"We're the Pogues, and our mission this summer is to have a good time, all the time."
If you ask Dallas Hyland, right now, her friend, John B. Routledge is really pushing his luck.
Right now, he is on the roof, with a beer in hand, debating whether or not to jump.
"That's, what, a three-story fall to the deck? I give you a ⅓ chance of survival." her other best friend, Pope Heyward, hypothesizes. John B sticks a finger in his mouth to test the wind. "Should I do it?" he asks.
JJ Maybank and Dallas look up at John B in amusement. Dallas is currently lying down on the scaffolding her and JJ are on, with her head resting on his leg. "Yeah, you should jump. I'll shoot you on the way down." Pope replies, holding up a nail gun.
"You're gonna shoot me?" John B asks, holding up finger guns.
"They're gonna have Japanese toilets with towel warmers." Kiara Carrera, or better known as Kie, the other girl within the group, tells the group as she exits the house to get on the deck with the rest of her friends.
"Of course they are. Why wouldn't they?" JJ asks. "This used to be a turtle habitat, who cares about the turtles, I guess?" Kie says.
"KiKi, baby, these are Kooks we're talking about. They're not gonna care about the sea turtles." Dallas states.
"Dally, baby, you know I can't have cold towels." JJ quips to Dallas.
"Oh, no. The horror would be to not have unnecessary warm towels." Dallas snarks.
"Can you please not kill yourself?" Kie asks John B.
"No, jump. In fact, do a backflip, while you're at it." Dallas counter argues.
"Don't spill that beer. I'm not getting you another one." JJ tells John B. The dyed-ombre girl nudges JJ. She did a silent countdown from three, and when she got to one, she pointed up to John B, and as if it was on cue, John B drops the beer.
"Of course you did, like right when I tell you." JJ says. "Told you." Dallas singsongs. "Smooth, dumbass." Kie mutters. "A-plus." Pope chimes in as he looks over the balcony and sees the ADT security coming up on the driveway.
"Hey, uh, security's here. Let's wrap it up." Pope tells his friends.
"Looks like the boys are bright early today." Dallas chimes in, getting up from her position on the scaffolding.
"Humpty Dumpty, let's roll." JJ calls up to John B.
"Let's go, boys and girl." Kie mutters as Dallas makes her way from the scaffolding to the balcony. She wraps an arm around Kie's shoulders and sees which security guard it is.
"JJ, it's Gary again!" Dallas calls up to JJ with a smirk.
"Gary, is that you? Gary, good to see you, man!" JJ greets the security guard.
"J, you are just asking for it, now." Dallas chuckles at her best friend's antics.
The five friends ran into the house so they could get out of there. Throughout that voyage, laughter and yells fill up within the teens.
JJ and Dallas went in another direction than Pope, Kie, and John B. They were about to go out the front door, but a security guard was there. Dallas grabs ahold of JJ's hand, and they went the other direction, briskly avoiding the grasps of the security guards.
"At least take me out on a date, first!"
"Not much of a hugger, man!"
Dallas and JJ shout out before running to the backyard, where they also meet up with Pope.
"Go, Pope! Go! Go, go, go, go, go, go!" JJ calls out to Pope as they all climb over the fence. The three get over the fence, with Pope landing on his chest, and JJ and Dallas landing on their feet.
"Get up, Pope, fatso's coming." JJ tells him as Dallas helps him up. "Come here, you little pricks!" the guard screams at them.
A horn to a van is bleeping out. "Bus is leaving!" John B, who is driving the van, which they call the Twinke, calls out.
"Come on, guys!" Kie calls out as the three pile into the van. Gary is now chasing the van.
"Check out Gary, gunnin' for a raise." Pope points out.
"Come on, Gary. You can do it, buddy!" Dallas exclaims before turning to John B. "JB, slow down a bit." she tells him, a mischievous smirk coming into play and John B does slow down a bit.
JJ has a can of beer and leans out of the door, holding out the beer. "Guys, you're gonna give him a heart attack." Kie adds in.
"You're so close! You can do it." JJ cheers on before throwing the can of beer. "There you go. They don't pay you enough, bro." JJ tells them. "Better luck next time, Gare Bear!" Dallas calls out. Kie, who is having enough of the antics of JJ and Dallas, pulls JJ back into the van.
"JJ, Dallas, stop. Stop." one of the more responsible members of the group tells them. "Oh, come on. That sort of initiative is just begging to be punished." JJ defends himself and Dallas, to which Dallas chuckles at.
It's these moments that Dallas Hyland lives for; no responsibilities, no sign of her mother forcing her agenda down her throat, just a pure, euphoric good time with her friends, or maybe just three of her friends.
Her and JJ Maybank have always had an interesting relationship; their antics were recently displaying a sexual undertone for over a year. Sure, there is some flirting here and there, but there is something that makes the butterflies flutter in her stomach whenever it is just her and JJ.
