Chapter 21 #3
Soft at first. Tender. His mouth moved against mine and I felt myself falling, falling into him, falling out of myself, falling away from everything I had ever been.
It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was everything I had ever wanted.
Then he inhaled.
Not breath. Something deeper. Something that tugged at the center of my chest, the place where I kept the things I loved most. I felt them tear loose.
My mother’s face. Gone.
The smell of my father’s pipe. Gone.
John teaching me to read. Gone.
The weight of my newborn brother in my arms. Gone.
Michael’s first word, Wendy. Gone.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
He was drinking me. Swallowing my life in long, slow pulls, and I couldn’t stop him because the kiss still felt like love, still felt like coming home, even as he hollowed me out.
And behind my eyes I saw them.
Hundreds of them. Their faces pale and thin, mouths open in silent screams.
They reached for me, small hands grasping, desperate.
“Wendy!” they called.
I sensed them all, every child Peter had ever consumed.
They were inside him. Trapped. Still conscious. Still screaming.
And I was about to join them.
“Wendy!”
Curly.
His face surfaced through the sea of lost children. That gap-toothed smile and those trusting eyes. The boy who had tugged at my elbow in the dark and told me he was sick and missed his mother.
Something split.
Deep inside me, beneath the fog, beneath the forgetting, something cracked open like ice on a frozen lake, and the cold rushed in.
I remembered.
Agnes. John. Michael. Marigold House. Hook dying in my arms. The dagger at my belt. The name that could unmake him.
And Roger … Roger, the one who really loved me and who Peter killed.
I remembered who I was and then I bit down.
Hard.
My teeth sank into Peter’s lower lip and I tasted blood. His blood. Wild and formed from this island. Thick like tree sap, fresh like leaves, and bitter like ash.
He jerked back with a hiss, his hand flying to his mouth. In that instant, I saw his true face beneath that mask.
Ancient. Void of life. Starving.
The face of something that had never been a little boy.
“You,” he breathed. Blood, golden blood, dripped down his chin. His eyes had gone black. Completely black. “You bit me.”
I staggered backward. My legs barely held me. My mind was full of holes. So many memories gone. Pieces of myself I would never get back because he had stolen my happiness and replaced it with suffering.
But I remembered enough. I remembered my name, and I remembered his.
My hand found the dagger at my belt.
“Yes,” I said. My voice came out ragged. Broken. “I did.”
All softness vanished from his face. What replaced it wasn’t just anger. It was hunger. Raw and ancient and endless.
His hand shot forward.
I didn’t see it move. One moment he was standing there, golden blood dripping from his lip. The next, his fingers were locked around my wrist, not the hand holding the dagger, but the other one.
He squeezed.
I felt bones in my body shift. A wet grinding sound. Stones rubbing together.
Then the pain hit. Bright, blinding. A scream that started in my wrist tore through my whole body.
I could not pull away. His grip was iron.
“You bit me,” he said again. Offended that I would defend myself. His voice changed. Losing the sweetness and finding something else darker beneath. “You actually bit me.”
He smiled. Not the tender smile. Not the loving smile. This smile showed too many teeth.
“I was going to make it gentle,” he said. “I was going to let you fade slowly, sweetly, dreaming of our life together until the very end.” His fingers tightened. Another bone cracked.
I screamed.
“But now I think I’ll take you piece by piece. And I’ll make sure you feel every single one.”
My shadow lurched.
What little remained of it, that thin, tattered shred still clinging to me. It tore toward him like a dog straining at its leash. I felt it ripping. Tearing at my insides to break free.
“Wendy!” Michael’s voice, somewhere behind me. “John, he’s killing her!”
John shouted something. I couldn’t hear the words. The world narrowed to Peter’s face and Peter’s grip, and the terrible sucking emptiness spreading through my chest.
More memories tore free.
My first day at Marigold House. Gone.
Beatrice’s voice telling me I mattered. Gone.
The faces of the children I’d taught to read, to hope, to believe they mattered.
Gone, gone, gone.
He was finishing what he’d started with the kiss. Draining me dry. And this time there was no tenderness to hide behind. No seduction to soften the theft. Just his hand on my wrist and his smile in my face and the slow, agonizing dissolution of everything I had ever been.
My life only had two points. Before I met Peter, and after.
“I told you.” He whispered. “You don’t need those memories. You don’t need that pain. You don’t need anything but me.”
The dagger. I still had the dagger.
My fingers tightened around the hilt. The rubies bit into my palm. Real. Solid. Something to hold on to.
