after a long night meilani woke up in her happy place, that is the arms of jj maybank of course. she slowly lifted her hand up to touch his face. almost immediately he melted at her touch and a soft smile spread across his face.

"how are you feeling after last night?" jjs voice raspy. meilani internally screamed at his voice. "at least they remembered my birthday with three minutes to spare" she shrugged. jj scoffed, trying to not giggle and let her get the satisfaction of joking about something serious.

"quit playing the 'tough girl' act, how do you really feel?". she paused, deep in thought. "i wish i knew" was all she could say. jj wrapped his arms around the girl and she rested on his bare chest.

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"morning kiddos" the pair was greeted by a cheerful mr. kai haywood, yes he has a first name. meilani exchanged a puzzled look to jj who was stuffing his face with mixed berries and pancakes which were cooked by kai. "how was your night? i didn't get a chance to ask you yesterday." "uhm it was really good, thanks for asking dad." meilani brushed her arms, feeling a cold flush.

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"so he was just there with cay as if nothing had ever happened?" a confused tone in kie's voice. "yep" meilanis reply was blunt. "i don't get it?" the dark haired girl rambled on. "so you've said kie, for the fifth time" john rolled his eyes. "in the space of three minutes" jj added. meilani sat there staring into the distance. "i'm sorry alright, i just don't understand how you're so calm lani." she snapped out of her daydream, "i guess i saw it coming, some day" she shrugged.

jj placed his hand on her back, stroking up and down. "enough of this bullshit, lets go on a road trip!" john grabbed as many of the groups hands as he could and dragged them to his van.

they pulled out of tannyhill, sarah adjusting herself in the front seat, jj still offended he was booted from beside john b. "so where exactly are we going?" pope sighed. "southern shores" john smiled proudly. "so we're doing an eight minute road trip?" meilani spoke. "seriously jb?" kiara sighed. "hey at least we're technically leaving the outerbanks!"

"are we there yet?" jj groaned like a little kid on a long, exhausting roadtrip. "j, we've been driving for three minutes" meilani looked at him. "how long are we going for?" sarah questioned. "only for a couple hours, we'll get back by night."

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after eight short minutes, well long for jj, the group arrived at southern shores, a small beach in view.

sarah giggled in excitement as they approached the boardwalk. jj intertwined his fingers with meilanis as they walked along together.

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the group sat by the ocean, no one really around except a few old couples and their dogs on walks.

suddenly, pope saw something floating just at shore. he got up and jogged towards it. when he returned he had a glass bottle with a letter inside it. "seriously? a message in a bottle? that's so damaging to the sea-life" kiara scolded. the group threw her a look as the carefully opened the bottle.

the letter read,

'you've gotten lucky pogues. i'm going to remain anonymous but when you read this letter and follow the instructions you'll gain more information.

the cut, outerbanks, that's where all the lost souls are. we've been gaining information about the kooks and pogues and all their rivalry. we've selected meilani haywood and rafe cameron as our main targets and we won't stop until they're

.'

tears immediately poured from meilanis eyes, followed closely by sarah. she was in danger and so was sarah's brother. "how the fuck did they know it would get back to us?!" pope freaked. "it's someone who knows us and is close to the island" jj stayed calm whilst meilani sobbed into his shoulder.

"what are we going to do?" sarah sobbed into johns face. "we have to follow the instructions and do what they want, otherwise, rafe and meilani are dead." john replied.