Hey! Now we get to see a little snippet of how our unfortunate Stuart and Hanover friends are doing! I hope that you liked the last chapter, I had great fun writing it!

Enjoy this one, we get some brotherly love and some serious hate towards our little mole...

Ow. Ow. Blinking his eyes open, he found that he could barely make out anything except the small figure huddled next to him. His head throbbed as if it was an anvil in the busiest blacksmith's shop in the world, where the hammer weighed 20 pounds and was made of solid steel. It must be from whatever had been hit against his head...how long ago? The room he was in gave no indication of either sunlight or moonlight shining through any kind of window, the only source of light came from a dimmed light bulb overhead that was quickly losing its power. He furrowed his brow and screwed his eyes shut as he tried to remember how he had gotten here, the pounding in his skull intensifying with each thought that popped into his head. No, he had no idea where he was.

Wait. What about Sean? Was Sean here? Were any of the other Stuarts? Had it been a mass kidnapping of the whole house? Was this some kind of Windsor prank that he, for once, had not been privy to? It wasn't an unusual occurrence for him to not know, but something on this scale shouldn't have even been successful given the amount of security that all four houses had. No, this felt wrong. Wrong like the tingle that was creeping up his back and chilling his spine, wrong like the absence of noise in a place that should had at least a few creaks and whispers. Bailey shuddered.

"Hello?" He rasped, his voice was hoarse from dehydration. "Anyone there?"

Only a whimper from his left answered him. Sniffs indicated the person had been crying and a weak voice called out after a moment. "Justin?"

Bailey Tipton's heart dropped. It wasn't the voice of Sean, nor of any Stuart. But he knew the voice. The voice of the second girl to grace Dalton's halls. "No. It's Bailey."

"B-Bailey?" Laura's voice still shook. "Um, uh –"

There was a pause. "Bailey Tipton, from Stuart?" Bailey elaborated, holding back a sigh. "Remember me?" He hadn't expected Laura Bancroft to recognise his name, having only visited Hanover on occasion when Oli had asked him over. And Laura, having at least some good sense about her, usually declined going over to Stuart, avoiding the stress and rigidity of the house. "I'm a friend of Oli Snow." He tried desperately to keep the fear and worry out of his voice, but it was more difficult than he thought. "You know Oli, don't you?"

The moment of silence after he spoke was enough to hear Laura breathe a gust of fear and anxiety out of her lungs, calming slightly. "You know Oli? You're a friend of his?" She whispered and Bailey nodded. He was hoping that she could see him, as he still struggled to balance enough to sit up. "What happened?"

Bailey shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Are you hurt?" He said, painfully aware of the throbbing in his skull. Can you scoot over here a little, just so I can see you?"

Laura crawled slowly over to him, and the collection of marks marring her body made him wince with sympathy. Her blonde hair was matted, and her left eye was almost completely closed from the swelling caused by the large bruise forming there. Her right eye looked at him with an understandable wariness. A few cuts and bruises scarred her face but she looked otherwise unhurt. She shivered, goosebumps rising on her pale skin, and it was then that Bailey realised she was still in her nightclothes.

"They didn't even have the decency to give us a change of clothes." A slight smile crossed Laura's face, and contagiously caught on to Bailey's, making the stony room just a little bit lighter.

"Have my blazer." He shrugged off his jacket as gingerly as possible, feeling like his entire body was one big bruise, and Laura almost melting into the warmth it radiated as Bailey realised how cold the room actually was.

It was an unhealthy habit he had picked up recently, falling asleep in his uniform and then waking up disheveled and rather annoyed at his creases in the stiff fabric. Now, for the first time, he was glad he had fallen asleep last night in something warmer than pyjamas. That, and…

"Laura, check the inner pocket on the left." He said. "I left my phone in there last night."

Laura's face lit up as she plunged her hand in to the oversized blazer. Bailey held his breath as she pulled out her hand clasped tightly around a small, rectangular object, which, upon further inspection, was a packet of empty Redvines. They both huffed and slumped back against the floor, tossing the wrapper away in disappointment.

"Guess they're smarter than we hoped." Laura murmured.

Both teenagers jumped as light suddenly flooded the room as the door on the far side was flung open. The solid metal door slammed against the wall, waves of echoes ricocheting around the room like pinballs in an overzealous machine. Bailey squinted around the too-bright hallway lights, straining to make out the figure standing in the doorway. The person was tall, easily towering over them, and wore a bulky sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his face. His arms were folded over his broad chest and Bailey unconsciously leaned backwards towards the other wall.

"We managed to get both of you out of Dalton Academy, and you think that we'd actually be stupid enough to leave your phones with you?" Their kidnapper's deep voice was laced with barely-hidden scorn. "What a bright pair you two are."

