Blood is such a strange smell. It's metallic, which makes sense, since blood has iron in it. It's not neccessarily something you notice, until you're surrounded by it. Jacob's hollows were very messy, and only attacked the wights until they could be officially called dead. Every room we ran by looked like it came straight out of a horror film, with flickering lights and the rooms covered wall to wall in blood.
The world was tainted red, it seemed, because of how bloody our battlefield was. Hell, I wasn't even sure I could call it a battlefield anymore, when it was obviously just an open grave. Bronwyn had Claire in her arms, and covered up her eyes, muttering, "Don't look, don't look."
There were a lot of headless bodies, which I preferred over the blank-faced bodies that still had their heads attached. I decided that I was no longer scared of the hollows anymore, but of Jacob. I'd seen hollows in action before, but never had I seen them so grotesquely disassemble a body like I did when Jacob was in control. There would be times when even he was disgusted in what the hollows did, as if the thought that they could be this dangerous never hit him before.
Because we were at basement level of the place, we had the climb multiple flights of stairs to actually get to the ground floor. I told Millard it was fine for him to let me down, since I had my walking stick, and he didn't argue. He was my nerd, not my hunk. If I really didn't want to walk, I would have had Bronwyn carry me. But because Millard let me stand on my own feet, I had a hard time going up the stairs. I let everyone go in front of me, as Millard held my cane while I walked.
After a while, we all made it to the ground level of the building. Emma and Jacob were arguing about something, and I heard something rattle like metal against metal.
"Did you hear that?" I asked Millard.
"Hear what?"
I looked around us, and noticed that a door hid next to the staircase we just came from. It was opened a crack, and I hobbled over to it with my cane. Millard followed suit, and I nudged the door open with my walking stick.
"Shouldn't we be sticking with our group?" Millard pressed.
I ignored him, and went inside. I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting. Maybe another room full of kids, or a little boiler area. But instead, I found a little white bedroom with a body on the floor. I ran over to it, and turned it over. I recognized him as one of the wight soldiers, and checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
I checked the body for any sign that he was hurt. There were no bruises, cuts, or anything. In fact, he looked to have been in perfect health, even a bit young, too. There was nothing unusual in his pockets, save for a key chain with only two keys on it. I wouldn't have been surprised if one of the keys unlocked the room. But why have it locked, anyway?
I scanned the area, but the only thing in there was a white, twin sized bed. The covers had fallen off of the mattress and under the bed. I was about to leave the room, when I heard the rattling again. It came from under the bed.
I sat on the floor, and tried to look under the bed, but it was a tight space underneath it, and everything was covered up by the blankets.
"Is anyone under there?" I asked.
"I killed him, you know!" A voice called out from the blankets. She must have been talking about the dead wight. "And if you come any closer, I'll kill you, too!"
"I'm not a wight, I'm peculiar like you," I said calmly. "I didn't mean to scare you, I swear! Look, my name's (Y/N), and I'm just here to help you."
I took the key from the wight's pocket as proof that I didn't need it, and slight it under the bed. A small hand quickly grabbed at it. She pulled them under with her, and I heard her play with them a bit. She didn't say anything, but then I heard a little click. Whoever was under the bed slid a pair of now-open handcuffs and the key back to me.
"I think I'm stuck," the girl said as she stretched out a hand to me. Strangely enough, she sounded as if she must have been American. "Can you pull me out?"
I grabbed her hand, and yanked her out of the bed. The little girl flew right into me, and immediately wrapped her arms around me. She buried her face into my shoulder, and breathed heavily.
"Uh," I said, not really knowing what to do. "Are you oka-"
"Thank you!" she mumbled into my hair.
The girl got off of me, and sat cross legged on the floor. She brushed off dust from her lacy white shirt, and pulled up her pink jeans. She was about ten or so, and must have been bi-racial, with lighter brown skin and wavy black hair. Her large green eyes stared me down, but the edge of them softened as she stuck her hand out for me to shake.
"I'm Artemis, by the way," she told me. "Sorry for threatening you earlier."
I just shrugged. "We just need to get out of here as soon as possible. My friends were able to rescue the ymbrynes, and now we're trying to find the wights."
Artemis furrowed her brow. "What about the monsters?"
"We have someone to control them," I told her, smiling. "Come on, we gotta go meet up with them!"
"(Y/N), do you need help getting up?" Millard asked me.
I jumped a bit, completely forgetting he was there with us. Artemis looked around wildly, not knowing where the voice came from.
"Sorry," Millard apologized. "Forgot to mention I was here."
"This is Millard," I told Artemis, gesturing towards him. "If you couldn't tell, he's invisible."
"Everyone's outside now," Millard told us. "Can you get up by yourself, or-"
"What's wrong?" Artemis asked. "Why can't you stand up?"
I showed her my side, which was turning green now. Was that supposed to happen a couple days after getting stabbed?
"Just have a nasty wound," I told her. "But it's fine. I just need to use a cane to walk around."
