Sorry i have no excuse, but hey new chapter for you guys, if anyone is still reading. i spent a lot of time on this one so please review, thanks guys, i hope you enjoy!

Oh! Warning: there is some graphic gore-ey-ness in the beginning, but after that, none.

Disclaimer: the characters herein belong to Ransom Riggs, except for any new ones those belong to me.

Everything is a Loop

Chapter 4

Red hair tangled with twigs rushed between the canopy of trees. The wind behind her, pushing her along, the grass tickling her one bare foot. She wished she didn't lose her shoe. She glanced up at the tall cliff side, at the root growing off the rock that she used to cushion her fall. She had slide her fingers on that side of the cliff for one day and two nights—no sign of Wights, yet, but she knew they were on her trail. She was sitting in the underbrush eating apples and edible roots that she found when she heard the boots on grass clomping, weapons clanking at their sides, that's when she jumped up and started running.

She wondered if everyone was all right. She knew they had Claire, she hoped that the little girl wasn't hurt, or a pile of Hollow poop. But as selfish as it sounded, she mainly thought of him. His long, gangly limbs, the bees that would crawl out of his mouth when he smiled, he never noticed or cared about the bees that popped out of his mouth. She thought of his freckles and messy, curly, brown hair that he hated, so he always kept his cap and googles on. She loved those, freckles, and curls. She loved those skinny limbs, and the bees in his teeth. She loved him. And now they're separated, miles apart, maybe forever. But she will always love him, and she will find him, will see him again. If he's still alive, and if she doesn't die.

She ran, her leg muscles burning. She hasn't run this fast since. . . since she left home. She heard the Wights behind her—right on her heels. She saw the tall trees next to her, giving her strength to go on. More Wights approached at her side, then some jumped out in front of her, blocking her in. The red head stopped, looking around at all the Wights closing her in. "Come with us." One of them said. She rather die than go with them, what they would do to her would be a lot worse than death. She heard the wind whistling in her ears, she could feel the power of the grass, weeds, trees, flowers coursing through her veins. She took a deep breath. . . and unleashed it.

The Wight standing closest to her on her right stumbled to the ground as the vines wrapped him up, squeezing so tight that the skin was rubbed off him leaving a skeleton in its place. The others stopped and hesitated, but only for a second, they're comrades were behind them, slowly advancing. The three that remained charged the girl at once.

She acted quick. Waving her arms around like she was performing a sacred dance, the apple tree next to her uprooted itself, crushing the Wight standing next to it with the sound of a scream and crunch. Roots popped out of the ground, tripping up the other two so they couldn't move. Once the girl got them to stand single file, a tree branch impaled them both from the back and sticking out of their eyes. By now the reinforcement made it to where the scuttle was taking place. The four more Wights had no time to stop and observe the scene. Tree branches smacked them around, launching them into the air. One fired his gun at her, he had snuck up from behind, the bullet whizzed past her ear. She turned around and flashed the man a look of hatred. Controlling the nature around her as simple as pulling the strings on a puppet, she held her hands out in front of her, her fingers arching like claws. The Wight looked scared, with a slow twist to the girl's wrists, a tree root rose from the ground between the man's feet, and shot upward, growing into a full tree, severing the Wight in half.

More Wights kept coming. Where were they coming from? But the girl still had strength, she wasn't even breaking a sweat. Touching the ground, making more roots rise, knocking the men off their feet before they could lift their guns. She spun around causing the tree branches to collide into their prey. Wights dropped like flies. She focused on her breathing, everything was going great, any time she saw an open window she bolted. While she was running, causing the plants to knock down anything around her that was moving, two Wights leaped at her from her blind spot. They latched onto to her wrists holding them tight. They quickly found out that while her arms and legs were bound, she couldn't bend the plants.

