Chapter 21
Whoever’s with me in this room is obscured by the shadows, but that doesn’t dampen the pain as fingers wrap through the hair lining my skull and twist. Hard.
Teeth gnash before my vision, glinting in the eerie glow of the lichen.
Again, my tongue gets trapped in my throat.
I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out.
And then I’m seeing them again, my parents falling to the floor, blood streaking their throats, Michael being taken by the burly henchman, but I still can’t get any sound out, can’t get my voice to obey.
Sparks erupt in my skull as I’m knocked over the head, but my assailant doesn’t stop there. Pain needles my face as talons, long and sharp, scrape across my cheek, digging into my skin. Blood dribbles down my face, but my attacker doesn’t seem satisfied.
In a dizzying haze, my eyes adjust. In front of me, dragonfly wings begin to glow, lighting up their owner. She’s relented for a moment, pleasure cutting across her lips as she examines the damage she’s done to my face.
She’s a faerie, her insect-like wings betraying as much. Unlike Peter’s leathery wings, hers are see-through, little veins glowing as they course through delicate skin. Strange, they couldn’t have been glowing when she approached me from behind, or I would have seen her coming.
The faerie’s hair is golden, cut close to her scalp, long enough to dip down over her pointed ears. She has a slender face, one that looks narrower than her bone structure might prefer, and dazzling blue eyes. She’s dressed in frayed sacks, perhaps the very type the Lost Boys store food in.
That’s not the only thing that’s frayed. Her wings look as though they’ve been shredded at the bottoms by a wild beast, bits of them hanging loose at her back.
My only advantage is that I’m slightly taller than she is.
Blood drips from her sharp fingernails. She slowly brings the blood to her lips, then smiles.
My stomach turns over.
Move, Wendy, I tell myself, but my limbs are sutured in place, frozen in terror. A possum rolling over and playing dead as its predator stalks.
Except that this predator already has her claws in me.
If I don’t move, I’m going to die, but I can’t seem to make my body understand that. Perhaps it does understand; it simply doesn’t care.
There’s hunger in her gaze. There are legends, rumors that the unseelie faeries feast on the flesh of humans. Not quite cannibals because of the difference in species, but close enough.
No. No, I’ve come too far, avoided too much peril to die like this.
It’s like slogging through the marshes in iron-soled boots, but eventually my will overcomes my fear.
And I scratch back.
It’s not the noblest or most honorable of ways to fight, but it’s the only way I know to inflict damage quickly. I go for the faerie’s piercing blue eyes. She’s faster and jerks her head to the side in time for me to miss, but I draw blood at her cheek.
My nails dig in deep, but no scream comes. Just a hiss of displeasure as the faerie swats my hands away, then grabs my wrists, wrestling for control as she attempts to force me to my knees. I writhe in her arms, remembering what it’s like to try to console Michael when his body is out of his control. How taxing it is to hold him to my chest when his movements threaten to cause him harm.
So I fight back like Michael would, flailing my limbs and allowing the weight of my body to become more cumbersome than my mass should allow.
All the while, I try to force the scream from my throat, but it won’t come.
The faerie lands another blow to my face, but this time I’m ready for it and thrash out of her way, allowing her momentary shift in balance to release me from under her grip. Again, I aim for the eyes, sure that’s the only place I have a chance to inflict damage upon a faerie.
I miss, but this time my fingernails find a handhold in the faerie’s throat.
It shouldn’t be as debilitating of a wound as it is. It’s not as if I’ve ripped out her larynx or anything. But as if by instinct, the faerie’s limbs freeze. Her fingers go limp, and I fall. I use the opportunity to crawl backward on my forearms, my legs still trembling too much to support me.
She clutches the scratch, cradling it as if I inflicted the sort of lacerating wound that might cause the contents of her throat to spill out. She blinks rapidly, momentarily stunned. So am I, confused by the reaction this faerie has had to a scratch that, though dripping blood, might very well heal up on its own within the next few minutes.
The faerie blinks herself back into the present until the fog in her gaze disappears. She homes back in on me, but then her pointed ears flicker upward and back as she senses something I cannot.
Panic overtakes her features, pretty now that she’s not flashing her teeth at me. Before I can push myself off the floor, she slips out the door and into the hallway, leaving behind a trail of glowing light.
Moments later Peter rushes in, his dark form taking up the entire space of the doorway. Wings rattle as he pushes his way into the room. His gaze flickers with rage when he finds me on the floor.
“Where’d she go?”
I raise a trembling hand to point to the left, where the faerie escaped down the tunnel.
Peter’s out of the room faster than I can blink. I coax myself onto my feet. My heart is racing so quickly I have to prop myself against the wall for support as I stumble away.
I’ve no idea what Peter will do to me when he returns from hunting the faerie, but I can’t imagine it will be anything good. He might have tolerated my ascent to the cliffside where I tried to steal his faerie dust, but I know I’ve crossed a line by pilfering through his room. The Lost Boys might look up to Peter. Simon might consider him their protector. But I’m familiar enough with those who use good-natured humor and dazzling smiles as a mask. I’ve witnessed the smirks he flashes them, the way he ruffles their hair and picks food off their plates and uses every ancient trick to put them at ease.
I know those tricks as well as I know my parents’ faces.
Even as I try to conjure them for strength, I find the edges fading, warped and distorted, slightly off like the sketch of the missing Lost Boy.
I’m halfway down the hallway when a dark figure appears before me. Peter’s still in his physical form, though his shadows wrap themselves around me as fury blazes in his blue eyes.
A mischievous grin cuts across his beautiful face. “Now, where do you think you’re going?”