ONLY ANGEL | JJ MAYBANK

EIGHT... the end of night and start of day

CHAPTER EIGHT

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As it turns out thievery works up a real appetite.

Collins discovered this while she sat in the back of John B's van and her stomach had produced an ungodly sounding growl that even Pope who sat beside her could hear from over the music playing on the radio. He looked down at her with wide eyes and she smiled sheepishly, before she clutched her stomach with her arms tightly.

"Sounds like someone's gonna need to feed the beast soon." JJ then piped up from further up the van, as if Collins wasn't mortified enough.

They hadn't exactly had time for a meal with everything going on. After Collins and Kie had dipped out from the salvage yard before security guard, Bobby, could chase them down, she'd been too wracked with worry to think about food. In fact, she'd been freaking out for a good while because the boys hadn't made an appearance for a long time and she had started to think that they'd been eaten by the dog.

"Should we go back for them?" She asked Kie once it felt like they'd been waiting forever.

"If those idiots make us go back there and save their asses, I'm gonna throttle them." Kie threatened, and Collins quickly caught on that she was Angry Kie at the moment and she didn't want to poke the bear any more than the boys had without even being there.

And as if an angel had saved them from Kie's wrath, the three boys were seen sprinting towards them with chests heaving from all the air they were trying to take into their lungs. John B was more out of breath than any of them with the case withholding the drone in his possession.

"You got it?" Pope exclaimed incredulously with excitement once his eyes landed on the goods.

"Hell yeah, I got it." Grins broke out on all of their faces and JJ celebrated by quite literally jumping up and down for joy and shaking John B by the shoulders.

"That's my boy!"

"Wait, we actually pulled this off? Without getting arrested or anything?" Collins was still in shock over the whole thing. She felt like the cops were soon to start flocking over to them at any moment to put them in handcuffs and take them away. She never thought she'd be so happy to have helped steal something in her whole life.

"Yeah, we pulled it off!" Kie grinned before reaching over to squeeze her on the shoulder. "You did it, Collins!"

And so basically, that's how they got to where they currently were. Each and every one of them was starving from a long day's work of trying to pick up from where John B's dad left off and find the Royal Merchant. They'd spent the day well, but now all they needed was some food to fill their bellies to reward them for their accomplishments.

That's why they were at Kie's family's restaurant, The Wreck. It was a hit with the tourists, total cash cow in season. Collins had never been because she and Charlie didn't ever really eat out too often, although she'd always wanted to. She'd only ever heard good things about it.

"What I would do to a beer and shrimp and grits right now." JJ groaned as he practically stumbled out of the van, lethargic from having to practically run around the entire yard before he became Tebow's newest chew toy.

"It would not be pretty." Pope shook his head as they followed Kie into the establishment.

As they stepped inside, Collins was met with a dimly lit boat themed eatery, and the delicious smell of seafood boil and fried food. As they walked further in, there were still some diners enjoying their meals which Collins felt like she would devour in seconds if it were sat in front of her. Just looking at it made her stomach growl again.