Chapter 14

Between the two of them, Tamara and Killian hauled the bound girl out of the trailer and up the stairs to his flat. This would be a bloody perfect time for the neighbors to come snooping, but the one advantage of living in a building populated largely by incurious geriatrics and impecunious graduate students was that at this hour, they were either long since asleep or still hunched over their desks, and had no desire to poke their heads out to see what might be thumping down the hallway. At any rate, they got her into the apartment without being spotted, and dropped her on the couch like a sack of laundry, as she gazed up at them with frantic, imploring eyes. She was trying to speak through the gag, and he for one was interested in what she had to say; besides, his old gentlemanly nature did not quite see how this was necessary. He unsheathed his pocket knife and cut it.

"Th-thank you." She turned her head weakly to the side and spat. "I… I don't know what you want. I – I haven't done anything to anyone, I've been…" She screwed up her face, as if trying to remember. "In the hospital, but… I don't… someone left the door open, I ran… I was trying to escape, but the woods… I got lost, I didn't know…"

Killian frowned. Pieces were suddenly clicking together in his brain: that strange white figure he'd seen in the forest outside Storybrooke, just as he was arriving… could it have been? If she had been making a bid for freedom, that raised all sorts of intriguing questions, not least as to who had tried to loose her and for what purpose, and what she was afraid might be catching up to her as she ran. This madwoman, from the looks of things. Not trusting Tamara a brass dam, and feeling that it could only be to his advantage to paint himself as the sympathetic one in this situation, he asked, "What's your name, lass?"

She frowned, searching for the word as if it was on the tip of her tongue, then shook her head. "I… don't remember. It's… it might have been… Lacey?"

Lacey? Now there was a surprise, although it shouldn't have been. Clearly the curse had been playing some sort of footsie with her memories as well, and Killian stroked his chin, considering. I could tell her that her name is Belle and she's in love with a wretched beast, but what good is she to me if she remembers nothing about him? He touched his hook, still hidden inside his pocket. I could rip her heart out and dump her body on the reptile's porch. It would be a fitting conclusion, perhaps, but he didn't want to commit himself to anything too hastily.

"Lacey," was what he said aloud, with a winsome smile. "Well then. You look as if you've had a bit of rough handling. You're hungry, no doubt?"

She nodded cautiously.

Killian didn't want to turn his back on Tamara, but he did still have the sword at his belt, and so he headed into the flat's small kitchen and opened up the refrigerator in search of anything marginally palatable. By sweet fortune, there were two large and delicious-looking sausage rolls, so he collected them both, returned, offered one to Belle, and pointedly kept the other for himself. He took a bite, encouraging her to do the same, and she took a few small ladylike nibbles, then devoured the rest with barely a breath, looking rather beastlike herself.

"Now," Killian said, leaning back and glancing up at Tamara. "Enlighten me on what exactly you plan to do with the lass."

Her eyes flickered. "In front of her?"

"Do you prefer behind? I don't think I've tried it that way yet." He flashed a smile: cutting, insolent, blue eyes turned almost black. A pirate's leer – and one which, despite all its suggestive words, was warning Tamara to keep her bloody distance. "You have, after all, bound her up, abducted her, and carted her here in the back of a trailer like a dog in a kennel. I should say she deserves the bare decency of an explanation."

Tamara raised an exquisite eyebrow, apparently impressed. Whatever she'd thought she was coming to play with was clearly not quite what she'd found. Good. "I didn't know you had such a soft side, Captain."

"And what the bloody hell," he enquired, doing his damndest not to think about the fact that she apparently knew exactly who he was, "do you think about me, pet?"

She shrugged. "I could tell you, but we're on a tight schedule. So let's get down to business. As we were leaving Storybrooke, something… odd… happened. I don't know how to explain it, but it was a pulse, as if the entire place was shaking. I turned and tried to go back, but I couldn't. Not even with her." She pointed at her prisoner. "Something's changed."

Killian's eyes narrowed. "You told me you had a way to get there."

"I do." Gods, she was a slippery one. "But it's going to require some work."

