𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 56.

━ 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗳𝗲𝗹𝗹

𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗮𝗻.

𝐇𝐔𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐒 embraced their shapes in deformation, pulsating and throbbing through the glass of the cop car window as the vehicle sped down the road, touching a bare epiphany. It was almost as though, through the fine lines of disaster, breaking free seemed like a possibility— I'd done it for too long, gotten shockingly used to running from everything. But the wheels turned none of the doubts away, heading onward towards the end of our summer, our endless summer that was thought to last forever.

And I believed it. With a pigmented heart, I believed we could do it— we, five teenagers, could reach the highest summits of a glorifying succession, the best anyone could see. We would be the ones. Precisely, I believed every inch of every detail. To the eyes of no one but us, we were going to get the gold, and we were going to be right. But it was all an illusion— a sick, blinding, cruel illusion that made the brightest goals seem reachable. Never did we think it would end up like this.

We were told not to play with fire. Never were we told that, despite every fierce warning, it's colossally impossible to avoid the flames. It just so happened that someone grabbed our extinguisher right when we'd found ourselves on the cusp of greatness, and killed the flames with those foams, drowned all that we'd worked for into a massacre of endings. And it also just so happened that Ward Cameron's fingerprints were marked all over that fire extinguisher, at the breaking point.

Constantly as things caught up by the moment, I wondered how differently the galavant would have turned out if I hadn't met Sarah Cameron. If Kook princess hadn't almost ran me over on Figure Eight. Assuredly, John B would have figured out his father's undoing without me, in the peak of time. But without my presence in all, the comprehensive list of causes and consequences would have twisted out into a disparate denouement— and I had all the time in the world to imagine an alternate reality, a reality where John B wasn't on the Phantom heading across the border.

It was the unsureness and the frailty of my position in the whole case that made my head hurt the most. I was seen in the cop SUV back at the Chateau next to the cop-proclaimed fugitive, and something told me, that I wasn't going to get off as easily as Jj, Kiara, and Pope. And that conclusion had hit me in the very moment when the cop sirens blared over the trees at the boat ramp, and officer Shoupe had hopped out of his driver's seat, hand on gun.

It was utterly alarming to know that my facial expression hadn't changed a pinch when we had noticed the cars pulling up. For forty-eight hours consuming, I'd ran from the authorities, and in the midst of those very hours, somewhere, I had realized the end was decidedly inevitable. So when the officers piled out of their vehicles with looks of finality, I barely moved, even when Shoupe yelled and shouted into our ears, except for extending my hands beside my head. The tears flowed without a cease, landing on my shirt to create spots. The stains were still there.

Should had looked at the Pogues first, and then to the Phantom gliding through the water at it's far distance, with wide eyes, and then specifically to me. Something buzzing had flashed over Shoupe's eyes, I could see it from far, when he had recognized my appearance, and the precise remembrance of my body sitting in that runaway SUV.

When they'd shoved Jj and I into one car, Kiara and Pope in another, I couldn't hold back from letting my mind race to oblivion, like before. It was the first time I'd sat in a cop car for a felony, but yet,  I wasn't scared about the repercussions. I wasn't thinking about the charges, or the trouble, or the blames I was going to take, or the blows to the head I was going to need for closure. It all became a blur.

Just like the transformation of the opalescent tinges made of flashing lights outside the cop car window, everything had merely reconstructed into a blur of staggered lines— made up from rubbles of people, places, and feelings I'd once felt.

I'd wondered about my parents. Not what they'd think if they saw their daughter in the back of a police car, but rather their whole story— their sheer negligence towards every aspect, their secrets, and their hidden stories that had once been sealed with a stamp. I wandered back over to the fight with Caroline and Daryl, the arguments about Ward, and the fine lines of the truth I was served. In the end, my boring New York life converted into some drastic fable, a half-sister thrown into the mix, and an abusive almost-father. At one point, that was the biggest shock. At one point, the fulcrum of my existence revolved around that fable. But newly— the frame job that enclosed John B, took it's spot.

Now sitting in the back of the cop car, I let my eyes wander to the glass window for a fixed stare at the hues of red, whites and blues clarifying with every moment as we approached. They were soon no longer hues. They were defined lights of different Sheriff SUV sirens, blaring as we arrived at a makeshift police station. I felt gravitated. As if the earth was pulling my feet towards the ground, wanting to grapple me through the dirt and just leave me there forever. But we had arrived. It was too late to run, too late to explain, and too late to think about anything anymore. An officer pulled open my door.