They held her still as she squirmed and whimpered to break free. A Wight in a fancier uniform than all the other ones casually strolled up to the girl. He looked around at the eleven dead Wights that scattered the ground, then back to her. "You're a powerful one." He said. The girl moved her fingers, and the tree limbs around them rose slowly making their way to this new Wight. "That's enough of that." He said and nodded to the two Wights that had their grips on the girl. Easy as cracking a stick over their knees, they snapped her arms, she fell to her knees screaming in pain, tears blocking her vision. The leader of this Wight clan knocked her on her back, him and the other Wight stepped on her hands, breaking them, so she couldn't bend the plant life at them. "Such a shame. Elementals are the most fascinating of the Peculiars in my opinion." The man said. "No matter, the Queen will enjoy having you as a slave." The Queen? Not the Queen of England surely. Since when do the Wights have a Queen?

The girl looked up at the clouds, arms burning in pain, tears running down her face. She felt a Wight pulling off her other shoe. He and his comrade stepped on the girl's feet, breaking them as well—breaking off the source of her peculiarity. She screamed in agony. Thinking of Hugh, she felt the power of the trees vanish from her system, and everything went black.

"Check their vitals for me?" A woman's voice said.

Jacob's eyes fluttered open weakly. His mouth hurt and tasted metallic as if he just came out of the dentist office. His mouth didn't hurt as much as his body did though. Everything ached, his legs, hand, head. Where was he? What happened? He stared at a white ceiling, a machine with a tube stuck in his arm beeped on his left. Am I in a hospital? There were people walking around, a few adults, male and female. Where was everyone else?

Jacob turned his head to the right, Enoch was in the cot beside him, passed out asleep. Jacob faced the left and saw Olive. She was also asleep, her arms and legs bound to the bed with leather. Where was Emma? He weakly lifted his head. There were more beds across from his on the other side of the room. Bronwyn, Hugh, Horace, and Millard all lined up—asleep. He turned his head back to the left and saw Claire in the bed next to Olive, then to the right and he saw her, in the bed next to Enoch—passed out asleep.

Jacob tried to sit up. A woman's hand landed on his chest, pushing him back down. He freaked. He was too weak to talk so he just whimpered like a scared little kid.

The woman coaxed him. "Shh shhh it's all right. It's all right. You're safe." She looked almost young, maybe twenty-four years old. Her accent was American. She had long black hair, pale skin. But the only thing Jacob cared about her, was her eyes. Green. Like the trees. Not white. She wasn't a Wight, so then where were they? "It's okay, it's okay, you made it, you're in the Academy, everything will be all right. Hand me the tranquilizer. He's freaking out." She said. With a sharp pinch in his arm he's head collided back with the pillow. He felt drugged, feeling the sedatives course through his body, he tried to fight it. This woman was talking with an older looking guy and Jacob wanted to hear every word she was saying, but the narcotics were making him so sleepy, so weak, he could barely hear a thing. He managed to keep his eyes open enough to somewhat make out what was happening. The woman shoved a new needle into his arm, the needle was connected to this device of some kind. The needle in his arm felt like it was burning, after a minute there was a beep from the device and the dark-haired woman pulled the needle out.

"Hollowspeak. Wow, no wonder this group is so valuable to them. Two elementals, a Dead Riser, and a Hollowspeak." She said.

"Hey look." The man's voice said at the foot of the bed Jacob was lying in.

Jacob was losing his fight with the narcotics. He almost fell back to asleep when he felt the man's hand grab his bare ankle making him twitch.

"What are you doing?" the woman's voice said rudely.

The grip on Jacob's ankle tightened, the man pulled Jacob's foot out from under the blankets exposing the bottom side. "Now look her Ms. Cardinal, if you ever need to stop a Peculiar just add pressure to the foot and. . ." he ran something feeling long and syndical under Jacob's foot roughly. Jacob gasped as his entire body twitch and shuddered as if some kind of power just thrashed around uncomfortably inside him. "If I made an incision, then his peculiarity would be turned off. Only temporarily."

"That's the start of the process of stealing one's peculiarity." The woman said, sounding bored.

"Exactly!" The man said excitedly.

"Oro, why would I, an Ymbryne, need you to show me how to steal peculiarities?"

"Everyone needs to know how to steal peculiarities. Or at least, turned them off."