Bailey shifted so that he was sitting on his knees, toes pressed under him so that he could move quickly if things went south, "What do you want with us? We haven't done anything to you, all we do is go to school there."

He tried to keep his voice calm and steady, but a cold laugh rang through the room and the man came forward, grabbing the collar of Bailey's shirt and pulling him to his feet. Now the sophomore could see the grey eyes that were boring into his, turbulent and stormy. "Ah, Tipton, isn't it? It's not you that we want, really. You don't matter. We just need Mommy and Daddy to lend us some of their fortune, and then we can let you scuttle on home like the brat you are."

He dropped Bailey, and the Stuart put his hands out just in time to catch himself o the hard ground. "So we're just pawns for you to play with?" Laura's voice was shaky, but a strain of real confidence seeped through as well. "What makes you think that we'll play along? What makes you think that you can make us do anything?"

"You," the man turned to Laura now, a smile menacing his face, "are going to talk. And you're going to talk whether you like it or not." Bailey shuddered, itching to grab Laura's hand or scoot close enough to draw comfort for her. He had seen enough horror flicks in his jaunts to Windsor house to know the connotation behind the word 'talk', and he wasn't looking forward to what this man's interpretation of the word was. "So which of you wants to go first?"

Laura drew Bailey's blazer in like a comforter around her, tucking herself away from their kidnapper's predatory gaze, and really, what choice did Bailey have? "I'll go."

He forced the words out of his throat, a conflict of emotion rising in his chest as he watched Laura try and fail not to be relieved. She picked herself up a little bit and steeled herself, as if working up the courage to say something, so before she could open her mouth, Bailey started walking with determined steps towards the lights in the hallway. It took everything he had not to turn back to Laura as he walked away.

Todd swallowed hard, staring up in to the intimidating to the Prefect's office. Located directly next to the school's lush faculty quarters, the secluded office was barricaded by an ornately carved door patterned with intricate designs that Todd could happily run his hands over for hours and hours. He had no idea what was behind the door, being that only Prefects were allowed past the threshold, but he had consumed by the mystery since he first passed by in freshman year. Now he wished he didn't have to know. Nothing behind the Prefect's strict walls could be worth everything it had taken to get him there.

Taking a breath, Todd raised his fist and knocked three times. Part of him wanted to make some kind of joke, maybe sing a few lines from Disney's latest film to try and lighten the mood. But the rational part of him knew that doing so would probably sign the death warrant that the Prefects had no doubt already drafted.

"Enter." The one word wasn't enough for Todd to guess which Prefect was calling him in, but the American twang ruled out Justin. Thank goodness for that, at least. The last person Todd wanted to face directly right now was the older brother of the girl whose kidnapping he had enabled.

Turning the smooth steel handle of the door, Todd stepped into the room. It was as normal as one would expect it to be. Four large oak desks sat in the four corners of the room, against the wall, each desk personalized for each of the prefects, and a large round table sat in the middle, chairs posed it. Dozens of portraits and pictures lined the walls, each frame containing a Prefect. Up until about thirty years back, however, the pictures were only grouped three to a generation, the photos noticeably missing the two-toned greys of Lancaster House.

"The reinstallation of Lancaster as a proper house." The cool voice of Riley Paige made him start as the Lancaster Prefect nodded to the portrait Todd was staring at. "August 27th 1981, Ratchet Paige is appointed the first Prefect of Lancaster House in the 150 years of Lancaster as a Dalton Academy house."

Todd blinked, although it wasn't all that surprising. "Your father?"

Riley nodded but Logan cut across him. "We're not here to give sophomores a history lesson, Paige. No one cares that you're Legacy and that your father was the first Lancaster Prefect."

Todd turned to see Logan perched on his desk, one leg crossed over the other, arms folded across his chest. Charlie sat at the table, feet placed carelessly on the polished surface, glaring at Logan. Justin was the only one at his desk, his hands clasped on the desk and head bowed.

Charlie jerked his head to the desk. "Take a seat, Todd. We want to discuss."

Logan snorted. "Discuss? You better be grateful that I'm not ripping out your throat Hendricks."

Todd shrunk; but at least there was finally the reaction he had been expecting. He sat down cautiously next to Charlie, and Riley planted himself on the other side of the sophomore. The two heads seemed to be fairly ambiguous in their feelings towards him, so at least he wasn't in immediate danger of having his head torn off and stuck on a pike. Logan took the seat next to Riley and Justin made his way over to the table, sliding in last. He couldn't look at Todd, and Todd couldn't blame him. It was his fault that Laura had gone missing, after all.

"I'm sorry Justin." He blurted out, going against every single sensible thought in his body. "I didn't know they were going to get Laura."

The British senior finally looked up and stared disbelievingly at the sophomore. "You just led them to the place, let them in, and did nothing as they took your classmates? What was your position in all this? Why did you have a position in all of this?"

