Taken

~F~

"JAMIE!"

"JAMIE!"

I screamed until my voice was raw and the sand burnt my hands. But the empty tunnel remained silent.

After a moment, Sandy glided over next to me, expression panicked and gestures urgent.

Particles streamed off me as I abruptly stood to face him. "Jamie's gone. I need…" my breaths rolled in heavy pants, "Go alert everybody. Go as fast as you can. I'm going to find him."

Sandy started to jingle in surprise while a myriad of symbols flashed above his head as he moved to place himself in front of me.

"There's no TIME!" I yelled while shoving myself into him, trying to gain access to the tunnel. "They have Jamie now." I blasted him over in a fury of snow and ice, vaguely aware that I may have hurt him somewhat. "I'll find them and hold them off until you all get there. Now GO!"

I jumped into the hole as Sandy took off in the air. Him heading to the North Pole and me to track Jamie down.

~M~

"You're fucking crazy, Monty," Ashley raved as he paced back and forth in front of me in our dorm.

"I know it sounds nuts," I argued right back. "But you can't seriously think that it could all just be coincidence!"

"I do think that, as you well should too," he barked, his words cutting. He stopped his pacing and turned to glare at me and wave his arms. "My only other option is believing Jamie is actually a kid in a M. Night Shyamalan film and he...what...predicted the professor was going to off himself in the lecture hall?! Get fucking real!"

"Well what about Skylar?" I pressed.

"What about Skylar?!" he pushed back, twirling around to face me.

I paused, fumbling over my words. The more I tried to vocalize it, the crazier I sounded, even to myself. But something just felt...wrong. Jamie was seeing things that weren't there. I saw someone. Yesterday in the woods. I swore there was someone else there. Our eyes met. But he just...vanished. And Jamie seeing blood on Skylar's arm...Someone shooting the professor the day before he actually committed suicide…

A shiver ran through my body. It may indeed have all been a coincidence, but it was a fucking crazy one.

"I'm going to try calling him again," Ashley murmured as he picked up his phone. The lights flickered and I looked outside to see the wind really having picked up, the sky dark. A storm was moving in really fast.

Ashley sighed as he tossed down his phone on the sofa. "Goes right to voicemail," he muttered.

Which meant his phone is either dead or turned off.

Obviously seeing the worry on my face, Ashley softened. "He'll show up, Monty. He's probably just holed up in a building somewhere to get out of the storm."

"But what if…"

A explosion of shattering glass ripped us out of our conversation. I turned around in search of the sound and saw the window in Jamie's bedroom having been completely blown apart as wind gushed into the room.

A rustling to the left of the doorway drew my attention to the closet, where Jamie's clothes were tossling from the torrent of air. But why were the items on the floor…?

I shouted as a flurry of snow burst up and obscured my vision, as well as Ashley's who was standing behind my shoulder. Brushing our faces like mad, I looked about the room blinking the melted droplets away. Everything had calmed down considerably. The wind was still blowing through the window, but not as torrential as before.

I moved to take a step forward, but Ashley grabbed the back of my hoodie. "Don't go in there," he warned, his face wide-eyed. "The glass," he added, but his voice betrayed how shaken he was.

We stood there for several minutes not talking. Not caring that freezing cold air was billowing in through the window and slicing through our clothes.

Ashley, sharing my same thought, finally broke the silence.

"What the hell was that?"

~F~

Jamie.

My mind held only one thought. A single mission that I needed to carry out. Jamie was in trouble and I needed to find him.

I crawled out of Bunny's tunnel into the basement of Jamie's dorm. But I didn't have time to mess with doors or sneak around. Dashing toward a narrow window, I summoned the magic to my hands and aimed bolts of ice squarely at the center, concentrating with all my power...they needed to move fast.

Like bullets against glass, the thick window gave in, forming a large crack, and then fissuring enough for me to crawl through. The glass scratched my hands and feet, but I ignored it, letting the surge of magic I normally kept dormant course through me, revitalizing me. The sky had rapidly grown dark, obscuring the time of day, and the wind roared all around, causing the trees to pitch violently. I leaped into it, directing myself up and over the roof of the dorm until I homed in on Jamie's window.