"So." He steepled his fingers beneath his chin and stared at her coolly. "You're saying that the previous method, in which ordinary folk like you and I could cross the town line and find the place if we had a citizen of said town accompanying us, is no longer effective?"

"You catch on quickly, Captain."

"Always been a fast learner." He snapped his teeth. "So now comes the part where you ask me for help in carrying out whatever dirty work needs to be done to secure our ticket back to Storybrooke, is that it?"

"Storybrooke?" Belle interrupted, bewildered. "I don't understand. How do you even know about it? You were just there, why do you need to go back?"

"Yes, I was there, but I didn't find what I was looking for." Tamara smiled predatorily. "So I'm trying something new. You just keep quiet, honey."

For a moment Belle looked as if she was about to disobey, but looking at both of them, neither of them the most comforting of personages, apparently convinced her of the better part of valor. Ignoring her, Killian turned back to Tamara. "So? What do you want?"

"There is one way we can get back to Storybrooke. Me to do what I need to do, and you to do what you need to do. We just need to… retrieve someone."

Killian's guard was instantly up. "Who?"

"No one you know."

"I'll be the judge of that. Who?"

"No one you know," Tamara repeated. "Nobody. I've done some looking. They have no family, no parents, no one who will miss them. Foster kid, the troubled kind. More than a few brushes with the law. Be a favor to everyone to take them off the streets."

"Streets… and yet, you can't just go bundle this unfortunate into your trailer by yourself?"

"If I'm planning to make it a habit, I could use a pirate to help." She returned his own charming crocodile grin to him. "And besides, that's not exactly what concerns me. Here's the delicate part. This person, despite their other problems, is – for the moment – still at school. A college student. Can you guess where?"

A moment, then horrid realization. "Oh." Killian leaned back in his chair, feeling as if he'd just been hit by a car. "You cold-blooded bitch. You're asking me to nab one of Boston College's own students off campus for you?" He racked his brains, trying to guess who could possibly be the culprit. There was always gossip in the faculty dining room if someone… but wait. There was one student who fit the bill. Mysterious, deadbeat, no apparent family save his questionable Russian roommates, and who Killian happened to know ran a side enterprise in marijuana that had just come most embarrassingly to light. Who bloody just shoveled the blame onto Miss Nolan and did a bunk. He hadn't liked the look of the man a bit, but Neal Cassidy did remind him of someone he had known long ago… yet that was surely far too much, just an unsettling coincidence. Why would he still be anywhere within a hundred miles of the place, however?

"A Boston College student," Killian repeated. "You're serious."

"Very. Why? Still loyal? I thought you quit."

"Leave of absence." Bloody hell, he was liking her less and less every second, but she did demonstrably have useful talents and a complete lack of scruple, and now that revenge was the only thing left, he would have to take his allies as they came. "And again, how do you know that?"

"I have powerful friends." She smiled demurely. "Help me out, and they'll take care of you too. They can make you disappear to wherever you want to go, free as a bird. No one will ever know what happened in the past, your past. You could even get a job as a professor with our institute – and we pay much better, trust me. Get an upgrade from this place. You'd be doing important, world-changing research. Think about it?"

There was some sort of rat here, but he couldn't quite catch it. He would much prefer to catch Cassidy and make him bloody account for himself at the point of a sword, however, and if that unraveled a thread that led to Storybrooke, so much the better. But there remained one concern. "What do we do with her?" He jerked his head at Belle.

"That's your lookout, Captain. That's why I brought her. She will be free for you to use any way you please – as soon as you help me retrieve our friend and get to Storybrooke."

Killian eyed her narrowly. Meanwhile, Belle was making some attempt to loosen her bound hands, but he shot her a quelling look, and she shrank. "Are you going to kill me?"

"I'm thinking about it," he informed her matter-of-factly, with another of those rakish, bloody smiles. "Terribly sorry."

She bit her lip and stared at the ground. In a small voice she said, "You just… I saw you had so many books, and if it's true that you're a professor… I just thought someone who read that much would know more about the world. About… about people, and good and evil. About justice, even. That you would know it's wrong. I can't stop you if you do, but I would hope that you at least do yourself the courtesy of thinking about it."

