Chapter 48: Compromised
"Oh, God!" Henry says in a panic, his eyes widening in fear. "What are we going to do?"
"First thing's first," Crystal says. She pulls both her and Henry into a nearby alleyway to get out of the middle of the street. If anyone saw them turn back to themselves, they wanted to disappear as soon as possible to avoid further questions. The risk of being seen by some of Fiona's minions is another reason to stay out of sight. A third is the panicking sounds of cars and people on the streets, which would also not help with the formation of a new plan. The dark passage between buildings provided them with temporary solace to gather their bearings. "We get out of public view."
"But now what? If you're magic is gone… that means that we can't get access to the underground vault or track down Hook with the locator potion."
Crystal bites her lip, running her hand through her now normal brunette hair. Her heart is pounding as fast as Henry is talking. She knows he's right… everything seemed relatively under control until right this minute, where it all fell apart. The Black Fairy is fighting back with full force and now one of their most powerful assets has been snuffed out in a literal puff of smoke.
"I don't know," she whispers, trying to control her breathing. At least with her magic cancelled out, she knows it won't react to her tense emotional state. Usually when she's panicking her hands are lighting up like road flares, so that is a small bonus that there won't be any further chaos to deal with at the moment.
"And if everything's been reset… My clone will have vanished… and the house is no longer protected."
"Oh god…" Crystal realizes. "BELLE!"
"The sleeping spell would have stopped!"
"And I don't think she'd be sticking around."
"We have to stop her from being noticed. If she's arrested…"
The daughter of Rumpelstiltskin isn't listening anymore. She pulls the hood of her sweatshirt up and rushes out to try and flag down a taxi. Henry reluctantly follows her, trying to remain hidden as well. He cannot believe that the situation changed in the blink of an eye. Now they really are in trouble and they're losing control of everything.
Belle's blue eyes flutter open and she sits up in bed. She looks around, completely confused and wondering where she is. The surroundings are strange, and the darkened room is not comforting at all. She gazes over into the corner and sees a large mass of something covered in shadows, which gets her heart racing. In a moment of panic, she bolts from the bedroom into the dim light of the hall. She leans against the upstairs railing to try and catch her breath and gather her thoughts.
She gazes down at the elegant foyer below, admiring the beautiful crystal chandelier and other ornate decorations. It was a pleasant sight and a relief from the darkness of the room behind her, even if all the curtains in the house were closed and everything was covered in a dim gray hue.
Not wanting to be left in such darkness any longer, the woman walks to the end of the hall and pulls open the curtains, revealing extremely bright light that caused her to squint by the sudden change. She is equally pleased by the lovely garden positioned below the window; the trees, shrubs, and flowers making a spectacle of colours very pleasing to the eye.
With the world now illuminated, Belle tries to wrack her brain to remember where she was and what had happened. It takes a minute or two but then it starts coming back. The three of them… Henry and Crystal, the people who helped her escape the hospital. They had brought her to the house, allowed her to explore and read before going to meet someone… who that was she couldn't quite remember at the moment… and then she remembers being on the street before everything went blank.
Was it all a dream? Had her time on the street been a figment of her imagination? Leaving the house too?
Her head begins to throb with the questions to the point where she has to grab the curtain to avoid falling to her knees. How did she end up in bed again? She swore that she had woken up and gone to the library downstairs to read. It didn't make any sense. Where were those Aspirins when she needed them?
At that moment, her stomach begins to growl. If it had all been a dream and she had just slept in longer than expected, it must be well past lunch. She descends the stairs and searches for the kitchen. Once she finds it, she opens the fridge to find a variety of foods to choose from.
It was all so strange; her time in the cell, she was never given the choice of what to eat, usually just tasteless slop and mush with no flavour. Many of these foods she'd never seen before… at least in her memory.
She reaches in and finds an apple on one of the shelves. She nibbles on the red skin for a few moments before biting into it fully. The sweet and yet bitter taste fills her mouth and she chews at it hesitantly before swallowing. It was slightly off-putting at first, but she realizes that it's delicious that she takes a few more bites, excited by the tang of the centre. She'd never tasted anything more enjoyable in her life. The mixture of flavours seemed to dance in her mouth and satisfy her hunger pangs.
