Strawberry Sunscreen - JJ Maybank - Outer Banks

Chapter 14 - The Lucky Compass || Part 2

A few hours later, Kie and Pope joined Elizabeth, John B, and JJ on the deck of the chateau while JJ explained the slamming and crashing noises that were heard at Ms. Lana's.

"Wait, first off, look at this shit," JJ walked in front of Pope, bending over and running both hands through his hair. The crew watched as small pieces of white paint fell from his hair onto the deck.

"That's dandruff, disgusting," said Kie.

"Okay, thank you" said Pope, dusting remaining paint off of his leg.

"Look at all that. All right? That's paint," said JJ. "At that point, I was just, like... I'm waiting for death."

"You're so dramatic," hushed Elizabeth.

Pope spoke, "Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?" and JJ nodded. "Did you get a good description of them? Anything we can bring to a police report?"

"Burly," said JJ.

"Burly?" Pope repeated.

"That's not very helpful," said Kie.

"He was pretty burly," said Elizabeth, laughing at JJ trying to justify the use of the word burly. "And to be fair, I took a shot at him too. If we go to the police, they could take me down with them."

"Fair point. So, they were like the type of guy at my dad's garage. I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers. I can tell you with full confidence, these boys, these killers...they're square groupers," said JJ, jumping to conclusions.

"They're square groupers, like narco square grouper? Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?" Pope asked in disbelief, and JJ nodded.

"You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie," Kie stated. JJ and Pope began raising their voices at each other, Pope trying to get a description of the men sarcastically while JJ continued to try and justify 'burly.'

"I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time. I was under duress, okay?" JJ yelled, running out of breath. "But I can tell you...I can tell you by the way that Ms. Lana was screaming...that these guys are serious, serious hombres, man."

"You guys didn't see her. She was really shaken up.. This is getting serious-- like, we're getting into deep shit," Elizabeth stated, remembering the sounds of Ms. Lana wailing and screaming.

"It's a heavy vibe right now, okay? I'm not liking this very much," said JJ.

"Why do they want the compass?" Kie asked.

"It's a piece of shit," said Pope. "You couldn't pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to. No offense. I know it's in your family."

"Real sensitive, Pope" said Elizabeth, glaring at the boy.

"My dad. My dad's office. He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research. We used to laugh at him, like he was gonna find it. But now that he's gone, I've just kinda...I just left it as he kept it," John B explained, heading inside towards his dad's office.

"Yeah, for when he gets back," Kie reassured as John B fumbled the keys, opening the office door. JJ shook his head at the comment.

"I've slept over here like 600 times, and I've never seen this door opened," said Pope, as the others agreed. The group walked into the room, Elizabeth staring at the mountains of books spread around on bookshelves and on the desks. Various old copies of newspapers were laid out around the room, along with a mess of pens and pencils. The room was filled from the ceiling down with information about the Royal Merchant.