Here goes nothing.

I blew apart the window and barreled into the room, careening across his bed and thudding against the opposing wall. Reorienting myself, I darted over to his closet. I needed the sand and the snowglobe.

Digging my way around the discarded clothes, I pulled out the small sacks just as I turned to lock eyes with Monty. Thankfully, his eyes gazed through me like normal, but I needed to get away. I threw up a sheen of snow to quickly traverse the room and leap back out the destroyed window, whisking myself up, up into the stratosphere.

The storm I had inadvertently conjured was large, stretching further than I could see in all directions. But I needed it. I needed the wind to get me there, wherever 'there' was. Securing the globe and sand in my front pocket, I closed my eyes and drifted, trying to level my breathing. Jamie's pull was faint, but my magic still connected him to me. It was faint, meaning he was leagues away. I searched for it, searched for him. There. I needed to go...west. Gathering all the strength of the storm beneath me, I blasted myself on the wind in his direction.

Just hold on, Jamie.

…

The hours passed by, but I held my concentration. His connection was growing stronger with each passing minute, and it was what kept me going. It drove me across most of the continent. Up until the terrain started to grow higher and the mountains loomed far ahead.

He was there somewhere.

Rage fired me up. The mountains would slow me down. Of course they would. This couldn't have been a coincidence that Jamie was brought here. He was being kept from me, to prevent us from reaching him. But I used my fury to maintain my strength, using the pull of a warmer front to push myself onward, over the mountains.

He was here.

He had to be here.

I felt his connection change until it was below me and I plummeted myself downward, jumping between large pines to slow my descension. Falling onto a large branch, halfway between the canopy and the forest floor, I settled in a pinewood forest, an old one. The trees were large and the branches widespread, blocking out much of what remained of the daylight that was already obscured by my clouds. My breaths fell ragged as I panted heavily. For the first time in a long while, exhaustion sunk in. But I couldn't let that distract me from locating Jamie. He was close...

Perched stealthily on my branch, I scanned my surroundings and strained my ears and all my other senses searching for something out of place. But I felt nothing, no Fearlings to be seen, and no Jamie.

Dropping down noiselessly from the tree, I slowly stalked forward, ice creeping up my staff as I gripped it firmly. My gaze swept across the ground, looking around trees and the uneven terrain for a sign of anything out of place.

A rock face emerged from behind several low-branched trees. The ground declined with a sharp slope and a cavern opened up at the bottom. I approached slowly, my feet taking careful steps in front of the other. The air felt thinner the closer I crept, even in spite of the elevation. Almost like it lacked...life. At the opening, the interior was dark, the light of day only barely making its way through. But I felt him. The only life I could feel was his. And it felt scared.

I took one last breath of the outside air before slowly making my way into the cavern.

Silence. The crushing stillness of the cavern was the only thing I noticed. The ground rocky, but navigable as I slinked close to the wall. My steps were light, but every sound I made disrupted the silence. Anything nearby would be alerted to my presence, but the narrowness of the cavern opening prevented me from flying on the wind. The walls were damp. My body leaving traces of ice every place I touched.

I neared a point where the tunnel turned and I crouched low, slowly peering around the inner wall.

The path opened up into a large cavern. Stalactites hung scattered along the ceiling and stalagmites rose from below. It opened up into a large pit, within which was darkness, like a sea that swallowed the light. Above which hung a myriad of prism-shaped cages.

A stirring above made my heart fall through my chest. I strained my eyes to get a better view, but I had no choice but to slink closer, hugging the larger rocks on the ground to provide a semblance of cover. As I approached, the dim light gave form to…

Jamie.

Jamie, I breathed as I made out as much of him as I could. He was lying curled up in one of the cages. A black cage that hung from the ceiling. Jamie's knees were pulled tight against his chest, his breaths coming out in small damp clouds, cold, but he was undeniably alive.

Could I make it?

I searched around frantically for any reasonable way for me to reach him. I couldn't fly. There was no wind. He was too far out to jump to. I could launch myself with ice...But how would I break into the cage?

