Chapter Seventeen:

The next few days, the only thing I "remembered" were more moments between Jake and his grandpa.

The memories were tender, soft, and sweet, and they added a nice counterweight to the heavy, stressful memories I had gotten from Miss Peregrine. The memories from Jake settled down into a timeline nicely as well, causing barely any disorientation for me.

The condition of the cells we were in were terrible. We were fed a little food twice a day, but we had to sleep on the hard floor and there were a ton of spiders and rats.

We all looked tired, we all were tired. We were worried, too. Who knows if we would see anyone else ever again. We only had a rough idea of where Miss Peregrine was, and we had no idea where Hugh, Fiona, Olive, and all the others were. Or if they were even alive.

There was a swell of hopelessness in the room, which the wights seemed to feed off of.

Whenever we could talk to each other sort-of freely, I tried to keep the mood up, but the pessimistic attitudes of the others were hard to beat with the few optimistic comments I could find.

. . .

A peculiar half-cheetah half-woman stood before me. I waved my hand in front of her face, but she couldn't seem to see me.

A door across the room banged open and in-stroad a wight. He was smiling. The peculiar gulped.

"Aren't you excited?" The wight said with glee. "Today's your day!"

The peculiar didn't say anything. The wight frowned.

"I said: Aren't you excited?"

The peculiar finally spoke. "Y-yes."

"Well, then, come with me," The wight said, back to his happy self.

The peculiar reluctantly followed the wight out of the room. I looked around for a split second before following them.

We walked down the hallway, turning into a wide room. Peculiars were lined up in beds, each covered with a sheet that cut off at their feet. Tubes ran from the heels of their feet. I recognized the room from my book now, this was where the peculiars souls were removed.

Since no one seemed to notice me, I tried to slide out a needle from one of the peculiar feet. I had never tried to mess with the memories I got from others, but I wasn't sure this even was a memory. But when I tried to remove the needle, my hand just passed through. It was like my mind had wandered away from my body.

The peculiar with the cheetah characteristics laid down in an empty bed.

"Cheer up!" The wight said. "All we're gonna do is suck your second soul up! Then you'll be sent back." He didn't say where she would be sent back too. Then he snickered. It sent waves of disgust down my stomach.

I turned away as he inserted the needles into her feet. It felt like witnessing a private moment.

Then I set down the hall, walking right through the closed door. I looked in each room, some of them empty, some with forlorn peculiars sitting in them.

One actually looked up at me. His mouth moved as if to speak, but all that I could hear was a weak growl. Then he looked down again. I didn't know what his peculiarity was, but he could see me. I left then, not knowing what else to do.

I got to a fork, the hallway splitting off into three. I randomly picked the one to the right, walking down. There were empty rooms, up until the hallway split again. This time, there was a buzz to the left. I followed it, and it came to the row of cells that we were in. It was odd, to see myself, floating with blue and orange, as well as purple tendrils of words flowing around me. The guard was passed out on the floor. The bars to my cell seemed to have never existed.

Then, quicker than I could blink, I was jolted back into my body.

I floated there for half a second, then the blue, orange, and purple disappeared with a poof and I fell to the floor.

"Ow," I remarked as Jake, Emma, and Horace all yelled questions like, "How could you do that?!", and "What did you do?!?".

I tried to lift myself up from the ground with my hands, but then a jolt ran up my arm and the stones my hands laid on weirdly glitched, like they couldn't decide whether or not to re or un build.

So I had to settle for looking ridiculous as I sort of rolled over and stood up, careful not to touch anything with my hands, even my arms.

Then I did the most logical thing I could think of. I walked out.

Everyone looked at me as I did, so it reminded me that I somehow got rid of the bars on my cell, so I could probably do it to theirs, too.

So I went over to Horace's. I held my hands against the metal and it faltered, vibrating and alternating between moving forward and backward, passing through my hands.

Then it disappeared. Just... disappeared.

Horace wasn't really a hugger (more of a worrier), but right then, he tried to hug me. I wanted to, but right now, it was too dangerous. So I held out my arms to the side, far from my body.

"Horace," I said urgently. "Not right now!"

"Oops," Horace said. "Was it too much?"

"No," I said, smiling and resisting a laugh or smacking my hand to my head. "It's too dangerous right now. I just got rid of pure, thick metal with just a touch of my hands."

"Oh, right." He said sheepishly, face reddening. "I'm just excited, that's all."

"Now do us!" Emma said, interrupting. "Quick, August, before more wights come!"

I walked over and did the same to Emma's cell as well as Jake's.

Then we were free, sort of.

"We have to get out of here," Jake said. "And quickly."

"Wait," I said. "Come look." No one asked how I knew where to go.

I lead them quickly down the hallway, hands held safely in front of me like they were really sharp and could skewer anyone. Although, if I tried to get rid of a peculiar or wight, I'm sure I could do it. I was a little freaked out, though. Would this last forever? Would I be able to touch anything -or anyone- ever again?

We got to the room full of sleeping peculiars. No wights were in there anymore, the cheetah-woman asleep now as well.

"Recognize this?" I asked. I was sure they would, as when I read them the story this was the part in which everyone gagged. It was a horrible notion to tear away one's peculiarity, their second soul. Their being.

"Yes." Emma muttered. They all set out (not me, though, because of obvious reasons), carefully removing the needles from everyone's heels.

When we were done, we sadly moved out.

"I wish we could help them more." Emma remarked.

"We'll come back for them later," I said. "Now come on."

We continued to move down the hallway.

But then a group of wights ran into us around the corner. Like literally, we ran into each other. Since I was in front, my hands touched a wight, who I held on to. I didn't think about it, I just did. Then his blank eyes got wide and he started shrinking. Aging backward. Soon he just vibrated and blinked out of existence. My fingers were tingling.

The others were punching and kicking, with a few fireballs here and there. Soon the wights were unconscious, with the exception of the one that was on the other end of Emma's fireball and the one I had gotten rid of, as well as another one that I had touched to stop him from hurting Horace.

Luckily, we hadn't made much noise. But we still hurried around in the halls, not really knowing where we were going. We were looking for Miss Peregrine, as well as the others (if they were even here).

Now that we knew what would happen if I touched someone, I stayed even more apart from the other three, walking in front and keeping my hands angled downward, forming a sort of sideways Z with my arms. That way I would have less of a chance of hurting someone I cared about. It looked a bit weird, but I'm peculiar. Looking strange was the least of my worries right now.

We continued for a while, pausing when we heard nearby voices.

Then we heard the scream.