࿔･ﾟ*࿐ ˏˋ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐕𝐈𝐈 ˎˊ 

────007, ocean eyes. 

WITH THE EVENTS OF THE NIGHT BEFORE NOW SEEMING LIKE A DISTANT NIGHTMARE, Cleo and Kiara slip absentmindedly back into a mundane routine not uncommon to the two girls, as if a year hasn't passed.

In the morning after using Kiara's shower to freshen up, scrubbing her skin clean of the sweat and grime from their day out on the marsh, and changing into a new pair of clothes, Cleo and Kiara can be found sat at the island in the girl's kitchen, each with a bowl of cereal before them. They're snickering to themselves over old jokes from their time together at school when Kiara's mother waltzes into the kitchen. She seems momentarily stunned by Cleo's presence, though not at all unwelcoming as she immediately is grinning from ear-to-ear. She's not sure where Kiara's father is, though she suspects he's already at work at the Wreck for the day.

"Cleo!" At once, Kiara's mother has closed the distance between her and the girl, pulling her into a warm hug. "Oh, it's so good to have you back! Kiara mentioned you were staying the summer. Did you spend the night?"

"Yes, I hope you don't mind," Cleo admits sheepishly. "Kiara offered, and I couldn't pass it up."

"It's no problem at all!" Mrs. Carrera says. "You're always welcomed at our house."

It's a simple offer, but it's one that she must mean wholeheartedly, and one that Cleo is fortunate for. As she lets go of Cleo and wanders over to the fridge, she asks aloud, "So, what are you girls up to today?"

"Oh, you know. Same old," Cleo quips lightly. "Solving mysteries and such."

"Sounds like a lot of work," Kiara's mother says this musingly, not entirely paying attention. Even if she had been, she most likely still would have thought Cleo's statement was a joke with the way she said despite it being anything but.

However, as Kiara finishes her breakfast and pushes the bowl away from her, she leaps off the island's stool and announces, "Which reminds me━━ Cleo, we should probably drop by John B's place. Make sure he's still breathing."

Cleo straightens up. Though Kiara's mention of John B is a sly reminder of the night before, the redheaded girl is admittedly a little worried now. What if those men had followed John B back to the Chateau? "Right."

"We'll see you later, mom. C'mon, Cleo!"

Kiara grabs Cleo's shoulder before she can say anything, yanking her off the stool and bounding out of the house. Behind them, they can hear Kiara's mother mumble something in a state of dumbfounded shock, though it drowns out amongst Kiara's voice as she promises to be home later. In the scramble to flee the house before they can be stopped, Cleo can't help but laugh out loud, quivering with undisputed and cheerful mirth.

She meets Kiara's mischievously twinkling eyes as she looks over her shoulders at the girl, before pulling her off to start their day.

If only they knew what lay ahead.

✧˖*°࿐

BY THE TIME CLEO AND KIARA HAVE ARRIVED AT THE CHATEAU, the boys are already there splayed out on the porch.

It seems they've only just arrived as well, especially John B and JJ who appear to be in a panicked frenzy. John B seems to be in a hollow daze, leaning against the railing of the porch with his arms folded over his chest, whilst JJ paces impatiently back and forth. Pope is there, too, leaning forward on one of the sofas shoved up against the structure of the house, though he's mostly lost, brows knitting together as the trio await the girl's in a pressed silence.

"Jesus, you both look terrible," Kiara remarks once the girls have climbed up onto the porch, looking between both John B and JJ.

Sensing a pregnant tension lingering in the air, Cleo asks carefully, "What's wrong?"

"Don't know," Pope says, lips pulled taut in a thin line. "They dragged me over here in a rush and haven't said anything since."

"We've been waiting for you guys," John B explains.

"Okay..." Kiara trails off warily, her stare now contorting into one of apprehension. She sinks into a pine green wicker armchair next to John B. "Why?"

"We saw them again." The panicked voice comes from JJ this time. When all eyes land on him, he corrects himself frantically. "Those guys that shot at us in the marsh."

Cleo's heart jolts in her chest. Suddenly, her palms grow clammy, and she wobbles over to the sofa Pope is one, sinking down next to him.

"Holy shit," Pope gaps at once. "Where?"

"He wanted to ask Ms. Lana━━Scooter Grubb's wife━━about the compass we found in Scooter's boat," JJ says, jabbing his hand in John B's general direction. He's begun pacing again, closest to Cleo. Somewhere in the background, a rooster from the coup in the yard of the Chateau croaks aloud.

