[ xi. under duress ]

➸➸➸

WILLA DEVERAUX FELT AS if she had barely managed to fall asleep before her eyes were abruptly snapping open once more, her sage vision now filled with bright blinding sunlight, its sharp yellow rays slipping in through the tattered brown curtains that barely clung to the windows above her resting form.  For a long moment, Willa was frozen where she lay, her clouded mind racing to catch up with her new, unfamiliar surroundings.  Upon her first startled breath, Willa had not immediately realized that she was still in John B. Routledge's living room, sleeping on his poor pullout mattress with unzipped sleeping bags for blankets, and had nearly set herself into a delirious panic.  It was not until the familiar smell of warm Pabst beer and rotting oak wood pulled a frazzled Willa back to her senses, and she was able to slowly sit up on the creaky bed.  Now hunched over and looking dazedly around the empty, quiet room, the only difference that Willa could tell between the current time and where she had been mere laying hours ago was that she was now all alone.

"Kiara?" Willa called out tiredly, brushing her knotted locks out of her eyes as she spared a careful glance over her shoulder to the empty side of the mattress.  "John B.?"

Receiving no answer, Willa slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed and let her bare, blistered feet fall flat against the warm wood of the floorboards.  It could not have been any later than ten in the morning, but the house was already uncomfortably hot.  As always, the scorching July weather was ever so persistent in the Outer Banks, becoming even crueler without the desirable additions of air conditioning—or even of creaky futile fans—to help anyone on the island.

A lone rooster crowed in the distance, pulling Willa from her thoughts as she finally tore her attention from the floor and let her heavy head drift towards the poorly constructed, wooden bedside table.  Its dark, carved tabletop was littered with food wrappers and beer bottle caps, but amongst the prevalent signs of a teenage boy left to run rampant in an unsupervised home, Willa's cell phone sat idly on the corner, waiting to be picked up as the day began.  To Willa's confusion, a single neon pink post-it note had been smacked in the center of her cracked phone screen; a note that had not been there the night prior, but now left in such a position that it would be impossible to miss.  The gaudy rings on Willa's fingers twisted uncomfortably about her sweaty knuckles as she reached for the post-it, her eyes narrowing suspiciously as she stared down to the sloppy scrawl.

TAKING CARE OF SOMETHING W/ JJ. 
DON'T OPEN DOOR TO ANYONE. 
BE BACK SOON.
JOHN B.

Willa Deveraux scoffed at the instructions left by the Routledge boy, her stomach recoiling at the thought of being left behind by the pogues.  She supposed, though, that it could only have been for a good reason; if it had been an emergency, John B. would have woken her up, right?  He would not have left her behind, especially if he knew it were not safe.  John B. would be back soon.  There was no other explanation.  Everything was going to be fine.  It had to be fine.  In her tired state of mind, Willa Deveraux was not willing to fall down any rabbit hole just yet.

Exhaling a tight breath, Willa set the note aside and went back for her cell phone.  A blank dead screen stared back at her, though it was entirely unsurprising sight.  After all, Willa had never managed to charge it once she got back to the Deveraux house after the Boneyard party, and there was now no power in the Cut to charge it overnight at the Routledge home.  Not that a dead cell phone was worrisome to Willa in the slightest.  She did not like talking to people on the phone and no one—even if they wanted to—could possibly get a hold of her right now.  Hurricane Agatha had knocked out all cell phone service and there was no saying when communications would finally be back to normal.  Some summers, it only took days.  Other summers, it took weeks.  There was not a single thing that any occupant of the Outer Banks could change about that unpredictable period; only time would tell.  In the end, kooks and pogues alike were all bent to the will of the island.

Unable to sit on the uncomfortable pullout mattress any longer, Willa climbed painfully to her feet, wincing at the strain she now felt in her shoulders and calves.  Yesterday's adventure out on the marsh had not been kind to her body in the slightest.  Willa's knees were littered with small purple bruises as a result of falling to the floor of the Pogue time-and-time again to avoid the gunshots and her neck was extremely tight from whiplash.  Even her arms were sore from when Pope Heyward had nearly crushed her while trying to stay out of Kiara Carrera's way as she raged on the warpath.  Willa's spine throbbed painfully, too, from when JJ Maybank had seemingly nearly snapped a vertebra from pulling so harshly on the back of her shirt to get her to duck down.

