A week into her imprisonment Jak had yet to see Bucky again. In every spare moment she had, she searched the massive Victorian-styled home to look for him, but her father's cameras were everywhere and he frequently caught up with her and steered her in another direction. Once caught, she was made to take care of simple chores around the house.
"I really ought to dissuade you from thinking of your days as a janitor, but until I can trust you enough to remove your magic dampening cuff, I need something to keep you busy," Uriah told her, "Now, it's probably been twenty years since that chimney's been cleaned. Get to it and watch out for the bats!"
Every time she tried to rebel against him, he threatened to take more memories from her. She'd finally decided it was no use to throw her tantrums when he followed through. Though she couldn't remember what memory he'd taken, she knew she'd cried as he pulled it from her mind and she knew from his disgusted remark that "casinos are tacky places anyway" that it was from the time she and her mother had been hotel maids in Vegas. But she could not piece together any more information about it.
Not wanting to risk any more recent memories, she finally resolved to play the part of demure daughter. She wore the clothes he'd given her, kept her head down, and only spoke when spoken to. It was agony and she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, but she slowly gained his trust.
"I knew you would come around eventually," he patted her cheek at the end of the sixteenth day she'd been there, "And I won't hold your childish rebellion against you. After being so long in the world, away from your good and decent upbringing, I'm sure you just fell into bad habits. We'll keep working on correcting them."
"Of course, Father," she sighed, clenching her fists.
She stopped looking for Bucky after a time. There was only one place he could be and she couldn't get close to the cellar door without her father swooping in and scolding her. Instead, she turned her attention to looking for something a bit smaller: a way to communicate with the Avengers.
In her chores, it was easy to poke through drawers and cabinets for something she could use to get out a message. However, unless she wanted to write a letter and somehow get it in the mail, she was out of luck. Even so, when she located a sheet of Canadian stamps, she took one and hid it away with the pen and paper she'd stolen. Not that it would do her much good.
As far as she could tell, there was no other sign of civilization for miles. When she was allowed outside to tend to the garden or empty buckets of soapy water, she looked for paths or roads. There was nothing. It looked like the house had been dropped from the sky in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.
On occasion, a Russian woman with a thick accent and minimal English vocabulary rode out to the house on an ATV and prepared meals for them, leaving some in the freezer that Uriah would later ask Jak to heat up. So, there had to be a town somewhere, but Jak had no clue how far away the woman came from. She tried to watch her leave through the highest window in the house, but her route was quickly blocked by trees.
After a month of captivity, Jak got desperate and tried to get the woman to post a letter for her. She'd written a short note detailing the most important information. She was in Canada. Her father was alive and holding her against her will. Bucky was somewhere in the house and wanted to help her escape. And then she described the outside of the house in as much detail as she could. She had no envelope to put the letter in, instead taping the paper closed on itself and writing the Avengers Compound address on it. She put a stamp on and quietly approached the cook with a friendly smile.
The woman was preparing dinner and Jak entered the kitchen under the guise of helping.
"Otpravlyat'?" She did not remember much Russian, but she was fairly certain she'd said the word "send".
"Otpravlyat'?" The woman took the letter and traced the address with her fingertip. She looked toward the dining room where Uriah sat, reviewing something on his laptop. It was still odd for Jak to see her father engaging with modern technology. She wished she could get ahold of the device, but he locked it in a safe when he wasn't using it.
"Spasibo?" She couldn't remember if that was "please" or "thank you" but she figured either would be polite in the circumstances.
"No," the woman shook her head in a whisper, "No. Sorry."
"Wait," Jak felt panic rise in her chest when the woman turned on the gas stove, "No, please! Please send it!"
The woman shook her head again and put the corner of the letter in the stove fire. Jak snarled angrily at her and reached for the letter to try and save it, but the woman was strong and knocked her to the floor. Jak watched helplessly as the stamp curled and burned, followed by the rest of the letter until it was all ash.
"Damn you!" She slapped her hand against the tile floor and scowled at the woman.
"Not safe," the woman looked toward the dining room and then drew her finger across her throat. Jak understood the fear. She'd seen countless servants killed, beaten, or thrown to the wolves at her father's command. It still enraged her and she stormed from the kitchen out the back door of the house.
There, parked next to the garden bed was her ATV. It would be stupid to try and drive the machine without knowing where she was going. Especially at night in the forest that she so feared. But, Jak was feeling a bit desperate and more than a little stupid for trying to get the woman to help her in the first place. So, she hitched up her knee length skirt and climbed onto the vehicle.
The keys were still in the ignition. Jak started the ATV and when it roared to life, she immediately wished she'd tried to roll it farther away from the house before doing so. The kitchen door slammed open, but she was already pushing buttons and pulling things until she found the throttle and sent the vehicle galloping forward.
"No! No! Come back!" The cook yelled at her.
Jak had never driven an ATV before, so she actually didn't really know how to turn back, even if she'd wanted to. She was barely managing to dodge the trees on her way into the forest. It was summer, so the night was not completely dark yet, but in the shade of the trees it felt much later. She frantically glanced down at the buttons on the handlebar and noticed what appeared to be headlights. She flicked it and the ground in front of her illuminated. She laughed excitedly and pressed the throttle harder, zooming ahead.