"C'mon, this way," the tall man, with a hard face and a gun strapped around his torso, gave me only a mere second to unclip my seatbelt. He wrapped a calloused hand around my arm.

Jj was being pulled out by a different cop, on the other side of the SUV. The man that dragged him was taller, broad-shouldered, and kept a firm grim on his two shoulders as if Jj was more malevolent, more of a burden, more of a danger than I was. His blonde hair fell in wisps in front of his eyes, feet tripping.

"Put em' over here, Officer," someone ordered from somewhere around us.

There were tents everywhere. It was almost shocking, almost bewildering, and almost fumbling to see that everything around me was set up for John B, and him only. Every tent had tables with people surrounding the perimeters at every angle, not a spot unoccupied, officers procured at every entrance to every tent— firm grips on their guns— and agents and Sheriffs and every pupil of authority on guard. There were cameras in every turn of the head, reporters desperately aiming to get a glimpse at something, and suddenly I knew, that without a doubt, someone in that clearing knew I'd been with John B all along. It would only take the right person to look at my face.

Thunder crackled in the sky above when Kiara and Pope joined at my side. We were in a clump, officers in front of us, and officers in the back. Jj pressed up against my shoulder. I could tell he wanted to whisper something to me by the way he leaned his head down and to the side, but Shoupe was calling for us, and I wouldn't have been able to hear him anyway over the thunder and the voices.

"Right here, right here," Shoupe was saying, just as we'd entered one of the main tents. "Sit down, right here. Don't move— we got a lot to talk about," he ordered, with a demanding tone of voice. The officers shoved us down to sit on four plastic chairs, that I, grimly, realized were set for us and only us. "You're first, young lady." He landed his eyes on me.

I tilted my chin up. They were staring down at me, sitting there, weak. One lady looked at me in particular, with a certain look in her eyes that told me she knew about John B and I— so I was caught.

Kiara tapped my ankle with her own, as if telling me it was going to be alright and to just go. So I did. I stood up, in the possession of an officer, and the sheriffs guided me out the tent through the back way. I wanted to look back at the Pogues, to see them stare at me in return with a look in their eyes that only we knew the meaning. But I didn't. I stared at the ground.

Until we neared a new tent, where I had looked up to into the sky to see the peak of the Redfiled lighthouse. The Redfield Lighthouse that I had once ran through, with John B. It was the day that the square groupers invaded his house, also the day that I'd taken a tour with Sarah Cameron, and the night we went to the graveyard. The night he almost kissed me, too. It seemed as though, as I looked up at the black and white stripes of the lighthouse, something inside me shifted upside down, the empty void feeling vapid. That was the starting point of my Pogue experience— if I had never stepped foot in the lighthouse, I wouldn't be stepping foot into the new tent, surrounded by officers. I felt like crying when I stared at the lighthouse, but I didn't let the tears fall. I just didn't.

"Sit down," I didn't know who was talking to me; it wasn't important. We were in a smaller tent, with less people, and only three officers crowded in front of my chair. Shoupe, the lady, and a tall bald-headed man with the word 'agent' on his coat.

"What's your name, kid," the bald man started. He wasn't forceful, but he wasn't easy.

I swallowed, hard. "Charlotte,"

"Last name," he asked.

"Collins." I mumbled.

"Daryl and Caroline," Shoupe looked to the lady, "You know em? Motel off the marsh."

The lady nodded, fumbling to scribble the words onto a notepad she held in her hands.

"And who have you been with for the last few nights," he questioned.

"John B," I admitted.

The lady scribbled more.

Sometime during the course of my life I'd imagined myself in this exact situation. Sprouted from all the movies I'd ever watched, at some point I'd pictured myself sitting in front of officers, pretending to be answering questions about the crime I had committed. The imagination always ended with me lying, strategically and pathologically, and took place in a police station. But things seemed to turn out different as I sat in the plastic chair underneath the tent, in the middle of an island—and contrastingly, I wasn't lying like I'd imagined. I was letting every truth slip off my tongue, as if I had nothing to lose. But I had everything to lose.

He began listing off all the places we'd been spotted. "Figure Eight?"

I nodded.

"Belltower?"

I nodded.

"Rose Cameron's listing down Gelend street?"

I nodded.

"Suspect's home?"

I nodded.

The lady scribbled after every dip of my chin.

"What relation do you have with the suspect," he asked.

I looked at my stained shoes. "Girlfriend." I simply answered, the word coming out soft. It was hard to think about our relationship when he was somewhere in the middle of the sea, heading across the border, during the oncoming storm.

"And your forehead?" He pointed to the bandage. "What happened there,"

"I hit my head on a tool bench," I explained, briefly.