Out of instinct Willa made her way towards the barren kitchen, slowly but surely. She did not bother to check for spare food in the cupboards or refrigerator, knowing John B. deserved his own meals even when he could not be promised anything else in means of a successful survival.  Instead Willa's attention went towards the abandoned beer bottles that littered the countertops.  After the abundance of drinks that the five teenagers had nursed on throughout the night, there was no saying whose bottle was whose anymore—but to a teenager beer was beer, and when breakfast was not an option otherwise . . .

"Cheers," Willa mused quietly.  She grabbed the beer bottle that felt the heaviest, tilted it back just the slightest—as if she truly were cheering with another, and not drinking alone like the poor fool that she was—and then brought it to her chapped lips, downing the warm alcohol in a single, heavy gulp.  "Just like mom never made," She sighed heartily.

Standing in the quiet of the messy Routledge kitchen and looking out towards the rest of John B.'s empty home, Willa had not truly realized how big the place actually was until she was finally facing it in its stilled entirety.  Though dirty and disheveled from months of unstable living, it was a shelter to more individuals than Willa could have ever imagined once fitting in the area.  The pogues had all referred to the Chateau as just a mere fish shack at least once in their lives, but it had seemingly grown to become much more than that over the years.  The Chateau had become a haven to more than just a mere father and son, trying to make the best of their poor situation.  It was a safe place for the ignored and the neglected, a place for any tired, forgotten or beaten soul to rest their head in peace.  There was no saying how many years John B.'s father had likely spent turning this building into a home.

Suddenly, before Willa even knew what she was doing, she was back on her feet, a new half-drunken beer bottle in hand, and moving off to explore the empty Routledge household.  The floorboards creaked with each tender step, but the house was so bright, the warm sun pooling welcomingly.  Willa could not help but wander; she was a curious person by heart and the uncertainty of her new surroundings seemingly called out to her to follow.

Aside from the immediate joy that Willa Deveraux always felt when lost in her own endless writing, she also simply loved investigating and uncovering the hidden roots and backgrounds of those closest and furthest from her.  Her interest for the worlds that existed behind closed doors had always been somewhat prevalent in her own peculiar personality, but not one made without outside influence, too.  Maren Deveraux had always told Willa from a young age that a home made an individual, and behind closed doors she was surely to learn how a single soul came to be from their own environment.  This statement had long since stuck with Willa, all these years later.  Not a single day passed by without Willa's wandering mind traveling back to the whereabouts of her own biological parents.  What did their own homes look like?  Were they big spacious homes the held no love?  Were they so small that were bursting at the seams with joy, the kind of home that Willa herself desired to have one day?  Or, perhaps, they somewhere in between—lost in the void of a brewing storm; a shore that shined with sunlight but loomed with a darkening horizon.  A home that could rise or fall with a single gust of wind, a touch of love or a blow of hate.

It killed Willa that she may never know what became of her biological mother and father; two strangers that had dared to give her life, but all in the same breath had managed to take it away, too.

Unbeknownst to even her own wandering path, Willa Deveraux soon found herself lingering on the threshold of John B.'s own bedroom.   The door was slightly ajar and through the narrow crack Willa could see the tiny makings of his private space; an unmade bed, dirty and clean clothes strung haphazardly on the floor, a dresser decorated with numerously different colored ball caps and bandannas.  On a far wall, she could see a lone picture tacked to the wooden panel, but from this distance she could not see who was in it.  Once more, her curiosity pulled deep in her stomach, an invisible force working its way into her knees, making her sway gently where she stood.  For a moment, Willa's fingertips hesitantly rested on the soft chipped wood of the door, her heart pleading for her to push it open further.  Elsewhere, her mind was harder to convince.  What if John B. walked in right now?  What if he saw her in his room?  How could she explain that?

Willa bit her bottom lip and abruptly let her eyes fall away, shameful of herself for weighing the immeasurable odds that came with such innocent snooping.  As her sage orbs wandered across the hall, her gaze immediately and unexpectedly went to a rather noticeable padlock holding an opposing bedroom door securely shut. Willa Deveraux hesitated once more as she stared at the smudged sliver lock, the same familiar eagerness and guilt twisting delicately in the pit of her stomach.  Deep down, Willa knew that some doors within empty homes were better left locked . . . but those with literal locks were the ones that deserved to be opened the most.

"Put your hands up."