Jacob's eyes fluttered shut and he fell back into a deep sleep.

In his dream, he was back at his house. He was flipping through channels on the TV with the children all huddled up on the couch beside him, Miss Peregrine joining them, sitting in the armchair.

"Jake, can we see you for a second?" His dad called. Jacob got up and walked into the kitchen where his mom and dad stood. He couldn't help noticing the look of concern Miss Peregrine flashed him on his way out of the living room.

"What's up?" He asked his parents.

His mother made a hesitant look and pulled Jacob further into the kitchen near the back door to make sure the children or the headmistress wouldn't hear her words. "We want them to leave." She said. "Your father and I have been thinking."

"No." Jacob said, he's face stone.

His mother took a deep breath, wearing the calm-before-the-storm-expression as Jacob liked to call it.

"They can't stay here forever Jakey." His dad said.

"They're not staying her forever. And don't call me Jakey, I'm not five."

"They can't stay here okay." His dad's voice raised a little bit. "It's been fun, glad to meet the people our son was hanging around while we traveled around looking for him" he was yelling at this point.

"Frank." Mrs. Portman said, hand on her husband's shoulder to keep him calm. That bird woman scared her, she didn't want her hearing the conversation.

Franklin took a deep breath and continued; "Look, just get them out, please. So we can go back to our normal lives."

"You realize if they go, I do, right?" Jacob said pissed off.

"You will not." His dad demanded.

"They're not leaving, they probably don't have anywhere to go."

"Not our problem." Frank said.

Jacob gritted his teeth, trying to not start a parade of curse words at his parents.

"We'll be gone in the morning, if that's what you'd prefer." Miss Peregrine said standing in the doorway.

They all looked at her shocked. "Ms. Peregrine, no—" Jacob started.

"Thank you." Maryann said.

"I'll tell the children to prepare their things." Miss Peregrine said.

"No! No, you don't have to leave, please don't."

"Jacob." Frank started.

"It's all right Mr. Portman, I understand how it's quite clear that we've out stayed our welcome. I thank you for your hospitality." She said nodding politely to Mr. and Mrs. Portman. "It's time for us to go." She said to Jacob.

"I don't want you to leave." He said.

"We'll find a new place and you can write to us, maybe even visit." She said.

"Yeah, see Jake, maybe you can visit them, maybe keep in touch. It's not forever." Frank said.

Maybe visit them, maybe write to them, maybe keep in touch with them, maybe, maybe, maybe, just like Abe.

Satisfied that this conversation ended in their favor, Jacob's parents left the room. Jacob turned to Miss Peregrine, mouth open but unaware of what to say yet, how to form the words. "Let's chat outside." She said, opening the back door.

They stood out in the yard.

"I'm going with you. I don't care what they say." Jacob said.

Miss Peregrine sighed, "Jacob they're your parents."

"I don't want you to leave." He repeated.

"You'll still be able to communicate with us, see us, it won't be goodbye forever."

"I'm going with you." Jacob repeated, his mind officially made up. "You can't just leave without me, I'm a part of the family. I'm one of Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children."

"They are your parents." She repeated calmly. "You're still a young man you have to do what they say."

"I'm almost seventeen." Jacob demanded.

"Exactly. So stay here, finish school, or whatever it is they want for you to succeed in. Then, when your eighteen or older, come find us. But right now, I'm sorry to say this but listen to your parents."

"I'm not waiting that long."

"Listen to your parents Jake."

"I'm not staying here. I don't want this normal life I want a peculiar one." He shouted.

She looked him straight in the eyes. Dark green meeting light blue. "You can survive one more year of this normal life without Miss Bloom, don't you think?"

That statement threw Jacob off guard. Does she really still think, that Emma is all he cares about?

"It's not like that anymore." He said calmly.

"How do you mean?"

"I don't just want to go with you just because of Emma. Yes, I love her, but I love you too, all of you. I fell in love with all of you, it's just about Emma anymore."

Miss Peregrine looked down at him sincere, her heart warming, tears forming in her eyes. "Well, I'm glad to hear that Jacob."

