Page 42 of Caging Darling

Like she’s mocking me.

“I know he loved you,” I say. “You lured him out of the Den. Got him under your spell. Used your glamour. That’s what you all do. You treat us humans like toys, our minds like a pastime. You trick us and make us fall in love with you, and then when we betray you by becoming boring, you kill us.”

If only Peter would get bored of me.

Tink stills, blinks with her obnoxiously long eyelashes. I hate her so much.

“I know John didn’t take his own life. He wouldn’t have left Michael,” I say.

She points her finger at me, but it’s a question. As if to say, “And you?”

I don’t feel like confronting that question. No. No, John wouldn’t have left me either. Not of his own choice. He wouldn’t have left me, and Tink took him from me. I know she did.

I launch myself at her. She sidesteps me with ease, and I run into the cave wall, but she’s surprised enough by my attack that she hadn’t noticed me swipe with my dirty fingernails.

When I turn around to face her, she’s staring at a fresh tear in her already tattered wing, a look of shock on her face.

Her lips curve into a cruel smile. She reaches into a pouch at her side, shuffles with the contents, then tosses something in my direction, and I catch it. No, them. Two somethings. Two wooden tiles. Like the ones John made to help Michael communicate. Like the one I found in John’s coat pocket the night we found his body.

“WENDY ANGRY.”

I’m not sure if it’s the fact that she had the audacity to steal Michael’s communication tiles, or that she’s thrown them back in my face, or that I’m just so angry anyway that I would havelaunched myself at the first human being to find me breaking down in this cave, or that her claiming I’m angry reminds me of Astor, but I let out a wail. “How dare you?”

This time, when I launch myself at her, I hit her square in the chest. Were I the Wendy Darling who first came to Neverland, well, I wouldn’t be attacking her at all, but if I were, I’d be scratching her face like she did mine, the only way I knew to inflict pain.

But Maddox taught me better than that.

When I launch my hands toward her face, it’s not for her cheeks, but the corners of her eyes, which go wide with shock at what I’m planning to do. Tink’s spindly fingers wind around my wrists just in time to stop me from plucking her eyes from their sockets.

Now, I’m not the only one who’s angry.

Irritation sparks in her face, not as crazed as mine, but she’s not the one facing her brother’s killer, now is she?

I’m prepared and do just as Astor told me, rolling my wrists with all the power I have left in me toward her thumbs, which can’t hold the weight and will be forced to release me. When Astor taught me that trick, it was to give me enough time to get away.

I have no intentions of getting away.

Tink and I circle each other, the greater predator stalking the prey whose flight response has been mangled and damaged until all she knows how to do is engage in fights she can’t win.

And I know I can’t win this. Not against a faerie who outmatches me in strength and speed.

I think that might be the point.

Tink could have killed me the night she dunked my head underneath the waves, but she’d preferred to let me live. Watch me cower in fear of her. She’d let the wraiths chase me, blindedtemporarily, across the island of Neverland until I’d stumbled upon the grave of Victor’s father.

Up to this point, Tink’s been in control. She’s reveled in watching me suffer. But I’ve never fought back like this. She clearly isn’t used to her prey knowing how to fight back.

As we circle each other, her limbs lithe, I can’t help but notice the fear bubbling in her blue eyes.

It’s nice for someone to be afraid of me for once.

I laugh, and it’s deranged, which only seems to frighten her more. I know I won’t win this, but the more I can scare her, the less control she’ll have. The more likely she’ll make a mistake. It’s not that I’m delusional enough to believe her mistake will allow me a chance for a killing blow.

But maybe, just maybe, it will incite her to make one.

I attack. This time, I go for her throat, and just like the first night she attacked me, she’s stunned for a brief moment as I close my fingers around it. Her throat bobs, and she loses her footing. We both fall, me on top of her, and her head hits the wall.

She grits her teeth, eyes stinging with pain. I press my fingers harder into her throat.

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