CASTAWAY ⚓ R.C, J.M

T W E N T Y F I V E

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓

S O R R Y   N O T   S O R R Y

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛

A week and a half had passed with no sign of Mr Routledge. No sightings. No calls. No texts. Hell, not even a letter. Nothing, just an anxiety inducing radio silence.

The sun had been beaming non-stop, but for Harley and John B their world continued to grow gloomier. Yes, they may not have spent every single day with John, but they knew he was there if they needed him. Now, he wasn't. There was nobody to turn to and that left them scared, even if they wouldn't say it out loud. Especially, Harley. Mr Routledge meant a lot to her. He was the first adult she could trust. He went out of his way to help her and house her, quickly becoming a father figure. If anybody asked, Mr Routledge was her dad, he had earned that title. She couldn't remember her family or parents before. She didn't know if they were good people or if they even loved her. When it came to Mr Routledge, she knew he was a good person and she felt loved by him.

Neither teenager knew who to turn to other than the cops. Though John B had explained that if they involved the police then they would get CPS involved in seconds. They would take them away and split them up. Harley had blanched at the sound of that. She had already been involved with those people and it wasn't fun. She didn't want to be taken away from John B and if his shaking legs and sweaty palms had been anything to go by, she knew he didn't want that either.

Without a legal guardian or custodian, they were screwed. They knew that and so did the Pogues. Kiara kept offering to get her parents to help them, Harley assumed because they were Kooks and had the money to do that. She didn't really know much about the girl's family. Pope offered for them to stay at his like a massive sleepover for a while. JJ proposed the idea of living in the wild Bear Grylls style. Writing off JJ's proposition immediately, all the offers meant inquisitive parents and possible police involvement. So, John B decided to take this one into his own hands and said he'd work on it in case they needed somebody. He told Harley to just worry about starting school in the next week, that he had everything under control. Yet, for Harley, she found it hard to believe as much as she tried. Once she started at school, somebody was bound to figure out that something was wrong at home.

Money was going to be a problem, even with Harley's job which would be less hours. Bills needed to be paid and they needed food to live. How would they afford to do things?

Harley sighed. She waded her hand through the warm water of the bathtub that she sat in. She had on her shorts and a small top both completely soaked through and stuck to her skin.

The intention wasn't to take a bath. One nightmare had been plaguing her night and day for the past few days, the one where she was being held beneath water by a blurred figure with the oak brown eyes and static voice. She had worked out that it must have been a memory and that it took place in a bathroom. The person had been drowning her in a bathtub. That's what it felt like even if it was messed up when you really thought about it.

Why would anybody want to drown her?

Were they there the night she fell into the sea?

Maybe they weren't even drowning her, that would be ludicrous... surely. But that was the problem. She wasn't one-hundred percent sure about anything pertaining her past or 'memories'. There was no way she could be unless the distorted imagery became clear, and she could see who was above her holding her down. Maybe if she could work out there face it would unlock more memories... if it was real. Maybe they could help her and John B.