THE POGUES HAD ALL CONGREGATED AT THE CHATEAU.

jj had gone there early in the morning, kiara, pope, ainsley, and levi all sitting outside when john b, emery, and sarah all arrived in the twinkie. the five all ran to hug john b while emery, mara, and sarah went into the house to look for some clothes for the cameron girl to borrow, as all of their typical pogue-ish clothing practically lived at the chateau.

"okay, now that you have enough tank tops and button down shirts to clothe an entire village, i think we're good!" emery exclaimed with a smile. "want me to get walmart sacks for those while you take them to my house?"

"uh- yeah! that'd be great!" sarah replied, emery immediately leaving her and john b's room to find the plastic grocery sacks that she kept in a drawer in the kitchen.

"is she always this nice?" sarah mumbled to mara, struggling to see her over the large armful of tops, shorts, and bathing suits the two girls had given her.

"most of the time, yes." mara replied honestly. "not everyone can be a little ray of sunshine all the time, and emery's seen too much to be happy all the time, but she tries her best."

"okay, if they don't all fit in here then i can go get more- i hope ten is enough." emery told sarah with a smile, she and mara turning to help the cameron girl but her clothes in her bags.

"emery!" jj yelled from the living room. "emery!"

"what?" emery yelled back annoyedly. when jj rounded the corner, he was clutching his phone is his hand, eyes wide as he stared at his sister.

"i just got off the phone with the neighbors. something happened to mom." jj breathed. emery immediately stopped what she was doing, as did sarah and mara as the trio followed jj outside where the other pogues were already waiting in the twinkie for them.

"can you get going?" emery yelled as she slammed the back door of the twinkie, levi already outstretching the orange bottle he carried with him for his sister. she grabbed it, pouring two of the white capsules into her hand and swallowing them both dry before passing the bottle back to her brother.

"emery, this thing isn't street legal at all, i'm going as fast as i can." john b explained. emery could hear jj's foot drumming anxiously on the floor in front of him, and levi's hand had grabbed emery's tightly. there were already too many of the pogues to fit in the fan comfortably to begin with, and the addition of sarah to the group hadn't helped.

currently, mara was sitting practically on pope's lap while kiara, ainsley, sarah, and levi were all crammed into the floor.

"i've seen you drive this van faster." levi mumbled, anxiously tapping his thumb across his other fingers, a habit emery had taught him to distract himself from thinking about whatever made him feel unsettled. the two both struggled with anxiety after their father left, emery's due to her situation with rafe and levi's being caused by the absence of his father, but they had each other to help get through it. little knacks the two picked up in their early teenage years had stuck with them.

"get the door open!" emery demanded before the van had even stopped, ainsley reaching over from her spot almost directly in front of the door to unlatch it. emery practically threw it open as the van pulled into her driveway, she and levi bounding out and up to the front door.

"mom!" emery yelled, running inside the house to see her mother wasn't in her usual position in the kitchen.

"mom!" levi shouted, the rest of the pogues filing into the house.

"i'm in here!" amelia called back, the melvilles and jj bounding into the room. amelia laid across the couch, her upper body propped up by pillows. her eye had a dark circle painted around it, her busted lip and the small gashes and cuts scattered across her face causing her usually cleaned and made up face to be covered in crimson. emery noticed the purple and yellow around her mother's right wrist, suggesting someone had grabbed her.

"holy shit." jj breathed.

"you know the drill." emery mumbled, the boy running upstairs to emery's bathroom to get her first aid kit she had bought for when jj's home life would get especially bad and he had no choice but to stay at the melvilles.

"what the hell happened?" john b asked in disbelief as he stepped into the living room with the rest of the pogues in tow.

"this guy just showed up, said he was one of jackson's attorneys and needed to talk to me- dropped that act as soon as he got through the front door." amelia mumbled, jj returning with the small white box in his hand.

"who was he?" emery asked, sitting on her knees in front of the couch and opening the first aid kit on the ground, pulling one of the remaining rubbing alcohol wipes from inside and ripping the small packet open.

"i don't know." amelia snapped. "i just know he started talking about a key, what's that about?" she questioned, looking up and around at the group.

"i've been in nassau for almost a month." mara said, holding her hands up in surrender.

"i was in prison." john b added.

"we might know what that's about." ainsley breathed, sucking on her teeth as she did. "popes got a little family history that's connected to the merchant gold, was the guy really ratty looking with a leather jacket on?"

"yes..." amelia answered hesitantly.

"renfield." pope whispered.

"who the hell is that?" emery asked, grabbing another alcohol wipe from the first aid kit and tossing the old one into the coffee table.

"he's the one who chased us through charleston, he works for limbrey." jj explained.

"limbrey?" amelia confirmed. "as in carla limbrey?"

"you know carla limbrey?" levi asked, brows furrowed.

"you think it was just those three idiots- no offense, john b- who were in on looking for the merchant?" amelia asked. "you think we and ward had the funding for it all? no, no, limbrey was a backer in it all. ward and jackson were silent partners in it all- i knew, of course, i was his wife-"

"is that how jj and i ended up here?" emery asked sarcastically, but amelia continued.

"even with us and ward putting money in, there was no way jackson and ward could find the merchant without going bankrupt. so, they found limbrey, and she funded their little wild goose chase, and now jackson and ward are soon to be convicted murderers, so everyone wins."

"mom!" emery snapped, nodding towards sarah.

"if i'm getting beaten up over this, i wanna know what's going on." amelia said firmly.

pope proceeded to spill the entirety of what had happened when john b, emery, and mara were all in nassau. it hurt the two girls to know that all of their friends had kept this from them, but worse that john b had been told and not them.