Willa leaped in terror at the deep voice sounding from over her shoulder, her blood turning to ice in her veins as her hands instinctively tightened on the lock currently glued in her frigid grasp.  Her head instantly whipped around to the intruder and her narrowed eyes widened in surprise at the tall figure behind her.  "Oh, my God!  Pope!" Willa cried sternly, her heart hammering painfully against her trembling ribs.  "You scared the shit out of me!"

Pope Heyward, the gentle giant of the pogues, stood close behind Willa in the dark hallway, wearing nothing more than a soft forest green shirt—now already stained with sweat near the neckline—and a pair of gray shorts that clung awkwardly to his thighs due to the growing heat.   His eyes were narrowed curiously at the smaller Deveraux girl.  "What're you doing?" He wondered.

Willa awkwardly cleared her throat and smiled bashfully up at Pope.  "Oh, I'm just looking around," She answered nonchalantly.

"You mean snooping?"

As Pope's eyes instantly shifted towards the door, Willa immediately let her hand drop from the lock, as if it were suddenly scalding to the touch.  "No, no!" She coughed out, her cheeks beginning to burn.  Oh, God.  How could she even attempt to explain that this was not what it appeared to be?  "I, um—This isn't—"

Rather than watch the poor girl struggle to find her words, Pope smiled kindly and rose a reassuring hand.  "I'm just kidding," He soothed, his eyes gleaming softly as Willa's own worried expression began to fade to one of mutual understanding and gratitude. "You're not the first to try pulling on that lock.  Believe it or not, none of us have seen the inside of that room."

"Do you have any idea what's in there?" Willa inquired, her lips pulling gently upwards as she stared at Pope.  He, too, shared a curiosity for the world that the universe could never snuff out.  It was in his nature to discover all that could ever be offered to him.

"It's John B.'s dad's office," Pope explained casually, shrugging his shoulders as his tender gaze flitted from Willa's face and back towards the door.  So, so many times had Pope wanted just a single peek inside the office, but he had never been quite brave enough to act upon the urge.

Willa followed Pope's stare, her careful eyes drifting back towards the padlock.  "And he keeps it locked?" She questioned, frowning.  "Even though it was only ever him and John B.?"

Pope nodded softly.  "Even though it was only ever him and John B.," He sighed in confirmation.

"Makes you wonder what he was doing before he died, right?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Willa hesitantly licked her chapped lips and Pope stuffed his hands into his pockets as both of their observant attentions went back to the small padlock and the open space above the threshold.  There was no saying what exactly rested beyond the door and with a padlock holding them from the truth maybe that was all that Willa, Pope, John B., and the rest of the pogues could do—wonder.  Maybe whatever Big John had been doing beyond this locked door was meant to be left entirely to himself.  It puzzled Willa to accept that so many doors might remain locked throughout the world because of the cruel way of the world.  What if Willa were ever to die or go missing?  What would become of her own locked dresser drawer in her closet?  Would her loved ones be left to find her letters?  Would the drunken scribbles, aimless rambles, and tragic endings of a world she could never reach make any sense to anyone aside from herself? 

It was unlikely.  No one ever truly seemed to understand Willa Deveraux.  Because of this, she could only hope if she were ever to disappear, her final words would disappear with her.

"What are you two doing back here?"

Both Willa and Pope abruptly turned at the sound of Kiara's voice and found the Carrera girl standing at the opposite end of the hallway, her smooth, tanned skin glowing warmly in the bright sunlight that stretched from across the home.  Kiara's arms were folded gently in front of her, but her head was still tilted to the side in suspicion as she stared between the two teenagers currently shielded by the shadows.

Willa took a cautious step back from the locked office.  "I was just looking around," She insisted.

"Snooping?" Kiara guessed.

"Oh, my God," Willa exclaimed with a roll of her eyes, sending Pope a stern side-glance.  He only grinned back at her, hiding a chuckle with a cough as he went to stand beside Kiara, both teenagers sharing a knowing look. "I wasn't snooping!"

Kiara smirked at Willa, having clearly overheard their conversation from before, but she would not dare give away her secret.  "Here," She offered lightly, holding out a small bundle to Willa as she took a step closer to the Deveraux kook.  "I brought you some clothes."

"What?" Willa mused.  "Am I living here now?"

Kiara shrugged innocently, knowing full-well that she, Pope—and even JJ—all had their own clothes scattered throughout the Routledge home, tucked away in spare drawers for use when needed.  It would not be a surprise to Kiara if some of Willa's own belongings started to show up throughout the house eventually.  "Once you start coming around here, it's hard to leave," She explained.  She then shook the extended bundle of clothes outwards to Willa once more, prompting her to finally take them.

