chapter six !
❪ country club ❫

ISABEL WORKED at a country club. She was a waitress / server for the dining area that took place in figure eight, the area and people she hated the most.

She worked on washing the dishes and drying them. The pattern repeated and repeated. The job was good pay, don't get her wrong, but the kooks she sometimes has to deal with just makes her want to dump the food on them instead of serving it to them.

Good thing about Isabel though is that sometimes she knows how to calm herself down. Key word; Sometimes.

Her white polo uniform shirt was slightly dirty from food grease but her jean shorts remained untouched.

Isabel's movements were interrupted when someone cleared their throat behind her. She turned around and wanted to scoff.

Her creepy boss that she hated. Jerry.

"Hey gorgeous," He smirked. "Table two is waiting for their order to be taken."

Isabel rolled her eyes, threw the cloth on the counter and grabbed her black apron. She tied it around her waist and took the notepad and pen that was lying there.

She spectated the place, looking for the table that was assigned to her. When she found it... Isabel wanted to turn back around.

Sitting at table two was Topper and his girlfriend, Sarah Cameron with Rafe and Kelce along with Kelce's girlfriend. God, she couldn't stand any of them.

She made sure to take a deep breath and walked towards the teens. The kooks stopped chattering when Isabel stood by their table with a fake tight smile.

They knew she wanted to be anywhere but near them. "Hi, what would y'all like today?"

Kelce looked away, covering his mouth but it was no use since a snort came out. Topper and Kelce's girlfriend laughed along with him but Sarah and Rafe just stood quiet.

"What's so funny?" The blonde murmured to Topper.

The kook ignored his girlfriend's question and looked back up at Isabel, who was already glaring at him.

"Um," He cleared his throat. "Us four will just have salads and also one crispy hamburger with a side of fries for my girlfriend." He answered with a hidden smug.

"Um, does the salad come with tomatoes?" Kelce's girlfriend asked, staring at the menu.

"What do you think?" The Benson girl narrowed her eyes at the girl.

"Woah, woah," Kelce interrupted, "Is that how you're supposed to talk to your customers? Who is apart of your paycheck by the way."

"Yeah." Topper agreed. "We don't want to have to leave a bad review, right guys?" Glancing around his table, he earned some nods. Sarah didn't though and Rafe seemed zoned out of the conversation.

"Hm, yeah," Isabel nodded her head. "I don't want to have to steal another guitar and bang it on you again for you to learn your lesson, right?"

"That shit wasn't cool." Topper gritted through his teeth. "You're lucky that I didn't press charges."

"Well, assuming you were literally drowning my friend I don't think the charges would even go through." She barked back.

"And it was okay that your boy, JJ, aimed a gun to my head?"

"I'm disappointed it didn't go off–"

"Your friends had it coming," Rafe interrupted. Isabel shifted her gaze away from Topper and to the Cameron boy.

"We don't have time for your BS." Kelce's girlfriend growled. "So can you hurry up?"

Isabel sent daggers to the table before scribbling their order on the notepad. "Drinks?"

"I'll have a sparkling water," Kelce spoke.

"Just a regular water for me," Sarah mumbled.

"Sprite."

Topper hummed. "Regular water."

"Coke," Rafe added.

Isabel let out a bitter chuckle, "Not surprised." She mumbled as she wrote their drinks down.

The table erupted with small gasps until Kelce bursted out laughing. Rafe stared at Isabel, his gaze hardening on her.

His face turned a little red from the anger and embarrassment that was coming out. He had it coming, she thought to herself.

"Your food will be right with you," She plastered a fraud smile on her face. And with that, she walked away.

Rafe kept his stare on her even when she went around the counter and gave the cooks the order through the small window. After that, she started to prepare the drinks.

"Dude what's her deal?" Kelce asked them.

Topper scoffed, unsurprised with the Benson girl's actions. "Isabel can act like a real bitch sometimes."

"Guys stop," Sarah scolded.

"Why?" He shrugged. "You both hate each other so why are you defending her?" Topper looked at his girlfriend confusedly.