She thought that she and the Pogues were going to be unstoppable for the whole summer, but then there was a speed bump.
Hurricane Agatha is trekking her way to the Outer Banks.
On the day that Agatha should be making her appearance, she clocks out of work. She works at a local bakery that sits perfectly between Figure Eight and the Cut. Alongside The Wreck, which is owned by Kie's parents, it is also a great tourist destination. Dallas is one of the cake decorators there.
"You sure you don't need a ride, sweetie?" her boss, Jasmine, asks her. "I'll be fine, Jaz. It's not that far of a walk." Dallas reassures her as she makes her way home, the sirens of a hurricane warning blaring throughout the island.
When it comes to storms, Dallas can sleep perfectly.
After a tumultuous relationship, she has been having trouble sleeping. She was taking medication for her night terrors, but she found it pointless because her prescription was becoming expensive. Whenever she sleeps over at the Chateau, where John B lives, she would sleep in the same bed as one of her friends, who, like her dad, are the only ones that are on her side when things turned south in that relationship.
Dallas wakes up to the blinding sunlight. She attempts to switch on the lights, but the light is not switching on. She checks her phone, only to see that there is no service.
"Hey, dad! How's the damage?" Dallas calls out to her dad as she leaves her room, but when she gets to the living room, she is unpleasantly greeted by her mother, her dad already looking annoyed with the presence of her mom.
Octavia Neville left her ex-husband and her daughter for the Kook lifestyle and rich business mogul, Raymond Neville. Every chance she gets, she flaunts her riches in front of Trent, her father.
Her dad never really got over the fact that his ex-wife cheated on him, thus creating resentment from Dallas to Octavia.
On instinct, Dallas groans. "It's too early for this!"
"You're already up and walking about." Octavia scolds Dallas.
"I'm not talking about waking up. I'm talking about dealing with you." Dallas retorts.
A shocked Octavia looks over at Trent. "You're gonna let her talk to me like that?" she asks him, who gives her an angry look. "You can't really blame her, now, can you?" Trent tells her.
Dallas's flaw is being too hot headed. She feels the anger rising up in her that she needs to leave the house. As soon as she did that, JJ came up to her house. Dallas doesn't live far from the Chateau, which makes it an easy walk.
"Thank God, you show up." she tells him, going up to him. "What happened?" he asks. Answering his question, Octavia storms out of the house, on the search of Dallas.
"Dallas, you get back here!" she screeches out. The two reckless members of the Pogues make a run for it, going back towards the Chateau, and getting onto the HMS Pogue.
"Sayonara, bitch!" Dallas yells at her, sticking up a middle finger as John B sails away.
"Sorry you have to deal with Cruella." John B tells her. After Octavia left her family, she quickly became a detestable figure on the Cut, whether it be because of her affair with Ray or because Trent is an idolized and respected figure on the Cut.
"First thing in the fucking morning. And don't you have a meeting with DCS?" Dallas inquires. "No way are they making it here." John B brushes off.
"Sure hope Guffy's boat didn't sink. He doesn't have insurance." JJ tells John B and Dallas as John B is cruising around the Cut to see what damage Hurricane Agatha has brought onto them.
"Hi, Miss Amy. You guys get through it?" John B asks. "Still here." the older woman responds.
"She totally looked at me." JJ claims. "I saw it." John B encourages.
"Hope you don't get too jealous now, Dally." JJ teases Dallas. "Right, because I'm totally jealous of a married woman with four kids." the ombre girl sarcastically quips.
"Guys, look at this place." John B tells his friends, JJ letting out a low whistle.
"Agatha, what did you do?" JJ asks. "She is a crazy lady." John B adds in. "The bitch showed no mercy." Dallas mutters.
"We're gonna be cleaning this all summer." JJ points out. "Won't be surprised about that." Dallas mutters. "That is my nightmare." John B chimes in.
They cruise up to Heywards to see Pope cleaning up the debris from Hurricane Agatha. "Well, look who we have here." John B says as JJ and Dallas whoop. "We have a safety meeting. Attendance mandatory." John B spoke up as if he was talking over a radio.
"I can't. My pop's got me on lockdown." Pope tells them. "Come on, man." JJ starts as he also begins to mimic someone over a radio. "Your dad's a pussy. Over."
"Oh, I heard that, you little bastard." Pope's dad calls out to JJ.
"We need your son!" Dallas calls out to Heyward. "Yeah, and island rules. Day after a hurricane is a free day." JJ adds in.
"Who the hell made that up?" Heyward asks, not buying what JJ said. "Uh, Pentagon, I think. We have security clearance. I have a card." JJ tells him, still going with that schtick.
"You think I'm stupid?" Heyward asks. Pope turns to his dad. "I'll do it tomorrow. I promise. Tomorrow." Pope reasons with Heyward, but he is not having it.
"No, no. Hell no. You doin' it right now." he tells his son.