Willa chewed tentatively on the inside of her cheek but was nonetheless grateful for a clean pair of shorts as she took the bundle of clothing from Kiara and tucked it under her arm.  "Why didn't you guys wake me when you left?" She questioned.

"You looked like you needed the sleep," Pope insisted softly.

Though appreciative at the thought of kind gesture, Willa merely outwardly scoffed at Pope's attempt at being a gentleman.  "Well, blame her," She retorted, jerking a teasing thumb in Kiara's direction.  "Because it definitely wasn't my intention to stay up until four in the morning talking about schoolyard beat-downs."

Pope's eyes widened in confusion as he looked between the two island girls.  "Schoolyard whats?"

"I was a crazy eighth-grader, okay, but who isn't?" Willa defended, though she could not hide the playful smile that was beginning to pull at the corners of her mouth as she discreetly watched Kiara fail to hide her own smirk at the memories of their shared night together.  "Speaking of crazy eighth-graders," She continued.  "Do either of you know where John B. and JJ are?"

Kiara Carrera merely shook her head as she rocked back on her bare heels.  "No idea.  They were still sleeping when Pope and I rolled out of here around seven this morning," She answered.  As if all pulled by the same imperceptible force, the trio of teenagers began making their way back towards the Routledge living room, back into the land of the light and the living.  "They should be back soon," She added gently, glancing between Willa and Pope.

"Well, let's just hope they aren't out there looking for those guys from the marsh yesterday," Willa mumbled underneath her breath.

Beside her, Pope Heyward swallowed tightly.  "Let's hope."

➸➸➸

"YOU ACTUALLY WENT OUT there looking for those guys? Oh, my God! Are you insane?"

Kiara Carrera's eyes were wide with obvious anger and she shook her head in disbelief as Willa Deveraux bit down painfully on her tongue, trapping her own exasperated words tight in her burning chest.  Hovering on either side of the two girls outside on the Routledge porch were Pope Heyward and John B.—the former just as astonished and troubled by this exclamation, whereas the latter now kept his head down, scratching awkwardly at his neck as he avoided his three friends condescending stares.  Meanwhile, pacing hazardously in front of them all was none other than JJ Maybank, his hands held high above his head as he retold the dangerous encounter that he and John B. had experienced upon opting to visit Scooter Grubbs' now-widowed wife, Lana, earlier in the morning.

"No, we didn't go looking for them, Kiara!  They were just there!" JJ exclaimed hurriedly, his cheeks burning red and his shoulders heaving by how fast he now spoke to the group of gathered teenagers.  He and John B. had scampered from Lana's residence as quickly as they had formerly arrived, but even as they had sped dangerously over the highway speed limit to get back to the Chateau, it still felt as if it had not been fast enough.  For all that JJ knew, the two gunmen from the marsh were hot on their trails right now, determined to find them and put bullets in all their heads.  "We were right outside like this," The blonde rushed out, acting out the sequence of the disaster as he and John B. secretly witnessed Lana be beaten by the two gunmen.  "And all we hear is just, 'Bam!  Bam!  Bam!'  Knocking paint off the wall!  From the inside!  And I'm just looking at John B., like—wait!" His eyes widened drastically as he immediately recalled a crucial part. "First off, look at this shit.  Look at it!"

JJ paused in his aggressive storytelling and hastily crossed over to where Willa and Kiara sat on one of the few stained couches that had somehow found their ways out onto the Routledge porch long summers ago and had never been moved back.  JJ was almost certain that he had once stolen the couches from out of someone's yard on a dare and had hauled them back to the Chateau all on his own—but he had also definitely been too drunk to clearly remember it.  Regardless, no one ever came looking for them.  These couches belonged to the pogues now, and they were certainly of more use to them than they could have possibly ever been used for anyone else.

Crouching down so that the top of his head was level with Willa and Kiara's knees, JJ ran his calloused hands through his dirty blonde locks, shaking white flakes out onto the dark wood of the porch below.  Willa Deveraux's face contorted in disgust as she hastily pulled her feet off the ground and tucked her knees into her chest, immediately assuming the worst of the white flakes. Beside her, Kiara's own mouth twisted distastefully as she believed the same.  "That's dandruff," The Carrera girl muttered.  "Disgusting."