"Please let me go with you."

"That's not up to me."

"Stay a little longer, get them to change their minds, they'll come around I know it."

She shook her head. "I don't want you to abandon your home."

"You've dealt with plenty of children having to abandon their homes for your safety. Why now, are you hesitant or forbidding me to come with you?"

"Because I know you. I've seen what you can do with the Hollows. You are not in any danger. The children I pick up were always in danger. I protected them—"she stopped talking abruptly. Her head jerked back behind her, looking at the sky, eyes filled with terror.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Jacob said.

She turned back around to look at him. "I'll be right back, need to check on something." With that she turned into a bird and flew away into the clouds.

Jacob stood there looking confused, then slowly went back inside the house, not noticing Millard's invisible form sitting on the porch.

Jacob woke up again feeling refreshed. Once the grogginess left he looked at the white ceiling confused. Wait where are we? He thought back to what that strange woman said, "you made it, you're in the Academy". Relief flushed through him. The room was quite except for some deep breathing and snores from his fellow friends. He sat up slowly looking around. This definitely looked like a hospital, white walls, white floors, everything looked clean and polished and plain. There was stirring next to him, he looked over and saw Olive open her eyes. She tugged on her arms and feet that were bound to the bed and freaked out.

"Shh, no it's okay, it's okay." Jacob soothed her as the little girl thrashed around whimpering.

"Where are we?" she asked him.

"The Academy."

Her eyes grew wide.

In the next about thirty minutes everyone started waking up.

"What happened?" Emma said to Jacob.

"No idea." He replied.

"We got kidnapped. Obviously." Enoch said. Emma lifted her hand like she was about to slap him, but Olive came over and hugged her.

"I'm scared." She cried.

"It'll be all right, little magpie." Bronwyn said.

Jacob told everyone about how he woke up too early and heard the conversation between the strange woman and man. "She said she was an Ymbryne." He said while the children were all huddled up on one of the beds. "She had this device thing that I think displayed what our peculiarities are." The children all looked confused.

"How could that be?" Millard asked.

"I dunno, she stuck a needle in my arm, and it was connected to the device. It read from our blood I guess."

"Extraordinary." Millard said amazed.

"Did you hear her say anything else?" Hugh asked.

"After she shoved the needle in my arm she called me a Hollowspeak."

"Heard of it." Millard stated. "That's the name of your peculiar ability."

"Well why do I just now hear it? I've could have been called by some cool name instead of the 'boy who sees monsters'."

Enoch chuckled.

"Okay this isn't the important issue right now." Emma said. "If we made it to the Academy, then why are we trapped in this room, what's going on?"

Jacob looked around and noticed a little black colored orb hanging off of the ceiling. "There's a camera." He told the others pointing to it. "They're watching us."

"Who's they?" Claire asked. It was a good question. They knew it wasn't the Wights, but still, something fishy is going on here.

An hour went by, there was silence. No one came by. Enoch banged, kicked and shouted questions and insults at the door. Still nothing.

"Enoch. Stop, being dumb and get a hold of yourself." Bronwyn said chiding him.

The second he stepped away from the door it opened revealing a woman in a nurse's uniform smiling down at us.

"Hello and welcome to the Peculiar Academy founded by Ms. Bunting and Ms. Avocet." Her thin British accent said. "Sorry, to keep you waiting, we had to check the health conditions of your bodies, something all the new recruits have to go through."

"I knew you touched my teeth, I could tell!" Enoch demanded.

"Yes, we filled cavities and solved other minor health problems, such as healing scars—"

"Enough!" Emma shouted. "Take us to your Ymbryne now!"

"I will take you to Lady Nightingale in a short while, but first, here are a change of clothes." She said laying piles of clothing on one of the beds. "And I also recommend that you wash up; the bathrooms are through those doors there." She said all of this plainly, as if she was reading off an instructions manual.

"One of the guards will come by in an hour to escort you to Ms. Nightingale." She walked out of the door, shutting it, where it clicked into place, locking us in.

