𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚋𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜 | 𝚘𝚞𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚜

the office

"Burly?"

"That's not very helpful." Kie shakes her head.

"Okay, well, no, like the type of guy at my dad's garage. I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers."

"Yeah." "Yes." "we know." "No."

JJ takes a hit of his vape, blowing the smoke out in Kirsten's direction, the girl rolling her eyes in response, "I can tell you with full confidence, these boys, these killers...they're square groupers. They're square groupers, like narco square grouper."

"Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?"

"Yeah, man."

Kiara scoffs, "You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie."

"What does this square grouper look like? Specifically?" Kirsten wonders out loud, her eyes landing on the couple who only shrug in response.

"You weren't there."

"You don't know what to look for."

JJ's voice grows whiny as he realized no one was on his side, "Dude! I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time, man, I was under duress, okay?"

He can feel himself calm down as Kirsten grabs his hand from where she's sat.

"But I can tell you... I can tell you by the way that Ms. Lana was screaming... that these guys are serious, serious hombres, man."

They continue their conversation, Luca not pitching in much seeing as he wasn't fully aware of what was going on, so he turned his attention to the most silent of them all, John B.

He couldn't help but notice the object the Routeledge boy was fiddling with, he could have sworn he saw it somewhere. He continue to frown in thought of where he might've seen it, only to suddenly remember he'd spotted it once in his fathers office. With narrowed eyes, he catches John B's attention, everyone else still speaking amongst each other,

"Hey, do you have an office by chance?"

•••

"He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research." John B explained, everyone following closely behind him. "We used to laugh at him like he was gonna find it. But now that he's gone, I've just kinda... I just left it as he kept it."

The air is silent for a few seconds, Kie taking this as an chance to comfort the boy, "Yeah, for when he gets back."

Evelynn rolls her eyes, choosing to stay silent, much to Kirsten's relief.

Pope clears his throat, "I've slept over here like 600 times, and I've never seen this door opened."

The group searches around the office in hopes of finding something useful. Luca taking this opportunity to see if he notices anything familiar from his own dads office.

"Here, look. This is the original owner, right here."

"Your dad wasn't a very tidy man, Johnathan." Evelynn mumbles, stepping over the pile of papers lying on the ground.

"Okay. Robert Q. Routledge, 1880 to 1920. There's the lucky compass, right there."

"Actually, um... he was shot after he bought it." John B informs.

Kirsten nods to herself, "Sounds about right."

"Then the compass was shipped back to Henry. He was killed in a crop-dusting accident when he had the compass." John B explained, the group paying close attention to his words, aside from Kirsten who occasionally loses focus due to the rooster crowing outside.

"After he died, the compass was given to Stephen. Stephen had the compass with him when he died in Vietnam."

JJ nods, hoping to find something good out of the situation, "Let me guess, he died in action, right?"

"Sort of. Uh, a-actually, he was killed by a banana truck. In... in country."

Evelynn could be heard snorting, Luca quirking a brow at his words before sighing, "Moving on."

"Anyways, after that, Stephen passed the compass down to him, my dad."

"Sounds like there's a reoccurring theme here." JJ hums.

Kirsten scoffs, "Yeah, you have a death compass."

John B can't help but grow slightly defensive at her words, "I do not."

"You have a death compass." Pope winces, ultimately agreeing with the two but not wanting to hurt the boys feelings.

"Get rid of it. It's cursed, and made its way back to you." JJ concludes, moving around and forcing himself between Evelynn and Kirsten, wanting to be closer to the Carrera girl.

Ignoring their words, Luca reaches towards the compass, brushing off the look John B gave him as he flipped the compass over. John B frowns as he watches the Antonio boy open the back.

"What's that?" Kie asks.

John B shrugs, "That wasn't there before. This is my dad's handwriting."

"How can you know that?

"Because he does these weird Rs with the... See it?"

"Yeah, those are weird R's. Man writes like a second grader."

Evelynn is once again ignored, Kirsten patting her shoulder as JJ moves closer.

"Can I see it?" The Maybank spends a good amount of time trying and failing to pronounce the word written on the back of the compass, his face grows red with embarrassment as Kiara informs him that it says Redfield. He brushes off the thoughtful look given to him by Kirsten.

"Okay, well, what's Redfield?"

Pope rolls his eyes with a scoff, "The most common name in the county."

"Oh, maybe... maybe it's a clue. Maybe it's a clue to where he's hiding."

Luca and Evelynn share a look, the couple clearly wanted to voice their opinions on the matter, but the sharp looks they got from the Carrera twins warned them not to say anything.

They definitely could've just expressed how they believe big John was most definitely deceased, and if he wasn't, then he probably won second place award for worst Parent on the island. Luke Maybank most definitely coming in first.

Kirsten has grown bored with listening to them speak, her eyes squint in confusion at the sight of a unfamiliar car pulling into the drive way.

Her friends voices, speaking about anagrams and roosters seemed to drown out the sound of her own voice trying to warn them that they should hide. After saying the word 'guys' for at least three minutes straight, the girl had managed to catch Luca's attention, the boy being a lot more forceful with his ways of catching someone's attention.

"Hey! Somebody's here."