Chapter 28 When Mercy Burns
Chapter Twenty-Eight
When Mercy Burns
Iplummet through the air, my body stiffening as I brace for impact—but it never comes.
An arm clamps around my waist, yanking me back from the sea of crimson.
My eyes fly open and lock with Peter’s burning gaze just as fire detonates through my ankle.
I glance down, nearly choking on terror.
A shadow beast’s fangs are sunk deep into my flesh, a horrible burning sensation flooding my veins.
The sound that tears from my throat is animal, nothing like my own voice. I claw at Peter, thrash my leg, desperate to shake the beast loose. The agony blinds me, every nerve screaming.
“Peter!” His name breaks from me in a sob.
With a vicious kick, he dislodges the beast. Its jaws tear free, and he hauls me higher, forcing me onto his back. My legs lock around his torso, arms trembling as they wind tight around his neck.
My ankle throbs, each pulse of pain beating in time with the thunder of his heart against my chest. Tears spill freely, soaking into his shoulder. Around us, pirates jeer, Hook’s cruel laughter slicing through the night, while thunder rolls overhead, the sky itself bearing witness.
Peter grunts, the sound guttural with pain. Another beast has him by the ankle, jaws locked as it thrashes. Lightning splits the sky, and for one blinding instant, the world is laid bare: we hover above a writhing frenzy of shadow beasts, their fangs snapping, claws raking at empty air.
We’re going to die.
“Peter—your sword!” a voice bellows.
My gaze snaps to the raised platform. Thorne’s arm arcs as he hurls a blade toward us.
Peter snatches it midair. Turning his head, his mouth brushes my ear, his voice low and urgent. “Hold on tight.”
I don’t question him. My legs clamp harder around his torso, each squeeze sending fresh agony through my injured ankle. My arms cinch around his neck so tightly I fear I’ll choke him. I bury my face against his shoulder, desperate to shut out the nightmare below.
His scent fills me—wild earth and sharp pine undercut by blood. I cling to it. To him. Because I know the worst of this night hasn’t even begun. A feral rage pours off Peter in palpable waves.
Closing my eyes doesn’t help. The sounds are worse—the sickening sizzle of sword meeting sinew, the wet thud of bodies striking earth, the guttural snarl tearing from Peter’s throat.
Corrosive blood splashes my skin, burning cold and hot all at once.
The heat of his glowing runes scorches where our bodies press together, each line of red fire branding me.
His breath rasps, harsh and uneven, while the stench of scorched flesh and ozone stings my nose.
I try to ignore the relentless throb in my ankle, adrenaline the only fragile thread holding me upright.
Then Peter stills. A sudden jolt rolls through me as his feet hit the ground. I force my eyes open and peer over his shoulder.
The clearing is a vision of carnage. Shadow beasts litter the ground, their twisted bodies already dissolving into ash. I lift my head, scanning our audience—pirates frozen in place, mouths agape, horror etched into every face.
I slide down Peter’s back, crying out as my injured foot brushes the earth. Pain lances up my leg like fire. I stumble, catching myself against him, teeth clenched hard enough to ache. Only after several ragged breaths do I manage to steady myself.
I take a step back from Peter and gasp in horror.
Where my body had pressed against his is the only unmarred patch of skin.
Everywhere else—his chest, arms, shoulders—is torn open.
Deep claw marks. Ragged bites. Blood slick and dark, soaking into the remnants of his shredded clothes.
The oozing mist of his runes coils through it all, glowing like smoke from a wound too deep to heal.
Peter turns slowly, sword still dripping, arms spread wide. His grin is wild, unhinged, feral in its delight.
“Are you not entertained, Hook?” he taunts.
A heavy silence crashes down around us. No one answers. No one dares.
Only the island responds. Trees thrash in the shadows. Thunder cracks overhead. Wind tears through the grass in a frenzied roar.
Then the runes ignite. Crimson light streaks across the ground, climbs the trees, floods the world. My stomach twists violently as overwhelming rage slams into me, nearly knocking the breath from my lungs.