"It's not dandruff!  That's paint!" JJ argued, pulling back.  "At that point, I was just, like . . ." He exhaled breathlessly as he waved a tired hand.  "I'm waiting for death."

"Well, obviously you didn't die," Willa pointed out, matter-of-fact.  Though startled by JJ and John B.'s encounter, it did not good to any of the teenagers to begin jumping to immediate dramatics.  Willa had to keep her head—if she even considered the fact that the gunmen were closing in around them, she would undeniably lose it.  And she could not afford to break down right now.

JJ's blue icy gaze flashed down to hers, alarm evident in his fearful features.  "You don't know that!" He cried.

Willa frowned.  "So, we're all just staring at your ghost?"

"Maybe," JJ scoffed dryly, letting his attention fall away from Willa and back to John B., the only other person who could even understand what he was doing through, his mind a whirlwind of chaos and terror.  "Part of me feels like I died right on the spot—right on Ms. Lana's fucking porch."

"Okay, okay—so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?" Pope questioned, looking carefully over at JJ.  He, too, knew that JJ needed to calm down before the hot-headed blonde did something he would likely regret.  "Did you get a good description of them?  What did they look like?" He questioned.  "Anything we can bring to a police report, maybe?"

JJ's teeth clenched together tightly, and he closed his storming eyes, racking his rapidly spinning mind for any information.  It was like fishing in an empty pond, no bites, no results, no survival—but, nonetheless, he managed to hook a single adjective on his own lips.  "Burly," He blurted out, his eyes snapping back open.

"Burly?" Pope repeated, perplexed.

"Yeah." JJ nodded his head determinedly.  "You know, like—"

"That's not very helpful, JJ," Kiara chastised, burying her own face in her hands.

"Like the type of guy at my dad's garage," JJ insisted genuinely.  "I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers."

Around her, John B., Kiara, and Pope all nodded their heads in understanding and confirmation, but Willa could not have felt further in the dark.  "I assume you're talking to everyone but me when you say that?" Willa questioned, tilting her head inquiringly up at JJ.  Sure, everyone knew that all sorts of sketchy businesses and deals happened down in the Cut, but Willa hardly knew any of the actual details.  Unfortunately for Willa, Maren and Alden had done their absolute best to hide her from the taunting shadows of the south side of the island.  For as long as she had been alive, the Deveraux parents knew of all the dirt on the town—but not any of their children.

"Sorry to disappoint, sunshine," JJ snipped back at her, not missing a beat as he continued onward in his rant.  "Look, guys.  I can tell you with full confidence, these boys . . . these killers . . ." He abruptly paused to take a small drag from a cigarette that Willa was not even aware he had lit.  "they're square groupers."

"Like narco square grouper?" Pope questioned.  "Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?"

"Yeah, man."

Kiara Carrera scoffed as she stared disappointedly at the two boys.  "You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie."

Pope merely rolled his eyes, looking from Kiara to JJ once more.  "So, what does this square grouper look like?" He prodded, desperate for a description that may help them in the future of this dark ordeal.  "Like, specifically?"

The Maybank boy frowned.  "You weren't there—"

"Well, apparently you don't know what to look for!"

"Dude, I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time, man!" JJ shouted, his voice cracking underneath the strain of his own building panic.  "I was under duress, okay?!"  He shook his head worriedly, raking his hands through his disheveled hair once more as he hastily discarded of the cigarette.  "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.  It's a heavy vibe right now, okay?  I'm not liking this very much."

Willa Deveraux was now pulling anxiously on her displaced rings as she watched JJ begin to pace on the porch once more, her nerves beginning to squirm beneath her burnt skin, aching for a release that could only result in further chaos.  Letting her attention fall to her new jean shorts, Willa distracted her wandering hands by slowly doing and undoing the buttons of a new flannel Kiara had collected for her from her own home.  "Did they see you?" She murmured tightly.  She was almost afraid of the answer.

JJ's head snapped in her direction, his twisted expression softening at the evident fear that reflected deeply in her own youthful features.  "I don't think so," He assured.  "But they weren't looking for us, anyways.  They were looking for the compass."

Kiara wrinkled her nose.  "Why would they want the compass?" She questioned.

"That thing's a piece of shit.  You couldn't pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to," Pope pointed out truthfully.  He then spared a careful, soft glance back at the current owner of the newfound object.  "No offense, John B.  I know it's in your family . . ."

