„We're doomed."

Chapter 27

(Warning! There is a small hint of physical abuse in this chapter!)

==

The slum dwellers were still attacking the wights, hitting them with everything they had.
Brianna and Fernando turned away from the others and walked towards the fighting people.
"Everyone get away from the wights!" Brianna shouted. And so they did.
Fern was pointing his gun at the wights, while Brianna started to grab one of them by his arms. The wight struggled, but her grip was too tight.
"Everyone, who's strong enough, get over here and help!" she said to the group. Some of the slum dwellers came rushing over and began to do the same as Brianna. Sharon and his cousins, who were there too, immediately helped keeping the wights from running away.

Eventually, all the wights were held back by the slum dwellers, Sharon's cousins, Brianna and Fernando.

Then everybody turned their heads into the direction of Caul's collapsed fortress, when they saw Sharon coming back and behind him a very tall figure, slowly nearing them. Myron.

Suddenly, a loud and high squeal came from somewhere in the crowd. Nim came running, his eyes big and close to tearing up.
"Mr. Bentham!!" he called, rushing over to the giant, almost tripping over his own feet and hugged a part of Myron's ankle.
"Nim, please" Myron said and looked down to him, sighing. "Would you be so kind and let go of me?"
Nim quickly let go, stepped away from Myron and bounced up and down out of excitement.

Caul was also holding other ymbrynes captive, like Miss Avocet—who was walking over to Myron with Miss Peregrine and other ymbrynes now.

"Myron Bentham." Miss Avocet began to say, glancing up at him. "I suppose you know what's going to await you?"
Myron gulped.
"Well, yes. But how am I going to be able to get into a punishment loop? I mean—" Myron said and looked down at himself.
The ymbrynes turned their backs at him and whispered things to each other, discussing something. Then they broke the circle and the ymbrynes faced the giant again.
Miss Avocet clapped her hands only once and said: "We have a task for you. You will help us cleaning up the mess your brother made and help defending peculiardom, if anything else will happen in the future."
Myron wanted to say something, but he just nodded at her, assuring her that he understood.
He was thinking about the fact, that his brother just disappeared. And Myron feared that this, what happened to Caul, might happen to him too.
But Myron didn't mention it yet. It was probably for the better to not make up any "excuses", so he doesn't have to help them. But that wasn't the case. Of course, he wanted to help, but the question here was: For how long?

Miss Avocet turned around to the crowd again and told everyone, who was taking care of the wights, where they should bring them. Then the ymbrynes, including Sharon and Nim wandered off—except for Miss Peregrine.

She stared at her brother, her eyes having a sad, but also happy look.
"Oh, Alma. You—you're still here." he said, nervously. "Shouldn't you...leave too?"
"I want to talk to you, Myron." she said, smiling slightly and Myron carefully sit down on the ground.
"I'm glad you chose our side over Jack's side." Miss Peregrine said and Myron stayed quiet. "I just wish all of this wouldn't have happened. From the very beginning."
"Nobody could have prevented all of this, nobody knew this would happen—except Jack himself." added Myron and when he saw that tears were slowly building up in his sisters eyes, he awkwardly looked away, as if he didn't want to see her cry.
Then Miss Peregrine remembered something.

//

Alma saw her father walking out of Jack's room, slamming the door shut.
Curiously, she got closer to her brother's room, and slowly opened the door, taking a look inside.

Jack was sitting on the floor, his arms tightly wrapped around himself. He was shaking slightly and Alma could hear him sob quietly.
There was a belt next to him on the floor.

"Jack?" Alma asked. Her brother flinched and turned around rapidly. His eyes and cheeks were wet. "Are you okay?"
"I-I'm fine. W-what are you doing here?" he asked, his voice trembling, trying to calm himself down.
"I was going to ask, if you want to play hide and seek with me and Myron in a minute!" she said, smiling.
"M-maybe later. I don't feel like playing right now, okay Alma? Sorry." he said and wiped his eyes, obviously not wanting Alma to question his sight.
"Alright!" Alma said, but she did notice how he was feeling. She just didn't know why. "I hope you'll feel better soon!"
Jack smiled weakly and then Alma hopped out of the room.

//

Miss Peregrine wiped her tears away and tried to change the subject.
"What exactly happened in there?" she said, nodding to the destroyed fortress.
"We were fighting and right when I thought he was about to kill me, something with the soul he'd consumed happened. It was pouring out of his eyes, his mouth, his wounds—as if the soul wanted to leave his body. Or maybe it was time to return it to the library—if it was still there. I mean, peculiars had to return the souls, which they took from the library."
Miss Peregrine nodded.
"Do you think the same will happen to you too?" she asked and she began to get worried.
"That's what I was thinking about too. I really don't hope so, because after all this, Jack was—he was just gone. Nowhere to be seen. I don't know, maybe he just disappeared, or he's still somewhere in there, back to his normal size—which could be a reason, why I couldn't find him. I would suggest you ymbrynes to take another closer look under all those broken pieces. I can help you of course." Myron explained.
"We will definitely do that." Miss Peregrine assured him and nodded. "Well, then maybe I should go and tell them right now. Thank you."
She smiled widely and waved at him, and Myron did too. Then she walked away.

He felt happy. Now he did something good for once. Now everything was fine again—was it?

//

For the next weeks, everyone was helping cleaning up all the mess.
The ymbrynes interrogated Myron again, deciding that, even though he did lots of bad things, he redeemed himself and that there was no punishment necessary.
They also talked to Brianna and Fernando, but after Miss Sparrowhawk payed the ymbryne council a visit, she told them that the two wights could be trusted.
Brianna and Fernando were, like Myron, told to protect peculiardom now.

The ymbrynes also thought about rebuilding the fortress, so that Myron could have some kind of home. And eventually Myron and a group of other peculiars started to rebuild it.

The wights were put into punishment loops, locked away forever. Some of them got interrogated, but for the rest of them—no one was able to talk to them. There wasn't any point in talking to them anymore.

Caul, however, wasn't found. They searched everywhere. When they rebuild the fortress, they lifted rocks and put them away. They kept looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found.