After nearly eating to the core, Belle goes for something else… a cup of yogurt. It takes her a few minutes to get the lid off but once it's open, she attempts to dump the substance into her mouth like a cup. However, when that doesn't work she dips her fingers. Again, the sweet and creamy flavours fill her mouth and she finds out how to squeeze the cup to get all of the yogurt out.
Just as she's reaching for something else, she hears a car outside.
Her heart begins racing… What was happening? She'd never heard such sounds before and the heavy revving of the engine is loud and sinister. It reminded her of the growls of... HIM! Had it come back? Were there more of them? Did they come back to take her to Fiona?
The last thought sends her into a panic. Without hesitation, Belle drops what she's holding and hurries towards the nearest door. At first, she wants to run to the front door, but the sounds were coming from that direction. Then the door shook as if something was trying to get in so she frantically races into the dining room before reaching the back. Fumbling with the locks, she finally manages to get the door open and she runs into the back garden. Racing through the shrubs, trees, and flowers, the frightened woman ignores the pain of not wearing shoes and hurries to the cover of the nearby woods. Tears in her eyes, all she can think about is escaping and leaving everything else behind.
…
Fiona sat at her open office window, watching as the enchanted smoke she'd created vanish and listening to the sounds of the chaos below. She cannot help but feel great satisfaction with causing the extra misery of the cursed subjects. Screams and the sounds of cars crashing was music to her ears, like a symphony of tyranny and darkness. It was so delectable to her dark heart.
She inhales as the fear was a state of euphoria for her. She leaned back and let the smile continue to grow. More screams and shouts of innocent people fill her workplace. She truly was the queen in her Dark Tower, watching her subjects scurry around like pathetic insects to save themselves and find out what had just happened. Their puny minds could not comprehend the true power of their leader.
Regina was foolish to think that she ever earned the title of Evil Queen. The woman had merely been broken-hearted and lashed out with vengeance and violence. She also let her love for Henry and the dimwitted outlaw soften her to the point where she was a hero, now trapped like the rest of the fools who considered themselves good.
Fiona snickers to herself. She was on the way to winning the game. Now that any sources of magic would be nulled and void, she'd be able to smoke out the targets who were working against her. Whoever they might be, they were weak and would no doubt be defeated now that their greatest asset was gone. Additionally, her eyes and ears around the city would report anything that was suspicious. She gave herself a good amount of praise for bringing over some of her Dark Realm minions to help her. It paid to have friends in low places.
However, she didn't expect the truth to be revealed so quickly.
After a few minutes, the phone on her desk begins to ring.
"Hello, Mayor Blackwell speaking,"
"Madam Mayor…" a panicked voice on the other end pants. "This is Stygian High School calling. I am terribly sorry to have to disturb you at work, but it's about your son Henry."
Fiona's wicked smile dropped from her face at the mention of Henry. What about him? He was acting so obediently over the past few days… he seemed to have resigned himself to his fate of being part of this curse. He hadn't tried to run away or spoken about the curse or mentioned his beloved Saviour mother at all. It was all so perfect for her. What had her magic done? Had it reignited his hope of beating her?! Her heart began to pound against her chest as fear began to grow inside. She cursed herself for letting her guard down around Henry… Evidently, she'd underestimated his determination and belief.
"What about him?"
"He's…he's…" the voice wheezes.
"Pull yourself together!" she barks angrily. "And tell me about my son."
After a beat, the voice sounds clearer and calmer. "Your son's Math teacher just reported that he vanished from the classroom."
"Vanished? Do you mean he ran out of the classroom?"
"N-No Ma'me."
"Do you mean he jumped out of the window?"
"N-No… He… he…"
"For Gods sakes man, spit it out!" she orders.
"Forgive me Madam Mayor, but all of us are trying to understand what happened."
"AND WHAT DID HAPPEN?!" she shouts into the receiver.
"Your son… one minute he was sitting in his desk. Then… there was that strange cloud of fog or smoke that appeared, and the power went out. When the lights came back on… he was gone… No one saw or heard him leave the classroom or the school. The building is being searched but he is not here… he just vanished in… a literal puff of smoke."
"How can…"
The phone drops from her hands and hangs off the desk by the cord as the realization hits the dark fairy.
HOW COULD SHE BE SO STUPID?! HOW COULD SHE HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?! WHY DID SHE BELIEVE IN HENRY'S QUICK PERSONALITY SHIFT?!
