( CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE )
THE BEAUTY OF DANGER

✧

A DEAD SILENCE RAINED IN EDEN'S EARS. Her eyes were trained on the tall, black gun of the guy—the supposed cop—who was standing right in front of John B with the window rolled down. She felt like she was dreaming, but nothing about this dream was warm. A gun, loaded bullets, six defenseless teenagers, an unknown man in a remote corner in the forest. It was just an unreal nightmare. Eden had sometimes had to deal with a gun in recent weeks, but knowing it was pointed right in front of John B without her being able to do or say anything traumatized her to the highest degree. She then kept her eyes fixed on the profile of the brunette who was cautiously looking at the guy in front of him. She tried with her still frozen body to grab something, but nothing would move. Eden therefore remained in complete silence.

          A cold gaze fell on her. Hard eyes, with a lot of hatred under his thick eyelashes. Eden tried as hard as she could to see through the scarf that covered half his face, but she was unable to see anything from this angle—and from all possible angles. Words began to resonate in her ears camouflaged by her hair which covered them as if to protect any words from entering her brain. But she had to move when she pictured John B starting to open the door with his hands in the air to show he had nothing to defend himself with.

The masked man suddenly shouted, "Let them out! What are you waitin' on? Let them out, I said! All y'all!" He continued to order things to John B while he slowly moved his hands in the air.

The Routledge boy opened the biggest door of the van, letting his friends out while keeping eye contact with the man continually hidden with his scarf for fear of doing something wrong and getting shot in the head. The man kept demanding words and shouting them at John B.

They all began to walk out one by one, their hands raised in the air for the man to make sure they had nothing to fight him back. Eden came out with her gaze lowered to the ground, her hands trembling above her head and her legs limp. She earned a comment she wished she never had.

"There you go, pretty girl. Cameron's slut as they say," the man grumbled with a smile that she could well imagine on his face.

John B took a step forward, but Eden pressed her palm directly to his chest, stopping him in his next steps. If he dared to intervene for this little remark, then it was over for everyone else.

JJ ventured, "We're broke—"

"Shut the hell up!" he exclaimed back, pointing his rifle more firmly at JJ, making him step back and shout back, but his words were inaudible compared to those of the stranger. "Shut up! Blow your damn head off! Lay down in the ditch! On your goddamn hands and knees! Down, bitches!"

Everyone carried out his words carefully, placing themselves face down on the ground and their hands on their land. Eden felt herself losing her mind. Her vision was becoming blurry from her tears taking up space to see, and her voice seemed to have completely disappeared from her vocal cords. He continued to scream and just scream, but his words hit Eden right in the head and tears fell down her cheeks with each scream shooting into the air like burning smoke. A warm hand came to place itself in hers, and she circled her fingers directly without even thinking about it.

"It's a setup, guys," Kiara whispered, afraid that the man would stick his head out and shoot her in the head just for saying those four little words.

JJ continued, "That old bat shanked us. Fuck! Goddamn it!"

          Eden remained looking towards the windows of the van where she only saw the square face of the man moving quickly and stressed. His movements were indirect. She therefore deduced that he was looking for gold but had no idea where it was. Gold didn't really have a big anxiety impact on her at the moment, it was more the fear of being shot without knowing the face behind that black mask.

          She definitely looked away when she suddenly felt the warm hand softly leave her. Eden discovered John B getting up as discreetly as he could so as not to be noticed by the man who was digging again and again without stopping until he found his gold.

          She finally parted her lips, tears slipping down them, and whispered cautiously, "John B, no. No, no, no. Don't. . ." She tried to catch his hand, missing the sureness of his touch, but he was already too far away.

          "John B!" Pope alerted in a whisper. "Don't be a hero, man."

          John B then put his finger in front of his mouth, telling him not to say another word. Eden now had her eyes glued to the handsome brunette who made a short run to get into the fake police car, and was the last sight of him before he closed the door behind him.

