Fred didn't like this. He didn't like it at all. He was just about to escape, and then he ran into the mean, confusing people that talked to him like he was supposed to know who they were. Fred had never seen Brad or Judy before in his life, but it didn't matter how many times he said so. They just called him a silly boy, ruffled his hair a bit too forcefully, and said that he would come to see the error of his ways. They sounded so sure, and it made Fred nervous.
He was brought back to the secret area of the company. Fred was feeling more and more that this was the hideout of a supervillain, like in the movies, except it was so much scarier.
Fred didn't really listen to what Brad and Judy were saying. He just sniffled, struggled, and shouted to be let go. When he struggled too much Brad would give him a tight squeeze, and Fred would stop. The squeeze didn't really hurt, but it was scary, because Fred felt like Brad could do so much worse. The man was so much bigger than he was. His voice may sound nice, but Fred knew that he could easily hurt him.
He was brought to a large room where Pericles was perched, looking as though he was waiting for them.
"Brad, Judy, it is wonderful to see you after so long." Pericles said, not sounding sincere at all. The parrot leered at Fred. "I see you've met our little friend."
"Professor Pericles, I see you're just as good with children as you ever were." Brad finally set Fred down. He tried to run away, but Judy grabbed his hurt hand. "This slippery little scamp almost wandered off on us, didn't he, Judy?"
"That's right, Brad." Judy said cheerfully. She smiled at Fred, laughing slightly when he tried to lean away from her. "Like father, like son."
"Don't talk about my dad like that!" Fred tried to stomp on Judy's foot, but Brad pulled him back
"Hey, sport, treat your mother with respect." Brad said, his cheerful voice fell to one of frustration. Fred wanted to be glad that he had stopped sounding so fake, but he was too scared and frustrated to feel anything else.
"She's not my mom!" Fred snapped. Brad's expression darkened and his hand twitched. Fred was scared for a long second that Brad was going to hurt him, but before the man could do anything Pericles came up to him and clutched his claws around Fred's hair. The boy froze, scared of being scratched again. Pericles gave his hair a small tug, making Fred lift his head and meet the parrot's gaze.
"Naïve, little Frederick." Pericles said with fake pity. "Your father never told you the truth of your parentage, did he?"
"What truth?" Fred said shakily. The bird just gave him a knowing look.
"I would love to tell you." Pericles said. "But I have a better idea." He looked at Judy. "Call Frederick Jones."
Fred didn't know how he felt about this. He wanted to talk to his daddy, of course, but if the parrot thought that it was a good idea then it was probably really bad.
"Whatever you say." Judy said brightly. She dialed the familiar number, and it was immediately answered.
"He-"
"Daddy!" Fred called out. Pericles tightened his grip on his hair in a warning way, but it wasn't too bad.
"Freddie." His dad's voice was breathless. He sounded quiet and scared, but Fred was happy to hear him. "Are you okay?"
Fred's head and hand hurt, and he was scared. Tears came to his eyes. He wasn't okay at all. "No."
"It'll be okay." his dad said. "You'll be home soon."
"Oh, I agree." Brad said. Fred heard his dad make a weird growl noise that didn't sound like him at all. "Though I think me and Judy have a different idea of where that home is."
"Stay away from my boy, Chiles." Fred's dad said in an angry voice that sent shivers down the boy's spine. He made a very small whimper. He hadn't thought that it would be heard at all, but Judy heard him.
Really now, Jones, you're scaring the poor boy." Judy handed the phone to Brad as she knelt next to Fred. She wrapped her arms around him, as though to comfort him. It just made the hairs on Fred's arms stand on end. He yelped and stiffened, but she didn't let him go.
"Frederick, I think it's time that we meet in person." Pericles said. Any argument that his dad had fell silent as he listened to Pericles carefully. "We can discuss the trade that I suggested earlier in further detail. However, there's one more thing that I want from you."
"You're already demanding the piece of the Planispheric Disk. What else could you possibly want from me?" Fred's dad asked.
"The truth." Pericles said simply. "I want you to tell your so-called son here exactly what his relationship with Brad and Judy is."
Fred was confused. He didn't know Brad and Judy at all, let alone had a relationship with them.
His dad was quiet for a long moment, and that was too long for Pericles. The bird growled slightly and let go of Fred's hair, only to fly down to his hand and give his hurt thumb a sharp nip. Fred screamed in agony and instinctively curled in to Judy's soft touch as she whispered gently to him and stroked his hair.