"Jack Frost…" a familiarly dark voice echoed throughout the cavern. "It's always a pleasure."

Not attempting to hide anymore, I strode out of my small amount of cover.

"Pitch." I returned, the anger within reemerging. "I figured you had a hand in this." My ice magic crackled at my fingertips and feet, me waiting to unleash it the moment I located him.

"Oh now, now…" his confident voice chided, surrounding me. "I wouldn't fight me on this one, Jack."

"Why n-"

My question was cut off by Jamie screaming. Screaming out of pure pain..or terror, I couldn't tell. He screamed until his voice gave out, his back arching unnaturally in the cage above. My attention drawn to him, I didn't notice the sinister black sand wrapping itself around my neck.

Before I could act, I was flung across the cave, darkness flying past me, until my back collided with the far wall and my body thudded hard against the floor. I clawed at my neck, shooting out ice at everything I came into contact with in a desperate attempt to free myself, but Jamie's scream echoed across the walls of the cavern, my brain rattling in my skull from hitting the rocky ground.

Jamie stilled.

"Jamie!" I yelled over to him as my eyes rolled open, but he didn't seem to notice. Didn't move at all. I hoisted myself up and held my staff ready.

"He can't hear you, Jack," Pitch's pompous voice echoed and reiterated what I had already figured out.

"Let him go," I growled in no particular direction. The damn coward still refused to show his face.

"Now why would I do a thing like that?" he asked curiously, awaiting my answer.

My teeth ground against his challenge. I had no way to force him, he had all the Fearlings on his side, who were probably all lurking somewhere in the pit. Taking on ten had already been a challenge for me. An army would sooner kill me. Derisive chuckling met my ears, my silence betraying my defeat.

"A trade then." I stated firmly, struggling to swallow past the lump in my throat.

"Hm…" Pitch's voice almost sounded delighted. "Do go on."

"Me for him," I clarified, my thoughts racing in my head in attempt to persuade any kind of possible escape. "You..You said it yourself, right? What could go better together than ice and dark?"

"Cold and dark," he corrected.

"Whatever, I mean," shit I swore internally as I attempted to quell my rising panic. "He's just a kid. You know I'm stronger. What would you need him for that I couldn't do better? You have an army. Why take him?"

"Well, now," he mused. "That is a good point. But you see…" I felt the sand trickle its way around me, tickling dreadfully across my skin, and I had to grind my teeth to resist the urge to lash out with my magic. "You're still so young, Jack. You weren't around for much of our history." The sand wound back around my neck. I couldn't stop my accelerated breathing. "While you may be right that I now have an army, I'm lacking anyone to lead them. The Fearlings may be strong in numbers, but they act on hunger alone. I need my own immortals."

"Then take me," I choked out, the sand constricting further. "Let Jamie go."

"Alright then."

The sand stretched me every which way. My arms and legs bound to the wall and floor, my staff clattering against the stone. Footsteps. I heard them approach from the side, but I couldn't turn my head. My chest rose and fell rapidly as I fought to maintain my composure.

Pitch finally stepped into my line of sight. A confident smile grinned in delight as dark eyes beheld my helplessness. Somehow...those eyes were darker than even I remembered…

"It is nice to see you again, Jack," he greeted pleasantly. As if we were long lost friends.

"Let Jamie go," I demanded again.

Pitch clicked his tongue pretentiously. "You never do learn, do you? Why on Earth would I let him go when I already have you as well?"

My magic swelled and I struggled with all my strength at the sand binding me. "PITCH!" I yelled in rage. I didn't need my staff to do magic. I could blow him apart right here…

"Ah ah," he waved a finger at me, and Jamie's tortured scream rose up again, his body thrashing madly around the cage.

"What are you doing to him?!" I yelled, my voice breaking in distress.

Pitch drummed a finger thoughtfully against his chin. "Such potential," he uttered in awe as he turned his head to glance at Jamie roiling about in his enclosure. "I will give you credit, you built him up. Trained him well. His center is pure...but that can be changed."

