chapter 13.
i feel it like a hurricane /
i feel it in my veins.

୨୧

"Pope, whose blood is that?"

the boy shakes his head, unable to speak. josephine spies a familiar belt bag abandoned in the grass and darts forward. as she grabs its straps, she freezes.

"pope, why is there blood on the porch?"

she says it so slow and delicate jj almost doesn't register her words. he follows his sisters gaze to the trail of blood drying on the porch steps. "pope..." he lunges for his friend, hands gripping his shoulders firmly. "pope, what happened?"

sarah looks around the yard, noticing a certain absence. "where's cleo?"

"she's...she's inside." he answers so heavily jo can't help but feel her heart sink as she follows the older teens inside. "cleo? cleo!"

josephine is the last to enter and she wishes she hadn't at all. her stomach lurches and she gags; there's a dead body on the floor of the living room. cleo is so silent and unmoving josie nearly checks her pulse.

"jo, you shouldn't look." jj jolts her from her trance, stepping forward to steer her way. as he places his hands on her shoulders he freezes, watching out the window. "oh shit."

josephine follows his gaze and heart is now in her shoes. there, in the driveway, is officer shoupe at the worst possible time. "oh my god. oh my god."

kiara steps beside the younger girl, peering out the window. "why is here? he's just sitting in his car."

"we have a dead body in our living room." pope panics. in normal circumstances josephine would have mentioned the irony. "what are we gonna do?"

"what do we mean, 'what are we gonna do'?" kie is incredulous and jo can't blame her. "we have to tell the truth! we didn't do anything wrong, somebody broke into our house!"

josephine had learnt long ago never to trust cops, even when you believe you did nothing wrong. she bites her lip, relieved when jj seems to agree. "kie, it's shoupe. he's never gonna believe us!" he pauses, takes a deep breath. "what we need to do is get out of here."

"and go where?" kiara whisper-yells. "that never works!"

"i don't know, but it's better than staying here!"

josephine tentatively raises a hand. "number one rule: never trust a cop." jj snaps his fingers in agreement. "especially that one." he adds, pointing out the window towards the approaching sheriff.

"john b, what do you wanna do?" sarah asks, biting her nails anxiously. josephine cringes, choosing now is not the right time to inform her about the thirty two different types of bacteria commonly found under fingernails.

there's a sudden pounding on the front door and jo flinches. jj exhales, lunging toward a hesitant john b. "okay, i need you to make a decision right now. what's it gonna be? what'd you wanna do?"

shoupe shouts for jj and john b sharply turns his head to the sound. his gaze pans across his friends faces. "hide the body."

"hide the body?" pope hisses, incredulous. "hide the body where?"

"behind the couch." john b gestures and pope widens his eyes. "behind the couch?! he's like three hundred pounds!"

"pope, keep it down!" jj chastises, bending at the knees beside terrance. "grab his legs, grab his legs."

"don't drag him, don't drag him!" kiara hisses. "you're gonna smear blood across the entire house!"

pope hurries to his still-numb girlfriend. "cleo, go upstairs. it'll be all right."

jo watches her brother grab the arms of a dead body while john b rolls a skateboard underneath. she suddenly feels sick to her stomach. jj watches her stumble and curses. "shit. kie, get her out of here!" kiara notices the girls pale face. "joey, don't look." the brunette cross the room, hand on the younger girls back as she steers her away. "just go upstairs with cleo."

josephine dizzily shakes her head. "no, i wanna stay. i'm fine." no way was she leaving her brother. after the day she'd had, she couldn't stand being alone.

jj whips his head toward the girl. "you shouldn't be here, jo."

"we don't really have time to argue that right now, do we?" john b whispers urgently. "jo, just sit on the couch and don't watch."

he didn't need to tell her twice. josephine feels her legs collapse out from underneath her as she falls into the couch; she was beyond nauseous. sarah unzips her belt bag and tosses the teen a box of bandaids. josephine smiles weakly, tearing open the package and gratefully applying the plaster to her wound. she exhales in instant relief, too exhausted to even notice jj had left to see what shoupe wanted.

"he's coming, he's coming, he's coming!" kiara hisses urgently. "john b, sit down!" he does so; sarah collapsing beside josephine just as the door creaks open and the sheriff enters. "oh, hi shoupe."

"gangs all here, huh?" the officer greets, looking around between the teens. "y'all too high to hear me knocking?"

"it's just been a long day." kiara stretches, yawning falsely.

"everybody mind clearing out for a minute and letting me talk to your boy alone?"

jo nervously darts her eyes towards john b, who answers with ease. "yeah, no problem shoupe." he pauses beside jj. "we'll be outside."

