𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗦𝗜𝗫
episode two
aj occupied the majority of her day wandering aimlessly along the beach. She ensured to be awake far before either of the boys, and quietly escaped the chateau. Last night's events were something she harshly shoved to a dark dusty corner of her mind, and left alone to discard. Staring out to the incandescent golden glow that pigmented the sky and her skin in a soft orange, she breathed deeply the gentle breeze. The relentless pulling sensation in her chest, like barbed wire strangulated and dragged all her insides, remained a prolonged sickness in her stomach. She wanted to scratch it out. Like a stain of wine on a carpet. Scrubbing for hours to get clean.
And her day would only get worse.
Laughing amongst themselves walked another grossly frightening reminder of who she once was. Rafe Cameron ( the older brother of what John B had dubbed the 'kook princess', Sarah Cameron ), his comedically shorter friend Kelce, Topper ( the lovely guy that almost killed her best friend ), and Samuel Shoupe. Though AJ knew him better as Sam, the deputy's son and the first boy she ever fell in love with. But that was a long time ago. She had met him at the police station when she was fourteen, under the frustrated observation of her mother who had caught her attempting to steal from Joni's convenience store. ( Joni, since then, had banned her from ever returning to her store, especially after she accidently smashed one of her windows — whoops ). Anyway, the pair ended up dating for nearly nine months — AJ once thought she would marry him. But that was before everything happened.
Kelce in the midst of a discomforting grin pointed in AJ's direction, nudging the brunette beside him. AJ remembered when he once let it dry into his natural curls, ringing around his ears softly. Now he had cut it shorter so they were completely gone. He used to hate getting haircuts. The brunette's smile faltered slightly seeing her sat there, hands digging into the sand, hair longer than he last remembered it. Before he had the chance to deter his friends from approaching the girl, Rafe smirked in her direction as he stood in front of her. "Heard about that little party on the beach the other night, Topper tells us you had fun." He commented in his usual monotonous tone as his friends around his chuckled to themselves. Sam seemed to linger behind the group, not wanting to engage but not stopping them either.
AJ rolled her eyes and climbed up from the sand, significantly shorter than the group of boys that had surrounded her, and significantly more uncomfortable. "Mm, was a blast. Thanks for asking, Rafe." She glared at him before attempting to walk away, but they continued to follow. "What do you want?" AJ rarely felt brave, but her firm tone always gave a different impression. If you asked anyone on the island, they'd say Aven Jones was the most fearless person they knew. But she never seemed to feel that way.
"Just being polite, Jones, no reason to be rude." Topper spoke up from the group. "Hey, how's your little pogue boyfriend, by the way?" When she turned around, her brows furrowed in annoyance as he grinned further. Before living on the cut, her life as a kook was entirely structured around rumours and lies that nobody ever seemed to believe her when she had told them the truth. Labelling her a 'slut' was easier than dealing with a traumatised girl. "Which one is it you're with? Or is it both?" His statement caused an eruption of laughter between the boys. But when she looked to Sam, he could barely hold eye contact — staring at the ground like it could erase his terrific choice of friends.
"Guys, c'mon. " He eventually spoke up, his voice darker from when she last heard it – then again they were fifteen the last time they had an actual conversation. Though, it wasn't exactly a conversation, more so an argument.
The privileged boy band eventually began walking in the opposite direction, chuckling amongst themselves as they left the brunette to stand solitary on the sand, her jaw clenched in frustration that she couldn't do anything about their behaviour. She couldn't convince them she wasn't how they perceived her, and she couldn't push them away if she was in danger. She hated how weak she felt sometimes. It was what recklessly drove her destructive impulses to light — it was some of the few times she felt in control of her life.
Since she had nowhere else to go, she figured she would pick up her surfboard from the chateau and swim for a little while. At least then she wouldn't run into anything, or anyone from her past, and she could simply feel swallowed by the comfortingly silent water — alone. Her exhausted feet ( from lack of sleep and constant aimless wandering ) carried her to the familiar wooded area, eventually reaching the rickety wood of the front porch where she, to her misfortune, stumbled upon the entire group discussing something. JJ looked frantic, desperately breathing in the smoke of a vape and hyperventilating. She felt like she had walked into an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The only thing missing was somebody eating a salad.
