𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐋 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 - kiara carrera¹

𝒙𝒍𝒊𝒊𝒊. 𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒓𝒔

"HEY, GUYS. I HAVE ONE REQUEST."

Tatum anxiously held onto the rope at the front, sitting on the well, her legs dangling down as she was the main person holding John B up. Pope stood close behind her, his foot beside where she was sitting, while he propelled their friend down. At the back, were JJ and Thomas, who were in charge of how much rope went down. However, it was bound to get a little messy considering the blonde spent most of his time tormenting the brunette. Pairing the two of them was a bad move.

"Don't drop me," John B said at the multiple, 'yeah's that echoed through the room.

As he said it, JJ purposely tripped Thomas, causing both boys to let go of the rope, making Pope lose control, and Tatum fall into the well. Luckily, John B caught her from where he was already floating inside, where Pope could then lift her back out, so that she could sit back at her place on the edge, leaning forward and holding up JB's weight as much as she could, careful not to fall back in.

She remembered the countless times she had been thrown all the way to the bottom. Broken bones, deep, infected grazes and torn muscles occurred from the impact of her sudden falls. Well, she couldn't remember completely. The memories were like little snips of a movie - the trailers of her childhood. Screaming as she stared down at her father's victims, screaming as the darkness consumed her, screaming as her family laughed, entertained by the young girl's horror. Nothing but screaming could ever be heard down that well.

"You okay?" asked John B before he could be let down any further. At her confident nod, he sighed. "Let's get the G's, then."

She grinned and held tightly onto the rope as Pope let parts of it down, little by little, so John B didn't fall the way the twins had thousands of times. At the back, the other two boys were working in silence, and apparently had come to an agreement to just get on with their task, rather than annoy and murder each other.

"All right. Just keep payin' it out nice and slow like that."

Tatum tried distracting her mind from something other than the pictures it was painting her. The bones of Mr Crain, the moldy bodies of every missing case in OBX, slaughtered by either her father, Leroy or Joseph. John B's dad wasn't one of them, though - or, at least, Tatum hoped not. Her friends would never speak to her again if it was a Quinn that killed Big John. But obviously that wasn't the case here. Big John was probably killed by someone hunting for the gold, even if JB was too scared to come to terms with the fact he was dead.

Usually, distracting herself was the easiest thing in the world for Tatum. Most of the time, she didn't even mean to do it. But the one time she actually wanted her mind to wander, it wouldn't. And now she was stuck, hearing the screams of her younger self while sitting over the well that started everything. The way she had no fear of death. Of dead people. Of murder. This well was the start of it all. Because the moment her mother left, this well was introduced to the Quinns, and that was when the games of survival truly began.

Of course, their father taught the twins, and his other two sons, all about what it took to be a Quinn before their sixth birthday - he bought them guns, knives, every weapon you could think of, and told them all about the Camerons - but it was only once Carla left that he actually began to torture them. Beat them, put them against each other, threaten them, assault Tate...and eventually, for Joe's case, kill them. He would've never done any of that while the twins' - or triplets' - mom was there. Because even the devil can be tamed by some fires. At least the Quinn children had a whole six years of only mental abuse - not like they could remember any of it, anyway.

"Here we go. Keep going."

But the further down John B went, the harder it was to keep the rope up. The boys' and Tatum's hands were on fire, to the point where she was in so much pain she stand up at the edge of the well, loosening it a bit, and dangerously leaning over the hole. One wrong move and she'd fall back in. To the bottom this time. The heavy, cold breeze of the darkness made goosebumps appear on her stomach, reminding her of all the times she'd spent hours shivering down there.

"Be careful," Pope warned her softly, standing close behind and helping her pull John B's weight, while also feeding him some more rope.

Then JJ slipped.

A/n: it's been over ten chapters and i'm still writing this episode....

i'm sorry they're so short - i literally can't write long chapters or my brain gets completely scrambled. and as you can probably tell by how confusing the descriptions were in this one, my brain was running wild just writing 850 words.