"I don't think so," her father's voice boomed. A bright orange flash startled her into hitting the brake and she nearly flew over the handlebar. Her father appeared in front of her and he snapped his fingers. The ATV caught fire and Jak yelped, jumping from it and trying to run away.
"Jessica, you were doing so well," he tsked, following after her. "I think you know what punishment you've earned now."
She kept running until a circle of flame surrounded her and began to close in.
"What memory shall I take from you this time?" Her father crooned as he stepped closer.
"Leave me alone!" She screamed.
"I am your only family left," he stepped through the fire as if it were nothing and grabbed her arm, pulling her close to him. He pressed his hand to her forehead and no matter how she fought and struggled, she could not break away from him. "You don't really want me to leave you alone."
"Don't take my memories," she begged, "Please, Father, just let me go! Leave me alone."
"What if I left you all alone in these woods? With no sense of direction, no way out? I remember how much you hated it that night we left you in the woods before. Are you so sure you want a repeat?"
Jak didn't say anything, squeezing her eyes closed and doing her best to sort through the memories she still had. She didn't want to let a single one go. Even the bad ones reminded her why she needed to keep fighting her father.
"But a loving father would not doom his favorite child that way," he chuckled and brushed his knuckles against her cheek, "Come. Let us go back home and I will decide your punishment there."
He snapped his fingers and his magic forced her to fall into step behind him as he led the way back to the house. The cook stood by the garden, arms wrapped around herself as she looked at Jaklyn with pity and sorrow. She muttered something under her breath in Russian and closed her eyes. It almost sounded like a prayer and despite her earlier anger, Jak was touched that someone would pray for her.
A moment later, she realized in horror that the prayer was not for her. It was for the cook herself when Uriah caught sight of her. Jaklyn realized this as her father berated the woman in Russian and then snapped his fingers, sending her up in smoke. Jak screamed and tried to look away as the woman burned, but her father's magic kept her watching until the cook stopped moving and lay in a smoldering heap.
"That is only the first part of your punishment," he told her, moving her along with him into the house, "It's really more her punishment for leaving the keys in her vehicle. The second part of your punishment is to finish dinner so we can sit down for a proper meal."
"How can you be hungry after burning a person alive?!" Jak gagged. The smell of charred flesh was in the air.
"You'd be surprised what an appetite adrenaline works up," Uriah laughed, "Your third punishment will be to bury her once she stops smoking. And your fourth is that I will take all of your memories from this night and any memories that the woman ever existed in the first place."
"Why? Why take those memories?!" She knew why, but she hoped he would reconsider.
"Sometime during the years we have been separated, you have turned softhearted," he pushed her into the kitchen, toward the pot that was about to boil over, "Or perhaps you always were and I did not iron it out of you when I should have. Either way, I know that such a violent death for someone innocent will not win me any affection. Right?"
"I hate you," she seethed, tending to the dinner against her will, "I'll never stop hating you."
"You love me," he sat down at the kitchen table and lazily drummed his knuckles against the wood, "You just need to be reminded. And you need to forget what I did to that corpse out in the yard."
"If you want me to love you, then you'll have to erase every single memory in my head," she told him, hoping she wasn't giving him any ideas.
"Oh no, dear daughter, that would shatter your brain I'm afraid. I am a patient man, but even I do not wish to wait for you to grow up all over again."
"Then I'll never stop hating you."
"We'll see," he chuckled.
When dinner was finished, she served it to him and tried her hardest to throw it in his face. Thankfully, he didn't force her to eat. If had, she wasn't sure that she would have been able to keep it down. After he finished eating, he sent her to the yard and gave her a shovel. She tried to fight against his spell and hit him in the head with it, but was unable. She dug a grave and, unable to refuse, picked up the charred bones of the cook and threw them in, crying and retching the entire time. When she was done, her father took her to the bathroom, released his spell, locked the door and ordered her to wash the smell of death away.
When she had scrubbed her skin until it was red, she still felt as if she could smell the smoke on herself, but knew she couldn't stay in the shower forever. Her father tossed a clean nightgown in the room and waited for her to get changed. When she was finished he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her bedroom.
He placed his hand on her forehead.
"Since you've been doing so well up until tonight, I shall reward you with a new memory in exchange for the one I am taking. Enjoy!"
Everything went black and she crumpled to the ground. She dreamed of things that never really happened. Of her father reading to her when she was a child. Dancing with her at balls and defending her from the suitors who mistreated her. When she woke, she knew that she'd made him mad the day before, but she couldn't remember what she'd done. Recalling all of her dreams of him, she almost felt bad that she had angered him.
Almost.
A note from the author: I still have many more chapters to post, but I'm excited to say that I have almost finished writing this story! Once I finish writing, the pre-written chapters will be released much more regularly. Possibly two or three times a week! Yay!
Thanks so much for reading! Special thanks to zxnightfox for your reviews! Right now I've been positing every Sunday, so be sure to check back weekly since you aren't getting the updates! :D I've also been a big Bucky fan lately and I think that will show in the next few chapters.
Until next time!
