"I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS."

emery muttered from where she was standing with levi. she and mara had been conned into spending the morning with her brother after they both slept late, meaning jj and john b were already off doing got knows what and pope and kie were probably at work.

"can you just stop?" he asked. "rafe and topper aren't that bad."

"forgetting the fact topper tried to drown john b, sure, they're absolutely peachy." mara replied, topper and rafe appearing from inside rafe's house.

"mara, emery." topper said, emery rolling her eyes and looking at levi.

"levi, tell topper i'm not talking to him." she said, levi rolling his eyes.

"can you stop being a bitch?" he dragged out.

"hey, man, don't call your sister a bitch." topper replied. "and ems, you can tell your friend i'm sorry, alright. although mara's boyfriend was pretty out of line too."

"y'all hear something?" emery asked, looking around and shrugging. "i didn't realize the grass could talk. or that it's voice would be so whiney and agitating and make me sick to my stomach."

mara was trying her best to hold her laughter in, while levi was only growing more and more agitated with his younger sister and her friend's antics.

"hey, kelce!" rafe yelled, the boy strolling over to join them, knocking topper on the shoulder.

"heard there was a little incident with emery's boys at the boneyard a couple days ago." he taunted, topper rolling his eyes as emery smirked.

"it's just in my head on repeat, y'know? like, 'your move broski'."

"bro, he had a semi-automatic pointed at your head. safety off." kelce replied, emery shoving past levi.

"if topper hadn't been trying to kill john b, jj would never even have gotten the gun out. stop acting like they were the only ones who did something wrong, you classist asshole." she spat, folding her arms as rafe took his sunglasses off, everyone following his gaze to where sarah was balanced on a downed electric pole.

"what is she doing?" topper mumbled as sarah tightrope walked across the pole.

"hey, there's fourteen thousand volts in those wires!" a neighbor shouted before the cameron's stepmother, rose saw what was going on.

"sarah, get down!" she yelled.

"rose, calm down, i'm an athlete! i got this."

"the only sports she's partaking in is hopping from homie to homie." mara muttered to emery, who didn't even try to hide her laughter.

"watch her fall and make a big drama out of it." rafe said, sounding completely unfazed by the thought.

"rafe, your sister's crazy." kelce said.

"she's something alright." emery said to mara, who laughed at her remark.

"sarah, get down." topper called, the girl only dancing further across the electric pole. "sarah, that's not funny."

"i can hear the white claws and frat house in this man's voice. it actually irks my soul." emery told mara, who nodded in agreement.

"i see her!" sarah called to the little girl who was standing on the other end of the pole.

suddenly the blonde kook let out a scream, falling down into the boat. the only people who seemed upset by this, however, were topper and the little girl.

sarah's head rolled over, and she looked at topper through the mess of her hair, picking up the end of and electric line laying next to her and swinging it around.

"you absolute sucker- topper, you should see your face!" she exclaimed.

"yeah, yeah, im sorry that i care." topper attempted to defend himself, but no one cared.

"i love seeing him get humbled." mara said to emery, who nodded, a shit-eating grin on her face.

"honestly, same. i have to give her credit, that one was good."

"it's disconnected." sarah continued, grabbing a stuffed animal which she handed off to the little girl, rafe putting his arm over topper's shoulder.

"congrats, pussy." he taunted. "you are officially her bitch. officially her bitch, did you know that?"

emery's phone buzzed in her pocket, messages from jj lighting up the screen, tell her that it was an sos and she needed to get to the chateau and bring mara.

"sorry to leave this- oh so fun gathering- but mara and i have obligations somewhere else. you guys have fun with bottom over there." emery said, gesturing to topper.

"lee, you coming?" mara asked, the brunette shaking his head.

"jj just told me ainsley's gonna be there." emery added, levi quickly telling the boys goodbye and following emery and mara to emery's car.

"by the way," emery started when they were already on the highway and were moving too fast for levi to bail out, looking at her brother in the rear view mirror. "i have no idea if ainsley's going to be here."

"you lied?" he asked in bewilderment, emery shrugging.

"you can thank me later, i can't have rafe and topper rotting your brain any further." she added flatly as she turned down john b's driveway.

"it's also your fault for believing her in the first place." mara defended her friend, emery's car stopping beside a black truck parked in the driveway.

"who's truck is that?" mara asked, emery wrinkling her eyebrows.

"i have no idea." she said, climbing out of her car and walking onto the porch. jj's backpack was sitting by the door, and the melville girl hesitated for a second before reaching inside and feeling for the gun. when she felt the cold metal on her fingertips, she immediately grabbed, undoing the clip to make sure it was loaded before clicking the safety off and slowly stepping inside the house.

"ems- what are you doing?" levi whisper-shouted, grabbing his sister's shoulder, the girl shoving him off and shushing him.

the two large men from the marsh emerged from big john's now opened office door- something emery had seen maybe twice throughout all the times she had spent the night at john b's.

she quickly backed out of the doorway, she and mara and levi pressing themselves against the wall, all breathing heavily as the men walked in and out of the house.

suddenly, what sounded like john b's rooster struggling echoed through the air, emery wrinkling her eyebrows and staring at the chicken coop across the lawn when the noise suddenly stopped.

