006-- lost directions

Sure, Adelaide Simmons had been raised with everything she could ever want offered on a silver platter. Name it: a jewel, a dress, a boat; she'd possess it with the click of a finger. Somehow, perhaps through her education (or most likely through her character), she didn't grow up to be a spoiled brat whose only way of satisfaction was through the ping of a credit card. No, she found pleasure in the risky adventures where rules were usually defied, and, well, broken. Which was why she followed the rest of Pogues eagerly as they hurried to open the wet bag John B found. She didn't actually care if the insides would be filled with money; she simply hoped it would bring her friends some source of happiness. There had to be something of worth if its possession if it meant being followed by strange men and have gunshots fired at clueless teenagers though, right? They all huddled around John B as he kneeled to the ground, fidgeting with the zipper. "What do you think is in there?" Kiara quizzed as he fumbled.

"Gotta be money, no?" he said, seconds away from discovering the answer to the girl's question.

"That or a couple of keys with street value to low to mid dils." JJ added, clearly very excited as he tried to peek or catch a quick glimpse of the inside of the bag.

"Or another gun for JJ to smartly use." Adelaide teased, earning a gentle shove from the blond boy.

"Can we please just open the bag?!" Pope snapped, and all set of eyes fell on him.

"It's okay, Pope." Adelaide whispered comfortingly, evidently joking as she placed a hand on his shoulder. The boy wasn't known to raise his voice, or to give sharp orders to his friends. Obviously, he couldn't be taken seriously.

"Wow, Pope," John B laughed. "That's a rare outburst of emotion."

"You guys are literally killing me with anticipation, so open it." Pope said, frustration lacing his tone of voice.

"Jeez, Pope."

Following those words, John B finally managed to pull the bag open. It contained, strangely enough, another small bag that John B took in his hands. A silver, metal canister fell out of the smaller bag and the boy didn't waste a second in twisting it open, tipping the content into his opened palm. Then, a rusty compass landed in his hand.

"Oh wow," Pope scoffed. "That's about right. Good job everybody, we found a compass."

Adelaide sat back in disappointment at the seemingly useless discovery, "I don't even know how to use of one those." she grunted.

Yet, John B's gaze hadn't left the ancient object, his fingers circling it tightly. JJ let his hand run through his hair and cocked an eyebrow as he noticed his friend's expression, "Dude what? That's not worth anything."

"This was my father's," John B muttered, his lips quirking into a small smile. Adelaide's eyes fell on him, shock flickering through her features at the words he just pronounced. Big John had been lost at sea for months now, and John B was the only one that never lost hope on the subject of his disappearance. So finding your father's tool in Scooter Grubb's boat was definitely strange, and definitely pulling all of them into the mystery of the situation.

John B got up immediately and hurried away into his room, and the rest of the Pogues were quick enough to head home, understanding the boy probably needed some time alone.

When Adelaide woke up, it wasn't the aching of her neck that made her wince but the repetitive buzzing originating from her phone. Groaning, she grabbed it from the floor, frowning at the dozen of messages taking over her screen. Squinting, she was able to see that it was John B that was currently harassing her, but she wasn't awake enough to truly understand his texts. Something about the compass, Lana Grubbs, and her Kook privileges. Yet, even if she didn't decipher the true meaning, the apparent urgency of the situation was enough to put her in action.

She slipped on a purple v-neck top and a pair of grey shorts, barely having time to compose herself as she left her house. She made a mental note in her head that she'd probably have to update her mom someday and apologise for constantly leaving their home without a word of goodbye. Now wasn't the time, though.

Knowing a walk to the Cut would take too long, she grabbed her old bicycle that she used from time to time and began to pedal, the sun already scorching her skin as she quickly made her way out of her neighbourhood. Apart from the fact she nearly took down a few kids on the way, the girl was speeding up. Summer was a great time for the Outerbanks, full of tourists ready to spend their pile of money on the pretty island. Winter was completely different, though, and kind of depressing. Which was why Adelaide decided to spend every minute outside, taking advantage of the weather and atmosphere.

Sweat was dribbling down her cheek as she finally made it to the Chateau. She attached her bike to John B's dodgy house, and let her eyes sweep through his home. She scrunched her eyebrows, wondering if they had already left without her. Yet, the echo of familiar voices told her she was wrong, and that the two boys were outside.

"Hey boys," she exclaimed, and her friends turned around, both wearing similar grins.

"There she finally is," JJ laughed and the three of them walked towards the minivan. John B clearly had a new form of motivation guiding his path, likely triggered by the discovery of the compass.

