smooth seas//john b

forty five

I breathe a sigh of relief as I get the lifeboat into the water. As I throw a ladder over the edge of the boat my father steps in front of me.

I shake my head. "No. No! You get the hell away from me! I'm not doing this shit anymore! I'm not going with you!"

"I know. I get it," Dad tells me. "I mean, it took a while 'cause I didn't wanna believe, but... I finally understand what everybody was trying to tell me. You're not one of us. Right? Not anymore. And you never will be. You're one of them. But now the problem is this... what do I do now?"

I try to hold back tears. "You let me go."

"Let you go?" Dad asks. He laughs bitterly. "Let you go back and tell everybody that I'm alive and tell them where we are and tell them what we've done?" Dad steps closer to me. "Baby, come on now. You know I can't do that." He puts his hands on my face.

"You're scaring me," I tell him. "Don't. No."

"I don't know what to do with you!" Dad shouts. "What do I do, Maisie?"

I shake my head. "No. No. No. No. No."

He wraps his hands around my throat. "What do I do? What do I do?"

I start to claw at his hands as it gets harder to breathe.

"Dad," I cry out.

"Don't call me that! You don't mean it!" Dad shouts.

"Get off her!"

Suddenly Dad is pulled off of me. I fall to my knees gasping for air. John B punches Ward in the face causing Ward to fall on his back.

"MC!" John B rushes towards me. "Maisie. Hey. Hey. Hey. Look at me. Look at me. I got you, okay? Hi. Hi."

I put my hands on John B's face. "JB."

"I told you I wasn't gonna leave you, right? I got you. I got you," John B tells me. "It's okay."

Dad grabs John B from behind and wraps his arm around John B's neck, choking him.

"No! No!" I scream. "Stop! Stop it!"

"It's your fault!" Dad shouts. He starts to drag John B towards the edge of the boat. "Your fault!"

John B elbows Ward and Ward tosses John B into the wall.

"No!" I plead.

Dad tries to grab John B again and John B shoves him aside. Dad and John B start to grapple with one another. John B pouches Dad in the face. He grabs the front of Ward's shirt.

"Come on, Ward," John B taunts.

John B punches Dad three more times in quick succession. Dad stumbles before falling back and hitting his head on the metal edge of the ship. He pulls his hand back from his head and it's covered in blood.

John B kneels down beside Ward. "Is this how you did it, huh? Is this how you killed my father? You just threw him in the ocean?" John B sniffles as he grabs Ward's face forcing him to look at him. "I never got to say goodbye." John B starts to cry. "Because of you. This is all your fault."

For a moment it looks like John B is going to throw Ward overboard. But he doesn't. He gets up and walks towards me.

"Hey, we gotta go, okay?" John B tells me. "I got you." He wipes a tear from my cheek. "Come on. We gotta pick up the others." John B helps me to her feet. "All right." We stand on the edge of the ship. "Ready?" We grab hands. "One, two, three."

I gasp as I resurface.

"Come on, Maisie," John B says. "I hope they got the cross."

We pull ourselves into the lifeboat. John B gets the engine going. Pope, Kie, and Cleo of all people are the first ones we find in the water.