Page 49 of The Last Lost Girl

“Because she needs to know who he is. Somehow, she and her sister were brought here last night. I helped Ava escape Wraith, but her sister is still on the island. She wants to rescue her.”

He doesn’t tell her that my sister is Tinkerbell. I’m not sure why he keeps it from her, but he knows Wendy, so I trust that he’s doing it for good reason.

Wendy’s ice shard eyes harden a moment before they melt. Tears flood down her cheeks as she slowly shakes her head. “Don’t. Don’t go after her.”

“I can’t just leave her here,” I quietly tell her, willing her to understand, to put herself in my shoes.

Wendy’s handkerchief soaks up the tears she sheds, not for Belle, but for a younger version of herself who remembers what it means to be subject to Pan. “She’s as good as dead, if she’s not already.”

I push my sweaty hands down my thighs. “She’s not.”

I turn to look at Hook, wondering why he brought me here. Then I remember how much he reveres the use of fear and wonder if this is his twisted way of motivating me.

“There’s still hope,” I tell them both. And as long as that hope lives, I won’t stop trying to reach Belle and peel her away from Pan and those infernal shadows.

“You only believe that because you’ve never faced Peter Pan,” Wendy says softly.

Slowly, she lowers her handkerchief. If I wasn’t seated, I would crash to the floor. Tears prick my eyes as I lift trembling hands to cover my mouth.

Her face… She has no lips. They’ve been cut – or ripped off. All that remains are remnants of torn, long-healed flesh that don’t stretch far enough to cover her gums and teeth.

“Why?” I whisper.

Why would anyone do this to another living soul?

I look at her eyes, careful to watch her instead of focusing on the mutilation.

She carefully enunciates, “He told me to pretend to be their mother. My mother always kissed me goodnight, so I kissed each Lost Boy and tucked them into their beds. Peter walked to each bed with me and watched me play the role until the last boy had closed his eyes, then asked me to join him outside. There, he flew into a jealous rant that soon burbled into rage, and by the light of the Second Star…” she gestures to her face, “Peter Pan made sure I would never kiss anyone else again.”

Wendy shook her head gently, as if still disbelieving of his cruelty. “He told me he loved me afterward. That he would only ever love me, and that I would only ever love him. That I’d brought it upon myself, and his anger was my fault. Then he left me outside, keening and torn and bloody.”

For the first time, despite her being Overshadowed, I worry for my sister.

We leave Wendy in her doorway the same way we found her. Fingers curled around the wood, watching. I feel the weight of her stare on my back. Hear her words of warning in my ear.

We retrace our steps and stop in the center of town, where the musicians still sing and strum. I pause to listen again and take some time to process what I just saw and learned about what Pan is truly capable of. I wonder if what he did to her is the worst thing he’s done to another person, or if, to him, that was nothing.

I slump against the corner of a building as Hook walks to a nearby store. He emerges with two tin cups pinched between his fingers. I take one when he extends it.

“Coconut water,” he supplies.

I take a gulp, then another. “I don’t have any money to repay you for the drink.”

He stiffens, his cup stopping just before it reaches his lips. “We are allies. And as such, I’m responsible for your needs. If you require something to drink, eat, wear, or even moral support, I will be the one to provide it, Lifeguard.”

Well… okay, then.

I quietly thank him.

“Speaking of hunger, I’m famished,” he announces. And the way he says famished, coupled with the glint of mischief in his eye, it makes me wonder what he’s craving.

“I don’t know how you can eat after… that.”

He hefts a sigh. “If I stopped eating, drinking, and otherwise enjoying my life because of the unfairness in this place or the depraved things Pan has done to the people who live here, I’d shrink, starve, and be miserable. It might seem callous to you, but it’s just reality for those of us who’ve been stuck here.”

I’m not sure what to say to that.

He finishes his coconut water and lowers his cup. “We need to be as strong as possible when we step foot on the island. We need to eat.”

---