The boy in question, who had previously been entranced by the mere thought of the golden compass that rested securely in his palm, abruptly looked up in alarm.  "The office," He gasped.  "My dad's office."

At John B.'s words, Willa discreetly shared a gentle, knowing glance with none other than Pope who was now already looking back at her, his dark eyes just as cautious as her own light ones.  "What about it?" She wondered.

John B. suddenly pushed himself off the arm of the couch that Willa had been sitting on and hastily pulled open the screen front door, making his way indoors, leaving the four straggling teenagers on the creaking porch with no choice but to hurriedly follow after him.  "He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research," John B. explained over his shoulder as he walked, taking large strides to navigate the numerous piles of junk that littered the living room.  "We used to laugh at him like he was actually going to find it."

Willa Deveraux's ears perked up at the mention of the Royal Merchant and its infamous lost treasure.  Anyone that was anyone on the island knew the rich, violent history of the legendary shipwreck that had occurred not that far from Kildare County in the early 1800s.  While it was briefly taught in schools, Willa did not get any of her real information regarding the Royal Merchant from her teachers.  Instead she had gotten it from her little sister.  Of the many Deveraux children, little Lex had always been enthralled by the hidden secrets and mysteries of the Outer Banks islands.  She was her own little historian, likely capable of teaching better than half of the school district's actual staff.  In the deep part of her mind, Willa could only wonder how much Lex knew of the Royal Merchant that she had not yet revealed to anyone, and if any of that information could have ever been useful to John B. now.

"But now that he's gone," John B. trailed off softly as he came to a careful stop outside the locked office door.  For nine long months, he had not taken a single step inside the office, never quite ready to accept the emptiness that waited on the other side for him.  "I've just kind of . . . I just left it as he kept it."

"Of course," Kiara piped in gently, her expression full of understanding for her friend who had yet to process the true stages of grief.  "for when he gets back."

As Willa watched John B.'s sullen expression twist and conform as he inwardly battled his demons and ghosts, the Deveraux girl fought to keep her hands at her side, rather than reaching out to comfort him.  Though it was an entirely different occurrence, Willa knew of the pain and guilt that resided deep in the bones of children left behind by their parents.  John B.'s father had been lost at sea for nine long months, and he had yet to embrace the reality that he was likely dead.  In a way, Willa, too, refused to embrace the acceptance that her biological parents had likely never wanted her, had left her.  After all, how could a child willingly choose to believe that they had to live a life without guidance from those who should have always been there to protect them?  How could a son or a daughter ever walk into the abyss that was endless disappoint, confusion and grief caused by their own father or mother? 

How could John B. Routledge ever let his father go if he had any say in it at all?

Willa Deveraux waited patiently and held her breath as John B. fished a key from his back pocket and slowly undid the padlock.  As soon as the office door swung open, Willa was slow to follow John B. inside, her sage eyes widening in disbelief at the awestruck sight of Big John's spacious office.  Heavy wooden bookshelves stretched to the ceiling and numerous tables were spread throughout the room.  The Deveraux daughter was slightly amazed that John B.'s father had dedicated so much of his time to such an overlooked cause.  Every surface that could be touched was covered in books, posters, papers, and numerous other files that held precious information that Willa would never be able to quite understand as deeply as the Routledge father and son. 

"I've slept over here like six hundred times," Pope whistled, looking around with his jaw dipped slightly in wonder.  "and I've never seen this door opened."

"Me, either," Kiara murmured in agreement.

As Willa, Pope, Kiara and JJ spread out amongst the tightly furnished office to explore the tiny knickknacks that made up much of Big John's existence, John B. quickly went behind his father's large desk to retrieve a large, framed photograph that inscribed the details of the Routledge family tree.  "Here, look," John B. called, drawing all eyes back towards him as he placed the large frame on the table closest to the friends.  As several heads knelt in closely, John B. eagerly pointed to a black-and-white picture located highest on the makeshift tree, dating back to the late 1800s. "This is the original owner, right here."

"Robert Q. Routledge, 1880 to 1920," Kiara read aloud, eyeing the well-kept uniformed captain in the picture.  "There's the lucky compass, right there."  Willa instantly tilted her head, following Kiara's direction.  Sure enough, dangling loosely from the captain's slicked pant pocket was none other than the golden compass that Robert Q. Routledge's great-great grandson currently held.

"Actually, um . . ." John B. swallowed tightly, unsure if 'lucky' was the right term for such an object considering its rather gruesome history.  "he was shot after he bought it."

