Oh interesting… for the ask game I like to give options, so I’ll say kidnapping and/or supernatural body features for any TMBS characters you want!
“It's simple.” McCracken leaned forward, bending so he was eye to eye with Kate. She fiddled with her chains again, even though she hadn't noticed any give the first three dozen times she tried them. “We need to convince your father he should hand over a certain valuable asset. And the simplest and least painful way to go about it is through you, my dear.”
“I'm not giving you anything!”
McCracken sighed, a weary, condescending sigh, like a babysitter whose charge had declared an undying vendetta against bedtime. "While you insist upon being stubborn, I do believe you. For what it's worth, kitten."
He smiled. "But cooperation is truly your best option right now."
"Do your worst," she spat.
McCracken laughed. "I will. But not to you. Kid out there, the average looking one. He could use a couple scars to make him look distinctive." He twirled a pencil over and between the fingers of one hand, and Kate felt her eyes drawn to it as it performed complex, hypnotic pirouettes.
"I probably won't even have to touch the one with the glasses. Just hold a stapler to his face and he'll be a blubbering mess."
Kate rankled at this insult to her friend, but fear swept through her, too.
“So really, this is the best option. You're braver and stronger than all your little friends. But what's your pride compared to their safety?”
McCracken tossed the pencil, and they both watched it flip six times before he caught it easily. “It's alright if you have a bit of stage fright, ducky. I can give you a bit of coaching, me and my assistants here.” He tapped his briefcase.
Without Kate the room was nearly silent. The light clink of chains as they shifted and Sticky's desperate attempts to calm his breathing were the only sounds. Reynie strained to listen past them, for any hint to Kate’s wellbeing.
"Be quiet, George!" Constance hissed.
Reynie suddenly had a suspicion that just as he was trying to listen past the chains, Sticky was focusing on them, drowning out any bad noises with smaller ones.
A scream, earsplitting and uncontrolled, so unlike Kate and yet unmistakably hers.
Sticky's chains started rattling again, harder than before, fast and loud, as if it could convey all of his dread and worry while he was struck dumb.
"She's lying," Constance insisted, but her lip trembled. "She's lying."
