Dark One's Daughter *Book Three*

A Curious Thing

After leaving the rest of the group, Jones took me deeper into the woods, near to Troll bridge so we could figure out what to do with my heart. If I was right and the reason Zelena needed me was to take the baby, I was taking zero risks. She couldn't make me do anything I didn't want to if she couldn't find my heart.

As we approached the bridge, I noticed it looked exactly as it had done when Ruby and I had found the heart oh so long ago. The only difference was, there was no wooden slap covering up the box.

"Where do you want to hide it?" Jones asked, holding his hand out for me to take as we climbed down the steep slope.

"Somewhere she wouldn't think of looking," I replied, taking his hand.

When we reached the bottom of the slope, I took the lead and started to lead Jones north of the bridge. I knew that there was a small, abandoned hut nearby and that should be a good place to hide my heart. Not many people knew about it and I was fairly sure that Papa wasn't one of them.

Eventually, we reached the crumbling hut that only had a few of its walls still intact.

"Looks homey," Jones commented sarcastically, making me laugh.

"Isn't it just?" I replied, approaching it.

"How did you find it?" Jones asked.

"I don't really know. I guess I just found it one day and I've always remembered where it was," I told him, crouching down, and walking under the breaking doorway.

"Are you sure it's safe to enter?" Jones questioned, looking at it cautiously.

"No, but it's the best place to hide a heart. Zelena hopefully will just think it's an abandoned building if she happens to come here," I answered.

Now that we were in the hut, I placed my hand over my chest.

"Amie, wait," Jones said, placing his hand on mine. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Am I sure that I want to prevent Zelena taking advantage of me and making me steal my friends baby?" I said sarcastically. "Yes, I am sure."

Jones silently nodded and removed his hand from mine. Taking a deep breath, I reached my hand into my chest and pulled out my heart. I didn't bother hiding the few darker specks of my heart from Jones as most people knew about my dark past that had left a scar on my heart.

The affect was immediate. I could feel the emptiness inside of me. I could no longer feel my guilt or my anger or my sadness. A feeling I had long forgotten. A feeling that I was ashamed to admit I had missed.

As I looked down at it, Jones took out a pouch from his pocket and held it open for me. I gave him a small smile before carefully placing my heart in it. Taking the bag from Jones, I tied it shut and moved over to a pile of rubble. Using my magic, I moved the rubble to the side and placed my heart on the ground before reapplying the rubble around it.

"Is that it?" Jones asked, as we climbed out of the hut.

"One more thing," I muttered.

I turned back to the hut and muttered an incantation under my breath, creating a protective shield around the hut.

"That's it," I nodded.

Once again, Jones held out his hand for me to take, which I did. Time to beat this witch.

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On the way back to Granny's, Jones excused himself to go and get something and having no reason to suspect anything, I let him go and went to Granny's by myself. Mary Margaret, David, and Emma were already sitting there when I got there.