"Stop." I could barely talk as I listened to him. Jamie cried out in anguish. Something was hurting him. Something I couldn't see.

"What if his memories of you weren't so full of happiness or fun, hm?" Pitch pondered out loud. "It's fairly simple to do. After all, the ones we love often hurt us the most." Another cry broke through and Pitch smirked.

I didn't know when I had started crying, but I could hardly do anything to stop it now.

"Please stop." I whispered, begged.

"Pledge yourself to me, and I'll ease up on the boy."

I swallowed thickly. He wasn't going to stop. Jamie was his, and I could do nothing to stop it. But I'd do anything to stop the screaming.

"I already have."

"Good." Pitch's voice dripped like oil, but Jamie finally quieted. "Now you're a little more stubborn, but I think my methods would work even on the oh-so-free-spirited Jack Frost. And besides...I always wanted a taste of your power."

"What are you-" I choked on my own words as something pierced deep into my stomach. Looking down, I saw Pitch's hand on a hilt, gripping it tightly before it twisted. Pain shot through me as I registered the slice, a scream getting caught in my throat. Then it pulled out and a black blade slid out with it, silvery blood gushing out of my wound running rapidly down my thighs. Breathing hurt, every movement sending more pain. I felt like I was choking.

Pitch observed the knife curiously, my blood glistening off of it. Ever so gingerly, he scraped his finger along the blade before slowly bringing the finger to his lips, tongue eagerly lapping up the blood. He inhaled deeply, energetically. "How interesting," he proclaimed, new energy running through his tone. His attention turned back to me, pinned but furiously glaring at him from the wall. "I'll just leave you be for awhile. Don't bother with your wound by the way, you won't be able to heal it. I'll be back later, however." He turned and casually started walking away. "Toodles."

Despite his warning, I grit my teeth and summoned as much magic as I could to my mid-section, if anything out of self-preservation. But...I couldn't. I gasped, but it was followed quickly by more pain. Trying to breath evenly, my mind struggled to focus through the veil of agony. My magic wouldn't heal. It was almost as if it was blocked...or maybe…While attempting to create a few snowflakes from my hand, an unsettling realization dawned on me.

I had expended too much of my magic. And now he was weakening me on purpose.

But what about Jamie…

I closed my eyes and searched as best as I could until I felt it. Thank the moon, I could still feel him. My magic was still bound to him. I could keep him alive.

Using that one comforting fact, I focused on calming myself. If I could hold it together as long as possible, then the Guardians may come to our aid.

Right?

…

…

drip

The sound of water droplets woke me up. I couldn't remember falling asleep. How did I get to sleep?

Clumsily opening my eyes, I felt the fear sink in.

Darkness.

I was surrounded by darkness.

There was...nothing. I rubbed my eyes hastily thinking perhaps I was blind, but then I stopped to stare at my hands. I could still see them. Brightly. In full color. As if white light were shining on me, but casting no shadow.

I turned my hands over inspecting myself. I could move freely. I was no longer bound.

Running my eyes over every part of me I could see, I examined my body. Checking for injury, but finding none. Alright...I needed to find Jamie.

Searching within myself for that familiar pull, I started walking towards it. The black ground was covered with a thin layer of water, as if walking through a boundless puddle, my bare feet freezing it with every step. Small drips and cracking ice followed my every move, the sounds echoing despite there being no walls. My ears were attuned, listening for any other sound, but only hearing myself. The aloneness more terrifying than the alternative feeling of being followed.

My breaths started to pick up. I had been walking for a while, but without any landmarks, I started to worry I wasn't actually moving. That I was wandering through the blackscape aimlessly. But I could still feel him. I knew he was here.

"Jamie!" I yelled, my voice disappearing into nothingness.

I started to run. The panic fully setting in. I was alone here. Jamie was near but I couldn't reach him. What if I could never reach him?

"Jamie!" I screamed again helplessly.

Wait...something.

I ran faster. There was something ahead. Far ahead. I needed to get to it.

Attempting to summon my ice to freeze the ground, it was like it was stunted. I couldn't simply will it to happen.

My feet picked up speed, running faster than I ever had before, a frozen trail following in my wake.