          She sighed, remaining alone with her tremors and her tears drying against her red cheeks. She took a shallow breath, and dug her sweaty hands into the grass. She didn't care that she got stained, she just didn't want to feel the pressure of having a man three meters away from her armed with a gun with which he could massacre them all without hesitation. But he wouldn't do it, she reassured herself, he only wanted the gold.

          The sounds of footsteps coming down from the van brought her attention to the man who still had his gun in his hand but with much less confidence, probably because he had just found what he wanted and now he could leave these poor teenagers return to their "normal" lives.

          "All right, y'all stay like that. Unless you want your brains blow out all over this road, don't move your goddamn heads, okay?" The man shouted it as an order and not as a question, backing up little by little towards his own car.

          Eden finally let her own vision come back to life, and she could see the man enter his car and put down his gun. Silence. Nothing happened for about ten seconds, she knows, because she counted. Until a loud noise—growls—hit her eardrums and she was already standing without having thought first.

          "Guys, I got the gun!" John B warned them as he got out of the car at the same time as the man, who pushed him towards the side of the car, punching him in the face.

          JJ quickly ran behind Eden, joining her and he threw the first punch at the guy after having pushed him away from John B by turning him towards him. But the blonde won a blow in return, which left Eden to do the man and she did not waste a second before hitting him in the face with her fist filled with small rings, and sending her foot flying towards his private parts. John B came up behind him, pushing the gun into his back, which sent him tumbling to the ground. The stranger ended up being hit by Sarah with the door hitting his ribs, and a kick in the stomach from Kiara which propelled him onto the car door.

          That was the last blow before Eden shouted out angrily, "Who's the slut now? Son of a bitch!" She gave him another—the real last—kick in the stomach before John B grabbed her hips to pull her away from this stranger. And he lowered his mask.

          Except he wasn't really a stranger, she realized. She narrowed her eyes, her breath choking as her chest heaved more than normal. She knew him, and it hurt her. No friendship was ever created between them, not even long conversations, but this crazy psycho knew her. When Eden was hanging out with Rafe in the early days of her Kook year and she was trying to break in, Rafe introduced her to this Barry. It hadn't clicked between them, only because Eden was a daddy's little girl and Barry was a poor guy who sold drugs. But still, he knew her. And he put a gun on her.

          She didn't know anything about his personality, just that he was a good dealer and that he was Rafe's friend. But she would never have been so surprised to see this guy pointing a gun at her chest and treating her like that. To believe that strangers hurt more than some fake friends.

          JJ suddenly expelled, "I know this piece of shit! He's a basehead!"

          "Probably knows my brother," Sarah asserted, which made Eden angrier even more as she stared at him, her gaze hard and angry.

          JJ added, leaning down to grab his rifle, "He sells coke to my dad."

          "Listen, I couldn't hurt any single one of y'all—" His words were cut off when the metal of the gun crashed against his already red cheek from the last blows received. His body fell backwards to the side, while Pope and John B held their friend by the shoulders to prevent him from going any further.

          Pope exclaimed, looking him in the eyes as the blond looked away from his worried eyes, "Dude, chill, man. Come on."

          JJ pushed him away with light force, then slipped his hand into Barry's pants pockets, pulling out his ID. The man still lying on the ground didn't try to struggle as he still tried to breathe, his hands burying himself in the grass.

          "Come on, Jay. He's not worth it," Eden tried, running her hand through her hair, pulling at her roots to keep herself from being on JJ's side, because if it was just her, she'd already be running over that bastard with the van.

          The Maybank boy didn't listen to his friend, and fixed his irises on the identity card between his fingers. "We got one last stop. Let's go see where this son of a bitch lives," he said, pushing John B out of the way to join the Twinkie.

          "Hey!" John B shouted, but JJ ignored him at his turn. He sighed while watching all his friends follow the blond in the van, while Eden stayed looking at this same asshole.

          "Rafe was right about you. You're pretty hot for a girl who came out of a trash," Barry commented with his voice broken by his ragged breathing.

          Eden didn't even have time to spit something in his face when John B already grabbed him by the collar and punched him on the side of his head. She gasped, blinking as she watched Barry collapse to the ground once again. John B shook his fist from side to side, feeling ants in his fingers.

