"Y…?!" Emma started to squeal before Roger clapped his free hand over her mouth to silence her. He dragged her further into the room with Greg and Tamara, the door closing behind him.
Neal had cursed under his breath watching through the mirror. Both his and August's reactions had triggered concern in the others in the diner.
"What is it, who are they?" Snow asked urgently. Neal's and August's reactions, and that of her own daughter through the mirror, had instantly filled her with fear. They knew these two people, that much was clear.
"Greg and Tamara," August explained. Neal seemed incapable of speaking, his jaw clenched tightly and his eyes locked once more on the mirror glass. "We barely escaped them in Philadelphia. They are magic hunters. They hate magic and everything that goes with it. They are trying to destroy all magic in this world."
"And they want Emma dead," Neal seethed through his teeth.
"Dead?" Charming repeated, panic in his voice. Just when he thought things couldn't get worse.
"Why?" Snow squeaked, her own fear rising.
"They call her the link," August said. "Between this world and the magical one. They say if they kill her, then no one can ever cross between worlds again, and they'll have gotten rid of magic's portal forever."
"And we'd all be stuck here," Gold noted, but that was not Snow's greatest concern. She didn't care what world she lived in as long as her daughter was in it.
"Took a bit of digging, but I got her in the end," Roger was saying, dragging Emma forward. "That call from child services helped some."
Snow gasped. The group in the diner corner all turned to look at her.
"What?" Red asked, eyes wide in concern.
"That was me," she whispered, disgusted with herself. "I called child services, maybe a week or so ago. I thought..." she shot her husband a distressed look, remembering her conversation with Regina. Regina must have known who Emma was some how, must have wanted her out of town. "I was just trying to help."
"Of course you were," Charming cooed, pulling her towards him in a light embrace. "You couldn't have known."
"You could have asked us!" August mentioned, a bit tartly. Things were spiraling out of control. "You could have talked to us directly and found out why we left. We took her out of the system for a reason. We wouldn't have just taken her away from a house if we didn't have to. We're not idiots, we were just..."
"...trying to survive," Neal finished in a quiet, cold voice, his attention never wavering from the mirror and Emma's image in it. The rest of the group refocused their attention on the scene in Augusta.
"Hand her over," Greg said, stepping across the room towards Emma and her foster father. Emma squirmed a bit, but Roger held her tightly. He drew her a bit behind him indignantly.
"You ain't getting' her 'til you hold up your end of the deal," he insisted, his face sour. "I believe we said one million? You show me the money, I give you the girl."
"Yeah, about that," Tamara said, coming to stand beside Greg. "The plan has changed." In one swift motion, she drew a small handgun from behind her back and pointed it directly at Roger's face. "Deal's off."
Roger froze, his expression taught across his gruff face.
"Now wait just a minute."
"We have a new deal in mind," Tamara continued, her posture still and poised, and her aim steady. "It's very simple. You give the girl to us, and I don't blow a hole in your head."
"That ain't right," Roger stuttered.
"What's not right is you ever believing for a second that we had one million dollars to give you," Greg taunted with a sneer, stepping forward again. "What are you, stupid? Do we look like we have one million dollars?"
The two pairs stood facing off in a terse, extended silence. Emma squirmed a bit and her foster father tightened his grip on her.
"You've got exactly ten seconds before I pull this trigger," Tamara threatened. "What's it gonna be?"
The seconds began to pass slowly. Neal recognized the confused fear he had seen in the man's eyes when he had returned the morning after he had tossed Emma in the garbage bins to retrieve her blanket. He really was just a coward disguised in a brute's body.
"Shit, you can have her," Roger said finally tossing Emma to the ground in front of him. She landed with a thud and a pained grunt. "She ain't worth nothin' to me."
Snow cringed at the words. It wasn't by any stretch of the imagination the worst thing the man had said, but it still irked her. This was the man who had been entrusted to raise Emma and take care of her. That anyone would ever call her worthless, let alone her own parental figure, caused Snow to taste bile in the back of her mouth.
Greg took out his own handgun and trained it swiftly on Emma as she turned over to the face the room. Tamara kept her aim directly unwaveringly at Roger.
"Now, you have two choices," Tamara said, malice glittering in her eyes. "You can either back out of this room right now, get back in your car and go the way you came. No harm, no foul. We just go our separate ways. Or, I can pull this trigger. Choice is yours."
"Fine," Roger said after a pause, his jaw tight and set. "I'm going. Don't need to tell me twice." He began to step towards the door and turned to open it. But then he turned back to say a few final words. "But if you think for a second this is over, than you are seriously mis..."
The sound of the bullet ricocheted off the walls of the small room. Emma jumped at the sound, as did her relatives and friends back in Storybrooke watching through the magic mirror. When the ringing in her ears died down, Emma could feel her heart thumping in her chest. The air smelled of smoke and soot. Her foster father's body lay crumpled in front of the door, dark blood seeping out across the floor.
"Wrong answer," Tamara said in a monotone voice, her pistol still held cocked in front of her.
Emma had trouble understanding her feelings in that moment. She was in shock. She was terrified about what was happening to her. A small part of her was relieved that one of the threats in the room had been neutralized. However, in a strange and shameful part of her heart, she felt a pang of sadness for his death. He had, after all been her foster father, and while he had brought her nothing but grief, she had lived under his roof. That was where she had met Neal and August. The place her whole life had changed. The place she had first found a home. She felt a small twang of grief for him.
"What do we do with her?"
Emma turned her attention back to the situation at hand. She was not by any means in the clear. The day might be over for Roger, but for her it was just beginning. She was trapped in a room with two people who she knew for a fact wanted her dead. They were both armed, and whats more they had just proved their intent and ability to use those weapons. She could think of nothing she could say that would alleviate the situation, but she came up short and was too frightened and angry for that to have been a viable option anyway. Instead, she shot them both her fiercest glare as they stood over her, considering her.
"Get her in the basement and make sure she doesn't escape," Tamara ordered. "We'll go from there."
Neal and August sprinted to get the bikes behind the cannery. Neal dropped Emma's blanket, which she had dropped by the side of the road when her foster father had taken her, off in their corner where they slept. They swung quickly by the diner to make sure there weren't any additional advancements. Greg had knocked Emma out with a violent blow to the head from the butt of his gun and the couple had tied her to a chair in the basement of the house. The entire group came outside to see the two boys them off.
"You sure you know where we are going?" Neal asked as he mounted his bike.
"I've got a pretty good idea, yeah," August said.
"A pretty good idea?"
"I can get us there, ok?" August bit back, but before he could reprimand his friend, he felt a soft hand at his elbow. He turned to find the concerned face of his father.
"I just got you back," Gepetto protested quietly at August's shoulder. August gave him a strong hug.
"I'll come back, I promise," he said. "But you told me to watch out for her, and that's what I have to do."
The father and son broke apart and as Gepetto stood back, August was surprised that Ruby approached him.
"Don't think for a moment this lets you off the hook," Ruby muttered under her breath, gently grabbing the collar of his leather jacket and pulling him an inch closer to her. "I expect an explanation when you return."
August smiled. "I promise," he said, and they shared a gentle kiss that raised a few eyebrows in the crowd. August pulled away and mounted his bike. Neal had already kicked his engine into gear and pulled away without another word to any of them. With a nod his father, August followed suit.
It was bizarre for the parents to watch their boys ride away. Last they had seen them, the pair had only been children. Now, they were Emma's only hope. Snow and Charming stepped up beside Gold as the boys accelerated out of sight.
"So…" Charming began. "Your son and our daughter?"
"Believe me," Gold responded, his jaw set, "I appreciate the irony."