"Get in the boat." John B whispers. "Make a run for it." JJ adds in, and that's what Pope does.
"Boy, if you get in that boat-" Heyward was about to say, but Pope already made it in. "Welcome aboard, good sir." Dallas greets with a smirk. "How does that feel?" JJ adds in.
"Go, go, go." Pope quietly orders John B. "Bring your ass back up here." Heyward says to Pope.
"I promise I'll do it tomorrow, dad." Pope compromises with him. "When you get back, you gonna clean shrimp, you gonna clean fish..." Heyward lists off.
"Love you, pops." John B tells him with a thumbs up.
"You'll clean your dirty-ass room!" Heyward continues.
"We'll bring him back in one piece. Love you, Heyward!" Dallas calls out to her friend's dad.
"And I don't like your friends!" he concludes. Dallas knows that it's only John B and JJ that get on his nerves and that he tolerates her, knowing that she keeps those two in line.
"Oh, top of the mornin' to you." JJ greets Kie as the Pogues spot the girl making her way down the dock. "Morning, boys. Where's Dallas?" she asks.
Dallas, who is laying down on the boat, gets up from her position. "I hear my wife!"
"Whatcha got? You got some juice boxes?" Pope inquired. "You know, just some yogurts, carrot sticks, those Veggie Straws that Dallas likes…" Kie lists off. "I really do love Veggie Straws." Dallas brings up.
"How about my kind of juice box?" JJ asks as he helps Kie into the boat. "Brace for impact." John B says as the beers are passed around.
"Salud."
"Skoal."
Kie and JJ say as they clinked their drinks.
Dallas was drinking her beer and munching on some Veggie Straws. "Let me show you a party trick." she hears JJ say as he gets towards the front of the boat. "Hey, Pope. Can you go a little faster?" JJ asks Pope.
"Oh, God. Here we go. I'm movin'." Pope mutters. "J, you've tried this 6,000 times. It's not gonna work." Dallas tells JJ. "Dally, baby, trust me. I got this. It's gonna work!" the blonde boy "reassures" the girl.
His party trick is to chug beer while at a high speed, but he is getting beer everywhere. "Oh, my God, you're getting beer in my hair!" Kie exclaims. Beer almost got into Dallas's eye, so she just curls up to Kie, hiding her face in her shoulder. "You almost got beer in my eye!"
"All right, all right, stop!"
"All right, you're done."
Pope and John B scold JJ as if he is a child.
The boat lurches to a stop, sending most of the teens to the ground and sending jJ flying off the boat.
"Jesus, Pope." Kie hisses.
"JJ, are you okay?" Dallas asks out to the blonde boy that flew off the boat. "I think my heels touched the back of my head." JJ groans out, floating on the water.
"Kie, Dallas, you two okay?" John B asks, groaning. "We're all right." Kie groans out.
"Pope, what did you do?" JJ asks. "Sandbar. The channel changed." Pope responds. "No shit." JJ adds in.
"It's probably gonna mess this whole place up." John B comments. "Hey, I saved the beer, though." JJ points out. "Congrats, JJ." Dallas tells him.
Pope's attention is towards something that is in the water. "Guys...I think there's a boat down there." he points out.
While nobody believed him, Dallas got up, and she saw the boat that Pope was looking at, her eyes widening. "Holy shit." she comments.
"No, no, guys. I'm serious. There's a boat down there." Pope tells them with urgency, his friends surrounding them. "Holy shit, he's right. Let's go." Kie tells them.
Dallas strips down to her swimsuit. When she only had to get out of her shorts, she freezes up, voices filling up in her head, her cries of stop. She snapped out of it when a hand touched her shoulder. She jumped and saw Kie with a look of concern.
"You okay?" the curly-haired girl asks her, causing her to nod. "Sorry about that." she apologizes as she gets her shorts off, revealing the rest of her skull and rose two-piece.
Dallas jumps into the water and they all check the boat out. After some time, the five teens resurface for air.
"You guys saw that shit, right?" Dallas asks, breathing heavily. All of them are laughing from what they saw.
"That's a Grady-White. A new one of those is like 500 Gs, easy." JJ states as they all swim back to the HMS Pogue. "That's a primo rig." JJ adds.
"Yeah. That's the boat I saw when I surfed the surge." John B states. "You surfed the surge?" Kie asks John B. "That's my boy. Pogue style." JJ cheers on John B.
"Wait, do we know whose boat that is?" Pope asks as John B gets the boat's anchor. "No, but we're about to find out."
"Dude, it's too deep." JJ warns John B. "Only for the weak and feeble, JJ." John B argues back. "Well, neither Dallas nor I are resuscitating you. I'm just making that clear up front." JJ spoke for himself and Dallas. "That's fine." John B responds.
"John B." Kie calls out to him, as if she's telling him to be careful.