"Alright!" Fred's dad shouted. "Alright, I'll tell him, just…just don't hurt him anymore." Pericles grabbed the phone from Brad and held it close to Fred so he could hear better. Fred whimpered and sobbed as his dad sighed painfully. "Everything's going to be okay, Fred. I'll see you real soon, and I'll bring Mr. Trapples with me. We both know he's so much better at helping you to feel better than I am."
"Stop delaying, Jones." Pericles said in a warning tone.
"Okay, okay, I'm going." Fred's dad sighed. "Freddie, my boy, I really care about you, and in all ways that truly matter we're family, but as far as blood goes we're not as related as I may have led you to believe."
"...huh?" Fred sniffed.
"I'm not your biological father." Fred's dad said. Fred felt like his world suddenly stopped. "Brad and Judy are your birth parents."
"I-I'm adopted?" Fred said numbly without even realizing that he had talked at all.
"Not exactly." Pericles said. He sounded like he was having too much fun with this. "Jones, tell the boy how he came to be in your possession."
"This isn't necessary." Fred's dad said. "Pericles, leave the boy alone."
"You're in no position to be making demands." Pericles dragged his claw down Fred's arm, going just deep enough to draw blood. Fred winced.
"Ow." Fred said. It wasn't the most pain-filled sound, but it was enough for his dad.
"I kidnapped you, alright?!" Fred's dad practically shouted. Fred blinked rapidly. It took him a long minute to really wrap his head around what he heard, and another minute to get over his shock.
"No." Fred said quietly. He struggled to pull away from Judy. "No, no, no! You're lying!"
"Freddie, you have no idea how much I wish I was." Fred's dad said. Fred knew what his dad sounded like when he was telling him a tough truth. Still, he refused to believe it.
"No!" Fred screamed. He continued to squirm and scream. Even Judy's gentle touch and quiet words didn't help to calm him down. He wanted to get away. He wanted to be alone. He wanted his daddy. His real dad. Not Brad. Even if Brad was his real dad, which Fred's head still refused to believe, he didn't know anything about Fred. He didn't know how to make Fred feel better.
But then, if Fred's dad had actually kidnapped him, was that actually his fault?
The thought made Fred scream and cry louder. His legs gave out beneath him and he just curled up on the ground, stomping his feet and screaming so much that his throat hurt. Judy tried to be patient, but Fred could tell that she was getting colder. He was reminded more and more of all of his teachers who started trying to comfort him, but quickly decided that he wasn't worth it.
Judy was his mom, and she didn't think that he was worth it. Fred didn't like Judy. He didn't want her to be his mom, but it still hurt that she didn't want him either, so Fred just screamed louder.
It wasn't true. It wasn't! His dad was lying…except his dad didn't lie to him. He never lied. He just sometimes forgot his promises, but that wasn't the same thing! Fred's dad didn't lie to him, but then why would he say that he wasn't really his kid? If he wasn't lying about this, then he had to have been lying to him his whole life about being his dad. No matter what, Fred's dad lied to him, and it hurt that Fred didn't know which was the truth. How many other times had his dad lied to him and he trusted him, just because he was his dad, even if he might not be his dad.
Fred didn't know what was the truth, and it made him feel sick to his stomach. His head was spinning, and he felt like his feelings in his body were too strong. It felt like he was a volcano. He couldn't keep it in. He needed to scream, and hit the ground, and stomp his feet, because he needed to get all of these strong feelings out because he couldn't handle it.
"This tantrum is getting out of hand." Judy said impatiently. Fred made a small keening sound from the back of his throat as his shoulders tensed and he tried to clutch at the floor. He felt like he was physically unable to not be stiff. He hated when people said that he was having a tantrum. That made it sound like he was doing this on purpose. He wasn't. He really would stop if he could, but he didn't know how.
"I think this young man needs a time out." Brad said. He easily picked up Fred and carried him to a large cabinet. Fred didn't realize what was going on until Brad opened one of the cabinets and gave Fred a small push inside.
"Wait, no!" Brad began to push the cabinet door closed. Fred tried to push back, but Brad was stronger than he was. The door was closed, and Fred whimpered when he heard the sound of a lock. "No!" Fred pounded on the door, but he was trapped.
"You can come out when you learn to behave, young man." Brad said. It was the same timeout conditions that Fred always used to get from his old babysitters, but that didn't make him feel any better. He'd never been able to figure out what they wanted from him. He wasn't trying to be bad. He really wasn't.
Fred hit the door and called for help for several minutes before he was drained. His body stopped working on him and he sat down at the bottom of the cabinet, drawing his legs close to his chest. The cabinet was large, so he wasn't feeling crowded, and light was shining through the door so he wasn't in the scary dark either. He'd been in his own traps that were more confining, but he didn't know how to get out of this, so it was worse.