"She's not that bad," Sarah kept her eye on the girl. "Isabel just had a tough life."

Kelce leaned his head in. "Tough life like how?"

"I mean her dad walked out and her mom died when she was little. The only person she has left is her older brother." Sarah explained. "The guy who I always see you around with." She looked at her brother.

"I can see why her dad walked out on her." Kelce's girlfriend murmured, causing Topper and the other kook to laugh at her comment.

Rafe turned his head. "Hey, chill out. Alright?"

The table became quiet when Isabel came back with their drinks. She gave each and one of them their beverage until she left again to grab their food.

And Rafe's gaze still lingered.

Isabel waited by the small window that the food usually gets slid out from for her to take. She drew random figures on the notepad, her face resting on her palm as she leaned over the counter.

She heard the bell chime, notifying her about a customer entering. Isabel turned her head towards the door and rolled her eyes when she saw who it was.

His signature smirk greeted her. "Hey little sis–"

"I can't keep giving out free food." She stated while her eyes were still glued on the paper.

"They won't even notice," He tried to reasoned.

Isabel shook her head and heard the tiny bell ring. She looked at the counter and saw the plates of food lying there.

"Now, if you excuse me I need to go do my job," She grabbed the plates of food and placed them on a black tray. "Something you don't have." Isabel added.

Barry rolled his eyes and watched his sister walk over to the table of kooks with their orders, his gaze then landing on Rafe.

He let out a bitter laugh. "Yo, Country Club!" Barry yelled out across the restaurant. Isabel gave him a pointed look about his volume but her brother couldn't care less.

Rafe looked up from his food that Isabel placed in front of him and turned his head around to look at the familiar face he's been trying to avoid.

The Money. It repeated in his mind.

Rafe let out a small sigh. "I'll be right back," He told his friends. He got up from his seat at the table and walked over to Barry as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Hey." He spoke lowly. "What's up?"

"What's up?" Barry raised his eyebrows at the kook. "What's up is that you still haven't given me my money." He confronted.

"I told you that I'm gonna have it by–"

"By what?" Barry took a step forward. Isabel noticed the tension between the two rising while cleaning up the tables. "Next week? The week after that?"

"Just give me until next week." Rafe said. "Okay?"

Barry stared at the blonde for a good minute before he started laughing. Rafe furrowed his eyebrows, "What's so funny?"

Barry shook his head slightly and catching Rafe off guard, he harshly grabbed the collar of his shirt. The situation was going to escalate but Isabel walked over to her brother and the Cameron boy, glancing between them. "Let's not do this here."

She turned her body towards Rafe and moved him back to create distance from Barry.

Rafe stared down at her with his brown ones before she whipped around to face her brother. "Barry, please leave," She huffed.

He sucked his teeth and looked at Rafe. "Next week." He pointed at him. Barry earned a nod from his client and left the place.

Isabel closed her eyes for a brief moment. "Sorry about that," Rafe apologized, but the tone in his voice sounded like he didn't care at all.

She scoffed and spun around to face him. "Some people need jobs, you know." Isabel stated before walking away from him and going through the employee's–only door.

"AND WE were right outside like this and all we hear is just, 'Bam! Bam! Bam!'" JJ played out the scene while Isabel and the others watched.

"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 came up to Kiara and Isabel and shook his head rapidly.

White stuff fell out from his hair and Isabel scrunched up her face. "That's dandruff, disgusting." Kiara mumbled.

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

"Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?"

"Yeah."

"Did you get a good description of them?" Pope inquired.

"What did they look like?" Isabel added.

"Anything we can bring to a police report?"

JJ stood quiet for a moment before speaking up. "Burly."

"Burly?"

"Yeah."

JJ sighed, "You know, like–"

"That's not very helpful." Kiara mumbled under her breath.

"Okay, well, no, 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."

"I can tell you with full confidence. These boys, these killers..." He took out a cigarette and inhaled it before letting the smoke escape. "They're square groupers."