"Where the hell were you?" John B turned to the girl, exasperated tone like a concerned father catching their daughter sneaking back into the house at 3am.
Furrowing her brows, she scoffed at his question. "What's stuck up your ass today?" He sighed and pressed his lips together as Kiara muffled a laugh under her breath. "What's going on, anyway? JJ looks like a bride with cold feet on her wedding day." A deadpan look was shot in her direction, which she kindly returned with a sarcastic smile before taking a seat next to Pope.
"We went to see if Ms Lana knew anything about the compass." John B leaned back against a pillar of the front porch, looking completely done with AJ's shit. "And when we got there, the same guys that shot at us in the marsh were asking her questions too."
"Wait — so you went to go interrogate a grieving widow about a rusty old compass?"
"That's what you take from this information? Not the two violent dudes that tried to kill us?" John B shrugged in frustrated suggestion, deadpanning a glare in AJ's direction as she rolled her eyes. He tended to act like a sassy little girl when he was pissed off — but AJ was used to it by now.
"Mm," JJ hummed through another inhale of smoke, swiftly blowing out the scented air and waving his finger in emphasis. "These killers, they're square groupers, bro." He informed, causing AJ to pull a face in confusion.
"They're square groupers," Pope questioned for confirmation, sitting up in his place. "Like narco square grouper? Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?" JJ nodded along, providing zero help to AJ who wondered what the hell they were talking about. After Kiara commented something about a kingpin movie, she managed to piece together what the blonde was inferring about the two men. "What does a square grouper look like specifically? Because apparently you don't know what to look for!" He yelled at JJ's lack of useful information.
"Dude! I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time! Man, I was under duress, okay?" Seeing his panicked state and high pitched voice almost caused a laugh to escape AJ's lips. But she kept it to herself, knowing now wasn't exactly an appropriate time to make fun of JJ. Though she'd certainly make up for the missed opportunity sometime later. "But I can tell you... I can tell you from the way that Ms Lana was screaming... that these guys are serious, serious hombres, man." The idea that this simple curiosity had become akin to an action movie entirely driven by John B's delusions regarding his father started to seep into AJ's thought process. She wondered if these 'killers' were after something valuable, and she wondered if that something could be theirs instead.
"Why would they want the compass?" Pope questioned. "That thing's a piece of shit. You couldn't pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to." He continued, still lingering in the disappointment of finding a compass in comparison to a few stacks of money like AJ had swiped from the motel room. "No offence, John B, I know it's in your family —" Pope was swiftly ignored by the bruised brunette as he held the ancient, rusted compass in his hand. AJ watched as he began to walk inside the chateau.
"The office." John B pondered out loud, but when his sentence stopped there AJ furrowed her brows and shook her head as the group followed him inside.
"Yeah? A good show, but what about it?"
"No, my dad's office. He always kept it locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research." AJ remembered Big John's obsession for the gold supposedly abandoned in the shipwreck of the Merchant, but she always figured it was just a story — never considered her friend's father to be entirely sane when it came to his research. "We used to laugh at him all the time about it like he was actually gonna find it. But now that he's gone... I just left it as he kept it." He explained, pulling out some keys for the padlock on the white door. To AJ's recollection, she had never even seen the inside of that room. Despite the numerous times she had stayed over.
With the door opened, John B revealed a cluttered hoarding mess of ancient and withered book, posters, photographs and maps. Everything was discarded over every possible surface, not an inch of the furniture visible past open books and notes that solemnly collected dust with the absence of John's father to madly scour and flip through the pages like a maniac on a treasure hunt. As AJ's eyes scanned the place, John B pulled out a board from the corner and placed it on the table in the middle of room, pointing to research his father had compiled together about the history of the mysterious compass.
"Here, look. This is the original owner."
"Robert Q. Routledge. 1880 to 1920. Fun history lesson you've got here, Johnny." AJ read his father's handwriting on the board, choosing to ignore his stare of annoyance as she glanced over the photograph of the man in question.
"There's the lucky compass, right there." Kiara pointed; however John B soon informed them that the compass wasn't so lucky — as the man was shot not long after purchasing it. He then continued to describe the generations of Routledges that had received the compass, then died shortly after. AJ's concerned expression slowly turned to her friend as he nonchalantly explained the murderous patterns of a compass now in his possession.