"ratter! what're you doing? let's get the hell out of here!" one of the men called, and soon the sound of the truck pulling out of the driveway was heard. emery quickly clicked the safety back on jj's gun and jogged over to the chicken coop, opening the hatch on the roof to reveal jj, pope, kiara, john b, and ainsley all sitting inside.

"what the hell was that?" mara asked when she got to where emery was standing, the pogues all climbing out of the coop one by one.

"they were in your dad's office, i saw them carrying all kinds of shit out." emery said to john b breathlessly, a sudden guilt overwhelming her. she had the gun the whole time, why hadn't she done something, like fire a shot off just to scare the men. john b grabbed her shoulders, the brunette boy looking emery in the eyes.

"hey, hey, it's fine." the routledge assured quickly. "i didn't expect you to jump in and play hero- although you totally would've if lee hadn't stopped you- and besides, it's all just stuff."

"will someone please tell me what the hell is happening?" levi asked, john b turning to the melville boy.

"those are the guys who shot at us in the marsh. they broke into lana grubbs' house this morning and then came here, they're looking for the compass, which we found out has 'redfield' engraved in the back in my dad's handwriting." the brunette got out in one breath.

"i'm gonna need to like, bring you back to earth for a second." mara said, john b rolling his eyes as he turned to her. "because you need to put all that into actual english."

"get your grown out acrylics out of my face." john b snapped, shoving mara's hand that was moving in a circle around his head out of the way.

"okay, john." mara dragged out, the brunette gently pushing her out of the way and walking toward the twinkie, emery getting in the passenger seat and everyone else in the back.

"i mean, he had to know it would come back to me, right?" john b asked as he sped down the road, everyone knew he was talking about the compass. "a hidden message in a family heirloom? it has to mean something, right?"

"yeah, it's possible." kiara said, but pope wasn't having it.

"it's also possible that you're concocting wild theories to help process your sad feels." the dark haired boy said, emery rolling her eyes and looking at him in the rear view mirror.

"pope, babes, i love you, but my patience today is about as thin as the insulation in the walls of the chateau, and if you don't shut up i will come back there and smack the daylights out of you." she said flatly.

"who the hell hurt you?" jj asked.

"you hang out with rafe and topper all morning, tell me how happy you are afterwards." emery snapped, turning back to face the front.

"look, i'm not tripping out, okay!" john b shouted suddenly. "look, my dad is missing, okay? misssing. you have no idea what it's like to have the person closest to you vanish. just wake up every day wondering."

"it's been almost a year." kiara said from the back seat.

"he could be kidnapped." jj piped up. "that's definitely a possibility."

"he could be in a soviet sub being interrogated by the kgb." pope added.

"or atlantis."

"so, what do you think it means?" emery asked, referring to the compass.

"redfield. redfield lighthouse, my dad's favorite place."

the twinkie stopped short in front of the white picket fence surrounding redfield lighthouse. the group climbed out, pope shutting the passenger door behind emery.

"i don't feel like we should spook the lighthouse ranger with the whole scooby gang experience." mara suggested, the group looking up at the lighthouse.

"if you want to make out with jj behind a bush just say so." emery said, pushing john b towards the lighthouse. "i think we got this."

"you are such a hypocrite!" mara called, emery shrugging and turning on her heel to her friend while still walking backwards. "sorry, can't hear you over levi's horrible flirting with ainsley!" she yelled, her brother flipping her off before turning to talk to ainsley again.

ainsley and john b walked through the door of the lighthouse, ainsley looking up at the seemingly endless flights of stairs stretching in a spiral towards the top of the lighthouse.

"i don't vibe with this." emery told john b as the entire staircase popped under her feet with every step.

"yeah, hope you like stairs." john b sighed, starting to climb in front of emery.

"you're telling me you've been climbing these for years?" she asked, john b nodding.

"pretty much every weekend for a while, yeah." he explained, the two continuing to climb the stairs at a steady pace, a bird flying across the lighthouse echoed loudly, making emery jump slightly.

"i don't like this at all." she muttered, looking down at the rusted bolts holding the stairs in place and gripping the railing tightly with her right hand.

"we're almost there." john b assured, reaching back and squeezing her left hand reassuringly, giving her a soft smile while doing so.

"if we walked all the way up here just for this man to not be home, you're carrying me back down these stairs." emery deadpanned as the duo reached the door. john b rolled his eyes before muttered something about how dramatic she was before knocking heavily on the door.

"please, let the entire damn island know we're here." emery muttered, the door slowly opening.

"hi, we're here for the lighthouse." john b told the man, emery smiling and waving to the man from just behind john b.

"lighthouse is closed." tbe man said gruffly, slamming the door, emery's face dropping.

"thanks for nothing, bitch." emery muttered, john b scoffing.

"actually, we're not here for the lighthouse." he called. "we're here about the royal merchant."

the door slowly creaked open again.

"well then you've come to the right place." the man said through the small crack where his eye was visible.

kens speaks 🪐

hey guys

i've updated on my own accord for once without also forcing mara to update? this is revolutionary.

harringtonssss i apologize relentlessly for the lack of you in this chapter, i'll make it up to you in six i promise

i bought harry's house today and i already have fine line, so if i can find harry styles (the album) i'll officially have all of harry's albums on vinyl.

literally nothing happened this chapter and it irritates me

see you in chapter six!