"So we go there, right, and as we're walking up to her house we hear yelling from inside. Like intense arguing, dude, and shit's being thrown all over. Ms. Lana is crying hysterically. And then we were right outside like this━━" He tosses himself against the brick wall of the Chateau's porch, back pressed firmly against it. "And all we hear is just 'Bam! Bam! Bam!'" He jabs the air with a balled fist as if to emphasize each utterance. "Knocking paint off the wall, G! From the inside. All right? And I'm just looking at him like━━ Wait, first off, look at this shit━━"

He pauses his story briefly and pushes himself off the wall. As he comes into the middle of the group, he leans over just enough to brandish the top of his head to everyone and rakes his fingers through his blonde tresses messy it up thoroughly. In the process, flecks of tiny white particles float from him and onto the ground.

"Look at it!"

"Chill out!" Pope's face contorts with discomfort. He shifts away to the very corner of the couch, holding his hands out in defense as if to steady the boy. "Okay, thank you!"

"That's dandruff," Kiara points out sardonically, her nose scrunching up in disdain. "Disgusting."

"Look at all that!" JJ finally straightens up, pointing at the floorboards of the porch where smudges of paint litter at his feet in a varying pattern. He's breathless now, chest heaving and falling from his outburst and alarm glazing over his pupils. "All right? That's paint. At that point, I was just, like━━ I'm waiting for death."

Cleo exchanges glances with Kiara then Pope, each of them equally as confused and lost as the other.

"O-Okay," Pope stammers then, fumbling to make sense of JJ's incoherency. "So you saw the guys that shot at us, right?"

"Yeah." JJ is pacing once more, turning to look out at the front yard of the Chateau.

"Did you get a good description of them, at least?" Cleo presses. "What did they look like?"

"Anything?" Kiara adds as a thoughtful suggestion. "Anything's helpful."

Pope nods in a rush, leaning forward on the edge of the sofa. "Anything we can bring to, like, a police report, maybe?"

"Yeah," Cleo and Kiara agree.

JJ gives a small shake of his head. He rounds on the rest, saying helplessly, "Burly."

"Burly?" Pope repeats, exasperated.

"Yeah. You know, like━━"

"That's not very helpful," Kiara scoffs snidely.

"Okay, well, no!" JJ is scowling now, his words thinning as they hinge on eager frustration. "Like the type of guy at my dad's garage. I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers━━"

"Yeah, yes. No, we know." Kiara's voice is short and snappy, though Cleo assumes she doesn't mean it. In a time of desperation, everyone sat upon the porch is saturated in a dense agitation that cannot be shaken; there was no time to hear JJ's rambling.

"So, then, I can tell you with full confidence, guys━━ These boys, these killers━━" By now, JJ has backed himself up to the wall again, falling limply against it. He fishes a dab pen from within his pockets and takes a brief drag in an attempt to calm himself. As he exhales out the smoke from his nostrils and mouth, swirling thick clouds hanging tangible in the air for a moment before evaporating, he says breathlessly, "They're square groupers."

"They're square groupers. Like narco square grouper?" Pope buries his face in his hands, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes, before looking back up at JJ jadedly. "Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?"

JJ takes another drag and nods in despair. "Yeah, man."

"You guys━━" Kiara rolls her eyes, growing impatient, "not everything is a kingpin movie."

"Okay, so━━" Pope bounces on the edge of his seat, jostling the sofa beneath Cleo. She's having trouble keeping up once more, thoughts scrambling to piece together everything JJ is saying. His stare hardens as he criticizes the clearly dishevelled boy. "What does this square grouper look like specifically? If you're throwing it out there━━"

JJ quivers with vexation, snapping in an accusatory manner, "You weren't there bro━━"

"Because apparently you don't know what to look for!" But Pope is hardly paying attention, instead speaking over the boy with heightened mania dripping from his every word.

"Dude!" JJ rounds on the boy, gasping for air. He looks crazed as he rambles on in his defense, hair sticking up in every which direction. A vein bulges on his neck as he continues to seethe, clearly still very stressed. "I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time, man! I was under duress, okay?"

At this, Pope falls silent. It's hard not to note the delirium in JJ's tone and ignore this situation as anything but gravely serious. He settles back against the sofa, folding his arms over his chest as he listens.

