#stephen bonnet

╰➤SUMMARY: Stephen Bonnet x Brianna Fraser. When Bonnet kidnaps Brianna, her family races to save her before he can disappear with her for good.But this time, Bonnet changes course and leads her farther inland through the Carolinas, Brianna makes a desperate escape toward the familiar buzzing of standing stones hidden in the fog. Canon divergence starts during bonnet’s kidnapping of brianna in season 5. This AU branches off from the beach rescue sequence.

「 ✦ August 1775 ✦ 」

They should have reached the coast hours ago.

Brianna had realized that shortly after sunset, when Bonnet turned them inland instead of east toward the harbor. Even his own men had looked uncertain at first. One of them had asked quietly if there’d been trouble at the rendezvous point.

Bonnet never answered directly.

He had only looked at the man for a long moment before saying they were changing course.

By midnight, he’d split from the others entirely.

Now Brianna understood why.

A man like Stephen Bonnet stayed alive because he trusted no one long enough to become predictable.

The fog had thickened since sunset, curling low between the trees and hanging heavy over the ground, turning the woods silver beneath the moonlight. Brianna’s skirts dragged through wet undergrowth, expensive fabric collecting leaves and mud with every step. She nearly lost one of her shoes in the muck, cold water soaking through her stockings as Stephen dragged her up the hill.

“Slow down!”

“Shut it, wench. We are nearly there.”

Then she heard it.

Buzzing.

Her breath caught sharply in her throat. For one awful second she thought desperation had made her imagine it.

But the buzzing grew louder.

Brianna slammed into Bonnet hard enough to throw him off balance and twisted free when his hand slipped on the wet fabric at her wrist.

For a second she thought he still had her. The bruising pressure of his fingers lingered beneath the gold bracelet he’d fastened there earlier that evening. Emeralds flashed at her wrist as she slipped down the hillside.

The ground dropped sharply beneath her feet. She caught herself against a fallen tree hard enough to scrape bark into her palms, then shoved herself forward before Stephen could recover behind her.

Brianna stumbled again but forced herself upright, gathering her skirts high in both hands so she could run faster.

Somewhere behind her, Stephen shouted.

Her name maybe.

The buzzing drowned him out.

Her heart lurched painfully against her ribs.

The stones.

She had to get to the stones.

Branches clawed across her sleeves and tangled in her hair as she ran toward the sound. Her breath tore raw in her throat while she scrambled downhill through the dark, following the buzzing each time it rolled through the trees. Bonnet had avoided roads for hours, steering them farther inland after sunset while she searched desperately for any chance to break away from him.

Now she had one.

The buzzing growing closer.

Behind her Stephen crashed through the brush after her.

She glanced back once.

He was gaining on her already, moving with the terrifying steadiness. Moonlight caught the scar across his cheek, his expression sharp with fury.

Then he jerked suddenly near his ear.

Again near his temple.

As though something circled his head in the dark.

Brianna barely had time to register it before stones emerged through the fog ahead of her in dark uneven shapes. Hope surged through Brianna as the stones called again through the woods, deeper now, vibrating through her ribs.

They were smaller than Craigh na Dun. Rougher too. She could hardly see them, yet every part of her recognized what they were instantly.

Salvation.

Stephen shouted her name again, much closer now.

Brianna lunged toward the nearest stone.

The jewels at her throat and wrists had grown almost painfully warm against her skin. Her mother’s ring burned against her finger as she reached forward.

Then Stephen caught her around the waist, tackling her.

The force of it slammed them together hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Brianna gasped and threw her hand out instinctively.