THIRTEEN

❝ I'm John's sister, you dumb fucks. ❞

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"—AND WE WERE RIGHT outside like this," JJ slams his back against the wall while explaining to Pope and Kiara the events at Ms Lana's home, "And all we hear is Bam! Bam! Bam! Knocking paint off the wall, G! From the inside, alright? And I'm just looking at them like— wait, first off," He steps forward, flipping his hair over and scratching his hand through it, causing paint to drop to the porch floorboards.

Kiara leans back slightly, her feet narrowly dodging the small particles, "That's dandruff, disgusting."

"It's paint!" He argues, eyes snapping to the other girl leant against a beam, "Ava, could really use some help here."

She nods slowly as her friends look over their shoulders at her, "It's paint," She confirms.

"See!" He sighs, returning to the story, "But at that point, I was just, like. . . I'm waiting for death."

"Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?" Pope questions, repositioning his hat and completely dismissing most of the gibberish that the blonde had just relayed to him.

"Yeah," JJ pants.

"Did you get a good description of them? What did they look like?" Pope asks, "Anything we can bring to a police report."

"Burly," The blonde states.

Pope gawks at him, "Burly?"

"Yeah," He nods, "You know, like—"

"That's not very helpful," Kiara groans, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.

"Okay, well, no, like the type of guy at my dad's garage," JJ rushes, "I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers. I can tell you with full confidence, these boys, these killers—" He lights a blunt and takes a quick puff before continuing, "—they're square groupers."

"They're square groupers, like, narco square grouper?" Pope rubs a hand over his face, "Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?"

"Yeah, man," JJ nods quickly. He steps forward beside Ava, passing the blunt to her and she sends him a thankful nod before having a few drags.

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

"What does the square grouper look like specifically?" Pope ignores the girl and turns more to JJ.

Feeling the sense of being attacked for his lack of information, JJ roughly takes the blunt from Ava's hands to help calm his nerves, "You weren't there, bro!"

"You don't know what you're looking for!" Pope snaps angrily.

"Dude, I wasn't taking little mental polaroids the entire time, man. I was under duress, okay?" JJ splutters out in a high pitch toned "But I can tell you. . . I can tell you by the way that Ms Lana was screaming that those guys are serious, serious hombres, man."

There's a few moments of lingering silence in which JJ passes the burning blunt back to Ava before speaking, "It's a heavy vibe right now. I'm not liking this very much."

"Why do they want the compass?" Kie questions.

"It's a piece of shit. You could pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to," Pope rolls his eyes, and Ava jerks her foot forehead to harshly kick his shin, from which he hisses in pain, "I was about to say no offence."

Wafting smoke away from her face, Ava's brows furrow, "Pope you're the one always banging on about how saying no offence doesn't make it less—"

"The office," John B blurts, speaking for the first time since the trio returned to the Chateau, "Dad's office. He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research," He says, stepping inside the house with his friends close on his heel.

"I always used to take the piss out of him for thinking he was gonna find it," Ava mutters, throwing the blunt into the trash as they pass through the living room.

"Now that he's gone, I've just left it how he kept it," John B fumbles with the keys before finally managing to open the creaking door.

"I've slept over here like six hundred times, and I've never seen this door opened," Pope says quietly, his tone low in astonishment.

"I've lived here my whole life and I've never been allowed in," Ava grunts in annoyance before poking her finger into her twin brother's back, "Only Mr. Favourite was."

"Ah, favouritism as it's finest," JJ mumbles lowly as he passes by her, his eyes trained on the walls when she hums loudly in agreement.

Ava's eyes narrow as they inspect every little piece of historical shit sprawled across the walls and completely hiding the table tops. She knew her father was obsessed with treasure. He was maybe more in love with the idea of finding gold than he was with his own children.

"Here, look," John B taps a notice board on the table and the group crowd around, "This is the owner, right here."

"Okay. Robert Q Routledge. 1880 to 1920," Kiara reads out, her finger floating down to point at the photo of a sailor cupping the compass in his hand, "There's the lucky compass, right there."

"Actually, um, he was shot after he bought it," John B sighs awkwardly, "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 suggest, sensing the familiar pattern of each story.

"Sort of," John shrugs, "He, uh, he actually was killed by a banana truck. In country. Anyways, after that, Stephen passed the compass down to dad."

"And now dad is also dead, great," Ava steps away from the table, throwing her arms up with a huff, "It's actually a unlucky compass."

"He isn't dead, Ava," John B glares over at his sister, "Could you at least try act like you care about him?"

"Why should I?" She snaps back at him, "He never cared about me."

"Hey, hey, hey now," JJ quickly pushes into the small argument brewing between the twins, "Either way, it sounds like there is a reoccurring theme here."

"Yeah, you have a death compass," Pope agrees quickly, trying to move John B's gaze from his sister.

"Get rid of it, dude," JJ pats his best friend's chest, finally catching his attention, "It's cursed and made its way back to you."

"Look," John B sighs, while his hands fiddle with the compass, "My dad used to talk about this compartment in here. Soldiers used to hide secret notes."

Ava lowers herself down into the spinning office chair by the window and she glances out through the glass, zoning out slightly while her friends continue to witter on about her father's compass.

"How can you work with that thing constantly crowing at you?" Pope snarls, and his harsh tone breaks Ava into reality.

"JJ loves the rooster," John shrugs.

"I love the rooster," Kiara smiles.

