Chapter 21
WINNIE
By the time we cross the street to go to Ella’s house, I’m already a little tipsy from the margaritas. The nachos did help soak up some of the tequila, and the Shadow soaked up a little more, but at least I’m feeling a bit lighter than when I crawled out of bed this morning.
The party is already underway in Ella’s backyard, lights and smoke and music filtering out to the front of the house. I do think for a brief moment that I can walk into that party with my head held high. I have my four vicious, powerful, fucking hot as hell men in a line behind me.
A thought keeps obsessively running through my head: look at how far I’ve come.
I don’t have to prove myself to anyone, least of all the people I went to school with. So why do I feel like I do? I think most of them expected me to drop out early, maybe because I was failing half my classes, or maybe because I accidentally got pregnant, father unknown.
By some miracle, I did graduate on time, though my grades were never stellar. I was just trying to survive high school. I think in the back of my mind I had already resigned myself to going mad like my mother and her mother, and every Darling that came before me.
My mantra back then was I might as well have fun while I still had the time.
Except now I’m back in my old life, running from my new life, because someone is trying to kill me.
It almost feels like my new life is trying to reject me, like I’m a transplant with the wrong blood type, a queen made of the wrong stuff.
Being back in the Victorian, my old life staring me in the face, I can’t ignore that curdling feeling in my gut that I don’t belong, that I’m not queenly. That I was a fool to hope I was better than I was.
I swallow, a burning starting in my sinuses. I don’t have time to be emotional.
Beside me, Vane puts his hand at the small of my back, a reassuring weight against the wave of fear.
I wish I could hide more from him. I wish I had the ability to retreat like he does. He just has far more experience with an island shadow than I do. Which means all of me is exposed to him and it floods me with relief and with embarrassment.
We follow the path around the side of the yard where it spills into a backyard edged in rotting fencing and overgrown lilac bushes.
There’s a bonfire in the middle of the yard, the walls erected out of red bricks and thick, gloppy cement.
Mismatched lawn chairs form a loose circle around the pit, but half the people in attendance are grouped around the folding table along the side yard where various bottles of liquor, soda, and mixes are set up.
“Winnie fucking Darling!” Tad shouts when he spots me, and then his enthusiasm quickly subsides once he sees Vane, then Pan, Bash, and Kas.
My men are every bit the dark fairytales that could just as easily seduce you as murder you with their bare hands.
I love that about them. I’ve never felt as safe as I do with Pan and the Lost Boys.
But in the real world, in my world, I don’t know how to handle them.
I don’t even know how to introduce them.
“Hey Tad,” I hear myself saying, and just the greeting alone grates against my nerves, yanking me back into a past life I have so desperately tried to escape.
Ella is by Tad’s side and I recognize a few other guys we went to school with, mostly the stoners who could occasionally be good for a shared joint.
Behind Ella, I spot someone who I would much rather not see.
“Are you going to introduce us, Winnie?”
Just the sound of her voice makes me want to snarl.
Holland Bartow elbows her way past Ella so she’s standing directly between us.
Holland always operated as if we were rivals, much like Tad and Anthony.
But I never had the energy for it. I always thought she was extremely creative, more talented than I could ever hope for, and yet she never seemed satisfied with it.
“Hi Holland,” I say.
Her gaze is wandering over Pan and the boys.
“This is Pan, Kas, Bash, and Vane.” I’m still at the front of the group, the men lined up behind me.
“Which one is yours?” Holland asks.
“All of them,” is Pan’s answer and the firm certainty in his voice sends a delighted chill down my spine.
“Wait,” Ella says.
“All of them?” Holland echoes.
“Yes,” I say because there’s no sense hiding it. I don’t want anyone thinking they have a chance. Because they don’t. I will gut them. With my bare hands.
Holland expels a surprised little laugh. “Are you joking?”
“Why would I joke about that?”
“Well, you know your reputation in high school.”
Ella’s eyes get big. “Holland!”
Even though I have told the boys my nickname from high school, and even though Pan found me in the old, rundown Victorian, thin as a reed, barely surviving, the reminder of it all in front of them makes my stomach twist.
There is nothing to do but to pretend it doesn’t bother me.
“I do know my reputation.” I gesture behind me. “Living out my dream, Holland.”
Ella laughs.
Tad grumbles. “Come on, Holly. Geez,” he says, which is perhaps a bit too kind of him. Holly rolls her eyes and wanders off. “How about a drink? What do you guys prefer? We have beer. Wine. Just the boxed kind though. We’ve got everything for screwdrivers and Jack and Cokes.”