"But I can tell you━━" JJ's voice cracks. He takes a moment then in an attempt to calm his shrill nerves, breathing in deeply through his nose. As he lets out a shaking breath of air, his stare sweeps drastically across the group. "I can tell you by the way that Ms. Lana was screaming, that these guys━━ They're serious, serious hombres, man."

No one speaks as JJ finishes his rampage. Instead, Cleo notices John B becoming fixated on the compass he has since fished out of his pocket, staring at the dial. Cleo wonders if maybe what most of JJ says isn't just wild speculation, after all. She'd have warrant to believe these men, whoever they are, are involved in something much more serious and far out of the group's limits.

"It's a heavy vibe right now, okay?" JJ breathes out steadily. "I'm not liking this very much."

As a thought pops into Cleo's head, she looks from JJ to John B and back again. "Okay, but... Why would they want the compass?"

"That thing's a piece of shit," Pope agrees. "You couldn't pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to." Then, offhandedly, with his eyes widening in horror, he looks apologetically over at John B, "No offense, John B. I know it's, like, in your family━━"

"The office." The single utterance coming from John B has each and every one of them looking inquisitively up at him.

"What?" Pope mumbles, befuddled.

"My dad. My dad's office," John B explains. A distant thought clouds his vision, and suddenly he's moving towards the front door of the house. "He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research. I mean━━" By now, the rest have scrambled to follow suit as he leads the way into the Chateau. "We used to laugh at him like he was actually gonna find it, but now that's he's gone, I've just kinda━━ I just left it as he kept it."

He comes to a sudden pause outside one closed door in his house. The others have crammed in behind him, Kiara the closest to the boy as he plucks his keychain from his pockets with a jubilant chime. As he sifts through the collection of keys, Kiara nods understandingly.

"Yeah," she says brightly. "For when he gets back."

"Yeah..." John B mumbles, distracted once more.

Fortunately, he doesn't notice the way in which Kiara shoots the rest of the group a threatening look, as if cautioning them not to object or protest this hopeful claim. Cleo would never say anything to berate John B or his father, though up until she had seen for herself the fact that Big John's compass was in Scooter Grubb's boat, she hadn't believed herself if John B's father truly was still lost at sea. But now? Now, with every jaded piece of the puzzle slowly coming together, Cleo was beginning to have her own suspicions.

John B finds the right key then, shoving it into the padlock bolting shut the door and unlocking it with a click. He hesitates before reaching out to grab the door handle, anticipation crawling upon his skin. Even Cleo awaits the reveal in silent awe, never once having seen what lay beyond the door in all her years of exploring the Chateau. When John B pushes open the door and waltzes inside, she has to take a moment to survey her surroundings. She isn't alone though, as the others stumble inside with her, gawking about the mysterious room.

Upon first glance, it appears to be a typical cluttered office of a man devoted to a lost cause. Books and papers litter every inch of the space, piled on top of piles on desks and in corners. Maps and newspaper article clippings are tacked to the walls, and on one side of the room are shelves stacked high with boxes filled to the brim and overflowing with more important looking documents. But Cleo knows that if she were to look hard enough, she would find the man's inner workings of his brain and the passion that made him pursue the sunken vessel for so many years. It's strange to witness it all. Everything is so still, untouched and unmoved. A thin layer of dust has settled on top of every surface of the room and linger in a poised manner in the air, illuminated by the golden rays of the afternoon light seeping in through the two windows in the room, and, to Cleo, it looks as if the office were simply frozen in time, awaiting the return of its rightful owner. The deeper she wanders into the office, the less welcome she feels, as if she's stepping foot into something so private and secret that she should not be looking at.

"Wow," Pope murmurs pensively. He's looking around wildly, wide eyes scanning every nook and cranny of the room. "I've slept over here like six-hundred times, and I've never seen this door opened."

Kiara hums in agreement, though doesn't say anything else. Instead, the rest gravitate to certain corners of the room, different objects sticking out to their attention. John B, however, moves straight to a corkboard propped up in one corner. He comes to the desk in the middle of the room and places the board on top of it, though he holds it to make certain it's steady. A quick sweeping gaze shows Cleo that the board is tacked full of aged sepia and black and white photographs and pieces of paper with jagged writing.

"Here, look━━" John B says, pointing his index finger at one picture in particular. As Cleo moves closer to grab a better look, she makes out the shadowy figure of a stern looking man adorned in an officer's uniform. "This is the original owner, right here."