"Diver down, fool." Pope says to John B as he and Dallas give him a salute. "Diver down." John B repeats. "Yeah, he is." JJ says as he shoves John B off the boat.
After he gets scolded by Kie, they all wait in anticipation for John B to reach the surface. "Should we go get him?" Pope asks his friends, and as if he heard him, John B reaches out from under the water.
"Oh, my God. That took forever." Kie breathes out in relief.
"Any dead bodies?" Pope asks him. "Looting potential?" JJ asks. "I found this motel key." John B responds to both questions.
"A key." Pope says, almost sounding unimpressed. "Yes, a key, Pope." John B tells him. "Great! We salvaged a motel key." JJ snarks.
"Guys, we should report the wreck to the coast guard. Maybe we'll get a finder's fee." Kie suggests as they speed back to land. "Yeah, and not work all summer. Thanks, Agatha, ya batch." JJ agrees with Kie.
John B, JJ, and Dallas make it to the coast guard, but when they tried to tell the coast guard about the wreck, they were cut off by other people having complaints. When they didn't get heard, she gestures to John B and JJ to get out of the coast guard's station.
"Well, that went well." Pope comments as they all meet up with each other.
"What's Plan B?" Dallas asks. "I think I know how we're gonna find the guy who owns that boat." John B replies to her.
"We don't know whose room that is. It could belong to anyone." Pope, the more cautious member of the group, reasons.
"I'm in." JJ says, stealing the key from John B, and tossing it to Kie. "Come on. I'll be look out." Kie reasons with Pope.
"Finder's fee. Just sayin'. And, hey, at least you'll only be an accomplice." John B points out.
"Let's go, bubba. What's the worst that can happen?" Dallas inquires, wrapping an arm around Pope's shoulders and leading him towards the HMS Pogue.
"You know that you just jinxed us, right?" Pope inquires as they make it back to the boat. "True, but it's only bad if we don't make the best out of it." Dallas states.
They got up to the motel, which looks like it's in disarray. JJ lets out a low whistle. "And I thought the chateau looked bad." he claims.
"This place is a shitshow." John B comments.
"Motel or meth lab?" Kie questions. "Less of a meth lab and more of where we could find the meth heads." Dallas adds onto Kie's question.
"Doesn't look like a place somebody with a Grady-White stays." John B states, and Dallas knows that he is right. "No. Looks like a place somebody with a Grady-White would get killed." Pope claims, causing Dallas to point at him in agreement.
"This is your captain speaking. HMS Pogue comin' in for landing." JJ speaks as if he is a captain of a ship.
John B and Dallas follow JJ out of the boat, but they get stopped by Pope. "Don't let him do anything stupid."
"Oh, we will." JJ speaks up. "We're not making any promises, right Dallas?" John B asks the girl, who is standing next to him. "Don't worry, they're kept on a tight leash." Dallas reassures Pope.
"Be careful." Kie cautions John B, giving him the motel key. "I mean it."
While the three best friends are trying to find the motel room, JJ was teasing John B about his earlier interaction. "Just be so careful, John B."
"God, you're so weird." John B tells JJ, shoving him off of him.
"I'm with JJ. What was that all about?" Dallas asks John B. "I don't know. Maybe she wants us to be careful." John B responds rather defensively.
"Since she heard you're being threatened with exile, she's just been, like, "Oh! Be so careful, John B.". "Oh, give me that John D already."." JJ teases him again, causing Dallas to guffaw out a laugh. "When are you gonna swoop in on that, man?"
"Bro, you know the rule. No Pogue-on-Pogue macking." John B defends. "That's a shit rule, and you know it, JB." Dallas tells him, honestly.
"Besides, you're the one always hitting on her. And don't think I know what's been going on between you and Dallas for over a year now.." John B adds in. "Kie's a super-hot, rich, hippie chick and Dallas is a badass rocker chick, and they're slumming with us." JJ tells him.
Dallas bites her lip and the butterflies are fluttering in her stomach again and her cheeks turn rosy when John B mentions how their dynamic changed.
While John B and JJ are still talking, Dallas finds the room. "Hey, Shaggy, Scooby, I found the room." she calls out for them.
JJ knocks on the door. "Housekeeping." he says in a high-pitched voice. Dallas hides her face in his shoulder to suppress her laugh. John B unlocks the door to go into the unusually dark motel room.
"Check the bag. See if there's a name on there somewhere." Dallas instructs the boys. They look throughout the motel room to see if there is something there.
John B was trying different codes for a safe that he had found while JJ was scoping out the bathroom. Dallas finds a set of numbers that are on the bedside table and brings it over to John B.
"Try this." she tells him, showing him the numbers. He punches in the numbers, and John B gets access to the safe. There is a shit ton of money in there along with a gun and a manilla folder.
"Holy shit." John B breathes out as he grabs a wad of cash as JJ keeps going on about shoals.
"JJ, you might wanna see this." John B tells him, getting his attention. An excited JJ grabs the gun out of the safe.