It’s the only warning Peter gives. He launches toward the pirates with lightning speed, so fast my eyes can barely track him.
I limp toward the ladder, each step agony.
The clash erupts on the platform. Steel shrieks through the air, each strike ringing like a discordant chord. Pirates scatter, screams of terror splitting the night. Blades meet flesh with a wet, sickening sound. Cries are cut short almost as soon as they rise.
Peter’s answering roar is not human. It’s monstrous.
Tears streak hot down my cheeks as I drag myself up the ladder and onto the platform.
Hook and Thorne stand frozen in stunned silence, faces ashen, eyes fixed on the devastation before them.
They watch as the creature they helped forge turns truly corrupt, utterly unrestrained, obliterating every man foolish enough to stand in his path.
I don’t look away. I force myself to witness it all—the relentless slaughter, the blur of Peter’s body as he cuts through them, the red runes pulsing like a living heartbeat against the island’s skin. The air shudders with every strike, with every scream torn raw from the night.
It is horrific. Watching a monster born of blood and ruin, and knowing that, for better or worse, he belongs to me.
And yet, beneath the thunderous rage of Neverland, something else stirs.
I feel it coil through me, quieter but no less powerful.
Pain. Not Peter’s alone—this world’s. A vast, aching wound, crying out for relief.
When the last pirate falls silent, his body hitting the ground with a dull finality, Peter steps free of the red haze.
He stalks toward us, shadows clinging to him like a second skin.
Blood glistens on his blade, dripping ominously.
It streaks his body from head to toe, and his wide grin looks almost hungry for more.
He stops before Hook and lifts his sword, pressing the point beneath the captain’s chin.
“You thought you could use her to kill me,” Peter says, his voice cold as steel before breaking into a terrible laugh. The sound reverberates through the clearing, rattling the air. “You really think killing me will save Neverland?”
Peter presses his blade in until a bead of blood wells at Hook’s throat. He flinches, but he does not move. His expression remains eerily empty. Stripped of bravado. Of fear. Of everything.
“There is no Neverland without Peter Pan,” Peter snarls. “You’re a fool.”
Thorne lunges forward, knocking Peter’s blade aside as he plants himself between Hook and the blade.
“Peter, that’s enough,” he pleads, desperation threading his voice. “You’ve slaughtered them all. Please—spare him.”
Hook’s mask cracks. For the first time, disbelief flickers across his face.
I fight the instinct to move to Thorne’s side, to reach for his hand in silent solidarity. Peter has gone too far—far beyond anything I recognize. But I understand, with chilling clarity, that my begging him for mercy would only feed the blaze in his eyes.
Peter laughs again, mockingly, and the island answers rumbling beneath us.
“That’s probably the thousandth time I’ve slaughtered this crew,” he says lightly, his gaze flicking over Thorne. “You know how this works, Thorne. Now move.”
I go still.
My gaze sweeps the clearing—the torn earth, the jagged jungle, the bruised sky overhead. Runes burn across everything: the trees, the ground, Peter himself. They had burned across me once, too.
Neverland’s magic. But that isn’t quite right.
Peter’s words echo in my mind. There is no Neverland without Peter Pan.
There was no arrogance in his tone. It wasn’t a threat.
It was a statement of fact.
Peter Pan—the boy who could fly. He stole children away to a place where time never touched them. He crowned himself king of a magical world that never grew old. But what if he isn’t merely Neverland’s king? Or even its guardian?
What if he is Neverland?
The idea settles cold and absolute in my mind. Peter and the island are not separate; they are bound. Woven together. One and the same.
If he dies, Neverland won’t be saved.
It will die with him.
My eyes trace his wounds, the violent glow beneath his skin, the wildness shuddering through him—and in that moment, I feel his agony turn toward me. Calling out to me.
I meet his crimson gaze. His smile stretches too wide, wrong and brittle. His power has grown unstable, almost ravenous. Peter is a shadow of who he once was, corrupted beyond recognition, his madness spilling unchecked into this world.