A sardonic reply sprang to Killian's lips – then died a sudden, troubled death. He shifted his seat uncomfortably. She had just confronted him with the fact that not only was he conspiring to kidnap one of his own institution's students, but that she herself reminded him uncomfortably of one. Bright, thoughtful, eager to read and learn and consider the world's problems, different from any of the young women in his classes only by virtue of having the singular ill judgment to take up as the crocodile's paramour. Anything I do to her would be a mercy. He murdered his own wife, why wouldn't he do the same to any other innocent he caught in his jaws? Killian could at least realize that Belle had committed no crime of her own – seemed barely aware of who she was, just like the rest of them – but an old, furious, bitter, burning rage had resurfaced in him, choking him. Captain Hook. The black-hearted, no-good, filthy pirate.

"Very well," he said, getting to his feet. "In the trailer for her again, then. Let's not waste time."

"I'll scream," Belle warned him bravely, as he grabbed her by the wrists and jerked her to her feet. "I'll scream, I'll – "

"No, you won't." He leaned in, intimidating her with his proximity, staring her down until their noses almost touched. He reached into his pocket and slipped the hook out, curving it along her neck and flicking her brown curls away, drawing the smallest drop of blood. No point forgetting what you are, you rotten bastard. The worst human alive. He smiled. "Otherwise I will kill you."

"I'm sorry," Emma said, hurrying at the old lady's side as they descended the stairs of Stokes Hall – for a nonagenarian, she was awfully spry. "I – I didn't catch your name?"

"That's quite all right, dear, I don't recall dropping it. But you did say you used to be a student of our mutual friend Mr. Jones, did you not? And now he's gone and left you behind the same as he did me, so we can both kick his arse when we find him." Apparently oblivious to Emma's shock, the old lady crossed the foyer and opened the door, stepping out into the clear, breezy morning. "My, but this is lovely. I'm glad to see they're putting my money to good use."

"You – ?" Oh fuck. She must be a trustee, or an alumni chair, or someone else with deep pockets and strings to pull, who had caught wind of the curious case of Killian Jones and was here to smite him down before he could further besmirch the institution's good name. Even though she was completely unclear on the details, that still seemed somewhat harsh to Emma. But whoever this white-haired, cane-wielding vigilante was, she'd want to meet someone well-adjusted, someone with good grades and a bright future. A good advertisement for a Boston College education, not this hopeless relict of a sophomore who was barely hanging on by a thread. Emma Swan was not the best representation of bang for your buck.

"Indeed." The old lady sniffed. "Of course it is a Catholic school, which can't be helped, but Jane married that Irishman from Derry and all of us had to mind our p's and q's somewhat more than previously and learn to pray the rosary, or at least not roll our eyes while he prays his. Professor, you know. Queer sort. Taught at Trinity – that's how I got Killian into the poor unsuspecting place, by the by, and then his job here. He does want to keep it, I assume?"

"I –I have no idea," Emma stammered. Why would she know anything about that? "I – I'm sorry, I'm really no help for you. I – I should probably be going."

The old lady cocked her head and evaluated her with a bright, piercing sparrow's gaze. "What's your name, dear?"

"I – Emma. Emma… Swan."

"Emma?" One of the other woman's eyebrows went up, and then up further. "You wouldn't happen to know a Wendy James?"

"Actually, yes. She's… she's my roommate." Oh God, could this be Wendy's grandmother? The one from London? What could she possibly be here for – had Wendy called her and told her to slap the entire BC campus back into sense? Emma wouldn't put it past her, but for a woman this influential and well-connected to find about her transgressions…

"Ah. Excellent. I was hoping to see you, and here you are, like divine providence. I'm sure I'm permitted to say that; they haven't arrested me for being Anglican yet, have they? Very well. Don't stand there with your mouth hanging open like a lackwit, dear. It's not a good look for you, and I am decidedly sure that you are not a lackwit. Come along."

Still flattened, Emma could think of nothing to do but meekly obey. Feeling as if she'd been clubbed, she trailed at the old lady's heels as she powered across campus like a whirlwind, cane tapping; Emma was actually the one trotting to keep up. They turned in before the impressive Gothic buildings of Lyons and Devlin, which faced each other across the Quad, and the old lady eyed them both, then turned up the steps to Lyons. Emma, since she was apparently included in this enterprise, stared imploringly up at heaven and followed.