"Okay━━" Kiara stands across from the boy, peering down at the board as she reads aloud, "Robert Q. Routledge, 1880 to 1920." She points to the lower half of the photograph, in which Cleo sees a small familiar circular shape. "There's the lucky compass right there."

"Actually, um... he was shot after he bought it━━" John B's gloomy revelation is broken only by the sound of a rooster crowing. Changing the subject, he adds, "Then the compass was shipped back to Henry."

He points below the first photo to another man. The heading reads Henry P. Routledge. 1919 - 1947. The man pictured in this photograph looks much more jovial, smiling at the camera, dressed in a sloppy button-up shirt and an apron. "He was killed in a crop-dusting accident when he had the compass━━"

He points to another picture closer to it's left, reading Stephen W. Routledge. 1943 - 1974. The picture of this man looks grave, ink blotched paper saturated with water damage contorting the man in a soldier's uniform in the midst of a jungle-covered area. "After he died, the compass was given to Stephen. Stephen had the compass with him when he died in Vietnam."

"Let me guess," JJ muses. "He died in action, right?"

"Sort of," John B admits. "Uh, actually, he was killed by a banana truck. In country. Anyways━━ After that, Stephen passed the compass down to him━━" He points to one last photograph, more recent in nature. "My dad."

John B's father stands next to the boy, at the time no more than a handful of years old. He's smiling contentedly at the camera, untroubled and unbothered, far younger than Cleo ever remembered him looking like. When Cleo chances a glance over at the boy, he's gazing down at the picture, lost for a moment.

"Hm." JJ ponders aloud. "Sounds like there's a reoccuring theme here."

"Yeah, um, you have a death compass," Pope quips.

John B rolls his eyes at the boys' superstitious beliefs. "No, I do not have a━━"

"You have a death compass, John B," Pope presses, a bit more firmly.

"Seriously, dude, get rid of it," JJ agrees. "It's cursed, and it's made its way back to you."

John B sighs. He pushes himself away from the table and the group, wandering over to his father's desk. He sinks onto a chair Cleo hadn't noticed was there amongst the towering piles of documents.

"Look, my dad used to talk about this compartment in here━━" He's looking now at the compass, holding it up in the sun's light. "Soldiers used to hide secret notes."

Flipping it over in his hands, he unscrews the backing of the compass and shakes the actual device upside down, hoping for something to fall from it. As he's distracted by it, something in the sun's reflection on the compass catches Cleo's eyes. A harsh scratching of lines, squished together in one incoherent thought.

"What's that?" she asks, pointing at it.

John B grows rigid. Now, staring at the backing piece, he holds it up for both himself and the others to see. "That wasn't there before..."

His head snaps up abruptly, wild eyes staring around frantically at the group as realization pinches at his face.

"This is my dad's handwriting!"

"How can you know that?" Pope scoffs dubiously.

"Because he does these weird R's with the━━" He extends his arm higher for Pope to examine. The sharp edges of the typically rounded bump on the R is hard to mistaken as anything but unique. Cleo has seen it even now sprawled out in a myriad of places across Big John's office. "See it?"

"Can I see it?" JJ asks. As John B hands the backing to JJ, he squints his eyes as if that will help him make out the jumble of letters. "Red━━ Rout━━ No, I think that's an A━━"

"It says Redfield," Kiara whispers, astounded.

"Right."

"Okay, well... What's Redfield?" Cleo asks.

"Besides the most common name in the county," Pope murmurs, sarcasm dripping from his every word.

John B runs a hand over his tired face, thinking. Another choked crow of a rooster pierces the stillness of the office. "Maybe━━ Maybe it's a clue. Maybe it's a clue to where he's hiding."

"A clue?" Pope repeats warily. "Come on, that's━━"

But he's interrupted when he shakes his head disapprovingly and catches Kiara's piercing gaze as his eyes flicker upwards. It goes unnoticed by John B, but certainly is noticed by Pope who clamps his mouth shut at once. He clears his throat, an air of awkwardness settling in as his words are lost under Kiara's stern warning that doesn't need to be vocalized. It's a clear reminder of what she had enforced only moments prior at the threshold of the locked door to John B's father's office.

Scrambling to correct himself while shooting John B a wide-eyed timid look, Pope adds clumsily, "But... If it is a clue, maybe it's an anagram?"