"Dude, dude, dude, this is a SIG Sauer." he says, excitedly. "Put the gun back, JJ!" John B scolds JJ as if he is a child at a candy store. "This is a fucking spendy gatt, man." JJ continues as he is pretending to shoot the gun.
"Take a pic of Dally and me. It'll be some Bonnie and Clyde kind of shit." JJ excitedly says. "No!" Dallas hisses, incredulously. "You want me to take a picture of you two? You wanna make our own incriminating evidence? Is that what you're talking about?" John B questions.
Dallas hears something rattle against the windows. She went over and opened the blinds and she saw Kie and Pope gesturing to something. Getting the message, she turns to John B.
"Someone's coming up to the room." she tells him, and John B went to the window that is near the door. "Cops."
A knock is presented on the door and the teens scramble to get out of the motel room. "Kildare County Sheriff's Department!" they hear Deputy Shoupe call out. They swiftly make it out of the window before the cops enter the room.
Dallas can feel JJ's breath on her ear, and it sends shivers down her spine as her back is pressed up against his chest. The gun falls out of JJ's pocket, causing Dallas to squeak and become one with the brick exterior of the motel. John B motions to the two of them to be quiet.
As soon as they know that the cops are gone, they quickly make their way back to the HMS Pogue.
"Well, that was fun." JJ comments. "Could have warned us a little sooner."
"We would have, except Pope was on the math team." Kie comments. "You were on the math team?" JJ asks. "Yeah, he mentioned it to us before. Weren't you listening?" Dallas tells him.
"The cops took everything like it was a crime scene." John B explains to Pope and Kie. "Did you guys find anything?" Pope asks.
"Did we find anything? No, I don't think so." JJ begins to bullshit, and then he takes out the wad of cash and the gun. "Oh, yeah, we did."
The sight of the gun caused Pope and Kie to be taken aback. "What the hell?" Pope hisses. "Dude, chill. Come on." JJ tries to calm Pope down. "Why would you take that from a crime scene?" he asks him as the two proceed to argue.
"I'm gonna lose my merit scholarship." Pope claims. "Hey, hey, hey. Sh, sh, sh. Sh, sh." JJ tries to calm Pope down. "At least you have us, right?" he asks. "I'm living the nightmare."
The five friends make it back to land and they bear witness to the waterlogged corpse of Scooter Grubbs being carried on the gurney, with his inconsolable wife sobbing over the body.
"Who's that?" John B asks. "It's Scooter Grubbs. He was out during the storm." Emma, a girl that has a small crush on John B, explains. "Check out this pick I got. Dead body."
"What kind of boat did he have?" JJ asks. "Somehow, that dirtbag copped a brand-new Grady White. Everyone's out looking for it." she answers. Dallas gives out a wary look to her friends. As soon as they found out about that, everyone was ordered to go home by the coast guard.
The Pogues are now back at the Chateau, and they are lounging around in the sunroom area. Dallas has her seat on a rattan chair next to JJ.
Pope runs into the Chateau. "Okay. So, um...we didn't see anything. We don't know anything." he tells his friends what to do. "We need to have total and complete amnesia."
"Actually, Pope's right for once." JJ agrees with Pope. "See, I agree with you sometimes. Deny, deny, deny."
"Guys, we can't keep that money." Kie tells them. "Okay. Not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, Kiara." JJ snaps at her. "No, Kie's right. We have to pass it off to Lana Grubbs." Dallas chimes in, agreeing with Kie.
"Otherwise, it's bad karma." Kie adds in. "Bad karma to be implicated in a felony, too." Pope chimes in. "We gotta go dark."
"If that means we get to keep the money, then I agree." JJ compromises. "I don't agree." John B shockingly disagrees with JJ. "Just think about it. This is Scooter Grubbs we're talking about. Same dude that's buying individual cigarettes at the Porthole. Shit, one time, I saw this dude begging for change in the Save-A-Lot parking lot. We're talking about a dirtbag marina rat who's never had more than $40 in his pocket, and all of a sudden, he's got a Grady-White? Just sayin'."
They took the conversation to the docks where Pope and JJ are fishing. "All right, so think about it, Pope. How does a marina rat get a Grady-White?" John B asks Pope. "Prostitution." he answers. "Square groupers, bro. Okay, flying under the radar, no aerial surveillance. They don't do that stuff during a hurricane."
"What does that mean? JJ?" John B asks, turning his attention to him. "They were straight smugglin'." JJ answers. "Smugglin'. And I guarantee there's a serious amount of contraband in that wreck." John B claims. JJ felt something tug on the fishing rod, and he went to reel it in. "Fish on!"
The teenagers went back into the Chateau in John B's bedroom. "For the record, if that is a smuggling ship with illegal contraband on the inside of it, it probably belongs to someone else." Pope tells the group. "Minor details." Kie chimes in. "They could come looking for it. Taking it would be catastrophically stupid." Pope states. "Right. Well, stupid things have good outcomes all the time." JJ tells him, taking the money from him.