Willa chewed hesitantly on the inside of her cheek until she tasted the faint copper of her own blood from biting too hard. "What happened to it after that?" She questioned, her sage stare wandering down the remainder of the family tree.  In every single of the pictures, the familiar golden compass could be seen, dangling, or held within the grasp of a ghost long-since dead.

"It was shipped back to Henry," John B. answered her, shifting his finger a single generation lower on the tree to another black-and-white photo.  "He was killed in a crop-dusting accident when he had the compass.  After he died, the compass was given to Stephen." Once more, John B. jumped another branch, the teenagers' attentions now falling to a lone modern-day soldier, staring darkly into the frame.  "Stephen had the compass with him when he died in Vietnam."

"Let me guess," JJ interrupted, staring across at his best friend.  "he died in action, right?"

"Sort of.  Actually, he was killed by a banana truck . . . in country."

"Holy shit," Willa gasped, her jaw dropping in surprise.  "Talk about bad luck."

"No kidding," JJ snorted.

"Anyways," John B. continued briskly, ignoring the several worried expressions of his friends.  At this point, the youngest Routledge was entirely unfazed by the rather awful and unlucky endings his other relatives had faced in their unfortunate lives.  "After that, Stephen passed the compass down to my dad."  John B.'s finger drifted to the lowest branch of the family tree, stopping on the only colored picture in the entire frame.  A young father and an even younger son sat side-by-side on a riverbed, smiling brightly, completely unsuspecting of their harsh futures ahead.

"Hmm," JJ Maybank hummed distastefully.  "Sounds like there's a reoccurring theme here."

Pope Heyward nodded his head hastily in agreement to his firecracker friend as he looked from John B. to the tiny, evil device held firmly in his unwavering grasp. "Yeah, you have a death compass," He declared.

"No, I do not!" John B. protested sternly.  "I do not have a death compass."

"Get rid of it," JJ urged frantically.  "It's cursed and made its way back to you."

Willa pulled back from the table and crossed her arms uneasily over her chest.  "This sounds like the start of a cheap horror movie," She mumbled.

"Look, guys," John B. pleaded tiredly as dropped down into a nearby chair. "my dad used to talk about this compartment in here.  Soldiers used to hide secret notes," He explained, turning the golden compass over in his dirty palm.  He hastily unscrewed the back of the compass, removing a chipped, golden lid to reveal an inner compartment with a small scrawl carved into the base of the leather.

Kiara Carrera, now standing closest to John B. was the only other teenager in the office able to see the unique carving as she peered downward from over his shoulder.  "What's that?" She prodded.

"That wasn't there before," John B. insisted softly, his eyes widening in surprise.  "This is my dad's handwriting."

Pope frowned, unconvinced.  "How can you know that?" He challenged.

"Because he does these weird Rs," He informed, turning the compass around so that Willa, Pope and JJ could all have a better look.  A lone word stared back at the three teenagers as they leaned in close, trying to decipher the phrase through the horrendous scuffmarks that could have only been left behind through the use of a dull knife.  "You see it?"

JJ Maybank tilted his head and scratched lightly at his jaw, puzzled.  "Red . . . Rout . . ." He sounded out softly.  "No, I think that's an A . . ."

"It says Redfield," Willa Deveraux interrupted bluntly, blurting the answer out as if she were on a gameshow setting rather than a mere office.

Beside her, JJ was frowning in annoyance, his icy blue stare meeting her otherwise excited sage.  "Hey, give the dyslexic kid a chance, sunshine."

As Willa sent JJ a tiny apologetic shrug, leaving both teenagers wondering if she was actually sorry for beating the blonde boy to the punch, Kiara cleared her throat and looked back to John B. expectantly. "Well, what's Redfield?" She wondered.

"Besides being the most common name in the county?" Pope snickered, rolling his eyes.

"Maybe it's a clue," John B. defended strongly.  "Maybe it's a clue to where he's hiding."

"A clue?" Pope repeated, appalled.  "Come on—" He suddenly stopped himself, catching Kiara's stern stare from over John B.'s shoulder, as if daring him to try to continue his cruel, poorly-thought sentence.  None of the pogue friends were willing to burst John B.'s reality bubble just yet, even if the only other kook in the room remained firmly on his side, unknowing of just how long this awkward situation between life-and-death had occurred between the four teenagers.  A long moment stretched in silence before the Heyward boy hastily looked back towards the golden compass and awkwardly cleared his throat.  "But if it is a clue," He tried again, now much gentler in his approach to the hopeful Routledge boy.  "maybe it's an anagram?"