Artemis stared at the wound, and slowly stretched her hand towards it. When she touched it, it felt like I had been shocked. I doubled over, and Millard asked me what just happened. My side felt like it was on fire, and Artemis immediately stopped touching it.
"(Y/N)?!" Millard freaked out. "What--are you okay?"
The pain slowly left, and I looked back at my side. It was completely healed, and I wouldn't have even known it was there if it wasn't for the blood on my shirt surrounding it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Artemis grab at her head. She was super pale, and looked nauseous.
"Did you-" I started, but Artemis interrupted me.
"Let's go find your friends."
* * *
Everyone sat against the stone wall that hid us from the wights. Well, the wights were hiding in a building behind the wall, but it was the same difference. Jacob quickly popped his head up above the border, then looked back at Emma.
"What are they doing in there?" Jacob asked.
"Trying to lure us out into the open," she responded.
Jacob just shrugged. "No problem. I'll send the hollows."
"Won't that leave us unguarded?"
"I don't know if we have a choice. Olive counted twenty wights going in there at least. I need to send enough hollows to overwhelm them or they'll just get slaughtered."
Jacob sat back against the wall, and studied our faces. Millard squeezed my hand, and I gently rubbed his knuckles with my thumb. Jacob sighed and closed his eyes, concentrating. He flicked his hand, and the hollow's shadows crept towards the building the wights were in.
There was a tense silence as we all watched Jacob. Everything seemed fine for a moment, but then Jacob's brow knit together. He opened his mouth, then shut it again, as if he wasn't quite sure what to say.
"I'm sending one inside," Jacob announced to use. "Just one, to look around." He nodded to himself. "I'm looking inside."
"What do you see?" Emma asked him, lightly touching his arm.
Jacob almost jumped, but not because of Emma. He obviously saw something he didn't like.
"Birds!" he yelled. "The room's full of ymbrynes!"
"What?" asked Emma. "Where are the wights?"
"I don't know."
"That can't be!" Miss Peregrine said, shocked. "All the kidnapped ymbrynes are right here."
"Then what are these birds?" Jacob murmured.
"This has to be a trap...." I whispered to Millard.
Jacob must have been scanning the room some more, but then something was wrong. He opened his eyes, and pushed Emma down to the ground.
"HIT THE DIRT!" Jacob yelled and we all ducked.
An explosion went off, and a bit of our stone wall crumbled. The air became thick with dust and fake feathers. I picked up from off of the ground, and it looked like one you would find in an art supplies closet that only younger kids used. Accidentally, I inhaled some of the dirt floating in the air, and began coughing.
Then, the world was no longer quiet. We heard mumbled commands, and boots began to stomp in unison. Emma looked over at Jacob with fear in her eyes.
"What is that?" she asked him.
"Let me see," Jacob answered while looking over the wall.
Jacob didn't need to answer, since everyone went to join him. The younger kids gasped at what they saw, and when Millard asked me if I wanted to go look over the wall, I refused. I already knew that we were surrounded by wights now, trapped.
"What do we do?" Horace asked frightfully.
"We fight!" Brownyn exclaimed. "Give 'em everything we've got."
"No, we must run while we can!" Miss Avocet wailed. "We can't afford to lose another peculiar life!"
"Excuse me," said Horace, "but I was asking Jacob. He got us this far, after all."
I almost would have laughed if we weren't in a situation where we had to trust Jacob. Horace was disobeying an ymbryne, who currently looked as if she just saw a ghost. Perhaps she did. Maybe Miss Avocet saw the spirit of Horace's last fuck he gave.
"Yes," I heard Miss Peregrine say. "I think Mr. Portman should decide. Quickly, though, or the wights will make the decision for you."
I looked at Jacob hopefully. He was scared (although that was pretty obvious) and he shook like a leaf. But with Miss Peregrine's appreciative nod, he relaxed a bit. He scanned the crowd, looking at everyone, as if making sure we were really, truly here with him.
"We fight," Jacob told us. "We've come too far to give up now."
"You give the word," Emma said.
It was kind of funny that Jacob was acting like a lookout. After all, that was Olive's job, since she took her shoes off, and let us tie a rope around her ankle. She had really helped us a lot, telling us where everyone was from up high. No wight could hide from us!
Then I realized Olive never came down with us. Hugh was still holding the rope Olive was attached to.
"Pull Olive down!" I shouted.
Hugh gave me a weird look, but it was too late. The wights stopped marching, and began shooting. Olive from twenty feet above us began to scream. She was their target, not us.
Emma gasped. "Olive! They're shooting at Olive!"
"Then let's give them something better to shoot at!" Jacob commanded. "Ready? LET'S GO!"
(Hey, you reading this! Yeah, you! You get to create your own awesome battle scene and montage to the song Don't Stop Me Now by the wonderful Queen. If you don't like that song, then leave and never talk to me again! What happens in your battle montage? Does Enoch kick someone's kneecaps in, only for Horace to happily cheer and almost hug him but doesn't? Will Claire's perfect curls bob to the beat of the music as a slow-mo explosion goes off? Does Bronwyn have battle paint on? What about Millard? Leave awesome scenes in the comments!)
