Pigment (Millard Nullings X Reader)

Not If, but When

Hey, so for anyone who was wondering, I had to delete and reupload this chapter. For some reason, everyone was having difficulties commenting on the actual passages. Hope this works! 👍

Emma opened her eyes and scanned the room. At first, I didn't know what she was looking for, obviously not surprised to see that she was on the safer side of the room, where all of the other ymbrynes were waking up with her peculiars friends surrounding her. No, she was looking for someone specific, and as I watched her frown deepen throughout her search, I realized who she was looking for.

It had been a good half hour since we found her, and even though we searched the whole room, Jacob was nowhere to be found. Miss Peregrine said the last she had seen of Jacob was him battling a Hollow, before he blew sleeping dust around the room, making everyone fall asleep. I was afraid that the likeliness of Jacob being alive dwindled with every minute that passed. Emma seemed to have realized that as well.

"Glad to see that you're awake," I told her, kneeling down to her level on the floor. 

"What did I miss?" she asked, still scanning the room.

"Not much. I mean, after we found you and the ymbrynes, we dragged you all into here, safe from the dust. Speaking of which, we only found out it could knock out a person when Horace pulled his handkerchief from his face and breathed it in. He immediately passed out--his eyes were rolled back and everything." I tried to smile, hoping it would help ease Emma. "Although, we also found another guy who strangely had no mouth. We didn't know what to do with him, so he's sleeping near Miss Dove's makeshift cot."

Emma eye's widened, as she tried to get up. "Don't keep him in here! He works with Caul!"

"Oh wait, really?" I asked, panicked. 

Quickly, I waved for Bronwyn to come over, so Emma could tell her who our mystery man was. She explained that he was Caul's intern, and he forced her and Jacob on the other side of the room to fight off the hollows. I looked at Bronwyn for help, since both Emma and I were too weak to actually do anything to help the situation.

"I'll tie him up," Bronwyn said after a bit. "Keep him in the other room and wait till he wakes up."

Emma nodded. "He deserves it."

His name was Warren, supposedly, while Hugh helped Bronwyn tie him up on the other side of the room. Now the only thing that separated us from him was the thick glass wall and the large metal door, whose locking system didn't even work anymore, thanks to Bronwyn kicking it down. We all silently waited anxiously for Warren to wake up. Even Miss Peregrine was standing near the glass, looking for any signs of life that wasn't just mouthless Warren in the room. Although, honestly, I thought we were all secretly waiting for Jacob to come.

"I'm going to search the room again," Bronwyn said, walking towards the door.

"Don't," said Miss Peregrine, eyes still scanning the room opposite us. "There's a trap door leading into a Hollow pit. If you fall in, there's no way of being able to get you out safely."

"Well, what do we do now?" Olive asked, anxious. 

"We wait," Miss Glassbill, a younger ymbryne who possibly got the worst beating out of all of them, replied. "We wait for something to happen."

* * *

Forty minutes had gone by since then, and we had just been attacked by a Hollow. We had turned on the lights to the opposing room, creating shadows on every object--every mannequin, box, model, etc.--that was in the room, making it easier to spot the creatures. Addison was in the storage room with the other ymbrynes as well, although he woke up a few minutes ago. Millard was the only peculiar not trying to plan what to do with Warren, who had waken up earlier. Instead, the invisible idiot just pestered Anomolous with questions, most of them the famous cartographer didn't even have an answer for.