          "Hey, it's just 1 a.m., calm down. There's gonna be way more assholes on the way home. Keep yourself a little strong," she pointed out, pressing a hand to his chest, making him look down at her. She smiled at him despite the pain in her chest. "Come on. JJ is going crazy and we need you."

          He nodded, and she passed by him to join the van where all their friends were already, with a lump in their stomach, already knowing that things were going to turn into hell now.

          The man continued to shout words, but now it was his own words that could not be heard thanks to the van's engine which began to roar in their eardrums. Eden sat in the back this time, and she took the opportunity to look behind her through the window, finding Barry still lying on the dry dirt. For a single second, she had the pity she never had when she was being put down. But when her eyes blinked, the real sight she saw hit her right in the face, and she didn't care.

__________________

The Twinkie in which the six teenagers all found themselves in silence, still in shock from what had just happened or from JJ's anger which was ravaging his veins at the moment. Whatever the reason, Eden remained silent. This was always how she handled these moments of shock or just the moments when she was faced with anger. She just prefers to remain silent rather than risk speaking too loudly and saying stupid things. So she said nothing, and only watched the half-built houses paraded by her brown irises that really needed sleep.

What surrounded the van right away were only poor people's houses, trees, and dozens of trash on the grass. It could go from a simple beer can to a no more functional television. Eden had already come to Barry's house, only once. It was with Rafe, in those early days of her Kook year when she was trying to fit in by becoming like them. Rafe said he wanted to go see him in person to invite him to his party. He came out of that damn house after an hour and twenty-three minutes, his eyes red and his mouth smelling of alcohol. Eden hadn't left, she had stayed. She thought it was a test. She should have left, because afterward, Rafe started calling her every name in the world. And not great names.

It's weird how every place she's taken, memories resurface and they're rarely good ones.

"This'll only take a second," the blond with rage issues informed as he got out of the van where all his friends looked at him with wide eyes and furrowed brows.

A dog started barking nearby, which alerted Eden and she looked in the windows to make sure no one was following them.

"Where are you going?" John B asked, his arm resting on the door with the van window open.

The only response that was received was, "Yo soy justicia." And JJ entered the house as if it were his own, with a firm face and ideas very clear and prepared in his head.

He disappeared into the house, and the others stood there in silence which lasted only a few seconds where they all wondered what to do with the face of this enraged lion. Eden preferred to remain silent and Pope preferred to ask the obvious.

"Did you glean anything from that?"

Kiara continued after Pope, "You know, somebody should probably—"

"Yeah, I got it," John B said as if he suspected that it was only he who could go there and take the risk.

They watched as another of their friends entered the bear's cave, leaving them to their own devices. But Eden, although she tried not to stress, hundreds of questions began to run through her head. And her hands shook, her breath caught, she felt too hot. So she got out of this van too, but just to look around the house while John B tried to sort things out. Her shoes dragged on the unkempt grass, and she playfully rocked her head from side to side. She looked for something to play with on her wrists, but the only bracelet she wanted to grab between her fingers was in someone else's hands. So she gently grabbed her white pearl necklace, and turned it around her neck without ever stopping until she had gone around the house the first time.

They still hadn't come out, so she did the same thing a second time. Except that the second time, when she had finished her turn, she arrived in the middle of a conversation between the Pogues. She saw John B and JJ back among their people, except that JJ was now holding a bag and money in the other hand. She walked quickly towards them, her mouth half open.

"JJ, what the hell?" she expressed, positioning herself in front of him. She snatched the money from his hands, raising it towards him. "Are you serious? We're not thieves. Put that money back where you took it."

"From what I saw, you didn't like having a gun pointed at you, so here's your part, Winslow," JJ said, ignoring her friend's words, and put some money in her hand.

But Eden threw it to the ground, and continued, "We already have the gold and everything's fine. No need to start stupid things that will put the whole group in danger."