"What the hell?!" Jacob said.

They stumbled around confused for a while, then the girls headed into their bathroom to wash up and change, and the boys did the same. Jacob did feel great when the hot water of the shower hit his head.

The clothing was plain looking, tanned pants and a long sleeved grey shirt. Horace saw the clothes and starting hyperventilating. "I'm not wearing that. I'd rather be stuck in this room for all eternity!"

"Walk around naked like Millard then." Enoch teased.

Horace reluctantly put the clothes on, blushing. And yes, Millard was going to walk around naked, in case you were curious.

After precisely one hour, a muscled man opened the door. "Hello, my name is Hans, Ms. Nightingale as requested an audience with you, I'll be your escort." He had yellow hair, and a red tinge on his face, from where he probably just spent the day drinking.

While walking down hallways that also looked plain and empty we took no time at all in slamming the man with questions.

"What location is this loop in?" Millard asked.

"We're in a secret location between Maine and New York in America. May 22, 2017." Hans said.

"So it is modern day." Jacob said.

"The Academy always follows the modern day time period."

"What time is it? Like of the day." Jacob asked him.

He looked down at his watch sighing heavily, "uhhhh noon."

"You enjoy your job don't you." Enoch stated sarcastically.

"Where are our belongings?" Horace asked him.

"Who attacked us in that city?" Emma asked.

Hans let lose a sigh, like he was already bored and tired of us. "Your belongings have been taken to your rooms that Ms. Nightingale has assigned to you."

"Who attacked us?" Emma repeated, louder this time.

"Where's Miss Peregrine?" Olive said.

"Ms. Nightingale will explain everything." Was all Hans said.

Emma flashed Jacob a look saying; I'm going to roast his drunk face.

"Here we are." He shoved them all into another empty room, except this one was dark, with hard wood floors and dark grey wallpapers. "They'll be with you shortly." And he slammed the door locking them in.

"I already hate it here." Hugh said.

"Same." Said Millard.

"I wanna go home." Claire complained.

"Miss Peregrine is in trouble." Olive said, on the verge of tears.

They all looked toward her.

"I'm sure she's all right little one." Bronwyn said soothingly.

"No! I saw her, I saw her get shot, she's hurt or maybe dead!" She started crying.

Emma came over and gave her a hug. "Shh, be brave." She said.

Olive continued to sob when the door opened again and three people came in. Two girls, and Jacob could swear he has seen one of them before, and a guy with blue skin. They all looked like they were in their twenties. The girl that looked familiar and the blue skinned guy stood on either side of the door, blocking it. The other girl took a seat at a long table. "Please sit." She said gesturing to the seats around opposite her at the table.

"What's going on?" Emma demanded. None of them sat down at the table. The girl had her hands folded in front of the her, she had shoulder length honey blonde hair, and dark blue eyes.

"What would you like to know?" She asked regally.

"Where is our Ymbryne?" said Emma.

"In our infirmary. She's very injured." The girl said.

Olive gasped, "I told you, she was hurt."

"Can we see her?" Emma asked.

"No."

"No? She's our Ymbyrne."

"No one can see her, except our doctors, she's in critical care." She said, cutting Emma off.

"We need to see her!" Emma demanded.

"You can't." the girl sated simply. "Any more questions, comments, concerns."

"Who are you?!" Enoch asked bluntly.

"Never mind that, where's your Ymbryne?" Emma asked rudely.

The girl with dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail guarding the door took a step toward Emma, her hand raised as if to slap her.

"There's no need for that Addy, they're just confused, they've been through a lot." The girl said holding up her hand.

She looked right at Emma "I am the Ymbryne."

Some of their mouths dropped. She's the Ymbryne? She's looks so young.

"I'm Katherine Nightingale, but please call me Kat, I'm only an Ymbryne in training. But the chief Ymbryne insists on formalities."

Horace snickered, causing the girl, Kat to glare at him.

"I'm sorry." He quickly wiped the smile off his face. "It's just. . . a bird named Kat."

