Emma: The Monster Inside Me (HTTYD Fanfic, Book 3)

Chapter 17: My Brother's Father

We sat in our dank cell, boredom and uncertainty eating away at us.

"So when are you gonna tell me?" Ezra asked, his voice piercing the silence.

I raised an eyebrow. "Tell you what?"

"What had you so shaken this morning."

I grimaced. "Oh. That.... I just had a bad dream."

"About what?"

"Do you even care?" I asked bluntly.

"Well, I'm bored. Humor me," he said.

I sighed. "Well...it was dark. Really dark. And then there were these voices, whispering horrible things at me. They were only whispers, but yet so loud. And then.....Daniel...appeared in front of me. And I asked him to stay with me. And then he turned into...an ugly, discolored and deformed corpse. And he told me it was my fault he's dead."

I glanced over at Ezra and he was studying my face. "Do you believe him?"

"What?"

"That its your fault," he said.

I paused and pursed my lips. "No," I lied. "I didn't shoot him. You did," I added quietly.

He opened his mouth to respond when the cries of someone in pain echoed through the corridor. Then again. It was a man's voice.

"You tried to escape again. Foolish decision. You should know better by now," Cam's voice carved through the air.

I moved to the opposite corner of the cell door and peeked out so I could just barely see down the hallway where a man stood outside his cell--the shadowed figure we had passed earlier, I assumed.

Camber shoved him against the wall again with his powers and punched him across the face, making him cry out. The Dimension-Bender went to put the man back in his cell but scowled. "You broke the door. Lucky for you, I have plenty more cells with your name on them."

He shoved the man inside the next cell, slightly closer to ours and locked the door. "Try to escape again and you'll be too dead to care about freedom."

He disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

I strained to see the man through the awkward angle. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"Everly?" he asked uncertainly, trying his best to see me as well.

"No," I replied, "my name is Emma. Everly's my sister. Who are you? How do you know her?"

"I'm her father," the man replied. "Daryn."

I frowned. "I was told you were dead."

"That's what the Dimension-Bender wants people to think," he said with a sigh.

I paused, studying him through the bars. He looked exactly like Blaze, only older. His auburn hair was feathered gray, but his piercing Amber eyes were as bright as Blaze's.

"Is my Evie okay? What do you mean you're her sister, I thought we were having a boy."

"You did," I answered finally. "Blaze. My brother. Technically half-brother, to be more specific. Everly is my half-sister too."

The man's face fell slightly at the implications of this. "Oh," he said. "That means Margaret....remarried."

"She thought you were dead too," I said gently. "I'm sorry."