John B intervened in the discussion, placing himself between JJ and Eden. "Relax. Look, Eden's right. We have the gold already. Just give me that shit, we're putting it bac—" And his words cut off when he tried to grab the bag, but JJ slammed him against the van. The brunette raised his eyebrows, grumbling, "Do you feel like a tough guy? Huh? What are you gonna do when he comes for us?"

"We punch him in the throat. I'm not putting it back," the blond refused, shaking his head, and ventured into the van to get back on the road. "You guys getting in or what?"

But no one moved. Eden had never really been against JJ's ideas, she had even often been the one to take his side and follow him wherever he went. Some crazy best friends with crazy ideas thing. But now, she didn't want to cross that line. She didn't want to be a thief, she wanted to do things right. Even if she hated going against JJ, she restrained herself from crossing this transparent line that no one could see but only her.

The blond's head resurfaced after the silence bit into his mind, and he realized that it wasn't going to do it this time. His eyes fell on each of the people in front of him, and he stopped on Eden.

"What?" he asked, staring at her, as if she was the cause of the problem.

She only whispered, "Put it back. Come on. I'm sick of all this shit."

"Oh, my shit?"

Eden shook her head. "I never said your sh—"

Kiara cut her off, and said what JJ feared. "Yes. Your pulling guns on people shit."

"You acting like a maniac—"

JJ immediately stopped Pope in his bad throw, and shouted, "Okay, Pope, I took the fall for you, man! Know how much I owe because of you?"

"I'm gonna pay you back, and I didn't ask you to do that. You put yourself in that position, by your own decisions."

"I just did!" the blond said, taking a step in Pope's direction. "Pay it back. Right here, right now, by myself."

          "I'm gonna pay you back if you want, Jay!" Eden yelled in the middle of the chaos, taking everyone's attention to herself. "You're not a thief, so drop that money off to that asshole."

          And now it was towards her that he took steps, with a tightly clenched jaw and a look with anything but friendship floating there. "And what exactly do you know about me?" She frowned, not understanding his sentence. "You disappeared for a whole year and just came back. Maybe I've changed and you haven't noticed since you're too focused on your own good instead of others. I'm not the selfish one here."

          "I didn't said you we—"

          "You know what? That's exactly what I'm gonna do. Go off by a selfish person," he concluded, picking up his bag again and swinging it over his shoulder, then made his way in a straight line away from his friends.

          Everyone looked at him, except her. Eden, his best friend. She didn't stare at him, didn't try to follow him or even apologize if her words hurt him. She stared into space to search for the answers to her questions which passed in front her eyes relentlessly. But a hand came to place itself on her shoulder, making her remove the emptiness in her eyes. She turned her head towards Sarah who was there smiling shyly at her to try to cheer her up a little. Eden displayed a beautiful big smile on her magnificent face where tears stung her eyes.

__________________

"LOOK, HE'LL COME AROUND, ALL RIGHT?" John B's voice echoed in Kie's parents' restaurant which was currently empty, the lights turned off. Without life.

Eden remained silent again, because she had proof that if she dared to open her mouth, it would fall on her. So she let her soul speak for her in the light of her eyes.

"You think he'll go home?" Kiara asked with an expressionless face as Eden shifted into panic mode.

JJ Maybank's father was a legend—a bad legend—for the Pogues. He was the center of their enemies. The man not to cross. Eden had already been around him when she was younger, and he wasn't that different from now. An asshole remains an asshole. This is another thing that linked JJ and Eden to a complicity. Two children being beaten by their parent, keeping it a secret, know how to recognize another child being beaten. Eden immediately saw it at JJ's house, and JJ immediately saw it at Eden's house, except that she doesn't yet know that he knows it.

"There's about a zero percent chance that JJ goes home," Pope reassured Kiara with these words even if his voice didn't sound very happy and encouraging.

Eden looked at him, then let her eyes fall to her knees, seeing one bounce more than she would like. She placed her hand on it, closing her eyes for a second. And when she opened them again, she saw his face looking at her as if he was trying to catch all the bad looks.

John B whispered to her, "You okay?"

She nodded with a soft smile on the corner of her lips. Pretending with him was getting harder and harder. "Are you?"

