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(CHAPTER THIRTY ) THE EYE OF THE STORM
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AS TAYLOR SWIFT SAID ONE DAY : If you walk away, I'd beg on my knees to stay. Eden felt every word in that sentence at that precise moment as she ran towards the boy she loved more than anything in the world. She ran without even thinking about her legs which wanted to collapse to the ground. She couldn't afford to take a break to get her breathing back into place, or to just give up. No, she couldn't agree to give up her last chance to join John B before he left for good. She mentally begged him as hard as she could that he hadn't left without her, that she was going to find a way to join him. That their story wasn't over because of this murder. That their story was only put under fire because of Ward Cameron. Because of the treasure, because of her own father. Because the real treasure she found these last two months was him. She couldn't leave her treasure behind, she had to find it before it was taken away from her.
She went through all the roads she had to take to reach the marsh as easily as possible, but with all the police passing by, she had to be even more vigilant to avoid being followed. Her breathing was short, it was no longer functioning normally with all the steps she was taking. She crossed Figure Eight, walked five blocks, passed about twenty police cars, and even then, she had already lost too much time.
Let him still be there, she literally prayed at that moment, pulling out her phone to see the time displayed on the screen : 3:23 p.m. She swore at herself and her too-small legs that couldn't run any faster. She took the last road which finally gave way to the wooden bridge that she could take to reach the water of the marsh. Eden passed under trees as well as in front of poorly constructed houses which had probably been inhabited for a long time, then fell, after long minutes of running, on wooden bridges which were at least fifty to sixty meters long. She blew a breath, then moved her legs again, looking from side to side to try to find a boat. JJ had probably managed to get the boat so John B could leave, otherwise Eden was just running for nothing and he was already behind bars.
She shook the bad idea out of her head. JJ was the person who often had bad ideas, but sometimes, and she really emphasizes sometimes, his ideas work. He must have managed to obtain The Phantom, the boat of his father, Luke Maybank, and it was best known as one of the fastest, which would be useful to John B. It had not been used for years, but it was their only chance to escape. His only chance to leave, because for the moment, Eden was not with him. She was running across the wooden planks, but nothing in sight. Her hair was in her face, she had no more power in her. And suddenly, a flashback came back to her. The one when she ran towards John B when he fell off the Hawk's Nest after Topper pushed him.
She saw herself in her white dress, her hair swinging between the trees around her, her breath dry from what she had just seen happen. She had gone down the steps so quickly to get to the beach where John B's body was on the ground, his eyes closed without speaking a word. Eden had been afraid for his life at that point after Midsummers, and it scared her how she had felt, but now she wasn't afraid to admit that she wished he were there, looking at her with beautiful brown eyes so destabilizing that she could remain frozen in front of his gaze for hours. She couldn't lose him, he was her reason for living, the reason she didn't give up on her life this summer. If she lost him, she didn't even want to think about how her life would turn into hell.
