Secrets (a MPHFPC Fanfic)

Taken: Alma

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This story is sort of short because there isn't a lot to tell. It's a prequel to my story Thin Ice (MPHFPC Fanfic). It's fine if you read this book first, or Thin Ice first, it doesn't really matter.

This story is also undergoing editing, because I'm looking back at what I wrote over a year ago and it's a bit cringy. 

Have a good week, everyone!

~Eudora Perine

I step into my office, unsuspecting, and a gun barrel points at my face.

"Don't scream. Don't talk. Don't try anything."

I would know that voice anywhere. My eyes slowly move to his face. Jack. Or... Caul. My eyes narrow. He found us. My only thoughts were of my children. He could kill me, but never my wards.

"Jack," I whisper. "I'm not afraid."

He frowns at my calling him Jack. Then he grins an unstable grin. "Oh Alma, how I missed your attitude. But I know your secret. And quite a fabulous one it is. When were you going to tell me we had another member of the family?"

At this, despite my efforts, I wince. My reaction made my brother smile even wider, a sign of his madness.

"And I think you would like to know that she's with her uncle now," He held up a photo and my blood turned to ice. There she was, my daughter, floating, and unconscious in a pod filled with who-knows-what and my other brother and his grimbear standing next to her. "And our brother is expecting me to make contact within an hour, so if anything happens to me and I don't make contact, her soul gets removed. Or worse." I clenched my jaw and he moved closer, showing his teeth as he grinned. "So sit down. Shall we?"

His gun still pointed at me, I could see no other option. I slowly moved to the nearest chair and sat. Caul pulled up a chair with his other arm and sat as well, moving the gun only so it still remained pointed at me. But it wasn't me I was worried about. It was my daughter.

"Now Alma," my brother said after a long moment, sounding miraculously bored. "Everything will be explained in due time. But right now, I need you to chain yourself and follow me." He held out a long chain with shackles on the end. When I hesitated, he shook them and told me to take them and put them on, or he won't make contact with our brother until two hours had passed.

I had no choice but to snap the cold metal around my wrists. I couldn't allow anything to happen to my daughter.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I don't just have you turn into a bird, sister. But the truth is, it'll be so much more satisfying to watch your face as this next part plays out." At this, he stood up and --still holding the other end of the chain-- hanked me along with him to the door.

"Children!" Caul yelled out the door. He attached the other end of the chain to his waste . Then he grabbed my upper arm and put the end of the gun up against the underside of my chin, forcing me to tilt my head up. "Your headmistress is in a bit of a pinch!" and when no one came, he faced me. "Call for your children," he ordered.

I delivered him a glare and he returned it with a grin. "Children..." I yelled. I took a deep breath. "Children!" After saying it, Caul shoved a cloth in my mouth, causing me to let out a muffled yelp of surprise. I suspected it was either for looks or to keep me from saying anything revealing. It was most likely both. He was almost as dramatic as Myron.

Then they started to appear, climbing slowly up the stairs. First Bronwyn, who had Caire in her arms. The rest of them slowly filed in, all of them having heard a unusual voice calling for them and hid, ironically, in the room under the room we were in, as I had told them to do in a case like this.

They all gathered in front of us. Caul grinned and shoved the gun harder into my neck. "Now children, I would like you to make your way into this room." Then he stepped away from the doorway and, in the process, pushed me roughly up against the wall, and with his gun digging so deeply into my neck, it blurred my vision and made me gasp. The children echoed with a horrified gasp of their own, and obeyed immediately. Caul answered with another grin and a chuckle.

Then he was hit with an invisible force. Millard, who was now nude, had kicked his head. I quickly ducked as well as I could, and I found that a bullet had been emptied from the gun just above my head, into the wall.

Caul, his gun now pointed fully at me again, grabbed the air with his other hand and came into contact with Millard.

"Try that again and you won't like what happens." Then he shoved Millard in, too.

Caul grabbed my hair and twirled me around roughly, causing me to collapse on my knees, pointed the gun at my temple and made a practiced banging noise with his mouth that triggered screams from the children. Once the screams died down and they realized I had not been shot, Caul went into a lapse of laughter that turned their shocked faces into red and angry ones. He was truly mad.

After Caul finished laughing, he pulled me up again to face him, still holding my hair, and grinned at me.

"What do you think of that trick, Alma? Pretty good, right?" I tried to answer, but my words were turned into an unintelligible "Mmmph!" as soon as they tried to leave my mouth.

"Oh right, I forgot," Caul said coyly. He removed the gag and I promptly said "If you are to leave them to die, at least leave them their dignity!"

Caul pretended to pout and then released my hair. "Then again, what do you know about dignity?" He pointed his gun at me. Then he addressed the children. "Children, I think you should say goodbye to your Ymbryne now. You won't see her again."

I found it fit to say something then. "He's wrong, children. We'll see each other again. Just be brave and-" But then Caul shoved the gag in my mouth yet again. "If I hear another peep out of you, you know what will happen."

My eyes widened and Caul looked very pleased with himself. The children's eyes widened as well, but they most likely believed he meant to shoot me. Then Caul took my arm and pulled me out of the room, swinging the door shut and locking it as I gave the children a look that hopefully told them to be strong.

And as Caul dragged me away to wherever he was going to take me, I kept to myself the hope that Jacob was still out there, and that he may inherit the rest of Abe's gift.