“Any fairy wine?” Bash asks, even though he knows they don’t.
“Umm…not sure,” Tad says scanning the table.
“Just fucking with you.” Bash gives him a slap on the back and Tad stumbles forward, some of his mixed drink spilling over the edge of his red plastic cup.
“Right. I knew that!”
“I’ll take Jack and Coke,” I answer, my old favorite.
“Coming right up.”
Tad and Bash go to the drink table and start filling cups. Bash may be a several hundred-year-old fae king, but he fits in easily, quickly, like an old friend you’ve had the good fortune to stumble on again.
The music playing through a portable speaker on the low back porch switches songs and the sound of 90s alternative fills the backyard.
Kas wanders over to join his brother. Pan and Vane sandwich me between them.
“Now what?” I mutter.
“I always wondered what mortals did to pass the time,” Pan says.
“Pretty much the same as us,” Vane answers. “With a little less blood.”
Pan snorts.
Watching the party, I can’t help but analyze it from their point of view. Yes, Pan and the Lost Boys spend most nights on the edge of Neverland’s beach, doing pretty much the same thing, but there is nothing about this that feels like home.
Pan checks his pocket watch. “We have four hours to burn.”
“Three and a half if you account for the time it’ll take us to reach the strip mall,” Vane adds.
“And we’re sure we can trust this Kody?” I ask.
“Not entirely,” Pan admits. “He is good for information. I would put money on the fact that he did know something about Merry and the Witch Killers. He just needed more time to decide if he wanted to fuck someone over for it.”
“In the Seven Isles hierarchy,” I say, “where do we rate in relation to the Witch Killers? If Kody is taking that measure?”
“That’s not an easy answer.” Pan scans the party. “The Witch Killers being here in the mortal realm, it’s not out of the ordinary. They travel between realms.”
“How many?” I ask. I know Vane and Roc are from Wonderland, which exists in an entirely different realm, but we’ve yet to have the conversation about just how many realms there are.
My brain is still trying to accept the fact that we jump off a cliff in Neverland in order to climb out of a pond in my world.
I’ve done it a dozen times now, and every time I have to ask myself, “Is this real or am I simply delusional?”
“Many,” Pan answers, which is not the answer I was hoping for.
“They had more power and sway in the Seven Isles much further back in history,” Vane says. “Especially on Everland. Here in the mortal realm, it’s been centuries since they’ve successfully prosecuted witches in the eye of the public.”
“Here you go.” Tad returns with my drink, with Kas and Bash handing out cups to Vane and Pan.
“Thank you.” I try to give Tad the look one gives when they’ve been dismissed but he either ignores it or misses it and says to Pan. “We haven’t officially met. I’m Tad. I used to…ah…Winnie and I were friends in school.” He sticks out his hand.
Pan looks down at it as if it’s a slug covered in shit.
I don’t think Peter Pan means to be lordly, not now, not ever, but even here where no one knows he’s a star god, it’s impossible for him to hide it. He is a primordial force greater than any mortal can comprehend.
Tad might not understand it, but his instincts immediately pull up and he yanks his hand back, shoving it in the pocket of his jeans.
“Anyway, I’m glad you all could come. Winnie was a good friend of mine, and I’m glad it looks like she’s well taken care of.
She had a rough go of it for a long time. ”
Heat fans up my throat and pools in my cheeks.
It never occurred to me that the people I was friends with noticed my life. I just thought I was a hole to be used for their satisfaction, and I was happy to use them back in order to have some kind of control over something, anything.
Tad catches my eye and lifts the corner of his mouth in a semi-embarrassed smile.
I am realizing how little I knew this boy and how little credit I gave him.
“Darling is well taken care of,” Pan says, his words laced with suggestion.
Tad nods and sips from his beer. “So, you guys planning to stay in town now? In the Victorian? It’s sad seeing that place go empty. It’s got good bones.”
“We’re just here for a few days,” is Pan’s response.
“Ahh. I see. Bummer.”
“Is it?” Vane counters.
“Ummm.” Tad scratches at the back of his head. “Maybe?”
I not-so-discretely elbow Vane in the ribs. Be nice, I say with my eyes and his eyes say, Fuck that.
Tad mumbles something about needing to find more chips and wanders off.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” I say, nursing the Jack and Coke. It’s no margarita, that’s for damn sure.
Bash comes up behind me and winds his arm around my waist, tugging me into his chest. “I like seeing your old life.” He nestles a kiss into the soft curve of my neck and when I laugh, glancing up, I catch Holland staring at me.
I know that look. It’s the look you give someone when they have what you want and you don’t think they deserve it.