"CAN I TALK TO YOU FOR A SECOND?" KIE ASKED BREE. They were at the Wreck, getting the setups done from earlier before they worked out what the plan was with the other Pogues. The Carrera girl looked really nervous, like she was holding in a secret that she was dying to tell someone.

"Sure." The brunette girl stopped what she was doing so that she could give all of her attention to the girl. "What's up?"

The raven-haired girl glanced to her parents that were talking to some other employees on the other side of the restaurant to make sure that they were not listening on the two girls' conversation. "I'm not sure exactly how to say this."

"Just spit it out," the Callaway girl told her, gesturing for her to start talking because she was curious as to what she was going to say.

"Okay, okay," Kie responded, giving in with a small eye roll. She took a deep breath, taking another look around before she blurted out, "Um, Pope and I may have kissed."

Bree gasped, a small smile twisting onto her shocked face. She had been waiting for that moment ever since the Carrera girl told her about how Pope told her that he loved her. It was bound to happen sooner or later. "What? Where? When? How?"

"What? We kissed. Where? On the boat. When? When we were trying to escape after I kind of vandalized the Camerons' house," the other girl explained to her, answering all of her questions but one.

The brunette girl raised her eyebrows because she had rode by the house earlier on her bike and seen that the word 'murderer' had been spray painted on the wall outside of it. "Oh, you did that?"

"Yeah," Kie answered.

"Nice," the Callaway girl told her before moving her hand, signaling for her to continue. She leaned in, propping her arms up on the counter as she listened to the girl across from her with a curious expression. "Keep going."

The Carrera girl followed the orders, this time with a small, mischievous smile. "Okay, now how? So, when two people kiss, their lips tou—"

"Shut up," Bree laughed out, rolling her eyes when she realized what her friend was saying to her. "Now, tell me what it was like. I need details. Was it gentle? He seems like to kind to be gentle."

"It was very, very awkward," she responded, looking down at her feet as a light blush rose to her cheeks, and Bree could tell that she was embarrassed and felt really bad about whatever happened. That just made her friend more eager for an explanation.

She furrowed her eyebrows at the girl, and when the Carrera parents looked over at them, they pretended like they were working so that they would not be interrupted. "Before, during, or after?"

"All of the above," Kie answered with a sigh, sitting down in one of the chairs at the bar as she mindlessly wiped down the counter in front of her with an old T-shirt, dusting crumbs off of the surface.

"Okay, I guess that makes sense," the Callaway girl said with a shrug as she worked on dumping the contents of a half-empty ketchup bottle into another one so that one was full. "I mean, it was probably his first kiss. Or, at least, one of his first."

The raven-haired girl's eyes widened in realization as she exclaimed, "Oh, my God. You think?"

"Well, no offense to Pope. He's a great guy, but he doesn't seem like the kind of person that goes around and kisses just anybody. He's nice that way," Bree explained to her friend, thinking about the Heyward boy that they were discussing. He does seem like the type to save his first kiss for someone special. Also, he probably focused more on his studies and his friends than he did on dating.

"I guess that makes sense," Kie sighed, running a hand through her hair. She looked to her friend with raised eyebrows. "You've kissed someone, right?"

The brunette girl nodded slowly, and she was a bit confused because she was pretty sure that Kie had seen her kiss Rafe at least once. "I had a boyfriend, if you don't remember. Tall, dark hair, murderer."

"Oh, yeah. That guy," the Carrera girl responded as if she was just remembering the guy that was the reason that one of their best friends had to go into hiding because he was framed for murder. A look crossed her face, and it looked almost disgusted. "Wait, did you and Rafe do it?"

"What?" Bree questioned, shocked at the question and not completely registering it. Why the hell would she ask that question out of blue with everything going on with Rafe?

Kie repeated, this time more confidently. "Did you and Rafe do it?"

"I–I don't feel comfortable answering that question," the Callaway girl replied, shaking her head, but the pink on her cheeks gave Kie the answer she wanted. Her face held a mixture of disgust and slight excitement because of the information she just got. It was mostly disgusted.

"Oh, my God! You totally did. Ew!"

《✵》

"IF THIS GUY FLEW PLANES FOR WARD, HE'S GOTTA BE PRETTY TIGHT-LIPPED." They were all in Kie's car once again, discussing their plan for when they got to Gavin's house. They had figured out that Gavin was the guy who flew the plane off the tarmac that day.

JJ cocked the gun and held it up, causing Bree to lean away from him slightly. He informed them, "So then direct approach gets my vote."

"No," the Callaway girl ordered, shaking her head and shutting down the suggestion quickly. Why the hell would he think that that was a good idea? "What is wrong with you?"

"Put the gun down, man," Pope told him.

The Maybank boy kept arguing with them as he explained his very crazy thought process to them, yelling over them, "Guys! We gotta keep this simple, or we'll never get John B off."

"Or we just tickle the wire," the Heyward boy said, holding up Kie's AirPods, and when they all looked at him with confused expressions, he continued as he put the buds into his ears, "We tickle the wire. I plant my phone in his car, and then we listen in on you AirPods. Say something."

