Strange Beginnings// j.p.

Chapter 11- Fights and Frights

That Tuesday night was full of dizzying thoughts and choices about our precarious future. We were meant to pack up and go home on Sunday morning, back to the routine and normalcy of Florida. This gave us a only a few short days to decide what we were going to do, and it seemed like Jake and I weren't exactly on the same page.

I was adamant about returning to our home, to the lives we'd left behind to come here. Jake was a bit more indecisive, seemingly weighing the pros and cons of leaving or staying in the loop. Emma made passionate arguments about our staying, all of which glossed over the important facts that our lives were in the modern century, and there could never be a plausible explanation for our disappearance from such a small, isolated island. None of her arguments ever addressed the stifling suffocation the loop gave everyone inside it, only saying, "It'll be better with you two here."

Miss Peregrine was less helpful. She acknowledged she couldn't make the decision for us, even though we were only asking for advice from a relatively unbiased third party. She made it obvious she wanted us to stay, not only for our safety, but because our especially unique peculiarities would provide extra protection for the children. While I didn't want anything to happen to them, I didn't relish the idea of spending an eternity as a watchdog, and neither did Jake. We wanted freedom, as Abe had wanted.

Staying on the island also meant saying goodbye to all the plans we'd made for our future, all our dreams and aspirations for our lives. We'd never finish high school or attend college. We'd never get married or have a family of our own. I couldn't pursue any of the careers I'd spent so long planning out, Jake could never be a journalist like he wanted.

When I reminded him of the normal lives we'd have to sacrifice, he reminded me in a frustrated tone that we weren't normal. He said we'd spend the rest of our lives in fear and paranoia, waiting to be hunted and killed by wights. When I reminded him of my training, he simply shook his head, and we both had to step away before it became an argument.

We went back and forth like this for days, trying to figure out what to do. Franklin seemed to be struggling too, the motivation to continue his book leaving him with every passing day. The more discouraged and unmotivated he got, the more time he spent at the bar, drinking more than Jake or I had ever seen him drink. It was like the island was draining him, sending him into bouts of depression where he would drunkenly ramble his problems to Jake, things no teenage boy needed to know.

"One of these days, Jake, I swear your mother's gonna leave me," he slurred one night over our quiet dinner, "If I don't make something happen pretty soon, I really think it's gonna happen."

Knowing that his parents marital issues was the last thing Jake needed to be worrying about right now, I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the table to get some fresh air outside. If his dad noticed our sudden absence, he didn't say anything. Sneaking away to the loop at all hours became depressingly easy after that.

The children's home was no longer the summer sanctuary it had started out as. Miss Peregrine had implemented a near-lockdown, not unlike a state of martial law. The smaller kids had to have an escort everywhere, the older ones only allowed to travel in pairs. She had to know where everyone was every moment of the day, and even getting permission to go into the gardens outside became an ordeal.

She posted the children at watchpoints at the front and rear of the house in rotating shifts, so at all times of the day and most of the night, bored faces were visible from windows, watching the outside. If they spotted someone, they rang a bell connected to Miss Peregrine's room, meaning she was always waiting just inside the door as soon as we stepped inside, a full interrogation as soon as we hit the door. What was happening on our side of the loop? Had we noticed or heard anything strange? Were we absolutely sure we weren't followed?