013 !! FIRE

"Oh my god".

Georgie's senses immediately jump to alert, she steps away from Pope with concerned eyes.

"What happened!", her voice booms up to reach Kiara's ears who shakes her head with a grimace.

"It's fine! I'm coming down!".

A minute later, Kiara safely lands on the ground with a huge envelope clutched between her fingers.

She hands it over to John B who looks down at the dirt covered FedEx envelope in awe.

"Holy shit. This is from my dad".

Peeping in, Georgie makes out two words scrawled lazily in black ink on the front of the envelope.

For Bird, it reads.

A smile instantly pulls up the corners of her lips, memories upon memories of puzzles solved with Big John Routledge over the weekends invading her mind.

Most of the time, her friends would be out playing tag but Georgie always found solace in the comfort of the Chateau sitting on the tattered couch under the fading sunlight streaming through the window with Big John assembling a new puzzle for them to solve.

Every Monday, Mr. Routledge would go to Chapel Hill to collect supplies for his boat repairs and every Monday, he bought a new puzzle set for him and the little blonde girl to solve over the weekend.

He'd often reprimand John B for throwing his dirty shoes around when he'd enter the house in the middle of their game and rush into the kitchen for a glass of water.

And every single time, he'd say "Bird, stop throwing that shit around. I just cleaned the floors".

His tone would be a mix of warning and affection, something that, growing up in Luke Maybank's household, Georgie never quite experienced.

So, to her, Big John was the best dad in the world.

Eight year old Georgie would do anything to swap places with John B but the only thing that always made her chide her own kid self for developing such an idea was the fact that if they swapped places then John B would have to live with Luke.

And she would never want that for him.

Seeing Big John's writing tonight brought up unexpected and unwelcome emotions that ran through her head in a wild plethora soon disturbed by the sound of a vehicle approaching and John B yelling.

"Go", Kie pushes them all away from the crypt.

"It's the guys that robbed your house", JJ whisper yells.

"Light!", Georgie yells in a hushed tone signalling for all of them to turn off their torches.

They wade through the bushes, the spiked tendrils harshly colliding with their bare skin as they hurry to get away from the approacing men.

"Turn off your light, man!", JJ yells while John B fiddles with his torch, the panic of the situation turning his hands into a shaking mess.

"John B? Your light!", it is Kie who yells this time pushing Georgie into John B's back urging her to help him.

Georgie, in an instant, takes charge trying to steady her own hands in the meanwhile snatching John B's torch from his hold.

"I see something!", a male voice reverberates against their eardrums.

A rush of adrenaline descends over their senses as they struggle to sprint and take care of John B's over efficient torch.

"Do you think it's them?", Kiara whispers pulling a tripping JJ behind her.

"Homie's got a gun", JJ announces finally getting back on his feet and properly running behind his friends.

"Screw this".

John B's hand grabs Georgie's arm pulling her along as the rest of the group follows behind.

They run, their breaths heavy and the skin of Georgie's arm burning under John B's touch.

She struggles to catch herself from almost falling over when an arm wraps around her waist in a protective hold.

Georgie is on fire.

Her fingertips pull onto his shirt all while they run in the direction of the parked twinkie.

The sound of his breath in her ear, the warm air touching and feeling up her neck makes her world swirl, a sudden urge to pull him off the track and kiss those damned lips of his spreading inside her.

But Georgie is perhaps the most sensible of them.

So she runs and runs, hand in hand with John B until they finally reach the twinkie and pull it open settling in with the latter igniting the engine and driving them away to safety.

Thirty minutes later and Georgie finds herself seated around a table at the Chateau with John B - Pope and Kiara leaning in - and JJ fidgeting with a disgustingly mold covered bread.

She scrunches up her face at the sight of her brother defying all of their protests and happily biting into the already expired slice of bread.

"Oh, shit", he mumbles immediately gagging to get the inedible fungi taste out of his mouth.

Georgie rolls her eyes, her attention being caught by John B muttering a small "holy shit" under his breath.

She leans over trying to get a good look at the map recovered from the FedEx envelope.

"Oh. X marks the spot", Pope points at a spot marked a big black capital 'X' on the map.

"Latitude and longitude", Georgie whispers trying to decipher the image in front of her.

"Wait, there's something else here", Kiara chimes in pulling out a tape recorder from the discarded envelope.

"What's that?", JJ butts in still recovering from his gagging.

"It's a tape recorder, you dumbass", Georgie comments gesturing for John B to take the lead.

John B, for his part, scrambles up to hurry into his dad's room in the far corner of the hallway and brings out a tape player.

He quickly inserts the tape into the system and presses play.

"Dear Bird".

"Who's Bird?", JJ asks glancing at his friends.

"That's what my dad used to call me", John B answers mesmerised by the sound of his father's voice.

"I hate to say 'I told you so' but I told you so".

"You doubted your old man", Georgie side glances at the brunet who stays hunched over the table in anticipation.

"I suspect at this moment you're filled with guilt and self-loathing over our last fight. Don't kill yourself just yet, kid".

Her eyes surprisingly well up at the sound of Big John's voice.

A voice she didn't think she'd ever hear again.

"I didn't expect to find the Merchant either".

A gasp involuntarily leaves her lips and when she looks up, she finds John B gazing at her with wide eyes.

"You were right to call me out. Wasn't exactly Father of the Decade".

A loud sigh follows the words.

"What can I say, kid? I could smell the barn".

Another audible sigh.

"And hopefully, we're listening to this in our brand new sugar-shack down in Costa Rica, livin' off passive investments and pulling on permits".

A third sigh.

"If not, and you find this for less than optimal reasons, well, that's what the map is for. There she is, the wreck of the Merchant".

"If something happens to me, finish what I started. Go for the gold, kid".

"I love you, bird. Even if I didn't always act like it".

Silence.

***
i should probably go update my other rafe fic but i'm so hooked and literally so excited for the next parts that i just cannot anymore omg 😭