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CHAPTER EIGHT. dead ends
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RILEY VAN KIRK was like an open book of wondrous mysteries.No one would have ever expected a rich Kook who has all the money in the world to go falling off the deep end. He had everything he wanted handed to him on a silver platter curtesy of his parents income. So, what other reason would he have to go down a dark path and fall off the wagon time and time again until he was nothing more than a hollow shell of the boy he used to be? Why would he poison his body with toxins until he took just the right amount in order to snatch the air from his lungs for good?
None. That's what made Riley Van Kirk so mysterious. He had everything and he threw it all away in a matter of months. Riley was once a kid with a good heart and kind soul. He was once a boy with a desire for change, which was why he became friends with the Pogues. He wanted to break stereotypes and show that Pogues and Kooks could be friends despite living on two completely different sides of the island. Not only did he have a burning desire for change, but Riley Van Kirk also had a desire to piece together mysteries that had no hope of ever being solved. That's what attracted him to the Royal Merchant to begin with.
Little did he know, he would soon become one of those dark mysteries himself.
The news of Riley Van Kirk's death spread like wildfire. Many people speculated that his search for the Royal Merchant had drove him barking mad and had just slipped into the darkness, never to be seen again. Others believed that his friendship with the fellow Pogues was the result for his addiction, believing that bad kids from the South Side were to blame when a good kid loses his way.
The worst part was that some of those people happened to be right.
First of all, no. Riley Van Kirk didn't go mad, and he definitely didn't spiral down a bad path because of the Pogues. The heartbreaking and gut wrenching truth eventually drifted up to the surface when Nova found the letter Riley left for her before his death. The suicide note was all the information Nova needed in order to start piecing together the puzzle behind his demise. All she knew was that Riley became obsessed with a famous shipwreck and that there were dangerous people after it, and whatever pushed him to his breaking point, it was what forced Riley to take his own life, and the last thing the boy ever did was leave a note for his sister to warn her that the danger lurking in Outer Banks still remained.
