Castlebay // Blake Richardson

Chapter 8

*Levi's POV*

      Knocking on the door woke me on the morning of Christmas Eve, but Megan managed to sleep on, even as the person on the other side of the door got more and more persistent. "Yeah I'm coming!" I called and shook Megan awake beside me, "Wake up you"

      I opened the door to be met with both Blake and Nate, faces covered with worried looks. "Well have you two been slapped with a wet blanket or something?" I laughed, realising they were serious when they held their expressions. "Come in then and tell us what's going on"

      The two moved to sit on the spare bed in the room while Megan had now sat up and was fully awake. "It's Brenda" Nate stated. "What about her? She was at work last night, right? Didn't she just come back to your room?" Megan asked while looking at Blake.

      "No! And then I woke up to this on my pillow!" He threw an envelope in our direction, frustration evident. " 'Had to leave so gonna miss Christmas with y'all, I'm sorry, but I still want yous to have your surprise, so follow these instructions today and Merry Christmas, I love you guys!' " I read from the unsigned letter, only knowing it was Brenda from the distinct handwriting.

      "What are you so worried about? It's not like she's hurt or anything" Megan rolled her eyes at Nate and Blake. "Yeah but if she knew about this she would've said days ago, this seems too suspicious to me" Blake said, now standing and pacing.

      "Look, if I know my best friend, and trust me I do, we'll want to follow these instructions, go wake everyone Nate and tell them to be ready in an hour" Megan instructed, Nate nodding and leaving.

      "Megan, if you know what this is just tell me please" Blake begged. "I don't Blake I promise, we're just gonna do what she says"

      "Someone remind me why we're in this forest again please? It's bloody freezing!" Reece exclaimed. "Shut up Reece!" Everyone called back, considering this was now the tenth time he'd complained in the space of 5 minutes. "The next note is up this tree, of course the crazy idiot sticks it in a tree" Megan laughed.

      We'd been walking for an hour, seemingly now we were on a trail of clues that would lead us to whatever Brenda was hiding. Let me tell you, a beach in the snow is not something I would recommend to anyone. "So who's going up the tree?" I asked.

      Noone stepped up to volunteer except for Nate, "Someone time me, this seems fun" he smiled and pulled himself onto the first branch. Two minutes and 43 seconds later, his feet touched the ground again, note in hand, "Who's reading this one? Levi?" Nate asked before handing it to me.

      "Okay so it says, 'The next note is somewhere you won't have been since you were a young kid', what the hell?" I read. Everyone looked at each other until Drew jumped, "I've got it! Or I think I know, there's a park up the street isn't there?"

      We all cheered and followed Megan's lead, us boys still not knowing our way around this small town after more than a week of being here. When we saw that it was really quite a big park, we all split up to search for the next, and hopefully the final, note.

      20 minutes later and we had no lucky between any of us. "This is pointless! Why has nobody just called and asked her about this?" Nate kicked the end of a slide, clearly quite annoyed, when a sheet flew out from underneath it.

      "Blake, I'm going to kill your girlfriend," he then stated and picked it up, "kay so it says, 'This is it guys, y'all are gonna kill me, but go to my cousin Lois in the hotel coffee shop and she'll send you to the location of your surprise' OH MY GOD WE JUST WENT ON A WILD GOOSE CHASE, I SWEAR THIS BETTER BE WORTH IT"