There we all were, fighting the wights as a red sun blazed above us. The wights were no longer in shock from our surprise, and had began to fight back. I watched as one snuck up from behind Emma, so I ran right behind him, and smacked the soldier in the head with my stick. Emma turned around, obviously unaware that I might have saved her life.
Then the oddest thing happened. As a peculiar, I had seen some pretty weird things in my time, but this was....something else. An older man came parading in, saddled to a large polar bear. He wasn't even dressed for battle, but instead was in a nice suit, top hat, and monacle, but it was obvious he meant to be there with us. The man swung his cane above his head, and used it to point at Jacob. Was this dude the president of the United States??
"Hullo young man!" he excitedly said. "In need of some assistance?"
Never mind, he was British, not American. It would have been super cool if he was a president, though.
Jacob happily nodded his head, saying: "Yes, please!"
I leaned over towards Emma, since she seemed to have recognized this man. I asked her, "Who's he?"
"That's Miss Peregrine's other brother, Bentham. He helped get us to you guys," Emma responded casually. "And that's his pet grimbear, by the way."
I swatted at her arm. "Yeah, I can see that!"
Bentham laughed wickedly as his bear charged at the soldiers. However, all of the wights stopped fighting, and began to run away. Emma whipped her head around at our group, and yelled, "Don't let them escape!"
The ymbrynes took bird form, and Horace frantically tried to pick up all of their clothes. They all began flying towards the wights, who were running towards the bridge that separated us from the rest of the hamlet. We all followed behind, and I couldn't help but wish I had deodorant on with me.
"Stop them!" Jacob yelled, but it was basically useless.
The wights had managed to run up to the bridge, but then an invisible force (a hollow, perhaps?) grabbed the soldiers, and threw them into the river. Jacob ran over the edge of our side, and peered below at the muddy area beneath him. I heard someone shriek, "WAIT TWENTY MINUTES!" which made the wights scream and run.
They had finally made it to the other side, but there was nothing else we could do. The bridge was useless for us, and we couldn't cross it with the huge gap in the middle of it. Honestly, the infrastructure of the area was awful to say the least, and I really did feel bad for the people who lived there.
"Curse our luck."
I whipped my head around and saw Bentham with his hat in his hands. He was still on his bear, which was panting from all the exercise he did that day. He was a cute 'lil bear, even if he did have a bit of dried blood on his face! Oh, baby waby!
"Even that small number of wights could wreak havoc for years to come," Bentham finished.
Miss Peregrine just snorted as she hid behind her clothes, changing, now that she was human again. "Agreed, brother," she said. "Although I didn't realize you gave a titmouse what happened to the rest of us."
"Hello, Alma! Fantastic to see you! And if course I give a...." Bentham awkwardly said with mild joy. He cleared his throat and began again. "Why, I'm the reason you're still not in a prison cell! Go on, children, tell them!"
Jacob's face went a bit pink from embarrassment. "Mr. Bentham helped us a lot."
"In that case," Miss Peregrine said, still eyeing her brother suspiciously. "All due thanks. I'll ensure the Council of Ymbrynes is made aware of the role you played here. Perhaps they'll see fit to lighten your sentence."
"Sentence?" Emma snapped, confused and angry. Oh dear, this definitely wasn't going to be good. "What sentence?"
"Banishment," he answered, as if the word was poison in his mouth. "You don't think I'd live in this pit if I was welcomed anywhere else, would you? I was framed, unjustly accused of-"
"Collusion," Miss Peregrine finished for him. She was finally fully dressed (although she did not have a smile). "Collaboration with the enemy. Betrayal after betrayal."
"I was acting as a double agent!" Bethany retorted.
Now, it might have been because I grew up in the late sixties, where my generation was more scared of America and our parents than anything else, but I never imagined sibling rivalry becoming this bad. They just bickered, and everyone else was too scared to interrupt. I mean, both Miss Peregrine and Bentham were incredibly smart and influential people who just so happened to be related. While we could never imagine Miss P. as anything other than our headmistress, Bentham probably knew a side of her that I never wanted to see.
After a bit, Miss Peregrine must have won the fight, because Bentham gave out a loud harrumph! as he called for his bear to take him away. It was all so overdone, that even Horace was disgusted by it.
Miss Peregrine just waved him off, and Emma went to go personally talk to her.
"For the first time in my life," I heard Millard tell me, "I'm glad that I don't have siblings."
I grabbed his hand and began to swing it. "Since when did you want a brother? Or sister--I don't mean to be stereotypical."
"Just always," Millard said casually. "I mean, I was fairly alone most of my life."
"Yeah, sorry I ruined your whole 'dark and lonely' thing by intruding into your life," I joked. Millard just kissed the top of my head.
"You know I don't feel that way!"
"Guys?" Hugh said. "You might want to check this out."
He was pointing over the horizon, where the bridge was. A large dust storm began to blow towards us.
Oh yay, another obstacle to overcome!
345-357
Oh by the way! I started up a Peter Parker X Reader and you guys should totally check it out, since the prologue was just published. Love y'all!