"Hm, sounds like there's a reoccurring theme here." JJ spoke up.
"Yeah, uh, you have a death compass." Pope continued.
"Dude, the curse of the Routledge Compass has come for its final successor." AJ added.
"Shut up." He was in denial — AJ was pretty certain about the cursed object. "Look, my dad used to talk about this compartment. Soldiers used to hide secret notes." He began turning the compass, revealing a small section of the compass that could hold a piece of paper, except nothing was in it. Flipping the separated lid of the compass, John B exposed a carving of sorts in the bronze metal. "That wasn't there before." He commented, "This is my dad's handwriting." AJ wasn't completely convinced until the brunette emphasised the particular carving of a letter, and matching it with the board of his father's notes, she could see the haunting resemblance.
JJ hovered over the compass, attempting to read the scruffy carving, "Red — Rout — No I think that's an 'A'"
"Ever thought about re-sitting the first grade?" She quirked a brow, smirking at the blonde's glare.
"You try read it then." He retorted in frustration, gesturing to the carving.
"It says Redfield." Kiara quickly dismissed their approaching bickering. "What's Redfield?"
"Besides the most common name in the county?"
"Maybe it's a clue." John B suggested, glancing desperately to the group for confirmation and reassurance. "Maybe it's a clue to where he's hiding."
"You're dad isn't part of the mafia, JB. Why would he be hiding?" AJ spoke up with a slightly softer tone, despite her joking around. She knew a discussion about his father was sensitive, and it didn't matter to her how much she didn't believe him, he deserved her support considering she failed to provide any when he went missing. Not that it was her intention to neglect him; her mother simply didn't want her daughter in any contact with the Routledge boy anymore. However, that plan kind of went to shit, didn't it?
Pope, who had similarly disapproved of the idea of this carving being a clue, shrugged his shoulders and reluctantly indulged in his friends hopeful delusions. "If it is a clue, then maybe it's an anagram?" Shooting up from his seat, John B agreed, grabbing his more intelligent friend a paper to work out the supposed anagram as the rooster from outside cawed obnoxiously. John B had a small wooden house outdoors to shelter the legendary Lenny, and despite his smell AJ did love the rooster. "How can you concentrate with that thing constantly crowing at you?" Pope rightfully complained as Lenny sung his heart out from outside, though he was quickly shot down with everyone's unanimous love for the rooster in question. "Alright. Let me think." He began writing a couple different words from the letters of the carving, all the pogues simultaneously attempting to come up with something.
"What about 'riddle'?" AJ suggested.
"You're missing a letter, dumbass." JJ responded.
"Fuck off, 'riddle' is better than 'Ritalin" She mocked his suggestion while Pope began to spell out 'defile' on the paper, questioning if it meant anything to anyone. Everyone shrugged in return.
"Guys." John B spoke up, hovering near the window. Ignored, he spoke up again, louder. "Guys! Somebody's here."
Furrowing her brows, AJ darted her attention to the brunette by the window, cautiously approaching to glance outside where she saw two men walking towards the chateau. A pit formed in her stomach, looking back between JJ and John B for some form of answers in their expressions. "Is that them?" She questioned, slight panic settling in her voice as neither of them answered. "Dude, not answering is not helping me out here." She wanted them to turn around and say that it was just the gardener, or great uncle Stew and his partner Rod – anything but the two men that had once tried to kill them. But no answer came, bubbling a disturbing anxiety in her stomach that left her throat feeling tight and scratchy.
"JJ, hey!" John B pushed the blonde against the wall to gain his attention as he rambled to himself. "Where's the gun?" As he struggled to answer, unable to remember where he had it last, AJ pressed her lips together and scanned the room for some form of weapon. Noticing the fan in the corner, she dragged it off the shelf and held it like a maniac in her hands. "What the hell is that gonna do? Blow them away?"
"Hey! Blondie's the one who failed to have the fucking gun the one time we actually need it."
"It's on the porch." JJ spoke up in realisation, swiftly opening the door to make his way to the front of the house. AJ shook her head in a confused expression, watching him cautiously sneak to towards the porch, which completely baffled her that he even tried, considering the two men were already walking in the direction of the door in order to break inside.
