THE PICTURE OF YOU -rafe cameron-

007; white lies

"JJ, why the hell do you have a gun?"

Myra's voice bounced off the walls in the living room of their home. It was dark, but she could see the fury still burning so clearly in her older brother's light eyes. "Myra..." JJ trailed, putting his hands up to aid in his defence. "No, no" she gasped as she interrupted whatever excuse he was going to make. She took a step back, feeling her body still rather tense from before. She was furious too, unable to believe that he would do such a stupid thing as firing shots right up into the air at a public place filled with people. Not only one shot, two. Everyone had heard it, so many people had seen him. He had pushed it, safety off, harshly against another human being's head. The way Topper's voice had shaken with fear still lingered with Myra. Not that Topper didn't deserve it, she knew he did, he hadn't been the greatest back there, but still. The whole situation was unnecessary to begin with. "JJ when did you get that thing? And why the fuck do you have it?" she questioned again, referring to the gun that was now safely stashed into the bottom of his backpack in his room. "Why do I need it? To protect us Myra, all of us, they're out to get us... those kooks" JJ pushed, taking a step closer to her, "come on, I had to do something, Topper was going to drown John B"

"And you really think that he would've done it?"

"It sure as hell looked like it, for fuck's sake My, John B was gasping for air... you saw him, he couldn't breathe, you saw what was going on, I had to do something, no one else was doing a fucking thing about it and I couldn't let him die" JJ shouted through gritted teeth. Myra took a deep breath, pulling her hands across her face. She didn't know what to say or do, it was a bizarre situation to say the least. She was tired, exhausted in fact, having drained all of her energy worrying down at the beach. She had meant to go for a relaxing midnight swim and it had all ended up in pure chaos. Alcohol and violence. Pope and Kiara had taken John B home to his while Myra made sure to get the safety on the gun before she dragged her brother home with her. "Jay I get it, I do, but a gun? Seriously? You could've killed him" Myra urged, trying to get her brother to understand the seriousness of the situation he had put himself in. "So what? It's John B we're talking about" JJ went on, his sister's worry going right over his head. "You would've gone to jail, you'd do that for John?" she asked, resting her hands on her hips. JJ was relentless, answering quickly without a doubt, "yeah, any day"

Myra sighed, turning away for a split second. Their dad wasn't home, thank god. Neither one of them were sure where he was, not that it mattered. "Where'd you get the gun?" she then questioned, her hands remaining on her hips. "It doesn't matter" JJ muttered, glancing away. "JJ, where did you get the gun?" Myra asked again, a little louder. "It doesn't matter My" JJ spat out, snapping his head back to look at her. "Why? Did you steal it?" she urged, letting her hands fall to her sides. "Let it go Myra, it's not important... what's important is that I have something to protect you with, to protect my friends with" JJ proclaimed loudly, tilting his head ever so slightly to the left as he spoke. "Fine, fine, whatever" Myra muttered, walking off as she decided to drop it. JJ was clearly not going to tell her anything more and she didn't feel like fighting with him, so she went to bed.

The next day when she awoke, their dad was home, but JJ wasn't. Luke was in the kitchen, a half empty bottle of beer on the kitchen counter. She glanced into the small room, seeing him sloppily making a sandwich for himself. "Hey little one" Luke huffed tiredly upon noticing his daughter standing in the doorway. "Good morning" she said gently, plastering on a small smile. She was still a little upset and shaken up from yesterday, but she didn't want to rub her dad the wrong way. He was somewhat of a ticking time bomb. The smallest of things could set him off, much like his own son. It was hard to know what, so therefore she often aired on the side of caution. Her dad smelled like smoke and cheap whiskey, so she guessed that he had spent his night at one of the bars in the island centre. He was well known around most of the bars, she knew that much.