Page 60 of Caging Darling

“Son…” says the wraith behind me, but given Victor’s staring with a look of betrayal and confusion, I take it he can’t see the wraith.

“Is that my boy?”

I nod, hoping it’s imperceptible.

“Who are you talking to, Winds?” asks Victor, taking a step forward. His voice has hiked up, his eyes turning bloodshot. There was a time when I suspected Victor of being the killer tracking down the Lost Boys, but now that I know him, it’s clear he couldn’t have hidden something like that from the rest of us. Not when his emotions lay bare on his face, the blotches creeping up his neck.

I’m so taken off guard myself, I’m not fast enough to catch Michael as he slips out of my grip and runs to Victor, who absent-mindedly tousles his hair.

My pulse pounds against my neck. It’s a wonder my artery doesn’t burst.

“Victor, I can explain, but I want to take Michael back to the Den first.”

Victor looks as if I’ve slapped him. “You think there’s anything you could possibly say that would make me want to hurt him?” He removes his hand from Michael’s head, like the touch is now tainted by something sinister.

Still, the crossbow bobs at his back as Michael plops down in front of him and begins drawing squares in the sand with his finger.

“Winds. You know me.”

But you don’t know me, I want to say, want to plead.

When I don’t answer, he rubs his forehead. “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t…” He releases a trembling exhale. “I can’t…I can’t live like this anymore. Please, everything before Neverland is missing. I can’t live in the dark anymore.”

“You’ll hate me,” I whisper, my voice trembling. But then I think of Peter, how he kept the truth about John’s death from me so long, selfishly afraid of my reaction. How he allowed me to make decisions based on a lie.

How he let me believe my brother left me. Left Michael.

Victor doesn’t respond, other than to swallow effortfully and cock his head to the side.

“Trust my boy,” whispers the wraith behind me.

It’s foolish, to listen to the shadows. Especially the ones who should be seeking out revenge on me.

But it wasn’t the shadows that had killed my brother.

As Victor waits, I try to come up with a way to tell him that will be the easiest. But the longer I fumble for the words, the redder Victor’s neck grows, the more his feet fidget in the sand, and I realize how cruel it is to break it to him gently, to let him dread a moment longer, the truth he already knows deep down.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so frightened of it.

“The man I killed on the beach that day was your father.”

Victor doesn’t move, other than the flick of his eyes, when he glances behind and around me, detecting nothing.

“I didn’t know who he was at the time…”

“But you knew before today,” snaps Victor.

Tears spring from my eyes, but I won’t deny my friend the truth any longer. “Yes.”

Hurt creeps up in the strained muscles in Victor’s neck. He glances at the sand below his feet and nods slowly. “Go on.”

“He’d come to find you and Thomas. That’s why he had Thomas’s bracelet. I thought he’d killed him, but really he’d stumbled across Thomas’s body, taken the bracelet because…”

“Because he’s our father and he loved us,” says Victor, still not looking at me.

“He was trying to kill Peter because he saw him as your kidnapper and blamed him for Thomas’s death. He was trying to take you back home.”

Victor flicks his eyes up at me. “Home?” The word comes out almost childish, desperate.

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