𝔠𝔞𝔠𝔬𝔢𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔰, jake portman

23 | FIND ME

CACOETHES
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE !

Jake started to panic when the door suddenly began bending on its hinges as Barron chopped at it with his axe arm. He looked for some way on the cage to unlock it, until he found a small screen to the left that was red. When he tapped it, the screen went green and the cage unlocked.

"Find your children. Create new loops." Jake instructed the ymbrynes, before suddenly turning around to see Barron peering through the large hole he made in the door.

"So, Jake, I see you've inherited your grandfather's peculiarity. You're just as annoying as he was." Barron spat, before slipping his arm through the hole and unlocking the door. He stepped inside the room and slammed the door shut. "Speaking of Abe, if you should see him in the afterlife, give him my regards."

Just as Barron began walking towards Jake, he stepped back and opened the cage door and released the ymbrynes. All of them flew out, squawking and flying around Barron and scratching him with their talons furiously to both punish him and give Jake some more time. He bent down to the separate cage that Miss Peregrine sat in.

He opened the door, though she sat stubbornly. "Please. We can't risk him taking you again." Jake begged, suddenly looking up when the birds flew up and out of several different hatches in the roof. Jake glanced at Barron before Miss Peregrine, still in bird form, leapt out of her cage and flew at Barron. She scratched him once or twice before soaring away and out of a hatch.

"You've lost Miss Peregrine! You've lost everything! It's over." Jake tried to get through to Barron as he held his badly clawed eye. Suddenly, he uncovered it and began to stalk towards Jake with a terrifying, murderous scowl on his face. With one hand, he held Jake by his jacket, and then he swung back his arm that was still morphed into an axe. But something stopped him.

"Jake?" Emma's voice called from the tunnels.

"Jake?" Came Enoch's voice.

Deep down, in the pit of his stomach, Jake was worried why Imogen hadn't called either. But he pushed that worry down, knowing that she was either with them or had escaped.

"Jake?" Emma called again, more hesitant this time as she turned and pushed the door open of the ymbryne room, expecting to see the worst. But what she saw, was two Jakes.

The one on the right came forward. "Emma! Enoch! No, wait look, that's not me! It's Barron." He said, gesturing to the other Jake that had rushed forward too.

"Don't listen to him, he's Barron." The one on the left said.

"No, I'm Jake! That's Barron." The other Jake exclaimed.

Enoch suddenly grabbed Miss Peregrine's crossbow that was leaning against the wall and aimed it at the two Jake's. "Well I've got a better shot than Jake, so neither of you move until we sort this." Enoch threatened, always keeping his aim sharp.

"Listen to me, I'm Jake. I grew up in Florida and I wanted to be an explorer. I thought nothing would ever change because I was ordinary." The Jake on the left explained.

"That's Jake, get Barron." Emma told Enoch, who aimed the crossbow at the Jake on the right.

"No, look, I told him all of this! She was my psychiatrist." The Jake on the right was quick to defend himself. If Imogen were here, she'd be able to tell. A tiny voice said deep down in the real Jake's head, but he pushed that voice down to focus.