Page 46 of Caging Darling

But Tink clearly doesn’t want me dead.

I’d tried that, to leave Michael. That’s what I’d been doing, hadn’t I? Attempting suicide at Tink’s hand? All because I’m heartbroken over the fact that the man I love was never coming to get me at all.

Michael climbs into my lap and tugs at my hair. “It’s time to wake up, Wendy Darling.”

I frown, looking over his shoulder and into my hands. There are toy train cars in my hand. “I’m up, Michael. I’ve been playing with you.”

I think.

He grabs my cheeks, shaking my head back and forth. “It’s time to wake up.”

“I’m up, baby,” I tell him, too tired, my brain too slow to think of another way to communicate this to him.

Tears crawl down Michael’s face. Then my brother, always looking star-ward, looks me straight in the eye. “It’s time for Wendy Darling to wake up.”

From that moment on, I know what I have to do.

Over the nextfew weeks (I’m only guessing at the time that’s passed since Peter increased my dosage), Peter’s careful watch over me becomes more sporadic.

He’s probably gotten bored.

Lately, he’s been leaving the Lost Boys in charge of watching over me, but Smalls is the weak link. He’s only a child and can’t seem to stay awake for his entire shift.

So one night, while Smalls is snoring outside of Peter’s room, I sneak out of the Den and wander toward the beach.

The ocean water is frigid when I step into it. It takes me three times to fully commit to walking out into it. My heart’s already racing, so hopefully it won’t take much.

My feet are soaked, shivering in the wet sand as the water sloshes up to my knees.

I wade out far enough that the water covers my collarbone before I dunk my head underneath. Panic overtakes me instantly, shocking my system. Agonizing needles prick at my ribcage, and though I told myself I wouldn’t, I gasp in a breath; I can’t help myself. Water sears through my nose, my mouth, pouring into my lungs. I can’t breathe. I’m drowning and I can’t do this.

Without thinking, I yank my head out of the water and scurry my way back to the shore. I hit the beach coughing up water, my entire body trembling.

I cough and cough and cough, but I still feel the faerie dust inside of me. It still tingles at the edges of my fingers. Still swarms in my head. I search out into the night, call for the wraiths, now that I know they’re capable of following me, but none appear from behind the craggy rocks, none whisper to me in the night.

It didn’t work. The faerie dust is still running through my system. My attempt wasn’t a substantial enough adrenaline hit to drive it out, metabolize it.

Panic overtakes me, and dread, as I realize I’m going to have to try again. Tears pour down my cheeks as the pain overtakes me. I’ve heard stories of people cutting off limbs to escape fallen rocks in the cliffs. I don’t deserve to feel like that, not when nothing I’m going to do to myself is permanent. But I’m too weak to hurt myself, truly. At least, too weak to do it a second time.

I can’t do it. I can’t do it.

Reaching out from the darkness, a hand finds my shoulder. For a moment, fear that it’s Peter paralyzes me. But when I will myself to look, I find I’m staring into Tink’s face.

This is the first time I look at her and think she looks soft. Ocean spray gathers on her eyelashes, tears at her bottom lids.

She kneels, and she takes my trembling hand from where I’ve dug it into the onyx sand, sand now crusted underneath my fingernails.

“I’m not strong enough,” I say. “I can’t do it. Even for them. Even for my brothers.”

Tink shakes her head, but I don’t know what she’s saying. When she stands, she doesn’t release my hand. She gives a tug, coaxing me to stand up as well.

Then she turns toward the sea and leads me back into the frigid waters.

I’m still freezing, the panic still swelling in my chest as I imagine the pain of drowning. The utter helplessness I’ll have to experience before I can be rid of the power of the dust over me.

Tink looks into my eyes. There’s a question in them. I nod, and she grabs a fistful of my hair.

Then dunks me under the water.

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