"yeah, yeah. i'll see you guys in a sec." the blonde notices his sister's hesitation. "go with them, jo. i'll be right there."

josephine nods once, following the older teens outside. "i'm gonna throw up." she darts to the bushes as soon as her feet hits the grass, feeling hands gather her blonde hair in a ponytail as she retches. jo stands up straight, turning to find sarah
behind her. the older girl smiles softly. "i'm sorry you had to see that, joey." josephine only shrugs. she was a maybank; she'd get over it.

john b looks between the girls and the house. "we're good, right?"

"what do you mean, 'we're good'?" pope grits his teeth. "there's a body behind the couch!"

"okay, what'd you wanna do?" john b argues. "you wanna go in there and move it?"

"no, i don't wanna go back inside!"

"we should've never touched him, because we hadn't committed any crimes." kiara panics slowly. "and now we've committed a crime!"

"there's nothing we can do." sarah placates, smoothing josephine's hair from behind. "let's just get away from the house and reevaluate." the teens head to the surf shop, waiting impatiently until they finally see jj approaching.

"what'd he say?" john b asks first. "what was he doing here?"

jj leans over the wooden railing, watching as shoupe drives away. "we're good...kind of."

"dude, did he find the fucking body or not?" joey speaks for the second time since exiting the house.

"no." jj answers. the group collectively breaths a sigh of relief. "he did not find terrance, okay?"

"why did he want to talk to you and not all of us?" sarah asks what everyone is wondering.

jj sighs. "because one of the kooks recorded me saying, "i'll kill you all" at the beach for..." he glances at his little sister, briefly making eye contact before looking away. "whatever. but—"

"oh my god." pope groans and sarah raises an eyebrow. "that's why?"

"well, there's the hyperbaric—doesn't matter." jj shakes his head. "he didn't see terrance. that's the main thing, okay? there's something else though." he looks around, making no sure no once has approached the shop. "shoupe thinks genrette was murdered and it has something to do with us, but i told him we weren't anywhere near his place."

"and he believed you?"

"about everything." jj nods, looking to his girlfriend. "i mean, kie. look whose selling it, all right? he bought it. we got nothing to worry about."

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Cleo sinks her knife into the wooden railing of the back porch. it's dark and the only sound is frogs croaking in the marsh. the bravest of them all, cleo is the one to break the silence. "first things first, we gotta take care of terrance. can't just leave him here; it won't sit right on my conscience."

"cleo's right—we gotta do something about terrance." john b paces the deck. he hasn't stopped moving since shoupe left and there's a body behind his couch and blood on his skateboard.

josephine sits beside sarah, squeezing hand sanitizer onto a fresh bandaid. she speaks up for the first time since that afternoon. there's a solid pit of fear in her stomach that hasn't resided all day, and she knows the only fix is to run. it's what jo does best—fuck up bad enough the only way out is to flee. she was her brothers sister through and through. "yeah, and then we have to get the hell out of here, all right?"

kiara looks to josephine. "and go where?"

"i dunno. anywhere." joey shrugs. "look. i am not getting sent back to foster care, all right? so wherever we need to go, whatever we need to do, we're doing it." jj sighs, throwing an arm across his sisters shoulders. "you're not going back, jo. i promise you that."

"you can't promise me shit." josephine shrugs him off, crossing her arms. jj can never get a read on her; jo can't decide if she'll ever trust again.

pope looks at the siblings sadly before addressing the group. "john b and i were talking. we think the north star and half moon battery is referring to charleston."

"if we get to charleston before them, we have a fighting chance." john b adds. "we have no other options."

"what do you mean we don't have an option?"

"the zoning notice, kie!" john b argues. "we're gonna lose poguelandia."

"john b, they killed terrance!" kiara reminds as if they'd forgotten. "we're in way, way over our heads."

"i know, kie, but we don't have a choice." john b sighs, rising from his seat. "dawn patrol." he sniffs, crossing the deck. "hey, jj—get the twinkie up and running by dawn." jj nods and john b turns to the group. "the rest of us will do right by terrance."

"uh—hold on." jj holds up a hand. "jo's not going with y'all to dump a body."

john b shrugs as though the blonde makes a good point. "okay—maybank siblings get the twinkie up and running. we'll meet back here by seven; first ferry leaves at eight. let's go to charleston." he looks to a silent cleo. "you good with that, cleo?"

"in charleston, we could find the man who killed terrance." the brunette sharpens her knife and josephine shudders. she plunges it into the wooden railing. "i'm good with it."