"i don't know what you've gotten yourselves into." amelia mumbled. "but if i were you, pope, i would go talk to your father and then go from there."

the pogues stood in silence, emery and mara glaring at all the others, sarah standing awkwardly to the side as she hadn't been involved in the treasure until then.

"so are we going to see heyward?" john b asked.

"no, no, popes going to see heyward, the rest of you are staying here." she instructed.

"mom, im going to be a hundred percent honest with you, i don't wanna be around any of these people right now." mara deadpanned.

"well, you're not going anywhere until pope talks to his dad and we find a solution to this little mess." amelia said firmly.

"fine." emery said annoyedly, she and mara giving the pogues one last dirty look before starting for the basement with sarah in tow.

"emery!" john b called after his girlfriend, he and jj starting towards the stairs.

"i wouldn't do that!" amelia called after the two boys, both of them stopping at the doorway.

"why not?" john b asked, tone tense. "because emery's been though too much in the last month and i've done too much stupid shit- i can't lose her, milly!"

"you're not going to lose her." amelia scoffed. "they're both just pissed- and rightly so, by the way- what the hell were you guys thinking?" she was yelling now at all the pogues in her living room. "why wouldn't you tell either of them what was going on?"

"there was never a good time to break the news!" levi exclaimed.

"really, because ainsley and kie had a perfect time to do so in the garden." john b fired back. "i was the one who said we needed to tell them- me and jj both did, and you guys ignored us."

"it's complicated, john b, we had all witnessed a murder and-" ainsley started.

"mara was murdered!" john b shouted, cutting off the blonde haired girl. "rafe shot mara in nassau and she died- emery brought her back to life because the doctor gave up on her, and i'll be honest, i did too." the routledge admitted, sending an apologetic glance to jj. "they deserved to know just as much as i did, and you all thought you could keep it from them? it's no wonder they were pissed when they found out, we've been back for almost a week, guys."

"yeah, and as great as that all is, john b, you don't know emery as well as you think you do either." levi fired.

"oh, you're one to talk about knowing emery when you were still friends with rafe after what he did to her." john b retorted.

"emery told me to keep being friends with rafe." levi gritted. "and last time i checked, you're not the one carrying her pills, you're not the one who helped her though nightmares, you're not the one she goes to whenever she feels overwhelmed or stressed- you're not as close to her as you realize because it's shit like this that makes her not trust you."

"if i recall correctly, you were all for lying to emery." jj told levi sternly.

"did you not hear everything i just rattled off?" levi asked, a dry laugh escaping his lips in his state of hysteria. "you guys don't realize everything emery's been through, and i was not 'all for' lying to her, not long term, anyways."

"oh, so you admit you wanted to lie to emery?" kiara retorted.

"emery hasn't been in a good headspace for the last three years, you guys have just been too wrapped up in your own lives to notice." levi spat. "she didn't need to finally come home just to find out we had witnessed a murder and were currently on a death mission to find a long-lost religious relic that probably doesn't even exist."

"emery can decide for herself what she's capable of taking in." jj defended his sister.

"okay, affair baby, let's hear it." levi shot. "tell me, what exactly-"

"shut up!" emery screamed. in everyone's arguing, they hadn't noticed that the girl had climbed back up the stairs and was listening to them. "how long?"

"what?" john b asked, noticing how emery's eyes were focused on him.

"how long were you going to keep me in the dark, huh? was it gonna be until i ended up like mom- or would it have had to have been worse?"

"emery-" john b tried to step towards her, but she took a step back.

"you're a liar." she whispered. "you're untrustworthy, and you are the reason we're all in this situation to begin with." emery added, her voice low. she turned in her heel towards the upstairs staircase, storming up it to her room.

"okay, now you definitely need to go talk to her." amelia chimed in, looking at john b before glancing at jj. "and you need to go talk to mara."

john b nodded, starting up the stairs to where emery's bedroom door was slightly ajar.

"emery- emery, please!" john b exclaimed quietly to the girl, who was curled up in the middle of her bed. she sat up, looking over at him with eyes glossed over with hurt and betrayal.

"why wouldn't you tell me?" she whispered, choking on a sob as she did. "you're not supposed to lie to me, the founding rule is no secrets amongst pogues- you broke your own rule-"

"i know i did, and i'm so, so, sorry." john b whispered, pushing the bedroom door shut and pacing over to emery's bed to sit down next to her. "you have every right to be pissed at me, i understand if you are-"

"im not pissed." emery mumbled, wiping under her eyes with the back of her hand. "you lied to me, john b."

that was when the routledge boy noticed the way emery was attempting to get her nails under the folds in the knot of the piece of t-shirt fabric around her wrist.

"no." he whispered, finally figuring out what she was doing as she got the knot untied. "emery, emery, no please-"

"you're not who i thought you were. at all." emery whispered, tears running down her face as she tugged the fabric off her wrist, pushing it into john b's chest.

"please don't do this." john b whispered. "emery, neither of us want this- please."

"get out." emery mumbled, laying back down and grabbing a blanket, tugging it over herself.

"okay." john b whispered, wrapping the fabric from the tshirt around his index and middle fingers as he stood up. as soon as he pulled the door open, he heard it.

emery was crying. sobbing, actually, the sound shattering his heart. he wanted nothing more than to run back into the room and hold her, to pull her into his chest and run his fingers through her hair.

but she didn't want him anymore.

she wasn't his to hold anymore.

kens speaks 🪐

whoops my finger slipped

anywho i'm probably gonna edit this because i lowkey hate it

also i thought this was funny so

this was originally going to include the scene on the boat but it's gonna get its own chapter next time