"Well, I'm in one piece, so. . . Thanks to you who stopped me when I almost screwed up."

Pope's sigh came to take the second smile that Eden was going to give. "Okay. It's too dangerous to pawn this thing off piecemeal. So our best bet is to go down there and get the rest of it. Bring it all up at once. Put it in— in a safe or a vault or something. I— I don't know. Just until we can find someone who won't rip us off. I can figure it out tonight, get it done, and we can be out there tomorrow morning."

"We can't tomorrow," Eden said after Pope's long speech, who was now out of breath. "John B has a thing with Cameron."

Pope then asked, "What thing?"

"I have to go fishing with Ward," John B explained simply.

Kiara said, "You can't get 400 mil 'cause you're gonna kill fish?"

"Blow it off," Pope offered, losing his patience. "It's 400 million in gold!"

"Look, I— I have to go, okay? He's offering me a second chance, he just wants to explain. And Mr. Barrow has already accepted, so. . . It's done. I'm going."

Sarah added in the part, "He's like that. It's just his way of working things out. And we can always do it at night, right?"

Eden nodded as Kiara did while Pope agreed to John B to go with Ward.

It only took a few minutes before the group split up. Sarah and Kiara left to buy things to eat for tonight, and Pope went looking for JJ. So that left Eden and John B.

And she was constantly in her bubble thinking about JJ's words that burst into her thoughts every time she tried to imagine herself sitting in the sand watching the salt water of the sea crash over her toes. His words came back like bombs. As if to remind her of the truth.

          She heard footsteps approaching her, and a hand being placed on her shoulder. The next sounds she heard came out of a mouth, "I wanna take you somewhere."

          Eden turned to John B, meeting his brown eyes which mirrored hers perfectly. She didn't want to move or even see anyone. She just wanted to get to her bed, then wrap herself in her blankets until she could no longer see anything.

          But it was John B, so she followed him. They got back into the Twinkie, where Eden put her feet on the dashboard, and let her hand fly in the wind with the van window open. Her hair multiplied at the stage, and she just let herself be carried away by the gentleness of the wind on her face. Her eyes passed over the houses of the rich, and over her own, but she did not look at her. And then they went deeper into the forest for a while. Just before arriving at a place where she had spent hours with John B before. Her head suddenly rose, and a little light came to illuminate his eyes.

          John B knew Eden better than anyone, and that place with that stupid bell was where he and she ran away from the world to just be together and just talk, dream. . .

          She never forgot this place. She often took refuge there when her home became too complicated, too noisy, too haunted. So she ran and locked herself there, with no one, until a handsome brunette came in and lit her up with a pretty smile without even knowing why she was there.

          "Oh, my God," she whispered breathlessly, as she looked at the church through the window.

A sincere smile settled on her lips as John B looked at her for a moment before getting out of the van, and coming to open the door to offer her his hand.

"My dear. . ." he said, leaning his body forward a little, pulling her hand into his gently.

Eden let herself be led by his body, getting out of the van as well. She admired the church in front of her for a moment. It was never really in good condition. Even at her young age, wooden planks were missing and cobwebs were present in large quantities. John B and she always found time to come and clean their favorite corner of this place, and left the rest as it was to at least keep the originality of everything. They passed a brick wall where long rows of plants reached to the ground, and a few broken windows let sunlight inside.

When they first set foot in this place, John B's hand still clinging to Eden's, she felt herself attacked by hundreds of memories. Bad ones, but wonderful ones on the other hand. She moved her eyes from every corner of the church to the last one. She could still see herself. . . She and John B having fun writing things on the walls, her and John B making cabins with the cushions of old wooden benches, her and John B where they shared their first awkward kiss. A place holds more memories than what it shows. A church does not give anyone the image that Eden has for this ancient place. A shelter does not necessarily have to be well maintained, but only with the right features to be comfortable. For Eden, it was this place.

She escaped from John B's warm hand, and walked around. Her fingers wandered of their own accord over the old wood, over the windows hidden by dust. And she fell in front of the ladder that led to the bell tower. She sighed into a smile, then turned to John B just to see him catch two things out of the corner of her eye. She ignored this detail, and slipped her hand on the wooden ladder.