The man looked to the lady, who showed him something on the paper. "Kelce— Figure Eight?"

I nodded.

"And those scratches on your ankles and arms?" he looked to the marks.

"From running through the trees." I said.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do, miss," Shoupe looked at me, with a seemingly vile tone.

The bald man put his hand out to Shoupe, telling him to stop. I almost narrowed my eyebrows. He then leaned down on one knee, eyes firmly locked with mine.

"Why were you running." He asked, lowly.

I stared back at him. Maybe it was my delusion, maybe it was the glossiness of my eyes, or maybe it was my exhaustion that was making me see things— when I looked at him, there was something in that bald man's face that whispered he wasn't against me. That if I told the real truth, he would believe it. Almost like he believed two teenagers simply could not be on the run together, hopelessly in love for a crime this bad.

I looked up at him. And I chose to say it, not because it would get me out of the sea bed, but because the bald man looked like he was ready to hear it. "John B didn't shoot the sheriff," I muttered, with a breaking voice, "It was Rafe Cameron, and Ward Cameron has got this thing under his finger— he killed Big John, John B doesn't have anything to do with this," I tried to keep my voice from cracking, but the words slipped through each break uncontrollably.

"That's enough," Shoupe almost shouted.

"You have to believe me," I said.

The bald man squinted his eyes. He was leaning close, trying to read just about everything that was written on my face. I could tell that he knew I was just a teenager, a sixteen year old girl who was frightened at every inch, traumatized in every bone.

"You've been through a lot in the last three days?" He asked, still keeping monotone.

I nodded, but weak this time. Small tears were clouding at my eyes.

"I need you to tell me where he is." The man said, calmly. And then he lowered his voice, eerily quiet, "Nothing is gonna happen."

I stayed quiet.

When my silence dragged on for too long, the man stood up. "Take her to the rest of them."

For a second, I regretted telling him everything as the other officers rushed back towards me and grabbed my arms. I wanted to kick myself for ever thinking it would be okay to spill all of that information. But the bald man wasn't done.

"Go get me Ward Cameron," he was saying, to the lady, "He needs to talk."

And that was the last I heard before I was shoved to sit between Kiara and Jj again. Their hands were intertwined when I appeared around the corner. Jj tried to whisper something to me when I sat, again, possibly ask me what information I gave or what questions they asked or simply how I was feeling, but he was next. Kiara's leg was bobbing up and down when Shoupe called his name, and Jj obeyed, walking glumly but with his usual confident sway, out the back way of the tent.

After the shifts trudged on, each one of them coming and going, everything seemed to blend together. I sat in the same plastic chair for what seemed like hours, thinking about my grandparents. They were going to be there any moment. They would turn the corner and see me sitting there, my hair wet, my clothes stained, and my arms scratched, and I wouldn't know how to greet them. I didn't know what they were going to do. Call my parents, maybe the flight was already planned. And I thought about John B, envisioning him cruising over the border to Mexico— but for a reason I couldn't identify, I felt like he was suddenly close. That he wasn't in the middle of the sea like I'd been picturing.

When the rain started to pound harder and harder on the roof of the tent, a sudden light came on, not from a lantern and not from the computers. And then another one. And then another one. And another one. And soon, the whole island was just lit up like it had never gone out— just like I'd seen it on my first night there. The streetlights from far were working again and the lampposts along the dock line were on. But also, the Redfield Lighthouse started up again after weeks of resting dead. It shined a new perpetual light over the water.

And suddenly, everything changed.

"That's him!" People began to shout.

"That's a Phantom!"

"He's there!"

And I felt this sudden weight on my chest, as officers in our tent rushed out with alarming looks, covering their heads from the rain. Everyone in the drop spot was rushing to get a glimpse at their fugitive— the criminal they'd been waiting days to catch, he was finally within grasp like a golden medal. Jj, Kiara, and Pope stood up. They yelled over my head.

I stared at the Phantom resting still in the water at a distance, the spaces of white soon disappearing from my view as people crowded in front of the shoreline. Officers shouted to one another. They hopped in their boats. A chase had started.

When Jj was about to make a start towards the crowd, Shoupe stopped him, alarmed. "You kids stay here! You're staying here!" He yelled. "Stay put!" And then he ran off towards another tent.

And so that is what we did. Although it hurt, we stayed.

The four of us sat in our chairs as the rain pounded harder and harder on the roof above us, and as the shouts never diminished. I thought of how stupid he could be. To show up at the station, put himself in plain sight. I began to think that maybe he was surrendering, or coming back to tell the truth— but he was cruising away. Chased by all the police boats. I wondered how I would feel if I did happen to get a glimpse of his face, even from far— but he was gone, again, just like that. He smoothed into touch reach, and then smoothed out so quickly that I didn't even have the time to move an arm.

