Timeless (Enoch O Connor x OC)

21: Saltwater Tears

"She- she's gone," stuttered Olive through her tears. 

"They took her and Miss Avocet and told us that if we followed them a hollow would eat us," Hugh said.

"Where did they take them?" Emma asked, panicked. 

"The seashore," whispered Fiona, the first time I had ever heard her voice, "I overheard them." 

"We have to go now," I said, moving to leave again. 

"But what are we going to do?" asked Horace. 

"Save them, obviously," I answered.

 
"We don't have a plan or weapons or anything," Enoch said. 

"What do you suggest? For us to just sit here till the bomb drops on us?" I asked, exasperated. He took a moment to think and nodded. 

"You're right, we have to go save them," he said. 

I took my suitcase with me this time. It was late into the evening and only a while before the loop was supposed to reset, we needed to get Miss Peregrine back fast.

I looked at the old house one last time. With its beautiful brick walls and intricate windows, the vines growing around the porch, and the large and luxurious garden with its vegetables and topiaries. Goodbye, I thought, as I turned around and followed the others into the trees. 

As we walked through the bog I noticed a large black shape lying on the floor. The hollow, I realized, Jacob must have killed it while we were running back to the house. I looked away from the beast, with its tongues limp, to give Jacob a nod of gratitude. If he hadn't killed it, it would have followed us to the house and killed us all.  

We arrived at the little rocky beach we had swum at. Rain poured down into the sea and lightning crackled overhead lighting everything up for a moment. There was no one around, no civilians nor any wights. 

I noticed Emma running over to a part of the water where it was shallower.

"My boat's gone!" she shouted over the sound of the storm, "the wights must have taken it." 

"How do we follow them?" I shouted back. 

"He couldn't have gotten far in that old boat," she shouted, "he's probably at the lighthouse, we'll have to swim."

She pointed at the small lighthouse that once upon a time cast light across the dark sea to help ships find their way but in this weather, I doubted that a mere light would help anyone. 

"Are you crazy?" shouted Millard. Frankly, I agreed with him. In this weather, we would die before we reached the wight.

"We don't have a choice," said Emma and began wading into the water. Jacob entered behind her. 

"Do you want to stay?" I asked Enoch as quietly as I could over the storm. 

"And let you face an unhinged wight alone? I don't think so," he said and walked into the water. 

Hugh and Fiona stayed behind to look after Olive and Claire, Horace said he could be of no use there so he stayed too. 

The water was freezing and if we weren't already drenched from the rain before we were now. We swam in complete darkness, our world lighting up at every strike of lightning. The only sounds I could hear were my teeth chattering and the rain and thunder. 

I felt a tug on my wrist and came to stop, bobbing up and down in the waves.

"He's there," said Emma and as I followed her gaze I caught sight of the wight from before standing atop the rocky shore. In his hands, he held a birdcage and in the other a gun. He gazed out into the dark expectantly, waiting for someone or something.