"Yes! Perfect! Anagram━━" John B's face illuminates at this suggestion. He points to Pope with his index finger, as if commending the boy for his brilliance. He pushes himself up off the chair at the desk, turns around with hasty eyes scanning the shelves behind him, and snatching a few crumpled sheets of blank pages and a pen. "You need paper! Here you go━━"

He shoves it towards Pope and onto the table the group had previously been surrounding. As Pope takes it, the rooster somewhere beyond the Chateau's walls lets out a defiant howl so loud it makes Cleo wince.

It startles Pope too, who admonishes fixedly, "How can you concentrate with that thing constantly crowing at you?"

John B simply shrugs. "JJ loves the rooster."

"I love the rooster," Kiara adds earnestly.

Cleo can only nod in agreement. As a child, she could remember days spent with her friends at John B's home spending hours feeding and playing with the roosters on the yard. They weren't necessarily the cutest of creatures to ogle at, but they were in a strange way. So innocently naive in nature, Cleo could probably watch them for hours━━that, and she knew of JJ's odd fondness towards them.

"Okay, let me think. Um━━" Pope trails off. As John B becomes distracted elsewhere, the others hover over Pope's shoulder as he rumulates his thoughts. Muttering to himself as he does so, Cleo finds him sprawling down immediate ideas that seem to spring to his mind. "Dedfiel. Colours━━ No, that's stupid."

"What about, like, Ritalin?" JJ asks. As the group continue to discuss amongst themselves, Cleo wanders off, surveying the office. She comes to stand near John B who is sifting through stacks of paper, and reaches out to run her fingers along the clippings pasted to the wall, lost in her own meanderings. As she turns to look at the papers on the desk, she catches sight of something moving out of the corner of her lashes through the window directly across from her.

"Dreidel? Fiddler?" Kiara suggests, her voice distant musings to Cleo.

"Defile," Pope is saying. "Does that mean anything to anyone━━"

Cleo narrows her eyes in a squint. Peaking through the golden light that filters in past the opened shutter blinds on the window, Cleo spots the distinctive shape of a vehicle pulling up to the Chateau's gravel driveway, just behind John B's beloved and cherished van. Though an inconspicuous sight on any other day, the new arrival of a set of strangers in a foreign black car is an unsavory feeling strong enough to make Cleo's stomach knot uncomfortably. Still, warning herself not to get ahead of her own rational thoughts in her mind and favoring a more optimistic approach, she asks John B quietly, voice treading on caution and skepticism.

"DCS?"

John B's head snaps up almost immediately from beside her. Wide, vigilant eyes poke outside to his front yard and suddenly it seems as if he's seen a ghost, only affirming Cleo's guttural feeling. He shakes his head once, briefly meeting Cleo's numb expression.

"Guys?" He calls out to the others. Over their bickering and musing to themselves, his voice is hardly heard; so, he tries again, this time craning his neck to look over at the group. "Guys! Somebody's here."

At once, the office falls eerily silent. Intrigued by John B's abrupt and cryptic outburst, they stumble over, one-by-one, to the windows, crowding beside Cleo and the boy. In the noiseless hush, Cleo's able to focus her gaze, straining her vision a little harder to catch a glimmer of sight of whoever these newcomers are. Then, all at once, she's gasping aloud.

Because climbing out of the car is not Peterkin or some sort of DCS official, but the men from the marsh. Despite the calamity of being chased after and gunned at without a chance to properly see them, it's hard to misplace them now. Distinguishable features stand out to Cleo in her mind, even though she's only just staring at them in whole now. JJ had been right in describing them as burly, though it falls short in conveying just how menacing they truly look. The man that leads the way is a bit taller than the other, a nappy beard obscuring most of his face, while the other shorter man's eyes are covered mostly by a curtain of unruly hair. They march towards the house, obvious clear intentions in mind as they walk with a sense of purpose, though they survey the grounds of the Chateau, presumably for any signs of living. For now, the lurking presence of the five stowed away in the office goes unnoticed by them; but Cleo and her friends have certainly recognized them. The realization is uncanny, a sudden tangible shift in the atmosphere of the office making the air almost stifling.

From beside Cleo, Kiara gaps audibly. She takes a step back and bumps into the girl, her hand at once flying out to grip Cleo's wrist firmly. When she speaks, her voice trembles in fright. "Guys. Guys, is that them?"

"No..." JJ's face falls short as he grumbles this under his breath, pulling away from the window.