"I think we'd all like to know that." Logan mumbled.

Todd turned his face down towards the table; he couldn't look at them while he talked. "The kidnappers are the men who murdered my parents 2 years ago." Gosh, didn't he sound like such a cliché? But when Logan, Riley and Justin glanced at Charlie, the Windsor Prefect merely nodded in affirmation. "I was already accepted to Dalton, and they kept me alive purely for the money. They had already stolen my inheritance from my parents, and they used part of it to pay my tuition fees. They're only this for the money, the profit. They wanted to target Dalton because they knew there were so many rich and famous parents. All I knew was that they were focused on Hanover and Stuart."

"Liar." Justin spoke again and Todd looked up with a frown. Yes, he had omitted the fact that he knew that Bailey and Laura were going to be targeted but they didn't need to know that. He wasn't even sure that he was going to be reprieved for the things they knew he had done; there was no need to add on to his list of unforgiveable actions. "You knew they were going to get Laura. Why didn't you tell us? Why didn't you warn us so we could have some kind of security in place?"

Justin saw right through him, he had always been good at reading people. "I knew that it would be Bailey and Laura." Right after the words left his lips, Todd felt like slamming his head down on the table in front of him. What had possessed him to say that? The combined power of Prefects must have been messing with his head. "I didn't want to die. They promised that they wouldn't hurt them!" He continued. "They said they would kill me before killing Bailey and Laura if I tried to stop it from happening. And I only found out that things were starting to go wrong on Thursday evening!"

Charlie raised an eyebrow. "When you left school for the doctor's appointment? Are you telling me all the times you left school, you were seeing them?"

Todd dropped even further down in his seat. There was no point in hiding now; it was impossible to stay steady under his Prefect's firm gaze. "Yes. Not every time, but, well, often. I just wanted to live!"

Logan slammed his hands down on the table, making Todd jump. "Todd, Bailey and Laura could die! We could have sorted it out; we could have saved them, and you! You're a damn coward for not telling us."

Todd almost bit his tongue then. He's already caused enough trouble for himself, but something slick and hot started to writhe under his skin, bubbling up his throat and spilling out the truth. They didn't know what he'd been through, they didn't understand how terrified he had been.

"And who would have listened to me, Logan?" He pushed back his chair and stood up. "I'm just a nobody, someone who people call a nuisance and can't wait to get away from! I'm just a pawn in the games of chess played between Windsor and Stuart, caught in the crossfire. I don't matter to anyone. Not even to my kidnappers. They've never needed me for anything except their own gains. I'm useless."

"Don't say that." Charlie said in a low voice. "You are not worthless, I consider your opinion as much as the next Windsor boy, I just need to hear them. Windsors keep an eye out for each other."

Logan snorted. "Cut the family rubbish Charlie. What are we going to do? We need to get them and fast. Before they…" he purposefully trailed off, unwilling to say what everyone was thinking. "Before something happens to them." He finished instead. Bailey, despite not being one of his closer friends, was probably one of the kindest and most sincere people Logan knew, and was the only Stuart who smiled at him every time they saw each other. So he cared for the boy far more than he cared to admit.

Riley cut in before anything escalated further. "Look, we need a crack team; a team of boys who know how to evade the system, people who know how to get in and get them out as soon as possible." Now he turned to Charlie, the shadow of a smile playing on his face. "You wouldn't happen to know of anyone who might be a halfway decent hacker, would you?" Charlie laughed quietly, and Riley turned to Logan and Justin. "Let's meet in here with a team in 45 minutes; we need to get started as soon as we can. You have to have at least one person who can help us out."

Justin nodded. "Don't worry, I've already got someone in mind."

Logan stood up from the table. "We'll need you, Hendricks, so stick around. We can't tell anyone why they're being called here. Anyone who asks can be told the Prefect Team is handling it. The faculty are useless as it is, so we have to do it ourselves."

Justin stood as well. "Can we go? The sooner we get started, the sooner we get them back." He looked at Todd. "Please tell me you knew where they were taken."

Todd shifted, twisting his hands in his lap. "I don't. B-but I can show you where I went for the meetings."

Riley shrugged. "That's a good enough start." He looked around at the boys. "Meeting dismissed, I'll try and bring snacks next time."

There was a small smile from Charlie who guided Todd from the room and the two made their way back towards Windsor. "You have anyone in mind who to help?" Todd asked casually as they walked back.

Charlie smirked. "Besides you? I have a couple of ideas. And honestly, the more people, the better; Windsor was practically made to solve problems like these."

What did you think? I'm getting so close to the 20,000 word mark, it's so exciting! Please do let me know what you think as I love hearing your feedback!

Happy writing,

PenMagic x