CASTAWAY ⚓ R.C, J.M

T W E N T Y F O U R

Rafe didn't like the look she was giving him, though. He licked his lips and straightened up, holding his head high. "Harley, was just leaving. She has to get back to her family."

"What a shame. I'll catch up with you another time."

Harley forced a smile. She felt guilty and upset, but she turned her back on Rafe and headed back the way she had came.

⚓️

Harley pushed open the door to the Routledge home. The room went silent the second she stepped in. She looked up to see the Pogues gathered on the chairs staring up to her. The worry in their eyes dissipated the second they saw her.

"Um, what's going on?"

"Where have you been?"

She opened her mouth ready to announce that she had been to see Rafe, but then she thought better of it. She hadn't initially known what he wanted to see her face to face for when he had texted. She agreed to meet after he kept spamming her, so she knew if she told the Pogues that they would be upset with her.

"I went for a walk..." Not a complete lie.

"I called you and you didn't answer, Lee. You can't keep doing this. Especially, not right now."

She apologised, then tilted her head. "Why especially now?"

"Dad has gone missing. No one has seen him for almost two days."

Harley's heart plummeted. Mr Routledge was missing. He couldn't be. How? Why? When? "I don't understand." She was already entering a stage of denial. Harley wasn't willing to think about a reality where she lost a father twice. A reality where her small family was taken from her. She wasn't strong enough to deal with that. She loved Mr Routledge and in her mind he adored her right back.

"Have you heard from him?" John B asked hopefully.

She pulled out her phone and saw no number by the phone icon. She saw she had some texts and pulled them up hopefully. To her dismay they were mostly from Rafe, a couple from Topper and one from Billie.

"No. I don't have any calls or texts from him." Harley frowned. "Should we panic?"

It wasn't unusual for John to be absent for chunks of time, but after learning about what Harley had done and been through he had promised the young girl to be around a little more often. He had said he didn't want her to feel neglected and wanted her to know that he'd always be there for her to talk to if she needed... no matter what, when or why.

She bit her lip, feeling deeply worried because that's all she could feel from John B. Worry. He knew his dad better than anybody ever could, so if John B was anxious then so was Harley.

"Should we call the police?" Harley asked looking around. It felt like there only option, because what could they do other than wait and hope Mr Routledge would turn up with reasonable explanation.

"Yes!" Pope exclaimed throwing his hands up. "Yes. We should. That's the first thing we should have done. They can search the island easier and much quicker than we could. Maybe even get word to Mr Cameron or someone he works with.

"Yeah, but Mr R, disappears sometimes cause of his job. What if he's just really engrossed with what he's doing wherever he's doing it?" JJ tried to reason, before going into a not so appropriate example. "Like when I'm home alone and I feel hor-"

"Ew! Gross! JJ shut up," Kiara gagged.

"You don't even know what I was going to say."

Pope winced. "We most definitely did."