The obedience, the sudden lack of motivation to end the curse, no mention of the curse or fairy tales, the vanishing of his hatred for her… it all made sense…
AND SHE BELIEVED IT!
She should have known that the Saviour's son would not give up so easily. The stupid determination of all those pesky heroes, believing that good would triumph over evil. A tired cliché that the fools of Storybrooke still had faith in… the most annoying and tiresome of them being Snow White; the woman literally spat out hope on a regular basis.
Fiona's office rumbles as her dark magic reacts to her anger. She stretches her hands out towards her bookshelves and begins throwing everything off of them with her powers. Flinging volumes of heavy books and other trinkets across the room, not caring where they landed. She used the same darkness to rip the plasma tv off her wall, and in a rage, the windows of her office blow out and shatter, raining glass down on poor unsuspecting people below. Ignoring the wind rushing through her hair and the papers blowing out into the city, floating down like strange snowflakes, she continues to trash her office in pure rage. In the final act of her tantrum, she flips the desk and crushes the phone, ending the conversation that told her everything she needed to know.
She feels mortified that the Henry she was allegedly caring for was now just an illusion of magic that vanished when she cancelled it. How did she not detect it sooner? Whoever this was is working with the real Henry, is fiendishly clever and had found a way to hide their plans from her. How long had it been? Couldn't have been more than a few days, but still, she was the embodiment of all darkness and power, she should have caught on to this!
Where is the real Henry? How in the hell did he gain the upper hand?
Just then, the phone in her pantsuit pocket begins to vibrate. The fairy is about to crush the device in her hand when she recognizes the number. One of her informants! Perhaps they could bring her some good news.
"Hello?"
"Boss," the voice says. "I just dropped off two kids at an old mansion on the edge of the city. A boy and a girl. The boy is your son."
…
"Fifteen bucks for a stupid cab ride," Crystal hisses as she and Henry hurry up the cobblestone driveway, unaware that the driver was lingering at the foot of the property, dialling his cell phone. "Total ripoff. When we get the chance, we're going outside of town to get my car. Damned swindler"
"Well in this city and its economy can you blame them?" the young author asks.
"Easy for you to say, you didn't have to pay," she grumbles before trying to open the house. She jiggles the handles in frustration when she realizes what happened. She remembered that she'd locked the house with her magic before leaving and it's just their luck that once the magic was gone, the place would remain locked. This day could not get any worse. Swearing under her breath for not creating keys, she pulls a bobby pin from her purse and begins to pick the lock. Having spent time in street gangs, the daughter of Rumpelstiltskin was as resourceful and as cunning with breaking and entering than both Emma and Neal had been when they were young. It was strange how quickly the skill came back to her, almost like riding a bike it seemed.
She continues to swear until the door swings open.
"BELLE?!" Henry calls, hoping that his grandma had just woken up from the sleeping spell and was still upstairs.
He races up to find her bed empty.
"She's not up here!" he shouts in a panic. "Check the library!"
Crystal tears through the house to the library, hoping that the bookworm was curled up in a chair with a good book. However, the place had not been touched since this morning, Belle's stack of books that she'd chosen to read remained the same.
"She's not here!" she calls.
Henry appears on the top landing. "She's not upstairs at all!"
The two then hurry to the kitchen to find the half-eaten apple and the squashed yogurt cup.
"Oh no!" Henry gasps.
The older of the two then notices the back door wide open. They race to the back and look out into the surrounding woods. No doubt Belle had fled in a panic. Why? What had she remembered that scared her so much to drop everything and run? They just prayed that Fiona had not gotten there first.
"We have to go after her," Henry states firmly.
"I know," Crystal sighs. "I just don't want to leave the house unguarded."
"It doesn't matter anymore; the place is compromised. It can't be protected with magic. It's not safe for us to stay."
"I know."
Just then the sounds of voices come from the front of the house.
"Did… did you actually see the cab driver leave?" she questions.
The two look at one another before realizing that if they didn't get the hell out of here now, they'd be at the mercy of the Black Fairy. No doubt the shady driver was one of her informants like the one who was keeping Belle hostage, and he'd snitched.
Without any further hesitation, the two of them bolt out the back door, hopping over hedges and around other vegetation until they reached the cover of the wooded area. Giving one last glance behind them at the temporary "home base" they vanish into the shade of the trees, hoping to have a good head start for their life of being on the run.
A/N: Crystal and Henry are now on the run. Please follow and review.