Page 107 of The Last Lost Girl

“Hudson knows who is responsible.”

He told me he lost his hand because of Pan. He never once mentioned me, that it was my doing, even if it wasn’t my fault.

She eases her hold and glances furtively at me, her brows kissing.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Belle sighs. “Because I’m worried. About you, not for you.”

“Why?” Is it the shadowy vines? I’ll admit that they freak me out, but they’re sort of pretty. I fold my shoulders forward, furtively glancing at them.

“Because you aren’t you either.”

“Can you not speak in riddles?” I beg.

“I’m using your description. How often have you said that I’m not me?”

Fair point.

I angrily swipe new tears away. “I’m not Pan, either,” I argue.

There’s nothing she can say to that, because I’m right and she knows it.

“Was it hard to let it go after you took it from me?” she asks.

“Not in the least. I wanted it gone,” I rasp.

“Because of the memory…” She sighs. “I wonder if it will be harder for you to give up a stranger’s.”

With my luck, I’ll become a shadow goblin and want to hoard them all.

Then a thought occurs to me… “Did it hurt when I took it away?”

“No, but part of me didn’t want to let you have it.”

Likely the part that felt what it was to fly again.

“Belle, we need to find a way to get people out of here immediately. Pan won’t let any of them escape Neverland if he has his way. I don’t know how he’s planning to stop them, but I know he is.”

She purses her lips, working varying plans through her mind, no doubt. If there is a way to do it, she’ll figure it out.

In the meantime, someone needs to find out what Pan is planning.

thirty-three

Hudson and Smee stride out of the captain’s quarters and make their way to me and my sister where we’re sitting on the deck, our eyes trained on the stars.

“We need to talk,” Hudson aims at me.

His expression gives nothing away, but his tone is as cold as stone and twice as heavy. My struggling heart flails against my ribs. He’s the last person I want to speak to and the only one I need to.

I know his real name now. I saw his family. His life before Pan ripped him from it. Part of his life after. Know that Pan gave him part of his memory, just like he gave me part of mine.

Belle’s head swivels toward him, bristling at his tone. She knows all our names, I bet. Belle doesn’t forget. So if she looked for my parents in Savannah, why didn’t she find them? Surely they reported me missing. All she had to do was take me to the police station or search the internet for a news story. Right?

Hudson’s stare bores into me. I decide to ask Belle about all this later and give him my full attention. It’s the least I can do, given what I did to him.

He was right when he said that once you know something, everything changes. Now that I’ve seen his memories, many of them anyway, I can’t unknow them. No matter how hard I press my eyes closed and try not to think of how the name fits him.

---