Fred whined and sniffled as he just sat there. He heard talking outside for a few minutes, but then it tapered off. Fred was alone. He was relieved that he wasn't being bothered and lied to anymore, but he felt really lonely. He just wanted to go home, but he didn't know where that was anymore.
Fred wasn't tired, but he felt like he was a little sleepy. It was a little like when he got sick and his dad-maybe-not-dad gave him medicine. It was like his brain was going to sleep, but his body was still wide awake.
Eventually he heard talking start up again, but he heard Ricky's voice and another voice that he recognized all too well.
"Angel?" Fred said quietly. He uncurled slightly, kicking the door as he did so. The talking stopped. "Angel?"
"Fred?!" Angel answered. He heard running, and then her voice was much closer to the door. "Please tell me those monsters didn't lock you in here." The door rattled as Angel tried to open it. "Ricky, where's the key?"
"I don't know." Ricky sounded almost as panicked as Angel did. There were some rustling sounds. "It's not here."
"B-Brad put me in timeout." Freddy whimpered. "I don't know what I did wrong."
"I'm sure you did nothing wrong." Angel assured him. "I should have expected this kind of thing from Brad, but here I was hoping that his days of pushing kids into lockers were through."
Fred felt better knowing that Angel was here, but the pain of being lied to by his maybe-not-dad hurt and made him wonder who else was lying to him. He had thought that he could trust Angel, because she was always nice to him, but something was bothering him.
Angel knew Ricky. She knew Pericles. She always used to talk about Fred's kinda-dad like she knew him. And now she knew Chad.
Fred knew that just because someone knew bad people didn't mean that they were bad, but he had a bad feeling about this. Why was Angel working with Ricky?
"Why are you here?" Fred asked quietly as he pushed against the back of the closet. He wanted to be as far away from danger as possible, and even though he knew and trusted Angel, he couldn't relax.
"I'm here to help you." Angel said. She didn't get mad at him for questioning her. She never did.
"Did you call the police?" Fred asked. He'd been kidnapped. He was locked up and didn't want to be here. That was when the police were supposed to get involved in the tv shows.
Angel was quiet for a moment. "It's complicated, Freddie." The boy's chest hurt. 'Complicated' was a word that grown-ups used when they didn't want to explain things. Angel never said that to Fred. She didn't talk down to him, until now, apparently.
"You're helping Ricky." Fred said quietly. "He took me. He called you for help. You know the same mean friends that he does." Fred sniffled. "You're working with them, aren't you?"
"I don't want anything to do with the others." Angel said sternly. "I'm working with Ricky."
"But he's working with them." Fred said. "Isn't he?" There was no disagreement, and Fred felt his heart break. He didn't know how somebody could work against a group, but work with somebody who worked with the group. That wasn't how it worked.
Fred had thought that his dad and Angel were different from other adults. He thought they were nice to him. He felt so stupid. They were grown-ups. Of course they were like other grown-ups. They did bad things, and said that it was okay because it was 'complicated'. They lied. They hurt people. And they thought that he was just a dumb child who should listen to them just because they were grown-ups and he was nothing but a dumb little kid.
Fred was tired of it, and he wasn't going to take it anymore.
"Leave me alone." Fred growled.
"Freddie, I know you're confused, and I promise I'll explain things just as soon as I get you out of there." Angel said. Fred clenched his fists so much that his fingernails dug painfully into his palms. He wasn't confused. Him being upset wasn't his fault. She was the one who was being a dumb grown-up.
"No!" Fred stomped both of his feet against the door so harshly that he felt the cabinet shake and the sound made his ears ring. He couldn't bring himself to regret it though. "Leave me alone!"
"Freddie," Angel began, but Fred didn't want to listen to her. He was tired of being lied to.
"Go away!" Fred screamed. He dropped as he felt all of his energy drain out of him. He sighed and curled up into a tight ball. "Please."
Angel was quiet for a moment. "I know you're hurt, kid, and you have every right to be. You can hate me as much as you want, but I won't rest until I get you out and away from this mess." He heard her walk away. "We'll find Brad, get the key, and get you out, okay?" Fred didn't answer. "Okay?"
Fred drew in tighter around himself. "Kay." He said so quietly that it was almost inaudible, but Angel heard him. She always heard him when they did this little back and forth. She always wanted a response from him, no matter how small or angry it was.
"We'll be back soon." Angel said. Soon Fred heard the door close. The moment Angel was gone Fred wished that she was back. He was hurt, but he didn't want to be alone. Being alone kept on ending up with him getting hurt when the others eventually came back. Fred just wanted to stop getting hurt and betrayed.
He wish he'd never gone on this stupid fieldtrip.