"Yeah, ha ha funny, isn't it? You done? You're not the first one to come up with that joke and clearly not the last. Any more questions? Or—"

"How old are you?" Horace asked her.

"Twenty. How old are you?"

"Eighty—"

"Fourteen." Horace looked at her, shocked. "Your real ages don't matter in the Academy, so forget them." She went on to say.

"What?" Hugh stated.

"We've found a way of aging even within the Loop, so forget your real age, it won't matter anymore."

Emma balled up her fist, steam coming between her fingers.

"Who attacked us on our way here?" Jacob asked.

"We did." Kat said, like it was no big deal at all.

"Who's we?" Emma asked.

"Our soldiers, a.k.a half of everyone here. They're were Wights coming in, we had to get you within our walls quickly, sorry for the scare."

"But I don't understand why you couldn't just—"

"The Loops are dead." Kat said interrupting Emma. "We have new children coming to the Academy everyday. The Academy was built as a safe haven, a place for peculiars that could protect them when the Loops and Ymbrynes couldn't. The Loops were all raided and it will take a while to rebuild them, so our walls here at the Academy have been overflowing with Peculiar children. We've been renovating and expanding to make room. As a way to teach the children to defend themselves because a lot of Ymbrynes have sadly been wiped out over the last few years, we brought back the rank system."

"The rank system?" said Hugh.

"In the morning you will be looked over by other Ymbrynes and members of the council. They're going to look over your peculiarity's strengths and weaknesses and determine which rank you belong in."

They all wore confused faces.

"The ranks run one through ten. One through four are for the children born inside the academy, it's their basic education, learning how to read and such, it's for toddlers. The lowest rank you can be placed in is fifth. You will all have schooling in our classrooms that you will partake in from seven in the morning, after breakfast, till noon. Then lunch break, then training in your rank till seven in the evening for dinner. After that you're free to do as you please. Except leave. No one leaves the Academy's walls, do so and you will be severely punished." Kat finished, looking at all of them, daring they throw more questions her way.

"This sounds like a military school." Jacob said.

"It pretty much is." She said.

There was beep coming from the phone in the blue guy's hand. "Kat, the chief Ymbryne would like to see you." He said.

"Oh my birds!" She complained, her shoulders drooping. "Thank you Raji." She looked back to the others, "Raji and Addy will escort you to your rooms, all your stuff is there, and we've even provided you with a few extra things. You're not leaving these walls for a long time. Now get out, the chief Ymbryne is going to be coming in, she's kind of strict. It was nice meeting you and I'm sure we will talk again." She gestured all of us out the room.

Just as she was about to close the door, the girl named Addy spoke up. "The invisible is still in there, ma'am."

"What invisible?" Emma tried, and failed.

The girl grabbed a pair of pants from a storage closet at the end of the hall, she came back, walked right up to Millard and slammed the pants into his chest. "Cover up please, it's. . . disturbing." She said. Millard blushed, his whole face turning red. She had an American accent, dark eyes to match her hair, and was possibly the most beautiful girl Millard as ever seen.

"Wait." He called after her. "How can you see me?"

She turned around, looking right into his eyes. "It's my peculiarity." She held up her hand and it vanish from her fingertips to her wrist.

"I know you!" Jacob shouted at her. "You're the one who smacked me over the head with a wooden plank."

"And dragged your ass here so the Wights wouldn't get you. Your welcome. Now let's go."

Her and the guy Raji lead the children down the hallway, into an elevator, and down more hallways.

"How do you know her?" Emma whispered to Jacob. She wasn't jealous. . . not in the slightest.

"I followed her into this building and saved her from getting killed by a Hollow." Jacob answered.

"You left us to save a girl you didn't know." Enoch hissed.

"I thought she was Millard." Jacob said.

Millard smiled warmly at Jacob, but of course he didn't see it. He looked ahead and noticed the girl, Addy, quickly turn her head back around from where she'd been staring at Millard. Her cheeks blushed. Millard smiled at the back of her head, his heart pounding. Maybe, he thought.

This was a long one, how are you guys doing, comment and let me know lol and see you next time! :D