Five minutes later, they were inside the administrative offices, Emma lurking in the corner and doing her best not to be noticed, while the old lady interrogated some helpless student employee in a way that was distinctly reminiscent of Jack. They were then shipped on to the dean of the faculty's office in an apparent attempt to get rid of them, and the old lady marched in as if she owned the place (which she very well might). "I have an enquiry, please."

The receptionist glanced up, then blanched. "Mrs… Mrs. Henley?"

"If it pleases you. Edward's been dead quite a while now, so I use my maiden name more often. I'll see the dean, shall I?"

"Yes, yes of course…" Completely flustered, the receptionist got up and scuttled.

While she was gone, Emma glanced at the other woman. "I… I don't think you need me, so I'll just…?" She made a hopeful motion toward the door.

"Oh no, dear." The old lady snapped her fingers autocratically. "Sit."

Emma did so, as abruptly as if her knees had just given out. Thus she waited, until the receptionist returned with the dean. His reaction of shocked surprise was the same, if somewhat more muted. "Mrs. Henley?"

"Bother that. Call me Wendy." The old lady smiled. "I have a question."

"Of – of course, ma'am." The middle-aged academic looked as if he had just walked into the presence of the Queen of England. "What can I help you with?"

"There's a Professor Killian Jones here. Or rather there was, and now there's not. I'd like to know where he's gone, please."

"Ah… Professor Jones? He… it was a personal matter. Didn't give details. Had a brief conversation with the history department chair… not sure I'm the person to ask about this…" The dean had started to perspire slightly. "I'm afraid I don't have any information to give out. Privacy laws, confidentiality. Can I possibly help you with – "

"You know who I am, I see?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You are aware of how much money I donated to the school last year, and that it was on my recommendation that Professor Jones was hired?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What are you waiting for?"

"Yes, ma'am." The dean exited.

While they were waiting, Wendy – she apparently shared a name with her granddaughter – looked to the receptionist. "And I don't suppose you can fetch the dean of students, dear?"

"They – the office of the dean of students is in Maloney, you can – "

"Surely you don't expect me to walk all that way? I'm ninety-four, and you're a young thing. I'll wait."

"Yes, ma'am." The receptionist exited.

There followed a tense silence until the panting receptionist returned with the dean of students in tow, who was then introduced to Wendy in the same jarring fashion as his colleagues. "What can I help you with, Mrs. Henley?"

"This young lady here." Wendy indicated Emma. "I've been informed that she's on some sort of probation. Why?"

Emma's jaw dropped. She was on the verge of asking how the old lady knew that, but decided it would be a pointless exercise – clearly, that kind of money opened all the closets and let the skeletons topple out. She tried to say something, but was overruled as the dean did his best to explain, none of which Wendy apparently found very satisfactory. When he was finished, she sniffed again, then informed them both that she would be looking further into the subject, and expected to pay a repeat call when she did. She was then interrupted by the return of the dean of the faculty, who looked surprised to see her and was clearly hoping that she had gone away.

"Well?" Wendy held out her hand. "Do you have something for me?"

"Here." Abashed, the man handed her a slip of paper. "It's his phone number."

Wendy pursed her lips, causing everyone present to wince, but accepted it with two fingers and fixed the lot of them with a basilisk stare. Then she jerked her head to summon Emma, leading her out into the hallway, and held out the paper. "Be a dear and call him for me, would you? I'm afraid I'm no good at all with technology."

"I, uh. I don't think I can just – "

"Put in the number. Even I can manage the rest."

As had already been discovered, Wendy wasn't the sort of woman you said no to, and Emma fumblingly dug in her backpack for her cell phone. She scrolled the screen open, accessing her text messages as she did so, and frowned in confusion; there were several old ones from someone named "Mary Margaret," who was no one she knew. Must have been a wrong number. She tapped it with her thumb, deleting them, then went back to the main screen and dialed.

It started to ring, and she handed it over to Wendy, who put it to her ear. The old lady listened, then frowned, then handed it back to Emma. "Terminate it, please."