"You wanna go see?" she suggested, shrugging her shoulders slightly.

John B accepted immediately, and rushed towards her when he saw her grab onto the ladder as if to start climbing. "Wait. I'll. . . I'll go first. You know, sort it out, type of thing. Rats and whatnot."

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled, taking a step back to make room for him.

He carefully climbed to the top, and slipped through the small hole to land on the wood again. Eden went up after him like he did, being greeted by his hand when she reached him. She squeezed it, and climbed up with his help.

"All right. Watch your head," he said, gazing at her with eyes covered in a warm smile.

"Oh, gosh. . . It's been so long since I came here," she admitted, observing everything around her body. Her eyes wandered from one place to another without even having finished contemplating the object before.

          She finally found what she had wanted to see since she set foot in this church. Eden took three small steps forward, moving a strand of hair behind her ear and pointing to the wood where it had written something.

          Eden & John B. Forever.

          "We were nine," John B said, leaning against the wooden beam. "It was the day of our first "real" fight. I stole your Kinder Buennos and. . ."

          "And I punched you in the ribs and yelled at you. . ." Eden finished with a face filled with shame.

          He sneered. "You weren't a very nice girl, Winslow."

"But you liked me anyway," she replied with a little smirk.

He stared at her for a few seconds before just whispering, "Yeah. I do."

Eyes widened on their own at his words. His words always well maintained, always spoken with truth. His honesty was probably the thing she most liked about him. Sometimes it hurt, but most of the time what came out of his mouth was nothing but words of care and kindness. At least, for her.

"Come here," he said, brushing his fingers on hers, and walked towards a wooden window.

Eden followed him while admiring the surroundings, and stopped at his side. She raised her soft eyes to his side profile, and her cheeks flushed a little without him even looking at her. John B opened the window, creaking a little, and the view of the island appeared in front their eyes with the sunset appearing in the distance between the trees and the sea.

"Oh, my. . . This is still so beautiful," she commented with starry eyes.

          "Yeah, it is," he admitted, looking at her and only her.

          She turned her face towards him, sighing, "Why do I feel like you brought me here for a specific reason?"

          "Do you think I need a specific reason to kidnap you?"

          "And what do I know about the reasons you wanna kidnap me?" she replied, raising her eyebrows and smiling.

          He didn't give any answers for a moment, letting his eyes roam every corner of her face before stopping on her lips. He wanted to touch them, like he did on the beach for half a second. He always wanted to be close to her, to give her a smile, to protect her, to touch her cold fingers, he wanted to be with her. But he wasn't going to try his luck again until he was sure that she was truly happy. Let her truly be herself.

          "I just thought that after this rather hectic day, you might want a little calm," he explained to her, lowering his eyes to the ground before returning them to her, finding her biting her lip. "Was I right?"

          "And what make you think I would want to relax with you? Pope could have done the trick," she teased with that same expression on her face.

          He shrugged, pouting, and returned the same attitude towards her, "Did you wish it was Pope instead?"

           She didn't say a word. And he already knew he had won.

          She broke away from his insistent gaze, feeling herself smiling a little too much, and walked around the square again. She came face to face with a chest filled with dust. She blew on the box, coughed when it hit her face, and opened it slowly. Her eyes suddenly fell on one of her crowns that she had at her young age. She gasped and took it. Eden swirled it around her finger before placing it on her straight hair.

          "Do I look stupid?" she asked him, rather to know his opinion.

          He turned around, putting away the object he was playing with, and shook his head directly. "Not at all. You're even cute."

          She rolled her eyes, hiding a smile from him. She took a bench not far from her, and sat on it. John B came to join her without further delay, landing on the ground right in front of her. Her fingers came to curl together and she began to take her rings off and out, getting lost in thought.

          John B noticed her, and hid a lock of her hair behind her ear to see her full face. "What's going on?"

          "I don't know," she grumbled in her throat, tight with a few tears that wanted to come out.