"You guys need to update me on the plan, though." Adelaide said as she entered the carriage, slumping onto a random seat. She glanced towards the inside of the van and couldn't help for a smile to darl across her lips. This car held some of the best memories for the Pogues; like speeding away from cops, driving to parties, singing off-key to the songs the old radio played. Pictures were slanted across its walls that recalled random moments the teens captured with the click of a camera. There was one of Adelaide crying in Pope's lap after a scandalous kegger, one of all of them surfing, one of John B and Adelaide as six year olds, and many more. A P4L had been shakily scribbled onto a corner.

Adelaide stood up and slipped between the two boys sitting in front, fidgeting with the radio. A melody emerged, and Adelaide gasped as one of her all-time favourites songs played. She was giddy with joy when the song bounced off the walls of the van, and the boys complied to the choice, knowing how much their best-friend adored that tune.

" Pretty woman, walkin' down the street 

Pretty woman the kind I like to meet

Pretty woman I don't believe you, you're not the truth

No one could look as good as you, mercy

Pretty woman won't you pardon me

'Cause I need you, I'll treat you right

Come with me baby, be mine tonight. "

She hummed along, and even though her talent in the art of singing was completely inexistent, JJ and John B smiled, occasionally singing along too. Adelaide stared out of the window and at the empty streets they were riding by, a genuine grin dancing across her lips. Summer was a song. It was a season. She wondered if that season would live forever inside of her and soak her bones till they drowned in the salty ocean.

"I'm just saying, I don't understand why you can't at least try with Kiara," JJ said, reeling the girl back to reality with a question that was doomed to pop up anytime now. "She clearly likes you. She's like Oh John B." 

"Is that what she does? Really?" John B repeated, sarcasm dripping his voice.

"She's sketching about you diving, then she kissed you bro." JJ argued, and Adelaide couldn't help but kind of agree with him. Kiara was never that affectionate, not even with her; something was up.

"She kissed me on the cheek. It's not like we're making out." John B shook his head, though he was probably just trying not to get his hopes up.

"C'mon JB, you have to agree something's kind of different between you two." Adelaide added, trying to notice some sort of reaction from his part. Yet, his face stays the same and his eyes follow the road.

"If Adelaide agrees with me, then I have to be right," JJ said, and the girl laughed. "Low hanging fruit, bro. I see it in your eyes, you're like ... I kinda like that, and then you start blushing and shit."

"I blush?"

Before anyone could reply though, JJ snatched the compass that John B held, somewhat intrigued by the object that no one seemed to care about last night. From the corner of his eye, John B noticed his clumsy friend grab the compass and lunged towards it, the van jerking to the side.

"Hey! Don't—" the brunette snapped. It was evident  the object was something already extremely valuable for the boy, representing the sole flicker of hope he still had about his father's survival.

"I was just looking at it," JJ defended. "I gotta admit, your father's compass in Scooter's boat, that's some freaky shit."

"Yeah, that's why we're going to talk to Lana, figure this whole thing out." John B nodded. This was the first Adelaide had actually heard of where they were heading, not having fully registered yet.

"Lana Grubbs? Scooter's wife?" she asked. "Her husband just drowned, I doubt she'll want to talk to us."

"Which is why we need you to do the talking." JJ said. Adelaide smiled, extremely used to manage the talking between the Pogues. She was able to reflect the image of a good girl with nothing but harmless intentions. It was an act she put up anytime trouble faced the teenagers, which was often. However, her thoughts flowed away when they arrived at their destination.

It was an insanely old and crippled home, even for the Cut. Adelaide held in a breath as she stepped out of the minivan, and she swore she just saw a rat sliver out of the house. "Know what this house looks like?" JJ asked, frowning. "Like whoever lives here smokes too much weed."

"Thanks for the brilliant metaphor, JJ. Super useful." the girl said. She shuddered as they stepped closer to the house and a smell of trash wafted around them. However, she stopped in her tracks as they all picked up on a high-pitched scream piercing the air. "Holy shit." she whispered, holding a hand over her mouth.

"Maybe we should come by later." JJ shrugged, slightly frightened. He yanked onto Adelaide's wrist, trying to pull her back with him.

"No, shut up JJ." John B said, approaching the house.

"Come on, Maybank. We're not going to let him go alone, are we?" Adelaide whispered, urging him to follow their friend. The three glued their body to the back wall of the house, pressing their eyes to make out a few screams and insults being thrown. The girl was desperately hoping bugs weren't crawling into her hair.

"Tell me where it is, or I'll fuck you up." one of the unidentified men growled.

"I'll sink you in the fucking—" another voice rung, though it was interrupted by the sound of something crashing, triggering an alarmed shriek to escape Lana's mouth. Adelaide tried to calm the drumming of her heart by inhaling and exhaling, but she still jumped up at the next scream. JJ grabbed her hand, squeezing it firmly. The girl felt a sense of relief wash over her at the contact, but it wasn't enough to calm her.