"What the fuck is he doing? What the fuck are you doing?" She peered her head out the door, heavy fan still in hand as she gestured for him to come back. Soon after a hauntingly loud yell came from one of the men – shouting John B's name. JJ darted in the other direction, silently re-entering the office and closing the door behind him. "What are you? Suicidal?" She whisper-yelled, scolding him for his idiocy.
"They're on the front porch. I can't get to the gun." JJ informed.
"Good job Sherlock, I never would've guessed."
"I was tryna fucking get us something to protect us!"
"You're trying to get yourself killed! At least I actually went for something in reach." She gestured with the fan in her hand, lifting it up like a trophy.
"Oh yeah, 'cause the fan's gonna work fucking wonders for us. Hey, make sure you have it on the highest setting when they come in to try kill us, yeah?"
Before any of their friends could scold them for their impeccable timing of an argument, the sounds of shattering glass and loud yelling harshly dragged them back into the severity of the situation. AJ jumped at the sudden sounds, her eyes darting around the room until they landed on the window, pointing to it in a blind panic. "The window. Open it." JJ and Pope both attempted to slide the glass while John B held his back against the wooden door. As the pair struggled to open the window, AJ's heartbeat drowned a symphony of fear in her ear. She frantically turned to John B, realising it must have been painted shut. "Hold my fan." She tossed him the obnoxiously large item before rummaging the drawers of the office. Her hands were shaking as she eventually found a knife and passing it to JJ to help pry open the stubborn glass, hearing the relentless crashing from the other side of the door.
Pope manoeuvred out the way to join Kiara and John B in holding the door closed as AJ watched the blonde pain in her ass struggle to use the knife to open the window. "Give it to me." She held her hand out for the silver.
"I got it."
"You don't look like you got it."
"Will you let me do my thing?"
"You're failing at 'your thing' and it's about to get us all shot!"
"Shhh..." John B warned the pair as their whispering yells became louder. They both stopped in their argument, AJ watching nervously between the door and the window. Her brain was filled with a million flashing images of violent murders following home invasions. She wondered how painful a bullet wound would be. She wondered how quickly it would kill her. If she would go first, or if the two men would murder all her friends right in front of her before finally finishing her off. While these thoughts rapidly swirled in her mind, her heart was suddenly caught in her throat at the sound of the door handle being aggressively pulled and tugged at. One of the men on the other side attempted to break through, yelling and kicking at the wood.
With a final tug at the window pane, JJ managed to yank it open. The pogues ran, practically jumped out the window. AJ was just thankful she was landing on solid ground and not a damn roof again. JJ swiftly slammed the window shut behind them, grabbing AJ's arm to drag her in the direction everyone ran. John B, being the bright genius he is, decided to shove everyone inside the miniature wooden shack made for the rooster – Lenny. Squeezing inside, they all had a moment to catch their breaths.
"Hey, where's the fan?" AJ questioned upon seeing John B's empty hands.
"Would you shut up about the fan?!" Pope muttered over the relentless sounds of Lenny squawking in disturbance.
"Hey! Don't diss my fan idea."
"Your fan idea sucked." JJ responded. Before the brunette was able to strangle the blonde, the sound of the chateau's door aggressively swinging open cut off their conversation. AJ glanced through the cracks of the wood to see the two men exiting the house with crates of things, loading them into their car. While she watched, the distracting caws from Lenny began to drown out any ability to focus on what the men were taking as she darted back round and shushed the rooster. Though, Lenny was never one to follow orders. AJ did attempt to train him once, but that didn't go very well since it ended in mud smeared across both AJ and JJ during yet another argument of theirs.
"Shut him up!" John B whispered, noticing one of the men staring at the wooden shelter, though not quite able to see them hiding inside as he simply found the amount of ruckus coming from inside strange. As the group scrambled to attempt to quieten Lenny, JJ eventually grabbed him by the neck and began choking out the rooster. AJ placed a trembling hand over her mouth to keep her from making a sound as she watched the life be choked out of the animal. Her chest tightened, hoping the amount of noise Lenny had made didn't get them caught.
After what felt like the longest minutes of their lives, the two men eventually drove off, leaving the pogues to mourn their beloved rooster.
What the hell did they get themselves into?
AUTHOR NOTE
rip lenny 🕊🐓😔 the bird that pecked our hearts and laid good eggs
in the arms of an angel
fly awayyyyy from here