"Er – ?"

"The number's been disconnected." The other woman scowled. "I begin to smell a rat."

"He… I get the feeling he doesn't really want to be found." Emma held up her hands. "Hey… I have to go, all right? Have… have a nice day."

And with that, ignoring Wendy's call after her, Emma turned on her heel and made a break for it. She didn't know why the old lady had taken such an interest in her, or her ulterior motive; whatever it was, it was clearly something, and she was sick and tired of being caught in the middle, a powerless pawn in a game of chess far over her head. She was already resenting Wendy –her roommate, that was – for calling her grandmother and bringing her here to interfere in their business, their lives. Oh god, that was probably the fucking intervention she and Alice had been planning, and they'd be all eager to hear if Emma had met her and how it had gone and if she "remembered" anything of her old self. It was discouraging and heartbreaking how they kept treating her like a confused child, who just needed a little push to remember. They meant well, but she couldn't stand to face them. She wanted to run.

Emma descended the stairs and stepped out into the late morning, shielding her eyes against the sun. Yeah. This was a familiar feeling.

She needed to disappear.

She cut class. She took the T into downtown Boston and got off at the first stop that looked likely, losing herself among the crowd. She ducked into a coffee shop and leached off their wi-fi until they realized she hadn't bought anything and more or less politely asked her to leave. Then she wandered up and down the streets of the retail district, watching all the happy families hurry by, enjoying the perfect autumn day. All the young couples holding hands. All the students who weren't in danger of being incarcerated and expelled. She ached for companionship. She ached for anyone. But at the same time, she wanted desperately to be left alone to grieve.

She didn't realize she'd been standing in the same spot for ten minutes until she saw herself reflected in the broad picture window of The Children's Place, pale and shiftless as a ghost. Jesus, she had to stop this. Tormenting herself wasn't going to bring back something she was lucky to have lost in the first place. Lucky. She didn't need that reminder of Neal. She didn't need to become a mother at the age of barely twenty, alone in the world, with her college education the only chance she had of escaping the single-mom trap.

Lucky.

Emma's shoulders convulsed with a silent sob as she turned away, and she angrily backhanded her knuckles across her eyes, turning up the collar of her black jacket. She wandered down Washington Street to the Old State House, perched in the middle of the downtown skyscrapers like something out of a time warp, and sat on the brick wall outside, swinging her legs and staring vacantly at nothing.

The day slipped away. It began to get colder as the sun vanished behind the buildings, and Emma supposed dully that she should probably get back to campus before someone decided to lead a search party. Assuming they would. She was almost tempted to stay out longer and make them worry, to see if anyone did care for her. But then there would be more drama, more worried questions, and that was even worse. More telling her that she could talk to them, she could always talk to them. Wouldn't she please talk to them.

Expelling a martyred sigh through her teeth, Emma hauled herself to her feet and started off. But then she changed her mind again and veered the other way on the sidewalk, up several blocks until she found some little café that was warm and glowing in the dusk, the kind of place you could imagine going with a family. She ducked inside and took a corner table. The Celtics game was on at the bar, and the waitress called her "honey." She ordered dinner and ate it very slowly, deleting every text message that popped up on her phone.

It was full dark and starting to get late by the time Emma finally left, having eaten dessert in the same leisurely fashion, then had a drink, then paid her bill. She should have felt worse about using her fake ID, the one Neal had made for her, but she had needed something to soothe her jangled nerves and it was the best option to hand. What else were they going to do to her?

The streetlights were on, casting pools of glow at intervals along the sidewalk, as she headed to the T station. She stood wearily waiting for the train, scrubbing her hair out of her eyes as the night wind tousled it across her face, and then stepped aboard the green line when it pulled in. Once again, her face reflected back at her in the window was a terrifying prospect.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the Boston College station, and Emma stepped out into the darkness, switching on the mini flashlight on her keys. It was only a five-minute walk up to campus, less if she wanted to take the student shuttle, but to judge by the tail lights pulling out, she'd just missed it, and she didn't feel like waiting for the next one. She pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt and cinched it tight against the wind, then started to walk.