"Jamie!" I called but relief flooding back through me. He was here. He was alive.

He was still in a cage. Hanging just out of my reach. There was no wind, I had no magic to lift me to him.

"Jamie!" I repeated, waiting, panting. Silently pleading he'd hear me.

He stirred.

"Oh m-.. thank you," I breathed as I saw him push himself up using his forearms. He shook his head a little, his breathing raspier than mine as he kept his head bowed, hanging slack, his shoulders shuddering. He was cold.

"Hey, look…" I whispered quietly, trying to move into his point of view.

But he didn't acknowledge me.

Lifting his head, Jamie touched the black bars of his prison as if inspecting them, his movements shaky. He then swiveled to look around wildly, searching but finding little.

"Jamie!" I shouted this time, needed him to look. Needing him to see I was there.

But he continued to ignore me.

"JAMIE!" I called again as I paced in circles around his cage, desperately trying to get his attention. He pulled his knees up into his chest and wrapped his arms around himself, out of fear or cold I couldn't tell. He let out a sob as hopelessness seemed to overcome him.

"Jamie, please look at me…" I murmured, the reality sinking in. Pitch was making him forget about me. He was losing faith in me. Didn't believe…

Echoes of memories whispered in my thoughts.

How would you feel if I didn't love you anymore?

I felt the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. He was forgetting about me. Forgetting everything…

It was hitting me harder than I ever thought it would.

Suddenly Jamie lifted his head, but holding a new look of manic determination. Fingering a piece of wrought iron that jutted out near the floor of the cage, he considered it carefully.

I paced a little more to the side, the water still crackling into ice underneath me.

Jamie's breaths picked up in speed, adrenaline coursing through him as he eyed the metal. Leaning onto his hands and then kneeling up tall, he kept his gaze focused squarely on it.

"Jamie, what're you-?"

He suddenly dropped, letting his body weight collide the side of his face with the metal, an anguished moan breaking out of him.

"Jamie!"

He leaned up again and collapsed back onto the metal.

"AHHH" he screamed.

"STOP!"

He continued to do it. Seven...eight...I lost count. All I could hear was the thud of flesh and him choking and gasping through his pain.

A final thud and scream rang through my ears as he picked himself up exhaustedly, leaning on his hands and knees. Crimson blood drooled from his mouth in ribbons, his face bleeding and bruised as he panted raggedly. Sitting back on his legs, he coughed and spat thick blood out of his airway. My magic prickled at my fingertips, my connection to him surging and fading as he fought through so much pain, but I couldn't will anything to happen.

Jamie reached back into his mouth with a couple of fingers, searching. Finding his prize, I watched as he sharply twisted his wrist and I heard an audible crack followed by another scream of pain, before he pulled out what only could have been...a tooth.

A tooth…

Jamie wasn't giving up. He was trying to alert the Tooth Fairy.

He still believed after all.

Clenching my fists, I almost could have jumped in victory. Jamie wasn't losing hope. He had always been a fighter. Despite the fear, he was trying with all his might to live. It was Pitch that was causing this. Pitch that shrouded me and made him unable to see.

But then Jamie collapsed.

"Jamie!" I called out again. Darkness slithered all around us. Moving in on us.

Moving in on Jamie.

"Jamie!" I repeated desperately, but could only watch in horror as darkness crawled across his cage, obscuring him from me. His form flickering in front of me. As if it was disappearing.

"NO!" I screamed. Pacing frantically. Trying to keep him in my sights and aiming my staff at the shadows, but nothing came.

Jamie released another scream, which was choked off very suddenly.

And our connection was cut.

My eyes grew wide. No… he couldn't...they didn't…

"JAMIE!" I screamed again, but the darkness had enveloped him. Consumed him.

It couldn't...I couldn't let them…

My heart felt like it was being stabbed. Compressed. My chest was tight, like weights were rapidly crushing me, beyond my breaking point.

I couldn't let them take him.

"JAMIE!" I screamed as white light swelled behind my eyes, an explosion crashing through the surroundings.

And then the nothing.

