Carson Keller used to think her biggest problem was their rivalry against the Kooks, but that was until buried secrets rose to the surface. Now her biggest problems included a dangerous treasure hunt and a hot-headed teenage boy.
✰ season 1-3 ✰
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JUST AS CARSON was on her way up the stairs of the yacht, John B was barreling down them.
"Hey, where are you going?" she called after him. He didn't respond as he seemed too preoccupied sprinting off the boat and down the street. So, instead, she climbed the rest of the way up and approached Sarah. "Where's he going?"
"He said something about his dad," Sarah said. "And... bells?" Carson whipped her head over to Sarah.
"What do you mean?"
"That his dad used to call him back home with some bell?" Sarah said.
"Yeah, yeah, I know what he would do. But what does that have to do with now?" Carson asked.
"He thinks he heard something," she said with a shrug. "He had to go find out for himself." Carson wasn't sure what to make of this. She wanted desperately to believe that Big John was still out there, but it had been so long that she wondered if that was even possible. He was already gone by the time that Sarah had told her this though that she had no choice but to just wait and find out what he thought he was hearing. Unfortunately, their shit luck just continued because then there were a group of Singh's men quickly approaching the boat.
"Where's John B?" Pope asked.
"I don't know. He said he'd be back," Sarah said.
"Well, he's not! JJ, what are we gonna do?" he said.
"We gotta make a stand. That's what we gotta do. That's the only option," JJ said.
"What?" Kiara said.
"Kiara, we're not splitting up again!" he shouted.
"JJ, we have one gun!" Carson reminded him. "I don't want to leave John B either, but what chance do we really have against all of Singh's men right now?"
"Guys, y'all didn't see what I saw. He killed Portis! He can't stay here," Kiara said. Sarah ultimately made the final decision as she put the boat in motion to get them out of there. They were no good to John B if they were captured or dead, so it pained them to leave him but once again they were left with no choice.
They had been sailing for a bit before JJ finally decided to break the silence.
"So this is what we're doing, huh? We're just sailing out," he said. "We're just gonna forget about John B?"
"No one is forgetting about him, J," Carson tried to reassure him. "We'll get him back."
"We should never have left him! We're turning right back around," he said.
"No! We're all gonna get caught. What type of plan is that?" Cleo yelled, quickly shutting him down.
"It's a plan to stick together, Cleo," he responded angrily.
"Then we are dead together."
"She's right. We had to leave or we'd all be zip-tied in the back of a pickup," Kiara said. "We did the right thing."
"Nothing feels like the right thing anymore," Carson said, still not being able to shake the annoying thought of how she felt jealous when they found Kiara and the way JJ reacted. She knew she was probably just overthinking it and getting in her own head about it, but that kind of thing can be hard to convince yourself otherwise once that thought is planted. JJ was just about to ask what she meant by that when the phone started ringing.
"Who's that?" he asked Kiara.
"It's Portis?" she said.
"Portis? That's John B. That's definitely John B," JJ said as he ran over and grabbed the phone from her. "Yo, dude! Is this you? Do you need us to turn around?"
"I said don't worry about me, okay?" John B said on the other end of the line, though as he continued to talk the phone began breaking up so they couldn't quite get the rest of what he was saying. The only thing they could hear was him say "Kildare".
"Kildare. What the hell?" Sarah said.
"You guys think he found his father?" Cleo asked.
"He's been missing for almost a year," Pope said.
"But it's possible, right?" Carson said, hopefully. Sarah looked at her hesitantly, not sure what to say right now. She didn't want to get Carson's hopes up because she knew how much Big John meant to her, but she also didn't want to shut the idea of him being alive down either. Instead, she just didn't say anything at all.
"Sarah, we're sitting ducks out here. We need to make a decision. Are we turning back around or are we gonna keep going?" JJ said. "Sarah, we need to make a decision!"
"He said go. So, go," she said before walking towards the front of the boat. Carson glanced over at JJ to give him a short nod to tell him to do what Sarah said before she followed the blonde and sat next to her. They sat in silence for a bit before Sarah finally looked over at Carson. "What was Big John like?"
"Intense," she answered with a small smile. "He was always obsessed with solving the mysteries of the treasure. Sometimes that became too much of an obsession that he blinded him to what was right in front of him, which was John B, but he was also as good of a dad as he could be I guess. I mean, we all spent so much time together that I kind of thought of him as my dad too." Sarah nodded her head in understanding. Before Carson could stop herself, she found herself asking a question she wasn't sure she exactly wanted the answer to. "What was Ward like?" Sarah looked at her for a moment, either debating how she should answer it or if she should even answer it at all.
"Intense," Sarah repeated the adjective with her own smile, making Carson laugh. "He worked a lot. And put a lot of pressure on us, especially Rafe." Carson thought back to her conversation with Rafe when he confided in her that she was lucky not to have had Ward in her life and how he never felt enough for him, and as much as she disliked Rafe for all the horrible shit that he had done, part of her felt a little bad for him too. It didn't excuse any of his actions, but she could sort of understand him better knowing the environment he grew up in with Ward. "But I guess he also was as good of a dad as he could be, until he wasn't."
"Do you think you could ever forgive him?" Carson wondered, partly because she wasn't sure herself.
"I don't know," Sarah said honestly. That lingering thought that had been bugging Carson recently suddenly popped into her head again and she felt stupid even saying it out loud, but she needed to know if there was any truth to it.
"Can I ask you something? Sister-to-sister, as corny as that sounds," she said. Sarah laughed.
"Anything."
"Do- do you think JJ has a thing for Kie?" Carson asked. The thought alone was horrible but saying the actual words was even worse. Sarah's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"What makes you think that?" she asked, seeming to be genuinely curious and confused.
"I don't know. He just seemed so intent about getting her back and then when we did, it just seemed... more," Carson said. "Maybe I'm just tired and stressed from almost dying multiple times in the past few days, but I just needed to know if you picked up on anything."
"I really don't think he does, I think he just cares about her like we all do," Sarah assured her. "But if this has been bothering you, maybe just talk to him?" It was honestly the last thing Carson wanted to bring up to him, but Sarah was right. There was only one way to find out.