"The compass wasn't in the boat, were is it Lana?" Adelaide peered towards John B, who froze at those words. They were after Big John's compass, but why? And what did that mean for them?

As Lana continuously failed to spare any useful information (the poor woman was probably clueless), the men barged out of the house, striding towards their boat. Adelaide made sure she wasn't making a single sound, fright peeking in her insides.

"Dude, those are the guys that shot at us." JJ said, recognising the trio. When their boat swam away, Adelaide swore all her nerves had shot down, their absence having been the cause of her scare.

They stepped quietly into the house, looking at the mess around them. "Ms Lana?" Adelaide called out softly, trying not to startle the woman too much after the encounter they just witnessed. When they did spot her, she was crouched onto the bathroom floor, sobbing.

"Dude she's tweaking." JJ said.

"Maybe we should call for help? A doctor, or the police--" Adelaide said, kneeling down to take a look at Lana.

"No, no cops please." she interrupted.

"Wait, what do you know about theses guys?" John B asked.

"They were looking for something." Lana shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself.

"Is it this?" the boy replied, showing her the compass he had found. Questions followed his statement, though Adelaide's concentration was on how damaged the woman looked. Blood dripping from her cuts, mixing itself with the salt from her tears, her eyes downcast with suffering. It chilled her to her bone.

For some reason, she wasn't able to pay much attention to the conversation going on, her heart in a painful twist. She didn't know what it was about the house, but she desperately wanted to get out.

The girl gasped when she felt a pair of hands shake her shoulders worriedly, ripping out of her thoughts. "Come on, Addie. We've got to go." JJ said, helping her stand up. He noticed how concerned her gaze was, a void of emerald diamonds. Her eyes were still settled on Lana, profusely crying. Adelaide was too beautiful to witness such chaos, he thought.

"And we were right outside like this," JJ replayed through words the events that had just happened. John B, JJ and Adelaide had arrived at the Chateau and met with up with the rest quickly enough to update them on their latest adventures. Adelaide was sprawled on the porch couch, barely paying attention to JJ's act. All she could think about was how their summer had turned into something so extraordinary, so--deadly. "And all we hear is just bam, bam, bam! Knocking paint off the wall, G. From the inside!" JJ continued describing the scene, probably being a tad too dramatic. The boy paced around, not stopping for an instant, "Alright? and I'm looking at him like, wait, first off look at this shit." He bent his head down, ruffling his hair until many white specks fell out from his scalp.

"That's dandruff, disgusting." Kiara frowned, scrunching her nose in disgust.

"Look at all that. All right? That's paint. At that point, I was just like ... I'm waiting for death." JJ breathed.

"Oh, okay. So you say they're the guys who shot at us, right?" Pope asked.

"Yeah."

"Did you get a good description of them? What did they look like?" the boy quizzed, and Adelaide searched her mind for a second to come to the conclusion that the girl had been so terrified she hadn't payed the slightest attention to their appearance. 

"Burly." was all JJ could get out. Kiara and Pope turned towards Adelaide, expecting a better answer, but all she managed was "Tall?"

"Great work guys."

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

"Guys, not everything is a kingpin movie." Kiara sighed, rolling her eyes at the dramatics.

"Okay, so what does a square grouper look like exactly?" Pope continued his questions, that failed to receive any sort of convincing answer.

"You weren't there, bro." JJ said.

"Cause apparently you don't know what to look for." Kiara scoffed.

"I wasn't taking little Polaroids the whole time man. I was under duress, okay? But I can tell you, by the way Ms Lana was screaming that these guys are serious, serious hombres, man. It's a heavy vibe right now okay?" JJ scrambled.

Adelaide's attention shifted to John B when the sound of a compass clicking open came to her hearing. The boy was slouched onto the railing of the porch, staring at the tool.

"Why would they want the compass?" Adelaide questioned, almost to herself.

"It's a piece of shit, you couldn't pawn it for five bucks if you wanted to." Pope commented. "No offence John B, I know it's like in your family or some shit—"

"The office." the boy in question suddenly piped up, looking up at his friends in realisation. Yet, none of them were able to decipher the meaning in his short sentence, pure confusion gracing their features. "My dad. My dad's office," he tried to explain. "He always kept it locked because he was worried about the competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research." The Pogues all followed John B as he walked inside. "We used to laugh at him like he was actually going to find it. But now that he's gone, I've kinda just let it how it is."

"Yeah, for when he comes back." Kiara nodded as John B tried his key, showing her friend that she wasn't like the rest, that she believed he wasn't dead.

"I've slept over here like a thousand times, and I've never seen this door open." Pope said as John B pushed it open, revealing a messy office none of them had ever stepped foot in.