She'd only gotten about a hundred yards from the station, into the gap between well-lit areas that would probably give every student safety briefer a heart attack, when she heard the car rolling up behind her. So what? Big deal, it was a road, people drove on it. Commonwealth Avenue was just ahead, a major thoroughfare, cross it and head down to Walsh, go to bed and go to sleep. It sounded good. Wonderful, in fact. Then she'd –

She heard the brakes squeal behind her, heard the car stopping. She shot a glance back. It was a silver Lexus, pulling a U-Haul trailer. Probably tourists, or people who had just moved here and gotten lost. Well, she wasn't going to give them directions, or deal with their –

The car doors opened. Two dark figures jumped out, and closed in on her.

Emma stared. It took that second, that precious second too long, to realize that this was trouble. Big trouble. She gaped, spun around, and started to run, but she was still weak and tired from her layover in the hospital and her inability to sleep or eat, and her feet went out from under her with a crash. She sprawled headlong, chewing her hands up on the gravel of the shoulder as she tried to break her fall, and winded herself completely. The next second, they were on top of her.

Arrest. Poison. Hospital stay. Coma. Criminal charges. Amnesia, or the world's sickest joke. "Intervention." Probation. Abandonment. And now, being mugged by a couple of losers lying in wait for unsuspecting students, coming home late, alone, and drunk. Students like her.

You know what?

Fuck. This. Shit.

Emma rolled, drew both feet back, and kicked the first mugger as they loomed over her. By the sound of the grunt, it was a woman – the other one was taller, definitely a guy. Partners in crime, how sweet. Except not at all. He reached for her, and she wound up and punched him full in the face, her knuckles crashing into his cheek and sending him reeling backwards. Both of them were wearing dark hoods, she couldn't see their faces, but she didn't need to. She grabbed the girl as she came for her again, jabbed her thumb into her elbow and bent her arm, ducked under it and twisted, and judo-threw her to the asphalt.

One down, one to go. The guy was still coming for her. Something was faintly, horribly familiar about him, but Emma didn't have time to ponder. She leapt over the female mugger and made a break for it, harder than she'd ever run in her life, hearing the guy sprinting after her. Then there was a ringing rasp – a sound for all the world as if he'd drawn a sword – and the next second, a blinding pain lacerated up the back of her leg.

Hell. Fucking hell. He'd thrown it at her, and he hadn't missed. In fact, his aim had been terrifyingly perfect, and it sent a jolt of freezing realization up Emma's spine. This wasn't your average lowlife criminal, looking to skin a few bucks and maybe a joint off a broke and terrified college student. This was some kind of psychopath. All he lacked was the hockey mask, and unless she could run, he was going to kill her.

Emma filled her lungs for a scream, but she never got to it. At that moment, headlights blasted around the turn – headlight, in fact, a motorcycle – and screamed to a halt next to her. "On!" the rider bellowed. "Get on!"

Holy mother of Moses. She knew him. What the absolute fuck he was doing here right now, burning up out of the midnight oil like her guardian angel, she didn't know, but it was indisputably him. The guy named after a month. July – no, August. She vaguely remembered pepper-spraying him at one point, and thus didn't count him as a better choice of ally than the madman who was about to kill her. But did she really have a –

"Emma!" the man screamed. "Trust me!"

There was a horrible noise from behind her. Emma looked around wildly, and her sweatshirt hood fell down, her pale blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders. The man who had been chasing her had fallen to his knees, almost on all fours, still making that noise as if he was about to be sick. He was gasping, clearly out of commission for the immediate future, but she didn't want to find out. She didn't want to trust August. Yet even more, she was terrified to stay here. The good thing about this cavalcade of luridly unfortunate events was that she was hard pressed, at the moment, to see how her life could actually get worse.

She had nothing to lose anymore. Nothing.

Fuck it.

Emma threw herself onto the Harley behind August, clutching madly around his waist. He gunned the engine, she glanced back one last time, and saw her erstwhile attacker still on his knees, absolutely motionless. But then she turned back, discovering to her own detached surprise that she was crying, uttering dry, punching, rhythmic sobs of pain and fear, completely at the end of her rope, as the motorcycle veered off, out of sight, roaring away into the night.