"Something," the Carrera girl said into the phone that he was holding to her face as she drove, not taking her eyes off the road.

He looked like he was listening for a second before he announced, "Okay, we have audio." The raven-haired girl slowed to a stop outside a house, and he stopped her. "I think that's his house over there. All right, honk or, uh...yell or something if you see anything suspicious."

"Don't do anything dangerous," Kie told him as he unbuckled his seat belt. Bree smiled slightly when she saw the interaction between the two, recalling her conversation with the girl a couple of hours ago.

He smiled slightly, climbing out of the car. "Come on. I'm not JJ."

"Funny, Pope," the blonde boy muttered sarcastically even though the Heyward boy was already across the road and out of earshot. "Love third-wheeling. It's my favorite thing."

"Hey, you got me," the Callaway girl pointed out. At least he wasn't third wheeling alone. That would be real awkward for everyone involved. It still kind of was, but at least they were enduring it together.

He nodded at her with a small smile before reaching over to give her a high five since they were sitting in the back seat together. Then, he looked to the girl in the driver's seat. "How's it been going, you know, with Pope and all?"

"It's good," the Carrera girl answered, and it was clear that she did not want to talk about it because she was not even looking at him. She just stared out the window and toward the house despite the fact that they could no longer see their friend creeping around over there.

"It's good? All right," JJ responded, and they fell silent again. After another moment, he questioned, "In the bedroom, is he, like, kinda freaky, 'cause it's Pope, you know?"

That was when Bree reached over and smacked him on the back of the head. He looked at her like he was confused as to why she did that, but they all knew what he did to deserve it. Kie quizzed, "Why are you asking?"

"I don't know. Just curious. Just spitballing here," the Maybank boy answered awkwardly.

"You don't need to spitball," the raven-haired girl informed him as she and Bree looked at each other with confused and slightly weirded out expressions. "We could just sit in silence."

The brunette girl looked over to the blonde boy before lunging for his hat and hitting hit repeatedly with it. As he tried to fight her off, she said with the rhythm of the hat hitting, "What. The. Fuck. Is. Wrong. With. You?"

"I just wanted to know," he whispered as Kie sent her a grateful look. She stopped and leaned back in her seat. The blonde boy did not stop there. He asked another question, and Kie argued with hin. Bree just decided to stay out of it. They shut up when Pope climbed back into the car.

"Okay. Phase one is complete," he announced as he closed the door behind them. When he sensed the awkward atmosphere, he questioned, "Everything — Are we all good?"

"Why does she get to tickle?" JJ asked later when they were sitting in the car and getting ready to call Gavin from Kie's phone.

Pope answered, "She's the best."

"If we let you tickle, you would completely blow it," the Callaway girl told the blonde boy next to her truthfully. They really could not risk having someone so unpredictable on the phone when something huge was on the line. "No offense."

"Offense taken," he mumbled out, playfully holding his hand to his chest to pretend that he was hurt by her words.

Kie questioned, "Should I do an accent?"

"Definitely disguise your voice," the Heyward boy answered. The last thing they needed was someone discovering that it was them blackmailing Gavin into giving up information.

In an awful British accent that was obviously fake, she asked, "Disguise my voice how? How would you like me to talk? Like this?"

"Not like that," all of the other people in the car said simultaneously. There was no way that they were getting taken seriously with that voice talking to the man. It was not even threatening at all.

Then, the Carrera girl lowered her voice, making it a little bit scratchy, and tested, "Batman."

"Spot on," the blonde boy assured her. "Let's do it." The phone rang as she started the call, and the ringing stopped after a couple of seconds, signaling that someone picked up on the other side.

"Hello," the raven-haired girl greeted in her Batman voice, but then she looked around at all of them, shaking her head. "I can't." They gestured for her to just talk normally as Gavin called to them from the other side. "Is Gavin there?"

He answered. "This is Gavin. Who's this? Hello?"

"I know what happened on the tarmac. It was Rafe Cameron. But you already knew that, and you lied about it. We're gonna prove it," the Carrera girl informed him threateningly as her friend cheered her on silently in the car.

Bree could practically see the man shake his head through the phone. "You're gonna tell me who this is right now."

"You could have saved her, Gavin, and you didn't," Kie told him, even though he already knew that. She just wanted to make sure that he knew that they knew exactly what happened. "And you're not getting away with this."

"Listen to me! Who is this?" the man exclaimed, but the girl hung up the phone before he could get any more words in.

She looked up at her friends with raised eyebrows and a slightly nervous expression. She was a little shaky from being so nervous. That was her first blackmail call. "How was that?"

"You did great," the Callaway girl assured her, reaching through the seat to pat her on the back. It was very threatening, and she hoped that their knowledge would be enough to convince Gavin to come clean about what actually happened.

"Yeah, I was scared," JJ agreed with a small nod, showing her that she did well. "Good job."

"All right, we tickled the wire. Phase two complete."