Chapter 33
WINNIE
I go down immediately, blood coating my mouth.
My head is ringing, but I can hear Mom objecting, asking for mercy.
As I breathe through the pain and the bouncing ache behind my eyes, my mind is a whir of possibilities. I could take a beating for a while and hope that Pan and the boys, by some miracle, find us. I could fight back, but Gretel is a killer, honed by years of experience and training.
When I first landed on Neverland and Pan made it clear that he and the Lost Boys were not allowed to touch me, in any way, I knew exactly what I needed to do to get beneath his skin: manipulate them into touching me.
Gretel might pretend she’s above manipulation, that she’s not so easily read. But everyone has a weakness.
I just need to slow down and think rationally. I can figure out hers, where a crack might exist that I can exploit and pry open.
“Please!” Mom is shouting.
There’s a reason Gretel hasn’t killed me yet. If that was her sole objective, I’d already be dead. Which means she’s using me for something else. Maybe to call in Pan and the boys.
I think she’s buying time as much as I am.
“Just tell me what you want,” I say from my spot on the floor, pretending I’ve already had enough.
I imagine she thinks me weak like everyone else. Always underestimated.
I can keep up the facade.
Straightening, but staying on my knees, I hold up my hands in surrender. “I’ll give you anything. Just let my mom go.”
“Pathetic,” Gretel says. “You’d sell out your own just to save your ass?”
“Yes. If that’s what you want.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, and the movement reveals the hilt of a dagger at her hip. I force myself not to look at it too closely.
“All right.” She bends down in front of me, balancing on the balls of her feet. “When we’re done here tonight, I’d like you to go to Darkland and help us take care of your great-great-great grandmother.”
“Wendy?”
“Yes.”
She really wants to wipe out the entire Darling line.
Fuck this bitch.
I’m going to kill her.
I’m going to kill her with my bare hands if I have to. But I might as well start with the sharp pointy object and see how far that gets me.
When I lunge forward and go for the hilt of the dagger, there is nothing in my mind, body or spirit that believes I will move fast enough to steal it out from beneath Gretel.
So when I pull back, the blade firmly in my possession, there is a moment where I am just dumbfounded and Gretel is dumbfounded, and we’re both staring at me holding the weapon like it’s a snake I pulled from a bag of chips.
“Winnie!” Mom yells.
I’m up on my feet and swinging, the blade pointed at Gretel. I slice through her shirt, drawing blood on the underside of her forearm. But she catches my wrist, stopping the blade and then backhands me.
The blade is knocked free of my hand.
Gretel retrieves it and one of her men captures me, twisting my arms behind my back.
“You little bitch.” She stalks toward me.
I’m exposed and trapped, the man holding me out like a punching bag.
I fight to get free with everything I have. And it’s no use. The man has a death grip on me.
And then: WHACK.
Mom, with a metal folding chair, pulled from some recess of the warehouse.
The chair hits Gretel in the face, and she staggers backward, blood pouring from her nose, more of it spilling from a split in her lip.
As Gretel tries to recover, the man holding me lets his grip slip just slightly. I take the opening, stomping on his foot. He slips again and I get an arm free, make a fist, and swing it back, hitting him in the balls.
He goes down.
Gretel comes after me again, but I duck and spin. I may not have the buoyancy of the Shadow, but I’ve been practicing with it for months and the muscle memory is still intact.
As I spin, Mom thrusts a tire iron into my hand. “Here!”
Gretel comes around and I swing. Miss. But it sends her off kilter.
I realize all of this has thrown her. She didn’t expect me to fight back.
I might as well lean into the unpredictable.
Tire iron cocked back, I charge her, screaming like a wild fairy spirit.
It works. She hesitates just long enough for me to slam her in the thigh, then the arm, knocking the dagger from her grip.
I kick it out of reach.
“You think I can’t kill you with my bare hands?”
“You can try,” I say.
Her nostrils flare, as if she’s summoning all of her rage and violence.
I brace myself, ready to fight back until I have nothing left to give.
But a noise in the recesses of the warehouse brings us to a stop.
The sound of a door slamming open. Of fighting. Pain and carnage. The sound of metal hitting stone, then bones being snapped.
It takes Peter Pan and the Lost Boys less than a minute to make their way through the Witch Killers in the receiving area and then into the depths of the warehouse to us.
Pan says, “Catch,” and tosses me a small, smooth object with a small etching in the side.
I’m shaky, bloody, and bruised, but I manage to catch the fire stone.
And as soon as it’s in my hand, the Shadow rushes in like a tidal wave filling in a hundred mini tide pools.
Power surges into my veins.
I’ve come to take the Shadow for granted. Until now.
Now I will be grateful for it every second of every day.
I turn to Gretel and her lips part in a little gasp.
My eyes have turned black. I can feel the Shadow writhing, pressing against my insides, hungry to get out.
Let’s spill some blood, I say to it.
Gladly.