"I always thought this door was the door to like, a closet or something." Adelaide said, gazing at the various papers and books discarded on the desk and floor.

"Hey look, this is the original owner, here." John B noticed, placing a cork board over more papers, pointing to the figure of a man. Then, the brunette proceeded to explain how the compass landed in his father's property, and an leeringly similar pattern seemed to follow anyone that had the chance to claim it.

"Uh, I think this compass is haunted or some shit." Adelaide frowned.

"Yep, you've got a death compass." Pope confirmed as every single owner of the object died shortly after possessing it.

"No, I do not."

"You should get rid of it, it's cursed and made its way back to you." JJ said.

"Look, my dad used to talk about this compartment right here. Soldiers used to hide hidden notes." John B said, ignoring his friends and unscrewing the compass. There was no note. A word had been scribbled onto it.

"What's that?" Kiara asked.

"That wasn't there before. This is my dad's handwriting."

"How can you know that?" Pope asked, obviously a little skeptical that John B had managed to guess the basic handwriting belonged to his father's when it had been passed down a few generations already.

"Because he does those weird Rs, see?" John B explained, convinced.

"Can I see?" JJ said, walking over to hold the compass. Adelaide tried peeking over, but the name rung no bells at all.

"It says Redfield," she claimed, "No idea what that means."

"It's a name, Addie. Probably the most common one in the country." Pope replied.

"Oh maybe ... maybe it's a clue. Maybe it's a clue to what he's hiding." John B shrugged, coming to quick conclusions.

"A clue? Come on that's—" Pope started, though he soon closed his mouth after he made eye contact with Kiara's narrowed gaze, telling him to not interfere with the slimmer of hope that John B still had. "But if is a clue, maybe it's an anagram?"

"Yes! Perfect, anagram. You need paper." John B said, grabbing a random one on the desk and handing it to Pope. "Here you go."

The five of them proceeded to brainstorm ideas and theories about anything that came to mind and could possibly be relevant. Yet, they all ceased their chatting when the sound of a car pulling up outside bounced off the walls of the house. "Somebody's here."

"Holy shit, is that them?" Adelaide gasped when she noticed two men emerge from the black car, approaching the window to get a better look. "Fuck, fuck, fuck—" her eyes widened, though words stopped coming from her mouth when she was suddenly pushed back against a wall, a hand pressed to her lips to quiet her down. JJ. He was so close, Adelaide found it difficult to breathe. His touch had a habit of sending goosebumps crawling all over her skin. Why?

"Where's the gun?" John B whispered.

"Gun? Uh--I can't." JJ stuttered, and Adelaide couldn't help but roll her eyes. He didn't have the gun the one time they actually needed it? "It was in my backpack, and then I--"

"The porch." Adelaide beat him to it, pushing his hand off her mouth.

"It's on the porch." JJ nodded, while heading to the door, leaving the office. Adelaide couldn't help but feel a spark of worry as he hurried off. What is the men caught him? Thankfully, he was back seconds later, "They're on the front porch."

"We gotta leave." Kiara muttered, clearly nervous. "Guys, window, window." Pope and JJ scrambled towards it, trying to pull it open. It didn't budge.

"It's painted shut." JJ said, and Adelaide actually started to panic. She could hear them trash the house, and god knew what they would do to them. Her heart was slamming against her chest, and she wondered if today would be the day she died. Her eyes roamed the place and landed on a small, sharp blade. She gripped it and hurried towards the window.

"Come on, come on." Pope urged.

"I'm going as fast as I can." she replied, fidgeting nervously. John B, Pope and Kiara were all pressed against the door as it began to shake, signalling the men's presence.

"You better not be in there!" a voice yelled, sounding the exact same than the one at Lana's.

Adelaide and JJ managed to open the window after what seemed like an eternity, and all of them rushed towards it. Though, Adelaide stopped in her tracks when her bracelet slipped from her wrist, landing onto the ground. Immediately, she crouched down, knowing that this piece of jewellery meant more to her than anything. Her dad gifted it to her for her sixteenth birthday. JJ noticed her absence when the Pogues slipped out and hurried towards her, yanking on her wrist and pulling her towards the window.

"We need to go, Adelaide." he said angrily. They both ran towards the rooster pen, hiding behind the wooden planks after having slithered out of the window.

They all huddled closely, believing they were well hidden for a few seconds. Well, until the rooster started loudly clucking, revealing their spot loudly.

"Pope, do something!" JJ ordered, circling one of his arms around Adelaide's body.

"What do you want me to do?!"

"Someone just shut him up, please." Adelaide begged. The next thing she knew, JJ had let her go and grabbed the rooster. In a second, he had snapped the animal's neck, leaving it dead on the ground. All of them gasped a little, and didn't dare to move until they knew the car was gone.