-Kie-

"Kie, honey, it is time for school!" My mom yelled from downstairs snapping me out of my daydream, or rather snapping me into a daymare.

Only this daymare has become my reality. I look at myself in my moms floor length mirror, standing next to her dresser adorning smiling family pictures. Innocent pictures. Pictures containing a girl I don't even recognize anymore. The mirror shows someone I can't recognize either, though it's not the same as in the pictures, I still do not know who is staring back at me dressed in a white flowy shirt, a lightly ripped jean skirt and my old converse.

I walk back to my room carelessly throwing my hair into a bun to grab my backpack off of my bed, which has been perfectly made with my tie-dye bed sheets. I turn around and I come face to face with my surfboard leaning against my wall. I haven't touched it for two months. I hadn't touched it since I was happy, I hadn't toughed it since the last time I went surfing with my friends, when our group wasn't broken, and all of the pieces were together. All that is lost now. I walk down the stairs already wanting today to be over. I can see it now. Walking down the halls of the kook academy hearing whispers and seeing the stares of people who will only now know me as the friend of the dead pogues.

My mom looks at me in the kitchen, and adjusts the neckline of my shirt slightly.

"Honey, I know that today will be hard. But you have grieved for long enough now. It is time to focus on your future. I will go and start the car, I left the toast in the toaster, I will meet you out there in a second." She says before grabbing her purse from the marble kitchen island and walking out the front door.

I walk slowly to the toaster on the other side of the kitchen, and stare at the mettle heater holding the steaming hot toast. I grab what was supposed to be my breakfast and throw it in the trash before walking out to the car.

-Pope-

The sun is just starting to come up through the window as I yawn widely and set down my pencil on my small wooden desk. I have been studying all night on the first few chapters in each subject. Studying is the only way I can distract myself from what has happened. I stand up from my desk and walk lazily to my closet stretching my legs for the first time since my parents thought I went to bed. I put on some blue and orange swim trunks and walk out to the living room where I see my dad going through the orders for the day.

He hears my footsteps through the creaky house and without even looking up from his order sheets he sighs. "You are going out looking for him again, son?"

"Dad, he has no one else." I say putting on my sandals by the front door.

"Pope, JJ ran away from here a month ago. School is today, and you can not afford to slack off. Son…" He says worriedly, "you can't help someone who doesn't know they need it."

"He is not a carton of milk, or fish bait, dad, JJ can not just be thrown away!" I yell before running out of the house, grabbing my surfboard, and running along the coast until I get to the chateaux.

I drop my board on the porch of John B's house. And walk inside the unlocked door into the shell of a once lived in home. The city can't tear it down or sell it because John B's Uncle T has been paying the mortgage monthly, not knowing that his nephew is dead.

Most of John B's stuff is gone, and put into evidence lockers by the police. The feeling that this place once had is gone. But in the back of my mind, I know that JJ has been here. There had been little things moved, a cabinet door left open, a crushed beer can tossed in a corner now and again that tells me that he has come by. But still, I have not seen him since he left my house in the middle of the night a month ago.

After searching the house, I write a quick note to JJ and leave it on the counter on top of a pile of notes I left in the weeks past before grabbing my board off the porch and heading out to the water. I paddle out past the waves and turn my board against the water facing the town. Watching the island wake up. Looking for any signs of movement from a blond, shaggy haired friend. The day after he ran away I thought I saw him out on the water, but by the time I went back to get my dad's boat he was gone. For the past four weeks I have spent hours on the water, just waiting to see someone off the coast that looks even remotely similar to him.

I check my watch, and disappointedly head back to shore. After running back to my house dripping wet from the water, and walking inside the house, my mom is sitting on the living room couch.

"Did you find him Pope?" She asks through her exhaustion. I shake my head and head to my room to dry off. My mom took JJ's leaving the hardest. She knew how bad his dad was to him, and how his mom left when he was just a boy, so she tried her best to make him feel safe and loved when he moved in after hearing the news about John B. and Sarah. When he left, it felt to her as though she lost a son.

After quickly changing, I grab my backpack bursting with all of my advanced placement textbooks and notebooks that were already filled with notes about the chapters, and head out of the house to walk the two miles to school.

-John B. and Sarah-

"John B., It has been two months and still no sign of the gold!" Sarah said in a defeated voice to John B. who looked just as worn out.

"I know, but we can't give up. It has to be on this island. Think sarah! Is there any place where your family had a secret storage locker, or if they used a second bank here, or is there anything your dad told you about where he was going to take you once you landed here?" Said John b. with what seemed to be the last bit of strength he had.

As they sit beneath a palm tree in the same clothes they had worn for the past two months, Sarah thinks back to remember anything that might be of use. She remembers as her dad forced her into the small plane. How John B. came driving down the runway to save her. And the blood. The blood pouring out Sheriff Peterkin. And her brother rafe, smiling down at what he had done.

"He only said we were coming here" She said, snapping herself out of the scene that replayed in her mind constantly.

John b. Looked down at the sand in frustration. He knew that there had to be something, someone or some way of getting back what was theirs. And that is when Sarah looked up to see someone that she thought she left behind on the Outer Banks.

"John B. we have to go. Now." she whispered to him as she pointed to a young blond talking to a policeman close to the beach.

John b. Swore under his breath and grabbed Sarah's hand as they ran in the opposite direction.

They ran and ran until they reached a post office. They ran inside, and taking the small bit of change they collected off the sidewalk, they purchased a single stamp, sending a single letter to the chateaux, hoping that the person who receives it is a person they trust.

They run out of the building towards a small abandoned beach hut on the edge of an island that they had been staying in since they had arrived.