          "Do you wanna go?"

          She refused, "No. I wanna stay here with you."

He nodded without adding anything, waiting for the rest to come from her but nothing came. She stood there in silence as if she just wanted to hear him breathe. As if she just wanted to feel him close to her, to know him ready to stay there for hours next to her without saying anything.

"You know, it wasn't my plan for this to happen," she began, taking all his attention to herself. She smiled stupidly, thinking back to her beginnings. "When I came back to you, my mission was really to find out what was going on with my father and this whole treasure thing. And. . ." She wiped an awkward tear from her cheek. "And now I consider you like my home again. My people. You were right all along when you said I had no place in the Kooks. My place has always been with you."

"Of course you always had your place with us. You're not like them," he said, smiling at her.

          She held on to that. Every day, she clung to his smile. To his face. She clung to him. He was her lifeline, he was her other part of herself.

          John B took two candles out of his pocket, placed them beside him and lit them while Eden looked on. He ran his hand through his hair, finding her already looking at him.

          "I have a question for you," he sighed slowly between his words.

          She shrugged, letting her guard drop to the floor. "Shoot, pretty boy."

          He blushed at the nickname that came out of her mouth so easily. He curled his lips into an awkward smile, then chuckled, "Did you have. . . feelings for. . . Rafe?"

          "Is it after I am back among you that you ask me that?" she asked to be sure, and he nodded. "Okay, well. . . I had a little crush on him for the first two weeks of my Kook year. Until I found out his thing with the coke and all his shit with people. He was a real asshole."

          "So why—"

          "Why did I continue to be with him and appear to be in a relationship?" she guessed his question. "For my own safety. My mother wanted me to be a Kook, she wanted a fresh start. And if I couldn't be what she wanted, well, that ended in consequences. So I had to be with people I didn't like to please one single person. It's completely stupid."

          "No, I don't think so. I even think it was courageous of you what you did. Put yourself in a situation that you hate only for your mother. You were afraid, so you took your courage in two hands and you attacked."

          She shook her head, frowning. "But that was stupid. I could have just gone against what she wanted, and. . . come to see you, and I would have only had one week of misery."

          "But you're fine now. You're with me and I won't let you go a second time, Eden," he stated, placing his hand on her knee, massaging it with his thumb. She nodded slowly, letting her fingers brush against his skin, blinking. "Are you going to leave me again?"

          She hesitated not even for a second, "No. I promise."

She then stuck her fingers between his. He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "Do you think JJ meant what he said to me?"

John B disapproved directly, moving a little closer to her, his gaze looking up at her for once it was he who was looking up at her and not the other way around. "He just had a moment of anger. You know how protective he is of us. You're not selfish, Eden."

          "Do you really mean it when you try to comfort me or are you just saying that to—"

          He stopped her in her words seeing where she was going with this, "I mean it. Everything I tell you, I mean it. Don't ever doubt it."

They stayed in this church until evening fell, until the stars welcomed them outside. They talk about everything and nothing, their eyes remaining locked together as if trying to reconnect all the missed moments together, the missed laughter, the shared smiles. And she knew as she left that place with him behind her that she never wanted to have to leave him again. He was indeed her first love, the person for whom she would have sacrificed herself for him. He was her light, the one she would never stop looking for in her deepest darkness.

But above all he was her best friend. The person she would have sacrificed the world for. She couldn't lose him again. So this promise that she had made, she would keep it this time. She would pin it to her heart to be sure she would never lose it. She would keep him in her heart forever. She would keep John Booker Routledge. Her pretty boy.

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authors note: my babies are so in love omggg

okay soooo jj and eden little fight?? lol that hurt a lot but drama is my favorite thing to write so it was so cool ( i'm evil )

john b and eden BIG conversation. they talked about everything and nothing, they are finally back like they were before: FRIENDS YEAHH

anyway, the next chapter are gonna be so full crazy!! there is maybe like 4/5 chapters left before the end of season one!! i'm so exited to write the season 2 ohmygoodness that's gonna be INSANE

love u and take care of yourself <3