"Is that them?" Cleo presses, echoing Kiara's unanswered question. But she knows it's them; they all know it's the same men from the marsh. Asking the question, in Cleo's mind, was just a means of hoping and praying that perhaps there's a small chance she's wrong. That the others will maybe not recognize the men, and soothe Cleo's frantically racing heart.

Pope shuffles his feet nervously from the other side of Cleo. She can hear him mumbling in a daze, though it sounds to her as if he's a million miles from her. "This is suboptimal."

"John B, I told you man━━" JJ begins, voice wearing thin under looming trepidation. Cleo can only watch, helpless both physically as she realizes she hasn't moved a muscle since spotting the men and uncertain of how to approach JJ still despite her wanting nothing more than to comfort him. From the moment she's stepped foot into the Chateau that day, the boy had been in near hysterics. "Why does it always━━"

"JJ. Hey! Hey━━" John B interrupts him, rounding on him without warning. "Look at me━━" He's closed the distance between him and the boy in a matter of seconds, balling his fists up as he grabs a hold of the fabric on the front of JJ's shirt. The two of them stumble back for a moment and JJ, cumbersome by John B's sudden velocity, slams into the shut door of the office behind him. Leaning in close to the blonde haired boy, John B's voice falls to nothing short of a rushed whisper, as if already frightened that the men outside will hear. "Where's the gun?"

As the question rolls off of John B's tongue, Cleo instantly understands that it isn't so much a question as a demand and the sheer thought alone of someone like John B resorting to using the firearm in a situation such as this sheds light on just how dire the moment is. In the morning, when Cleo had woken up in Kiara's room, she couldn't have possibly imagined this as being what the day had in store for her. She was beginning to regret more and more each and every day taking her grandmother's advice.

"Gun?" JJ stammers, clamping his eyes shut. He takes a moment to recollect himself but the visible distress on his face is hard to ignore, from his knitted eyebrows deepening into a frown and his clenched jaw. "I, uh... I can't━━"

"Now you don't have the gun? The one time we need the gun?" Kiara's question comes in a startling whimpering sob. Fear glazes over her eyes and she reaches up to cover her quivering mouth with clamped hands.

"It was in my backpack," JJ says. "And then I━━"

"On the porch." John B comes to this realization just before JJ, who utters the same thing.

Without a second's hesitation, JJ's eyes shoot up and he dashes for the office door, prying it open as he runs for the porch. The moment he's stepped foot over the threshold, Cleo's heart lurches in her chest and her instinctual thought to call out to him is hardly smothered by her, his supposed resentment for her fading into nothingness in the face of danger. Who could possibly tell where the men were now? If JJ risked exposing himself on the porch, he risked exposing the rest of his friends and, even worse still, his own safety.

"JJ, no━━" She's just crossed the threshold herself as John B reaches out to stop her when a startling noise halts all of them.

Sounding from just outside the front door of the Chateau on the porch is a booming voice that yells so gutturally loud, it makes each and every one of them jump. "John Routledge!"

At once, JJ is scrambling back towards the office, losing his balance and nearly toppling over onto the ground in his haste before regaining his posture. He's made it back to the office in a blink of an eye, cold hands grabbing Cleo's waist and tugging her back into the room before she can even think to utter a word.

"Guys━━" Kiara squeaks, petrified in her spot. Pope is somewhere beside her, all the colour having since drawined from his face.

"Come on out now!" One of the men thunder, voices even imperiously closer now.

As soon as JJ has shoved Cleo back into the room, he fumbles to shut and lock the door, leaning against it with his shoulder and his ear pressed against the pane of wood.

"Where's the compass?" John B asks in a whisper, his voice barely audible over the sound of Cleo's heart thrumming in her ears. Ever since JJ has pulled her back into the room, she hasn't moved from her spot, eyes wide with horror. "Where's the gun?"

"They're on the front porch, guys," JJ answers grimly.

From somewhere outside the office, the two men can be heard shouting still. "Get out here!"

"Routledge!"

This time, their voices carry even closer and Cleo suspects that they must have entered the home by now. Heavy, thudding footsteps follow their grunts, accompanied by the familiar creaking of the Chateau's floorboards beneath them, and a chaotic frenzy of crashing and thrashing that makes Cleo aware of the fact that they must be tearing the home apart, tossing about furniture and smashing glass.

"We gotta leave," Kiara urges. But how? The men had effectively cornered the group in the office, and it's only a matter of time before they search the locked room. An idea surfaces in Kiara's mind then that has her jolting forward. Exclaiming in a hushed whisper, she says, "Guys, the window!"