"All we need to do is figure out a way to get into the cargo hold of that wreck. Until then, we just lay low. Just act normal. JJ suggests. "Right. And how exactly do we do that?" Pope asks. "Kegger?" Kie suggests.
The group went with Kie's suggestion. So far, everything is going smoothly. The sight of the Kooks made Dallas want to put her head through a crap ton of bricks, but so far, they didn't start shit, and also, they brought more kegs and red solo cups.
Dallas is conversing with some tourons about how Champagne Supernova is the superior Oasis song when a sullen Kie comes up to her. "KiKi, my love!" Dallas exclaims, hugging Kie around the shoulders. Looking at her face, her smile falters. "What's wrong?"
"You know who is here." she says lowly to her, nodding in a direction. Dallas turns to see the Kook princess herself, Sarah Cameron, on the lifeguard post, with her pompous boyfriend, Topper Thornton, telling her to get down from the post, next to his close friend, Kelce. So far, she hasn't seen Sarah's older brother, Rafe, so she felt relaxed.
Her, Kie, and Sarah were all best friends in their Freshman year of high school. Though she was from the Cut, Dallas's mom used her money to have Dallas go to the "Kook" Academy. Her first year was tolerable, mainly in large part to Kie and Sarah. All of a sudden, around their Sophomore year, Sarah just up and abandons them.
Kie took it extremely hard while Dallas couldn't care less; if the Kook princess didn't want to be friends with them anymore, she got the message, loud and clear.
However, her history with Rafe Cameron is a whole other mess that Dallas tries desperately to forget.
"Y-You didn't see Rafe here, did you?" Dallas asks her, the fear crawling up at the thought that he would be here. "No. You know how he only sticks to parties at Figure Eight." Kie reminds her.
Huffing out a sigh, she turns back to the group of Tourons. "Who's up for a game, kiddies?" she asks, guiding them to a fallen tree. Kie grabs ahold of her arm, concerned for her ombre-haired friend. "Remember. Keep it on the downlow."
She stands on top of the trunk of the fallen tree. "JJ, JB, we need drinks! We're playing a little game!" she exclaims to the boys. Beers were handed to her and the tourons. "Leg up! The key is to drink as much as you can without falling over." she explains.
The game progresses, and Dallas is the only one left standing, alongside another Touron. Normally, she knows how to liquor, however, she lost count on how many beers she consumed.
As she is chugging another one, the Touron next to her lost his balance and fell off of the tree trunk. Dallas screams out a cheer as she crushes the red cup. JJ holds her waist and helps her off of the tree. "Here she is, the most badass chick in all of the OBX!" JJ yells as he raises a laughing Dallas's hand up in victory.
Night descends within the party, and though Dallas isn't insanely drunk, she is feeling the effects of the alcohol. She was talking to Pope and Kie, but then after seeing tensions rising amongst JJ and Topper, she knew she had to step in. Muttering an "excuse me", she makes her way towards them, with John B and Sarah being silent.
Dallas just arrived at the scene, holding JJ back when a drink flies into her face. She turns to Topper, the more likely culprit, and raises her eyebrows, challengingly. Because Dallas has years of martial arts training in her resume, Topper recoils as a fraction fear is in his eyes. "Shit."
"Uh, Dallas. That was an accident." Sarah tries to explain but with the alcohol in her system, adrenaline is fueling her. "You think you're funny, huh? Wait until I fucking snap your arm." she growls, John B holding her back. "You're so on my shit list, pal!" she screams as she is turned away by John B and JJ.
"Dirty Pogues!" Topper instigates, and John B shoves Topper. "We're supposed to be incognito, remember?" Pope reminds his three friends, now fueled by rage at the sight of the boy with frosted tips. "Babe, babe, babe, babe-" Sarah tries but Topper sends a punch to John B and kicks him down.
"Hey, John B, don't make me drown you like your old man, all right?" Topper taunts, causing John B to spear him.
"Kick his ass, JB!" Dallas screams. "John B, let it go, man!" Pope yells as the two boys from rivaling sides of the island continue to fight. The chants of "Fight" are becoming increasingly louder.
"Come on, Topper! Let's go!" John B screams. As they continue to fight, a whole new extreme comes into play when Topper starts to drown John B, sending Dallas over the edge.
"It is so fucking on." she growls, ripping off her denim vest and charging towards the Kook. She kicks him in the shoulder, him flying off of John B. "Gotcha, you little dick-weasel!" she screams. She uses her years of martial arts training against him as she kicks a charging Topper in the chest. She did a leg sweep maneuver and got him into a chokehold. Topper slams his head against her nose, making her break the hold.
The sight of Topper drowning his best friend and making the girl he has grown attached to bleed from her nose sends JJ over the edge. He storms up to Topper, gun in hand, and puts it to Topper's head.
