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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AS MUCH AS CARSON WANTED TO BELIEVE that this plan was going to work, their track record for plans made her hold a bit of skepticism. There was always something that changed the original idea, so while they waited for Pope and Cleo's signals, she was running through all the things that could go wrong in her head in an attempt to prepare for the worst. Though, she couldn't exactly determine what the worst could happen as there was a lot.
"What's taking so long?" Kiara wondered. Just after she asked that, Pope could be seen climbing to the top of one of the cars a few tracks over. He shined his flashlight over towards them.
"Guess that's his signal," Carson said. They jumped to their feet to meet them where they were, but the sound of a train moving stopped them in their tracks (no pun intended).
"You hear that?" JJ said. "Train's moving."
"And that would be thing #12 of all the things that could go wrong with this plan," Carson said. They hurried to get down from their look-out spot so they wouldn't lose the others with the train.
"Hey, I just wanna make sure everyone here is okay with ending up in federal prison," Topper said, clearly panicking at the fact that they were clearly doing something that was not smart at all and in fact, very much illegal.
"Uh, if it gets to that, yeah, I'll do it for Pope," JJ said.
"Don't worry, Topper, if we get caught I give you permission to tell the cops we held you at gunpoint to do this. Probably less embarrassing than admitting you're still desperately hung up on your ex," Carson said, mumbling the last part as she climbed onto the back of JJ's motorbike. He laughed as she wrapped her arms around his waist, having been the only one that had heard her remark.
They sped up to where the train hadn't reached yet in hopes that they would actually be able to pull off stopping the train using the jumper cables on the tracks. If it didn't work, they didn't have a back-up plan.
"This should be far enough," JJ said. Though, in classic JJ fashion, he ended up falling straight to the ground as they ran over to the tracks.
"Do you even know how to use your legs?" she said. "Look like a frickin' baby giraffe learning how to walk sometimes."
"Shut up," he said. "Oh God, you can hear it coming."
"Alright, hurry," she said as she ran forward to try to keep somewhat of a gauge of where the train was and how much time they had to set it up.
"Let's fry this sucker," he said as he connected the jumper cables to the appropriate spots. "Alright, now all we have to do is change the current. Let's go, baby."
"Okay, let's see how well your science pulls off," Carson said. She was starting to get worried as the signal continued to flash green. JJ started to ramble to himself to think of alternative ideas while Carson leaned down to try to think for herself. When she realized what it was that was causing it not to work, she shook her head in slight amusement. "Maybe dropping out of school wasn't the best choice, huh?" She clipped the end of the jumper cable to the other side of the track and glanced back up at the signal in hopes that that would do the trick. Just as she was about to think it wasn't actually going to work, the neon green light shifted to red.
"That's what I'm talking about!" JJ celebrated. "You're a genius. I was gonna do that."
"Yeah, yeah, of course," she said.
"And now we wait." He reached his hand over to her shoulder to guide her away from the tracks and near the buses where they could hide out for when the train came.
"There it is," Carson said when the train was visible. It was the sight of it slowing down that made a smile form on her lips.
"She's slowing down," JJ said. Of course they couldn't get too excited because then a truck was pulling up to the tracks.
"Hope they're moving fast," Carson said quietly. The men started examining the jumper cables on the tracks and pulled them off. "Shit. What do we do?"
"We gotta go help them and hope they got it out," JJ said. Just as she was about to hop onto the back of his bike, a black truck went speeding past them with cop sirens not too far back. "That's Top. And that's the cross. Get on!"
"J, the cops are right behind us," Carson informed him.
"I know, I know," he said. He was going as fast as he possibly could but they both knew it wasn't going to be fast enough. He sped up until they were side-by-side with the bed of Topper's truck.
"What are you doing?" Pope yelled.
"Top, keep going straight," JJ instructed him.
"Hey, be careful, alright?" Topper called out.
"Get ready to jump," JJ told Carson.
"What? Are you crazy?" she said.
"Probably," he said simply. "Get ready to jump. Pope, make sure you get her."
"I got her!" Pope said.
"JJ, what are you planning to do?" Carson said. She didn't just want to leave him without knowing what his plan was.
"Just go, alright, it'll be okay," he said. "Go! Go, now!" He wasn't seeming to take 'no' for an answer, so she reluctantly stood up and grabbed Pope's hands to transfer into the bed of the truck. Kiara and Cleo steadied her until she was secured with the rest of them.
"Pope, what's he gonna do?" Carson asked, starting to get worried. JJ and the cops were a recipe for disaster.
"I don't know. I don't think he knows either," Pope said truthfully. They watched as he stopped his bike and leaned over to grab a rock from the ground before heading straight towards the police car.
"Oh God, I don't think I can watch," Carson said.
"He did it! They're chasing him," Topper said from the front.
"Topper, stop. Stop the truck," Sarah said.
"Oh my God, no, I'm not stopping the truck," he said.
"Topper, I swear if you don't stop this truck, I will shove my foot so far up your-" Carson began before he turned around.
"I'm not going to jail for y'all! No chance," Topper yelled. It was when Sarah basically begged him to stop that he finally did.
"Drive faster!" Carson screamed at him. Sarah had to take control of the wheel to force himself to turn left to get to where JJ was, until they were on parallel streets as him and the cops. Unfortunately, that didn't last long because the next thing they knew, they were down below while JJ and the cops were up on the overpass. Suddenly, there was a loud bang and JJ's bike was coming flying over the edge of the overpass and landed hard on the ground in pieces.