Pope and JJ leap for the window without a second's hesitation, though their attempt at prying open the sill falls short as it won't budge under both of their efforts. John B is left standing by the door, hands planted firmly behind his head and eyes squeezed shut in an attempt to focus.

"What━━ What's happening?" Kiara cries. "Why is it taking so long?"

"It's painted shut, okay?" JJ snaps, voice unintentionally harsher than intending.

It's hard to think over the continuous unnerving shouts from the men on the other side of the door. But Cleo had already deduced the reasoning for their struggle, eyes surveying the window ledge as the boys labored on opening it. She's at the desk in front of the window by the time JJ speaks, sifting through pages and pushing aside books until she finds a particular item she had noticed in passing moments ago. Pulling it from the amass of papers, she procures a letter opener that she grips tightly and hurries over to the boys. "Okay, guys. Here, I got it━━"

"Where the hell's that compass?"

"Hey, check the back room!"

The boys part to make room for Cleo who, with shaking hands, probes the sharp tip of the letter opener along the edge of the windowsill. It's much harder than she expected, having to dig away at the paint and the wood erosion to chip at it.

"Come on," JJ mutters impatiently over her shoulder.

"I'm going as fast as I can," Cleo retorts, a tremble in her words.

Neither of them seem to realize that the calamity on the other side of the office door has all but fallen silent until they hear John B and Pope both shush them as quietly as they can. When they turn to look, both the boys are by the door this time, their backs pressed up against it. In the prolonged stretch of silence that seems to last for an eternity, Cleo waits with bated breath, too stunned to keep working when━━

The doorknob rattles. On the other end, someone tries to push it open, but upon being met with both Pope and John B's body weight as leverage on the inside, it jams, and the perpetrator is instantly made aware of this. Another shove of the door from the outside starts Cleo back to work, nearly losing her grip on the letter opener as she rushes to continue.

"You better not be in there!"

This time, the door quivers in place as the man on the other side must start kicking at it. Both John B and Pope sprint away from it, and Cleo can't help but look back once more as she sees the feeble door begin to splinter on the frame around the doorknob. Foreign hands grip the letter opener in Cleo's slackened hold and she only has a split moment to realize it's JJ before he's gently nudged her out of the way to take over. A few more seconds and JJ's shoving the window open with an exasperated exclamation. "Okay, guys, we got it. Let's go!"

He's the first one to climb outside, followed by Kiara and Pope. As they both regain their balance, John B beckons for Cleo to go next, steadying her as she clambers up onto the windowsill and shimmies her body outside. She jumps onto the ground beneath her, fortunate their escape plan incorporated a home on all one level; otherwise, a jump from an even higher height might have put her off entirely. In their rush to flee the scene, Cleo is straightened up by JJ who grabs her arm and tugs her out of the way just in time for John B to make his way out. She's fortunate anyway for his presence, uncertain of whether or not she would have been able to move on her own.

"Now what?" Pope asks miserably.

"I've got an idea," John B says. "Come on. Follow me! The chicken coop."

As the rest scurry to keep up with John B as he rushes across the lawn, Cleo pauses. She turns back to the window, though JJ is the only one who notices. He fumbles to chase after her, hissing, "Are you insane, C? What are you doing?"

"I'm helping!" she retorts. Without bothering to explain herself, she reaches up to grab at the window and slides it back down into place, so as not to draw even more attention to themselves.

But just as she does so, she's interrupted by the unmistakable startling sound of a gunshot being fired. For a moment, Cleo thinks they've been found out; that maybe they're the ones being shot at again. In the frantic blur and the sharp pain that throbs in her ear from the echo of the shot being so near, she doesn't notice that it was the jammed door from within the office the men had been shooting. In the few short seconds that she has, she sees the door swing open and two shadowy figures emerge when JJ yanks her down below the window and out of sight. The palm of his hand flies up to clamp over her mouth before she can make a sound, and as she sinks against him onto the ground, he shoots her a heedful warning of a look. Then, carefully, he silently gestures for her to follow him.

With her heart in her throat, she tiptoes away from the window and the Chateau in JJ's footsteps, both of them crouched low until they've made it a safe enough distance away. Then, the both of them make chase for the coop only a few feet away. The dilapidated, forgotten small shack is as good a hiding place as any and Cleo, in that moment, decides beggars cannot be choosers. By the time they've reached the coop, the others are already crammed inside. Cleo shoves her way in and wedges herself between Pope and Kiara as JJ dives messily into the small space, landing haphazardly on the hay-covered ground.