"Yeah, you know what that is. Your move, broski." JJ tells the surrendering Kook prince.
"JJ! Chill, he's surrendering!" Dallas exclaims, blood still pouring out of her. "JJ, stop! Put the gun down." Sarah tries to reason with him. "Did you say something, princess?" JJ challenges her. "We're good! We're good!" Topper surrenders.
"Kie, Dallas, can you two check your psycho friend, please?" Sarah cries out. Dallas makes a challenging step towards the blonde. "Maybe you should check your psycho boyfriend first, Sweet Valley High?" Dallas inquires, shoving Sarah, who now looks at her with a shocked face.
"Okay, everyone, listen up! Get the hell off our side of the island!" JJ screams, firing two warning shots, and everyone scrambles out of the Boneyard.
While Pope and Kie were chastising JJ, Kie notices something was off with Dallas, so she goes up to her. "You okay?" she asks. "I need to sleep." the ombre girl tells her, leaning her head on her shoulder.
"Okay, you can rest.' she whispers on the top of her head as John B faints.
Dallas wakes up the following morning in her room. Her nose had tissues of dried blood up it. She took it out of her nose and the bleeding was all dried up. She changes her clothes, which reek of salt water and a little bit of it is stained with blood.
"Heard you got into a fight last night." Dallas hears her dad tell her.
Trent Hyland isn't like any normal dad. He would praise her for getting into the fight if that other person deserves it, doesn't mind that she hangs around with the Pogues, and isn't overly protective of her, knowing fully well that she can handle herself.
"What if I were to tell you that the asshole has had it coming for a while?" Dallas inquires. He turns to her, arching an eyebrow. "Then I hope you got in a few hits and that he got what was coming." he tells her. "You have no idea." she tells him as she leaves the house.
Dallas sneaks onto the backyard, where she found everyone. "Look, I'm callin' it off. All right?" she hears as she gets to the backyard. "Peterkin said, if I stay out of the marsh, she'll help me with DCS."
"And you believed her?" JJ asks. "Yes, I believe her, JJ." he tells him. "An actual cop, John B. You believed a cop."
"JB, you know that the cops have an obvious double standard when it comes to this fucking rivlary." Dallas facts, gloomy. "All I gotta do is stay out of the marsh for a couple of days, and she'll help me out." John B snaps at her, and then he turns to JJ. "It doesn't help that your ass was the one shooting a gun."
"You know what I should've done, I should've just let Topper drown your ass." JJ tells him. "Yeah, because Topper was gonna drown me?" John B asks, incredulously. "If one of us haven't intervened, you would've been fucking shark bait." Dallas hisses at the brown haired boy.
John B and JJ continue to bicker until JJ states something that Dallas knows is true. "They always win, don't they, man? Kooks versus Pogues. They always, always win!"
"Look, it's okay." Kie tries to calm JJ down. "Kie, it's not okay. It's immoral." Dallas says to her, calmly. "They don't want us to go down to the marsh. That means there's something valuable down there, and you know it." JJ tells him.
"And I understand why you don't want to go." JJ says to Pope. "You're the golden boy. You got way too much to risk."
JJ then turns to Kie. "And you- I mean, you're already rich as fuck anyway. Why would you bother?"
"But us three, we got nothing to lose!"
JJ's plan was to get scuba gear off of Ward Cameron's boat. They got out to the marsh where they found out that there was barely any air in the tanks.
"This is empty. You took empty tanks?" Kie asks. "This one's ¼ full. It's good enough for one of us."
"Love it when a plan comes together." Pope chimes in.
"Okay, look. Anybody know how to dive?" Dallas asks, only to get silence. "It's kind of a Kook sport." JJ tells her. "I...read about it." Pope suggests. "Great, Pope read about it, so someone's gonna die." Kie concludes, pessimistically.
"Look, y-you put the thing in your mouth and breathe. How hard could it be?" JJ asks. "If you come up too fast, nitrogen gets into your blood, and you get the bends." Pope states. "Bends like, bend over…" JJ demonstrates, popping his back out a bit, causing Dallas to smirk. "Wanky."
"The bends kill you." Pope explains. "Oh, so no wanky." Dallas concludes, awkwardly.
"I can- I can dive." John B volunteers. "You can dive. I'm cool with that." JJ agrees. "Since when can you dive?" Kie asks. Dallas also cocks her head in confusion. "I'll do it, it's fine." John B brushes off.
"Let me do some calculations real quick." Pope tells the group. "That boat's about 30 feet down, so it'll take 25 minutes at that depth. Which means you need to make your safety stop at about...ten feet. For two minutes." he explains.
Kie takes off her shirt and jumps into the water. "Uh, what was that all about?" Pope asks. "I don't know, but I liked it. A lot." JJ says. An unfamiliar feeling is panging away at Dallas.