I didn't want to think about John B crashing through the waves of the storm, running from the cops, but it was what was going on. It was all happening. And no other event in the passed days made me feel more nervous than this one.

When the waiting became unbearable, just like all the waiting I'd done in the last days, and my grandparents never showed up, I figured something was wrong. Terribly wrong. It wasn't just the fact that the makeshift station had abruptly gone quiet for a few moments, or the fact that there was but one officer left in our tent to keep watch that made me substantially unstable. It was hardly either of those. Jj noticed something was wrong with me.

"What is it," he whispered. The officer guarding us was watching something in another tent.

I swallowed. I didn't know what it was.

The drop spot was silent. The whole station was quiet. There were no more shouts, no more calls, no more rushing sounds— it was just, silence. A long, vehement, unshakable silence. And that was confirmation enough that something, had in fact, gone terribly wrong.

A strong spike of lightning hit the ground when Shoupe, the notepad lady, and someone unrecognizable reappeared in our tent. Other officers were trudging in too, looking down or looking at each other. The ground we were standing on had shifted. Jj pulled me with him as the Pogues rushed over to the three officer, slowly pulling their neon raincoats from over their heads.

Everything after that played out in slow motion. Really slow motion. It was sort of a dreamlike quality, the officers were moving underwater.

Something deep inside of me already knew that I would never see John B again. I had first felt it when I watched him leave at the boat ramp— in the very pit of my stomach, there was this thought that once I said goodbye, he would never present himself in front of me for as long as I lived. But in honesty, I never thought that feeling would see the light of day. I pushed it away like a delusion, buried it somewhere unknown, and thought about the simpler things like facing my grandparents. But the feeling was omnipresent, like there was a constant invisible aura haloed around my head that only I could see.

And I was right.

From the second the words tumbled from Officer Shoupe's mouth, the world came crashing down. Pinning me underwater.

Nothing really mattered anymore. At first I didn't cry, because that buried thought of never seeing him again had already, subconsciously, accustomed me to the feeling of loss, so much that I barely felt anything when it came down to it. I already knew it was going to happen. And I couldn't tell when exactly I became used to it. Somewhere along those days, I procured myself into this ocean of inevitableness, that what I knew would come, would simply come.

I just felt a wave wash over. Not a wave of relief, not a wave of fear or sadness. Just a wave. A wave that took me under, and blended all of the events into one single image in front of my eyes. A wave so calm that I felt my eyes flutter closed, and every feeling, every tear, and every glimpse had just disappeared into thin air.

I was sitting at the bottom of the ocean when somebody wrapped their arms around my head. I opened my eyes into a darkness so blank, the world around me was moving in a motion so slow it felt woozy. My head was unbearably heavy when Jj hugged me closer. I looked over his shoulder. Kiara was hugging her parents, and Pope was hugging his. At some point they'd arrived, at some point Jj wanted to fight Shoupe, and at some point we were hugging each other. Nothing was making sense. The only thing that registered, was that John B was gone— really, really gone.

I took the loss like a crown. As if someone of authority was standing before my feet, placing it on the very top of my head. But I let it tip. And there the crown fell, clattering onto the floor in different pieces of gold, delineating my reflection in the mirror shards. I looked back at myself standing feeble and weak.

Caroline and Daryl showed up in the rain, moving like underwater swimmers in my dream of quiet motion. I'd been waiting days to see them again, they were once all I thought about, but as they turned the corner, I didn't cry harder. I didn't cry harder when Caroline ran to me with tears on her cheeks. I didn't cry harder when Daryl dropped his hat on the ground. But I cried harder when they wrapped their arms around me, so tightly I could barely breathe anymore. Like a faint echo, Daryl welcomed Jj into our embrace, hugging the boy as tight as he could.

Somewhere in those moments of reunion, I realized that it was the end. Not like how I'd realized before, that John B was gone, not that end. It was the end of something far greater, and my hands were shaking too much, my eyes were closed too hard, my heart was aching over its limit, and my knees were too weak to understand anything but the fact that something was over. But it came closer, the very end, and I tried to push it away, but I had no more strength.

And then just like that— our ludicrous adventure was pinned dead into the seabed, and all of our galavants were playing over in the reflected shards of my fallen crown, falling to the very bottom of the ocean.

And I, amongst every piece of our ludicrous puzzle game, was drowning away with it.

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sob :(

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