Sweetheart - JJ Maybank

Chapter one

Aurora Gray had a sucky life to say the least. She was put in and out of foster homes after her parents left her. Most of her foster homes were abusive. She had been planning how to escape from them for years. Collecting money, finding bus routes, and most of all, making sure the system wouldn't find her again. That is how she ended up running away to the Outer Banks, North Carolina. Most importantly, running away from a cop that was trying to put her back into another home. She was in a whole state she'd never been in before, running down a random street. She had her head twisted behind her shoulder seeing if the cop was on her tail or not. Seeing that there was no cop she turned her head back around. Just as she turned her head around she had to jump to the left to avoid getting run over by an old, beat up Volkswagen.

"Shit," she groaned as she hit the rock hard ground. The car came to an abrupt stop next to her and the sliding door opened.

"Shit, I am so sorry. Are you okay?" a girl asked from inside the van. Aurora leaned up off the ground to see who was speaking to her. The girl speaking had light brown skin and brown curly hair. She was very pretty. Next to her was a dark-skinned boy, who was wearing a dark red button up shirt and a pair of black shorts. The boy next to him had a cap on his head that was backwards. He was wearing a gray T-shirt, and green camo shorts.

"Yeah, I'm doing really good, y'know. I totally didn't almost just get run over by your car." she responded, gritting her teeth in pain. She slowly stood up and lifted up her shirt. On her side was a nice sized gash right by her ribcage. "Fuck. I don't have anything to clean this up with." she sighed, picking off the little rocks that were stuck on her skin.

"Hey, why don't you hop in? We could take you to John B's place and get you cleaned up." the boy in the button up shirt said.

"Yeah, that's a great idea, Pope. Invite the girl we know nothing about to the Chateau." the boy with the blonde hair said.

"Who the hell is John B?" Aurora asked.

"Oh yeah, sorry." Pope turned his attention back to the girl. "My name is Pope, this is Kiara, and this is JJ." he explained, pointing to every person when he said their name. "And that up front, is John B." he pointed to the boy in the driver's seat that she hadn't even noticed. He had messy brown hair, and a bandana wrapped around his neck. She had no clue how she had missed him.

"The Chateau is where John B lives. We can take you there and clean off your cut." Kiara said. Aurora was contemplating what the worse case scenario would be. She was thinking about all the ways she could be killed. Even with those thoughts scrambling through her head, she chose to go with them.

"Fine. I'll go to this Chateau and let you clean this up. But only because I don't have anything to clean it with." she explained. The three people in the back nodded and made a space for her to sit. She sat in between Pope and JJ. Aurora was too busy looking out the window to notice anything the other people were saying.

"How old are you?" Pope asked.

"Sixteen," Aurora responded.

"Same here. All of us are." he said back.

"You must be new here." JJ said. "I've never seen you before. And I know everybody in the Outer Banks."

"You'd be correct. I'm not even from this state." she responded, still looking out at all the huge houses surrounding her.

"Where are you from then?" Kiara asked curiously.

"Illinois," she said, taking a deep breath.

"Then how the hell did you end up here?" JJ said.

"It's a long story. Maybe I'll tell you later. Or maybe I won't." she said with a smirk.

"Well, I might as well explain everything about the outer banks to you then." John B interrupted. "The Outer Banks is the place where you either have two jobs or two houses. It's like two tribes on one island. This here is Figure Eight, the rich side of the island. You can tell by how nice the houses are. Home of the Kooks, or the rich people. They're a bunch of shitheads. So this is definitely not where we live." he laughed, and they continued driving down the street. The houses started getting noticeably junkier. "And this is the south side, or the cut. It's home to the working class. People who make a living busing tables, washing yachts and running charters. The natural habitat of the Pogues. That's us, Pogues, pogies, the throwaway fish. We're the lowest member of the food chain. So, the downside of being a Pogue is we're ignored and neglected. But what's the upside of being a Pogue? We're ignored and neglected, which means we do whatever we want."