The Beginning Of The End

Chapter 37

When I woke up my head was pounding and I had no idea where I was. I could see again, and as I stretched out, testing my limbs, I noted that I could move again too. I sat up, looking around to see that I was on a thin, rather filthy blanket on a concrete floor. There were concrete walls on two sides of the little room I was in, but at the front and left side were floor to ceiling bars like in a prison.

A prison. I was in a prison.

Rowyn, I thought, remembering my little sister when I had first seen her after she'd shown up at the house. The way she had been laughing, her young face radiating pure joy as she suffocated me. The way she had thrown Finn across the room, not caring about the fact that he had smashed into the wall, or that he hadn't gotten up.

Rowyn worked with Felicia, and now I was here, in some sort of prison cell.

"Hello?" I called, getting to my feet. "Is there anybody there? Rowyn?"

"There's no point," a gruff voice said. I jumped with fright when I heard it, then went over to the bars on the other side and peered through. I had presumed it was just a pile of rags, but now that they were sitting up, I realised there was someone in the cell beside mine. A man who I could just make out in the dim like. A man with a rather out of control facial hair situation and clothes in rags. How long had that poor guy been in here?

"You mean they won't come?"

"Rowyn will," he said gruffly. "She'll tease you, torture you, anything to drive you insane while still trying to get the information she needs out of you."

"What a way to make an impression on your sister," I mumbled, laughing humorlessly and sinking onto the cold, hard ground in front of the bars. The man shifted a little closer, a frown on his face.

"Sister?" He repeated.

"Funny, right? Go ahead, judge me. Rowyn is my sister." I shook my head and looked down at the concrete. "In my defence, I've never met her before she came and... kidnapped me?"

"Louisa," the man breathed, and I sat up straighter.

"You know who I am? How?"

He sat back and rubbed a hand over his face, sighing sadly. "I had so hoped she wouldn't find you," he mumbled.

"How do you know who I am?" I repeated, getting even closer to the bars without touching them.

"Because, Ducky," he said quietly, so quietly I barely even hear him. But I did, and as soon as I heard that name my eyes widened and I gasped. I grasped hold of the bars between out cells to keep myself steady as my eyes swam with tears.

"Daddy?" I whispered. He had been the only one to ever call me that.

"You're all grown up now," he said, moving over to the bars and sitting just on the other side of the bars from me. "I missed everything."

"Have you been here this whole time?"

"Not the whole time," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Only since I started refusing to do what she, Felicia, wanted. I found a way to resist her while she was able to control everybody else. But if she couldn't control me she couldn't risk me being out in the open or even with the others. I've been down here maybe eight years or now."

"What about the Witches End?" I asked. "Couldn't she have used that to control you?"

My father stiffened and grabbed onto the bar just above where I was holding it.

"What do you know about Witches End?" He asked almost angrily.

"More than I wish I did," I admitted, letting go of the bars and sitting back.

"No," he whispered, closing his eyes and shaking his head as though that could make it go away. "No, Louisa, tell me you don't have it."

"I do though," I whispered.

"Natural or the modified kind?" He asked, taking a deep breath. "Where are you up to? What phase?"

"Phase four any day now," I said, repeating what Lucas had told me. "And it's Felicia's version, the modified kind."

"Oh, my Ducky..." he reached through the bars and gripped my hand tightly in his rough, calloused one. It was filthy, but I didn't care. I look into his eyes, blue like mine, and saw that they were shining with tears.

"Lucas was going to give me the cure," I went on quietly. "But now I'm in here..."

"Lucas? Lucas Henwood?" My father said, frowning. "You know Lucas?"

"Well, I've been living with his brother for a couple of months now," I said a little unsurely. Not having seen my father for as long as I had, I didn't really know how he would react to the fact that I had a boyfriend and all that.

"He has a brother?" My father frowned in confusion.

"Um," I glanced around, remembering that Felicia was never allowed to find that out and wondering somewhere in the back of my mind if they had spies down here, or security cameras. Maybe a magical version of security cameras... "No, why would you think he has a brother?"

The confusion was clear on my father's face but he seemed to understand, at least a little. He nodded slowly, and then, beneath the layers of beard, I saw him smile.

"Oh, Louisa, my little Ducky," he murmured. "I can't believe I'm seeing you right now." Then the smile dropped off his face. "I only wish it were under better circumstances."

"Me too, dad," I whispered, wiping away a tear. "Me too."