The truth has been here all along, hiding in plain sight. I’d been too close to see it—caught in his gravity, lulled by the familiarity of his touch, blinded by my love for the boy who once carried me through the sky.
On unsteady legs, pain forgotten, I take a step forward. Then another. Until I’m close enough to touch him. My fingers gently brush the wrist of his hand, gripping the hilt of his sword. His knuckles whiten, and his smile falters.
Violence won’t end this. Rage will only lift him higher, sharpen him further until he turns it on me too, until I’m just another thing he conquers because he can. I have to reach him where power means nothing. Where fear has no hold. This time, Peter has to choose to yield to me.
“Peter,” I whisper, my thumb stroking the tense line of his wrist. “You are Neverland… aren’t you?”
His gaze narrows. He jerks his hand away, and the sword clatters to the wood. His smile collapses completely, and he stands before me like a wounded animal—cornered, one second away from flight.
“Will you let me in?” I ask softly.
The ground trembles beneath us, stripped of fury now. What’s left is the wound, raw and throbbing, seeping into everything it touches.
I need Peter to surrender to me. And to ask that of him… I know must surrender first.
He owned my heart the day I met him. He claimed my body the night he returned to my bedroom. He consumed my mind, devouring every waking thought since bringing me back to Neverland. Only my soul remained mine—clutched tight to my chest, guarded and unwilling to yield to him.
But what is a soul worth if it has no home? What good is it, if it cannot bind itself willingly to the monster it loves? There will be no version of me untouched by him, and I don’t want one.
I close the distance between us until I stand a breath away from him. My hands rise to cradle his bruised face. His skin is taut beneath my palms, every muscle coiled like a bowstring pulled too tight. His eyes blaze into mine, so bright it almost hurts to look at them, but I don’t look away.
“Peter Pan,” I whisper. “I love you. All of me belongs to you—heart, body, mind, and even soul.”
The red in his eyes flickers, fraying at the edges. Beneath my fingers, the rigid line of his jaw softens. Just a little.
“But Peter…” My voice trembles despite my effort to steady it. “You can’t go on like this. It’s destroying you. And it will destroy me too.”
I gesture to the ruin around us—the blood, the broken bodies, the scorched earth. His gaze follows my hand, blinking slowly, as though he’s only now seeing the devastation left in his wake.
“I want you whole again,” I murmur. “In control of yourself.”
His eyes lift back to mine. Splinters of green pierce through the red.
“So, Peter…” I breathe, the words barely more than a plea. “I need you to let me see you. All of you.”
Peter shudders, and Neverland shudders with him.
He shakes his head and stumbles back a step.
“Wendy—” His voice breaks. His hands rake through his hair, fingers digging in hard enough to blanch his scalp.
A laugh tears free then, hollow and jagged, stripped of anything resembling humor.
“If you saw what’s carved into my heart—the depths my mind sinks to, the blackness that festers there when it comes to you—you wouldn’t love me anymore. You couldn’t.”
I don’t hesitate. I step into him and wrap my arms around his body, pulling him against me. He goes rigid in my hold, like he’s bracing for a blow that won’t ever come.
“Just let me in, Peter,” I whisper against his ear. “There is no darkness in you that could ever turn me away. Let me see it. Let me carry it with you. Please, my Peter Pan, trust in me.”
I cling to him, holding tight, as though my arms alone might keep him from fracturing completely. And I feel it—the raw ache of Neverland, an open wound pulsing around us, beating in my ears like a second heart.
Slowly, Peter begins to soften. The hard tension in him releasing at last. His arms come up and close around me, crushing me to his chest with a force so desperate I can barely breathe.
The world tilts. The ground vanishes beneath my feet. I’m torn loose from myself, dragged through something vast and ancient, weightless and unmoored—caught in a current older than either of us.
I’m pulled into a memory.
Not mine.
Peter Pan’s.