"Yes!  That's perfect! An anagram!" John B. chirped excitedly, nodding his head in approval.  "You need paper."

Without a single say in the matter, John B. was soon shoving a torn and smudged piece of yellowing paper into Pope's hands, forcing him to crack a code that might not even remotely be there to find.  Nonetheless Pope lowered himself down into a nearby chair and glanced carefully at the golden compass, but before he could attempt to write anything down, his focus was shattered by the harsh, howling crow of a rooster from behind the house.  "How can you concentrate with that thing constantly crowing at you?" He snipped under his breath.

John B. frowned at the harsh statement.  "JJ loves the rooster," He protested, clapping his friend warmly on the shoulder.

"I love the rooster!" Kiara exclaimed.

"Why haven't I even seen this rooster?" Willa muttered.

"Okay, okay—I need to focus," Pope Heyward sighed, motioning with his hands for the four other teenagers gathered around the table to back up and give him some space to think.  "Redfield . . . Red . . . Maybe it's a color—no, that's stupid."

"What about Ritalin?" JJ suggested.

"JJ, the clue is not going to be a central nervous system stimulant," Willa snipped.

"You never know."

"Oh, I most definitely know," The Deveraux daughter argued, matter-of-fact as she placed her jeweled hands on her narrow hips.  "That would be the most pathetic clue ever."

"Take that back," JJ snickered, pointing an aggressive finger in her chest. "'cause now you're insulting Big John."

"I'm not insulting anyone!"

As the two stubborn hot-heads from opposing sides of the island continued to bicker back and forth regardless the usefulness of a drug to declare the whereabouts of a long-lost father, elsewhere in the office Kiara was now hovered closely over Pope's tensed shoulders, trying to give her own two cents to the genius pogue.  "Maybe it's dreidel?" She offered.  "Fiddler?"

"Where the hell did you get those ideas?  The back of a cereal box?" Pope retorted coldly, sending Kiara a deadpanned stare. "Let's just stick with what we're—"

"Guys.  Somebody's here."

The two pairs of bickering teenagers immediately broke away from one another as they all hastily turned towards John B. Routledge's calling tone.  The sixteen year old was standing alone on the opposite side of his father's cold office, his back towards Willa and the others as he stared nervously between the narrow slants in the blinds, peering outward into a world that now only taunted of destruction and devastation. 

"Who is it?" Kiara Carrera demanded nervously. 

At the sight of the two darkly clothed, armed and burly figures making their way towards the Chateau, John B. Routledge slowly turned back to his worried friends, trying desperately to believe that this was not happening—that the five of them were not gathered so tightly in his father's dead-end office like sheep for the slaughter.

"John B.?" Willa Deveraux pleaded fearfully, her voice cracking.

And unbeknownst to any of the young teenagers, like a lone boat caught in the eye of a hurricane, the destruction and devastation of their intertwined worlds was only just beginning.

"It's them."

~~~~~~~~~~

wow, i never meant for this chapter to get this long, but here we are.. it's now officially the longest chapter of the book with over 7000 words... dear god.

this chapter was definitely a cringe fest? i don't know why, it killed me to write, but i'm happy that it's over.  writing willa as a snoop as not as fun as i thought it would be? but i hope you enjoyed it? i just really want to dive into the real narrative but we're getting there, slowly but surely..

soooo, just dropping in for another check in... how're we feeling about baby willa? anything y'all want to see from her in the future?! i'd really love to hear what y'all are thinking! aaaaaannnndddd how are the shipping wars going? since i know where a lot of people are currently lying with their ships for willa, can i ask why y'all are shipping who you're currently shipping? what makes you root for them?  how do you feel about them?!

anyways, i hope y'all enjoyed this craziness of a chapter!  there's more to come very soon!! i'd love to hear your thoughts and what you'd like to see next! so please, leave some votes and comments because your girl would really appreciate it! thanks for reading! and i hope y'all are having a lovely day or night.

stay safe and stay well.

--B.

i'd also just like to take a pause from our regularly scheduled shit-storm of memes to PRAISE THE TALENT OF MY DEAR FRIEND josephgordon-levitt . SHE IS CREATED THIS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING COVER AND MY HEART IS JUST SWELLING. THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH DEAR!!