"Hey, the rooster is, in fact, mine," Ava raises a hand to point at her friends, "So you can all back off and get your own pet."

JJ snorts slightly while shifting through piles of paper with Pope at his side. Ava returns to staring out of the window, and as a large black car pulls up outside the house she straightens in her seat and slowly sits up before craning her neck around the wall to watch two men climb from the unfamiliar vehicle.

"Guys," She hisses, "Somebody's here," She shoots up from her seat, sending it rolling back as she steps away from the window to allow her friends to look.

"Guys, is that them?" Kiara asks quietly, glancing over at the group as the man begin to advance towards the front door.

"This is suboptimal," Pope groans as the blonde boy begins to pace.

"John B, I told you," JJ breathes, "Why does it always—"

"JJ," Ava snaps her fingers in front of his face, and he comes to a stop before turning to her, "The gun. Where is it?"

"The gun? I, uh. . ." He clicks his fingers in realisation, "It's on the porch."

"Now you don't have the gun, the one time we need the gun," Kiara snaps at him.

As Ava bites down a comment to other girl for being contradictory, JJ rushes towards the door but the moment he opens it, the men yell while banging their fists on the front door and JJ speeds back in.

"They're on the front porch, guys," He breathes.

Raising her hands to sift through her hair, Ava is now the one who's pacing, every possible scenario shooting through her mind. But there is a particular one that won't fall from the front. Distraction. Fuck, it's stupid. So, so unbelievably stupid. But what the hell else is she supposed to do?

Suddenly, she stops and faces her worried friends, "Out the window," She motions to the glass behind them frantically, "Get out the window. I'll distract them."

The group stops immediately at her words and whirl around to face her once more. And when she sees their expressions, the fact that this is a horrible idea hits her harder.

"What the fuck? No," JJ is the first to speak up, his head shaking frantically, "Are you crazy? They'll kill you. Like literally! You and I both saw what they did to Ms Lana!"

Ava swallows thickly, hand curling around the door knob, "I'm going," She decides, pulling it open.

"No. You ain't going out there!" JJ shouts, and John B is quick to clamp his hand over his best friend's mouth and hold him back from chasing towards the girl but the blonde continues to struggle roughly.

"I'll be fine, JJ. Just please go through the window," Ava whispers, her teeth biting at her lip as she steps out into the hallway and closes the door behind her. A second later, she hears someone lock it and behind the door she's able to recognise JJ's quiet arguments.

Rolling her shoulders back and trying to swallow any terror she has bubbling in her chest, Ava begins towards the front door that is still rattling from the men's harsh knocks. She slowly pulls it open, revealing the two tall and slightly shaggy men on the front porch. Her finger begins to tap on her thighs anxiously as they peer her up and down.

"Hey," She beams at them.

"Who are you?" The tallest man growls.

"Toni," Ava replies almost immediately, "Is there something you need help with?"

"Do you know John B Routledge?" He questions.

Ava tilts her heads, brows furrowing in thought, "What? You mean that annoying kid who never does as he's told? Yeah, I know him. Why? What has he done now?"

"Does—"

A clatter in the office causes his mouth to snap shut and the men's heads turn towards the direction of the commotion before slowly glancing back to Ava.

"He's here, ain't he?" The shorter one grits angrily, his fists already prepped at his sides. Ava's eyes fall down to them, and she realise this was the worst idea she had every thought of. Like, the worst.

She snaps her gaze back to their faces, as she shakes her head in denial, "Nope."

Suddenly, the tallest bearded man's large hands come in contact with her shoulders and she is sent flying down the hall. She crashes to the floor and skids along the floorboards letting out a groan as pain flourishes through her back. Both of them quickly storm towards her and she pushes up onto all fours before scurrying back until her back hits a wall. She's left with no other option but to stand up.

"Where is he?" He roars.

She turns to run and expand the distance between them but she rams directly into the shorter man's chest. His hand flies to her neck and grips it, lifting her off the ground as she kicks her legs frantically. She can't help but feel like she's seen this in the movies, specifically horror movies.

"Where the fuck is he, girl?" He yells, while his associate begins to throw shit all around, completely trashing the Chateau just like they did to Ms Lana's home.

"Fuck. . . you," She coughs out, clawing desperately at his arm with one hand while the other is curled around his wrist.

"The fuck did you just say?" He tightens his grip, and Ava chokes harshly at the pressure.

"F— fuck. . . you," She repeats in a shout, using her last part of rangers to project her voice, "I'm— I'm John's sister, you dumb fucks."

Maybe she shouldn't have said that.

His expression changes, but not in a nice way. He throws her roughly to the ground and she falls on her front, her arm crushed below her. Feeling the bones crack in her forearm, a loud shrill scream passes her lips while she flips over onto her back to face him.

"Just tell us where he is!" He moves closer.

Ava shakes her head, receiving a kick in the gut and she slides onto her side, scrunching up into a ball, grunts of pain passenger her lips while she cradles her agonising arm.

"Tell us," He bellows.

She glares up at him through her eyelashes, but he never receives a verbal reply, causing him to boot her again. But this time his large combat boot comes in contact with the her head, causing her nose to crack and blood to stream from her nostrils. She doesn't have a chance to shout before he's picked up her head and slammed her temple down onto the floorboards. Knocking her completely unconscious.

. . .

unlucky mate

i hated this chapter in the original, and i don't really like this one but there's not much i can do without completely  changing the plot so

word count,
2317