Cleo isn't certain how long they remain hidden, though the seconds seem to tick on for an eternity despite it most likely having only been a handful of dreadful minutes. The havoc in the Chateau has all but halted now, and Cleo doesn't know where the men have gone until she sees them making their way out through the back door of the Chateau, carrying cratefulls of papers and books towards their truck that she can only discern were Big John's years of research on the Royal Merchant. But the confusing details of their situation and whoever these mysterious men are fade into the foreground━━especially now, with the rooster and chickens that the group share the space with begin to grow distraught and uncomfortable with the filled coop. The incessant clucking of the chickens and the cawing of the rooster has been going on now even prior to the men leaving the Chateau and is certainly a warning to them.

"Do something, Pope." This snarl comes from JJ now, shooting a glare over at the rooster heckling the other boy. "Shut him up."

"What do you want me to do?" Pope retaliates, clearly irritated.

"Pet it, or something, or talk to it! I don't know!" Kiara lets out an involuntary sob.

One of the chickens squawk considerably louder than usual. As it does so, Cleo, through the small holes of the netting on the coop, spots one of the men turn sharply towards the small shed. The others that have been watching grow rigid, each of them falling back out of the sight from the visibility of the netting and openings of the coop. From the corner of her eye, Cleo can see the man narrow his stare into a glower before pushing himself forward with measured steps towards the coop. As he does so, another chicken scurries away from Pope's attempt at swatting it away, flapping its wings unintelligibly.

It's in that moment that Cleo has the shuddering and sobering realization that she could very well meet her demise. She hadn't thought about her death so lightly before, and certainly never after her mother's passing. It was a topic never worth discussing to her━━not when she was the kind of person to daydream about every whimsical aspect of life that it has to offer. But now? Now, she didn't know what to think, too shocked to respond. Perhaps this is what her father had meant when he warned her to stay away from her friends.

It'll be okay. It'll be okay. It'll be okay, she tries to tell herself, repeating the words over and over in a fretful mantra that seem to lose focus the closer she imagines the man stepping towards the coop.

She can hear Pope grunt "You do something!" to an aggravated JJ over the chicken's troubled presence.

JJ attempts to reach out for it but misses once as it stutters away. He tries a second time, and this time grabs a hold of it, scooping it up into his hands. He wrestles with it for a moment before overpowering it, fists clutching the creature's feeble neck as he shoves it beneath him while it continues to cluck wildly. Cleo can only watch so far, though pieces of the puzzles she puts together in her mind that paints the rest of the picture prompts her to look away, squeezing her eyes shut. It's short and swift, and the chicken's noisy outburst is cut short all at once.

Tears threaten to brim at her lashes, but she forces them away, biting harshly down on the tip of her tongue. Somewhere to her left, she can hear Kiara stifle her own sobs. She prays JJ's sacrifice isn't in vain; that the man will just turn and walk away. Fearing she may cry out, she presses her palm over her mouth, then cowers behind her hands as she awaits their doom. But it never comes. Just when she thinks she can take it no longer, one of the other men beyond the coop is shouting aloud to the other.

"Ratter! What the hell are you doin'? Let's go!"

It's a fortunate sign, albeit muddled and dampened. Cleo doesn't let herself believe they're in the clear until only after she's heard the sound of receding footsteps and a car engine start. When the men are long gone, the group find themselves still stowed away in the coop, too startled to move.

Once Cleo musters the nerve to open her eyes and take in her surroundings, she spots JJ first and foremost, staring unblinkingly down at the ground as a certain look glazes over his ocean eyes.

And despite it all━━despite her own fear that has her rigid in place and JJ's hatred for her now━━she wants nothing more than to comfort him instead. To close the distance between them, hold him tight, tell him everything will be okay━━if only just to hear it back from him.

✧˖*°࿐

AUTHOR'S NOTE,

poor cleo, she has no idea what to expect from all of this and definitely doesn't deserve any of this stress, plus all she wants is jj's affection, but he's being a turd. also not to be a simp for cleo and jj but ocean eyes by the queen billie eilish is their song; i've declared it here and now. next chapter will hopefully finally shed some light on all their angst tho!! thanks for reading, as always!