"When you are down there, look for the cargo hold." Dallas begins to explain. "You stick this thing inside and twist and pull, okay?" JJ continues to explain, giving John B a clip.
"Hey, I tied my T-shirt to the anchor chain about ten feet down. It's where you need to do your safety stop." Kie tells him, swimming back to the boat.
"Keep an eye on this. You need to make sure you have enough air to decompress." Pope says, giving him a gauge. "Okay, how much do I need?" John B asks. "Unclear. Breathe as little as possible." Pope says with uncertainty.
"Zen. Think Zen, you know?" JJ suggests.
"Hey, if we get caught out here in the marsh, we're basically screwed, so...better get a move on." Pope tells him.
Kie went up to John B and kissed him on the cheek, causing JJ and Dallas to share a look.
"Diver down?"
"Diver down."
John B and Kie exchange as John B submerges himself into the water.
JJ notices Dallas sitting away from them on the boat. He went up to her and sat down next to her.
"You okay?" he asks. "Is it bad that I wanted you to blow Topper's head off?" she asks. She knew JJ wasn't going to actually shoot Topper, it was just to scare him and to save John B.
"I wasn't going to do it." he tells her. She leans her head on his shoulder. "You helped me so much this past year. I don't know what I would do without you." she tells him. "I'm not going anywhere, Dally. I promise you that." he tells her.
They heard sirens, looking up with urgency, they saw the police coming their way. "Shit! Cops!" she hisses. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me." Pope says. "Just act frickin' normal." Kie tells them.
"Evening, officers." Pope greets Deputy Shoupe and Deputy Plumb as he and JJ help them tie off their boat.
"How you kids doing? You know the marsh is closed?" Deputy Shoupe tells them. "We didn't know, sir. Sorry." Dallas "apologizes". "Why is it closed?" Pope asks. "Well, we're conducting a search out here. Boat went down. Seen anything?" he asks them, to which they all reply with no.
"Where's your friend you always hang with? He here?" Shoupe asks them. "Oh, uh, John B had to work today." Dallas lies to him.
"I'm gonna check your little boat out." he tells them, getting onto the boat. Dallas stands off to the side with JJ, taking a hold of her stomach.
After Shoupe and Plumb do an inspection on the boat, he concludes with an "All right." and gets back onto the police watercraft.
"Let us know if you see anything on your way out." he tells him, untying the rope and sailing away from them. As soon as the police left, John B pops out from under the water.
All of them take in a sigh of relief. "Don't scare us like that, douche!" Dallas hisses at him. "How'd it go down there? Did you find anything?" JJ asks. John B brings up a bag as he gets onto the boat.
"Are you okay?" Kie asks. "I ran out of air." John B tells her, out of breath. "You scared the shit out of me."
"Yeah, the cops were up here, but, uh...took care of them." Pope tells John B.
"Hey, guys? Guys, bogey, two o'clock." Kie warns the group. They all look up to see an unfamiliar boat coming towards them.
"Do you recognize that boat?" Pope asks Kie. "I've never seen it. What are they doing here? The marsh is closed." Kie wonders. "I don't think they're a part of the search party." Dallas mutters. "Let's not stick around and find out." JJ says.
The guys were prepping the boat to get out of the marsh as the suspicious boat was looming near. As they leave, their boat is coming after them, increasing the speed, causing them to increase the speed on their boat as well.
"Guys, they are gaining on us." Dallas tells them, fear grabbing its hold on her. "This can't be good." Pope worries. "Dude, you gotta go faster! Gun it!" JJ orders John B.
The sound of a shotgun going off causes them to duck. "Fuck!" Dallas cries out. "That's a fucking gun!"
"John B, you have to get down!" Dallas yells at John B as another shot rang out.
Kie stands up and grabs a net as another shot rang out. "Get down, Kie!" John B cries out. "Kiara, look out" Dallas worries.
She threw the net out to the marsh water, and when they hit it, they were slowing down.
All of them chuckled in relief as they got away from the boat. "You're my fucking soulmate." Dallas tells Kie as she gets her into a hug.
Night was following the teenagers as they got onto the dock. John B is prepping to open the bag.
"What do you guys think it is?" Kie asks them. "Gotta be money, right?" John B inquires. "That or a couple of keys with street value to the low- to mid-mils." JJ guesses. "Can we please just open the bag?" an irate Pope bursts out. "Wow, Pope. That's a rare outburst of emotion." John B comments.
Dallas knows where Pope is coming from; all of them could have died.
John B opens the bag, which has a canister, which has a compass. As Pope was going on about how all of them could have died over a compass, John B was silent as he was looking at the compass further.
"Dude, what? It's not worth anything." JJ tells him.
"This was my father's." John B breathes out.
REVIEWER SHOUTOUT!
min kone: I will try to make sure the relationship between Dallas and JJ seems natural and authentic
SophieLove21093: Here's the next chapter :)