…

…

I awoke with a groan. My eyelids felt...heavy. Couldn't…

Familiar smells registered in my mind. Softness surrounding me. It wasn't where I was…

Where was I?

My eyes rolled as I opened my eyes with difficulty, struggling to focus on anything. My body hurt...which was a strange sensation. I didn't normally feel pain. Not like this.

Placing my hands on either side of me, I pushed myself into a sitting position, biting back another groan as the world spun around me. I rubbed my eyes in hopes of quelling the wave of dizziness that washed over me. Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes again.

I was at the North Pole...in one of the chambers North had set up for Jamie to stay in.

Jamie…

Where was Jamie?

Memories of the previous day slammed into me and I felt myself start to panic again. I couldn't remember what happened to Jamie. All I recalled was his scream, the light, and the crash. Where was he know?

I threw my legs over the edge of the bed and went to stand, but my legs buckled underneath me and I fell to the ground, unable to hold myself up. My left leg surged with pain and I grimaced. It throbbed heavily and hotly. I wouldn't be able to walk on it.

Thankfully, I spotted my staff leaning on the wall beside my bed. I grabbed hold of it and used it as a crutch to clumsily pull myself back up and hold steady. I breathed deeply and heavily through my nose in an attempt to forget the throbbing pain in my leg. All that mattered was I find someone who could bring me to Jamie.

I hobbled out of the room, which opened up into the elegantly decorated, yet empty hall. Not a soul to be seen. Grunting, I gripped my staff with both hands and leaned on it as I half-hopped, half-limped my way down the aisle.

No sounds reached me. The workshop was eerily quiet. Too quiet. It was the Christmas season, there should've been chaos.

I tingly bell sounded to my left and I quickly spotted one of North's clueless elves walking toward me.

"H..hey," I spoke to him, his eyes lighting up in alarm at the sight of me. Oh crap...it was Frankie.

"F-Frankie," I stuttered as I tried to appease him. He looked torn between running away from me and listening, clearly still remembering the last couple times I froze him. "Please, where is everyone?"

His eyes darted left and then right before he sprung an inch in the air and scuttled away from me.

"Hey!" I yelled enraged and attempted to hobble after him, his runty little speed still enough to evade me in my weakened state.

I reached an intersecting hallway where Frankie had rounded a corner, but I was too late to see where he had gone from there.

"Shit…" I whispered, cursing to myself.

"Jack?!" a familiar voice sounded from behind me.

I whirled around to see Toothiana standing there, eyes as large as saucers.

"You're awake," she breathed, stating the obvious.

"Where's Jamie?" I demanded, leaning heavily on my staff.

"Y-You should sit down first," she said, ignoring my question and reaching towards me, but I leaned away from her.

"Where is he, Tooth?" I pressed, hating the fact she was ignoring my question. Why wouldn't she just answer me?

Her eyes large and searching, she made no sound, only gaped at me in a loss for words.

"Get out of my way," I growled as I shoved past her, shooting a spray of snow to prevent her from impeding me.

"Jack, wait!" she called after me, but I had already decided. If she wasn't going to help me then I was going to find him mys-

My leg giving out from under me again, I tripped and hit the ground hard, my staff rolling away. Another jolt of pain shot up my leg and I grimaced against it.

"Woah, hey, let me help you."

Jamie?

I looked up and my breath stopped. Jamie was there. Crouched down beside me. But it wasn't...he wasn't…

He pulled me up into a standing position by the elbow and handed me my staff. I couldn't speak or do anything. Just stare.

The figure before me was him. Except...the color was gone from him. His skin paler. More pallid. His clothes all black. His hair as well. Even his eyes...all like a shadow. The warm honey-brown gaze had all but vanished, in its stead, a pair of steel-grey irises watched me in concern.

Words only choked in my throat and I had barely registered that Toothiana had approached behind me.

The other glanced at her in recognition and then looked back at me appraisingly. Eyes distant.

"Jamie?" I whispered, a word finally forming.

His brows came together as he looked at me in confusion. "I'm sorry…" he murmured with a frown. "We haven't had the chance to meet yet."

"My name is Light."

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