John?" Pope started, leaving their sides, and they turned to see that the man was unconscious, holding his bullet wound. John B's eyes widened, and he ran over to his father. Bree stayed put and hugged Sarah while the others followed him. "Hey. John B!"

She let the girl sob onto her shoulder, and the boys took turns helping John B haul his dad down the mountain and back to the boat. "We just gotta get you downriver. You're gonna be okay." They laid him down, and John B sat with him with a terrified expression. Bree sat next to JJ and put her head on her shoulder. She was so tired and so sad, despite the fact that they had just found the lost fucking city of fucking gold. Leo had his arm around Kie, who was close to crying. Big John was shaking and clearly in a lot of pain.

"We did it together, my boy. Just like we drew it up," he whispered to his son as Cleo drove them back down the river at full speed, which was not very fast in that boat.

John B nodded, and he was doing everything he could not to cry. "Yeah. Yeah, we did."

"Bird, Bird, Bird. Hey, hey, Bird. Hey. Sarah," the man stammered, glancing over at the Cameron girl, who was sitting on the other side of him. "Bird, you got to hang on to this one." He groaned. "I know that I wasn't any great shakes as a father."

"Stop, Dad."

The man just continued, and Bree felt like she was intruding on a private moment. She squeezed JJ's hand so hard that she was surprised his bones weren't cracking. "But you...You were the best son any man could hope for. I want you to know that... You can tell me when we get home, okay?"

"Almost there," John B told him, and he pulled out a piece of gold from his pocket and placed it on his father's chest. He reminded him, "We did it.

"I'll see you at home, kid."