Bending Light

27~Running Out of Time

(A/N): Hi, like I wrote in chapter 1, I'm taking a little poetic license here because in the novel Jacob visits the island in June and I switched it a few weeks back into May so it works better with my storyline. Now go read my chapter.

Though both V and Abe had been trained to take down armed agents, they hadn't learned how to beat one with two guns. Especially when one of them was bleeding from their head. Instead of telling X where the twins were, V opted to tell her about the book.

"It's simple: the book tells you the future."

"Wrong answer," Madame X replied. "It allows you to write the future." She clicked the safety on the pistol and shot at the floor, making V jump.

Sarkisan stepped forward, holding her gun to V's forehead. "I'm not an imbecile; that was a test, and you failed it. So if you don't want a bullet in your head, tell me something that I do not know. For example, why is the book empty? Why isn't it writing itself yet?"

In stepping forward, X's position had become advantageous to Abe. She was not only looking away from him, but blocking him from the other soldiers and their weapons. Seeing that he looked well enough to fight, V told Sarkisan a truth that would distract her for long enough.

"It needs a title, X. And once we give it one, we can do whatever we want with it."

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    It wasn't so much that something happened as it was something not happening as usual; all day Wednesday, Martin, the museum curator, was missing. (Y/N) hadn't talked to him much when they had gone on the tour, but he seemed like someone who believed in privacy, so she wouldn't have thought much of it if there wasn't a whole thing going on with wights and hollows. And besides, everyone on the island was adamant that something was wrong from the minute they realized he'd missed his daily bar visit. They spent all day looking for him but to no avail.

Throughout the day (Y/N) kept typing, trying her best to work through her backup plan, though her sister kept insisting that they should just send the book to the author. (Y/N) handed her off to Jake for him to babysit, but when Elise started yelling at him to go tell Miss Peregrine that someone was missing, even he got tired of her and left for a walk. In the meanwhile, (Y/N)'s parents stayed inside to gossip with the villagers because their family sympathy calls had finally dried up.

Finally, on Thursday, the search party radioed in the news that they had found the poor man's body. It was sometime after midday when people flocked to the pub to hear the fisherman who found him. He took the beer he was offered, and during the moment of silence it seemed as if everyone was sitting on the edge of their seats.

He began by explaining how his daily fishing run started out normally until his boat caught onto something large. When he looked to see what it was, he found Martin's half-eaten carcass floating among the fish. The fact that he had been wearing pajamas made the situation all the more puzzling, but for (Y/N), Elise, and Jacob—who shared a nervous glance—it meant that the real danger had just begun. To made matters worse, Jake's dad had recently seen the sketchy ornithologist wearing sunglasses at night.

Since the stormy weather was projected to get worse, all of Cairnholm was on lockdown, much like the version inside the loop. For once, the weatherman was right, meaning that everyone had to stay inside and away from the high winds. So while Martin's dead body sat in the fishmonger's ice trough, (Y/N), Elise, and Jacob were supposed to sit inside and do nothing about it. Yeah right.

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    Abe got up slowly, trying not to draw attention. While the bleeding had slowed, he had to make sure every movement was worth the pain. Although X hadn't been distracted long enough for him to make a move, she still wasn't paying much thought to him.