"They're square groupers, like narco square groupers? Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?"

"Yeah man," The Maybank confirmed.

"You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie."

"For real." Isabel agreed, chuckling lowly.

"What does this square grouper look like specifically?" Pope continued.

"You weren't there!"

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

"Dude! I wasn't taking little mental polaroids the entire time. I was under duress, okay?" JJ's voice broke a little as his face got red.

Isabel noticed and stood up while rubbing the sides of her jean shorts. "Okay, maybe we should just take a breather real quick."

"I can tell you–" JJ sighed. "I can tell you by the way that Ms. Lana was screaming... that these guys are serious, serious hombres, man."

Everyone shared worried glances with each other. "It's a heavy vibe right now, okay? I'm not liking this very much."

"Why do they want the compass though?" Isabel questioned.

"It's a piece of shit. You couldn't pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to. No offense, John B. I know it's in your family–"

"The office." The Routledge boy finally spoke.

"What?"

"My dad. My dad's office. He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his royal merchant research." John B rushed inside his house and the others followed quickly.

"We used to laugh at him like he was gonna find it. But now that he's gone, I've kinda... I just left it as he kept it."

The pogues stood in front of the door to the office and John B unlocked it with the keys. "I've slept over here like 600 times and I've never seen this door opened."

Isabel looked around the room, seeing the books messily opened and scattered around the desk. Everything was clamped together in a small office space.

"Here, look. This is the original owner, right here." John B pointed at the name on the paper.

"Okay..."

"Robert Q. Routledge.
1880 - 1920"

"There's the lucky compass, right there." Isabel spotted in the old image.

"Actually, um... he was shot after he bought it. Then the compass was shipped back to Henry. He was killed in a crop-dusting accident when he had the compass. After he died, the compass was given to Stephen. Stephen had the compass with him when he died in Vietnam."

"Let me guess he died in action, right?" JJ asked.

"Sort of," John B answered. "Actually he was killed by a banana truck. In–In country. Anyways, after that, Stephen passed the compass down to him, my dad."

"Hm, sounds like theres a reoccurring theme here."

"Possibly involving death?" Isabel cocked her head.

"You have a death compass." Pope stated.

"I do not," John B defended.

"You have a death compass."

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

"Look, my dad used to talk about this compartment in here." He sat down. "Soldiers used to hide secret notes." John B twisted the compass around and shook it to find anything.

"What's that?" Kiara inquired.

"That wasn't there before." He stared at the words written on the metal compass. "This is my dad's handwriting."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he does these weird Rs with the– see it?" John B showed Pope and Isabel.

"Can I see it?" JJ stood beside the dirty blonde and looked closely at the words. "Red– Rout– No, I think that's an A."

"It says Redfield." Kiara confirmed.

"Right."

"Okay, well. What's Redfield?"

"The most common name in the county."

"Maybe– maybe it's a clue. Maybe it's a clue to where he's hiding."

Pope shook his head. "A clue? Come on, that's–"

The rooster continued to crow and Kiara gave him a pointed look. Pope cleared his throat, "But if it is a clue maybe it's an anagram?"

"Yes. Perfect. Anagram. You need a paper." John B handed Pope a paper, the roosters loud and long crow irritating their ears.

"How can you concentrate with that thing crowing at you?"

"JJ loves the rooster." John B told him.

"I love the rooster." Kiara added.

"Me too." Isabel said.

"Okay let me think," The four started brainstorming. "Dedfiel. Colors– that's stupid."

"What about Ritalin?"

"Dreidel? Fiddler?"

"Let's stick with what we're–"

"Guys," John B began. He stared at the window, seeing a car pull up in front of his house. They ignored him. "Guys! Somebody's here."

The teens turned their heads towards the large window and peeked behind the blindes.

"Is that them?"

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mars speaks !

i'm in bed sick right now help-

season 4 pt2 trailer looks so good
and btw do y'all think sarah is pregnant? 🤨

please vote for another chapter and don't be a silent reader