Peter saw my hand move. His eyes flicked down to the blade.
“Ah,” he said. “Still fighting. I always loved that about you. Your fight.”
He released my wrist.
I stumbled backward, gasping, cradling my broken hand against my chest. Bones ground together with every movement. The pain was extraordinary. But the dagger was still in my other hand. The dagger was still mine.
“Come then,” Peter said. He spread his arms wide. Welcoming. “Let’s see what you remember to do with one of those.”
The crows descended.
Not one or two. All of them. The entire spiral collapsed inward, folding down from the sky like a black fist closing.
The first one hit my shoulder. I felt the impact before I saw it.
A hard, heavy thud, talons punching through fabric into flesh.
I swung my arm to knock it away and two more landed on my back.
Their claws dug in, hooked, held.
They were everywhere.
Wings beat against my face. Beaks stabbed at my arms, my neck, my hands. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, the air turned to feathers and fury. A talon raked across my cheek and I felt the skin split, felt blood run hot down my jaw.
I slashed with the dagger. Hit something. A crow screamed and fell away, but three more took its place.
“Wendy!” John’s voice, muffled by the chaos.
A beak drove into the back of my hand, the one holding the dagger. I felt it punch through the skin, scrape against bone. My fingers spasmed. The dagger slipped.
No. No, no, no …
I grabbed for it. A crow dove at my eyes. I threw my head back and its beak caught my forehead instead, opening a gash that poured into my vision.
The dagger hit the ground.
I dropped to my knees, scrambling for it, and the crows followed me down. They covered my back, my shoulders, my head. Their weight drove me forward onto my hands. Their claws shredded my clothes, my skin, everything they could reach.
My fingers found the hilt.
I grabbed it, rolled onto my back, and swung blindly at the black forms above me. The blade connected, once, twice, three times.
Feathers exploded.
Something wet and warm splattered across my face.
For one moment, the crows pulled back. Just a few feet. Just enough for me to see the sky.
Peter stood exactly where I’d left him. Arms still spread. Smile still in place. He wasn’t even watching the attack.
He was watching Agnes, still on the treehouse platform, frozen. Eyes fixed on me. On the blood. On the birds, circling for another strike. Tears streaking her face.
“You see, love?” Peter said to her. His voice was gentle. Instructive. “This is what happens when Wendy doesn’t listen.”
Agnes’s lips trembled. “Miss Wendy,” she cried.
The crows dove again.
This time I was ready. I got my feet under me, raised the dagger, and started cutting. Hacking away. A crow came at my throat. I caught it with the blade and threw its body aside. Another went for my eyes. I ducked and felt it tear a chunk from my scalp instead.
Blood ran down my face, my neck, my arms. I couldn’t tell how many wounds I had. Didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was staying alive long enough to reach him.
I pushed forward. One step. Two.
The crows battered me from every angle, but I kept moving, kept slashing, kept bleeding toward the monster who had taken so much from me.
“John!” I screamed. “Michael! Get Agnes!”
I didn’t know if they heard me. Didn’t know if they could move. Didn’t know anything except Peter was ten feet away and I had a blade and I remembered his name.
Eight feet.
A crow latched onto my wrist. I shook it off and it tore skin away as it left.
Six feet.
Another went for my throat. I caught it with my free hand, felt its beak tear into my palm and crushed it against my chest until it stopped moving.
Four feet.
Peter’s smile flickered. He was not afraid.
He should be.
Peter’s hand came up. Fast. Casual. Like he was swatting a fly away.
The blow caught me across the face and sent me spinning. I hit the ground hard, the dagger skittering from my grip, and for a moment the world went white. All I knew was pain and the taste of blood in my mouth.
“Wendy. Wendy. Wendy.” His voice came from above me. “This hurts me as much as it hurts you.”
I tried to get up. My arms wouldn’t hold me. I collapsed back into the dirt.
Disappointed. Gentle. “You really thought it would be that easy.” He placed a finger on his chin. “I suppose it was that easy for me with … what was his name?”
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. He was walking toward me.
“I’ve lived a long time,” he said. “I’ve killed things that you can’t imagine. Pirates. Mermaids. Fairies. Children.” He said the last word like someone would say breakfast. “And you think one little girl with a dagger handed to her by a grungy dead sea captain is going to end me?”
His boot pressed down on my broken wrist.
I screamed. My arm shook. I tasted bile and blood. The pain whited out everything. Thought. Memory. Hope.