Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Tinker Bell
Pan yanked me down the pebbled path. I wanted to scream and there was nobody in this forest to hear it.
Keir and Brynn were on this side somewhere. Brynn had wanted to spend Christmas with her brothers at the castle, and I’d told her to go, and I had no idea where that castle was. Might as well have been the moon.
But it was somewhere. That was more than I’d had a minute ago.
I started counting. Steps down the path, turns, the way the ground rose. Everything I could hold onto. If this binding ever slipped for ten seconds I wasn’t going to waste them wondering which direction I’d come from.
I stumbled. “Why are we walking? Does Wendy not have any more of that flying dust?”
He pulled me next to his chest. “She’s got plenty of it, but I wanted to keep a low profile.”
“Why?”
He grinned. “You ask too many questions, Tink.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“He could call you Bitch.” Wendy smiled. “Would you like that better?”
It came out of her like a woman making a joke at a party. Timing and everything.
“Be nice, Darling.” Pan slipped his hand around her neck and pulled her close. She went without a fuss. Her hand caressed his jaw, and she kissed him back.
This wasn’t a puppet.
I’d told myself all night that the thing inside her was doing the work. That the woman was still down there somewhere with her hands tied. But nobody makes a joke on a dark road because something is pulling her strings, and nobody reaches up like that.
Marsha hadn’t wanted saving either.
My magic pushed against the binding and got nowhere and I stood there between them, close enough to feel the whole thing happen.
I didn’t like being this close to either one of them—especially when they were kissing. I squirmed, trying to break away.
“Struggling, beautiful?” Pan smiled. “Maybe we’ll do a threesome later.”
I spat at him. “Never.”
Wendy struck me across the face. “Don’t ever touch him.”
I swung around. My cheek and mouth throbbed. I rubbed my face. Whatever was inside her could hit hard.
“Easy ladies, there’s more for me to go around.”
Insufferable bastard. The man really thought too much of himself.
I glared. Like I would want to. But I swallowed my retort.
Wendy backed away and blinked. The thing inside her watched me. I had a feeling it was laughing at me. Enjoying my discomfort.
“Lead the way, Darling.”
Wendy swayed down the path. Pan threaded his fingers through my hair and dragged me. I bit my lip. It was as if he was trying to yank my hair out.
As we headed down the path, the trees thinned and I could make out a vast blue sea. I couldn’t see land across from it. Neverland must be far from here.
Wendy pointed down the shore. “Before I came to get you, I had a boat ready to take us back to Neverland. It’s about a quarter mile down the beach.”
I looked down at my throbbing bare feet. Filthy. Scratched. Bleeding. But I refused to cry out. Wouldn’t give either one of them the satisfaction of knowing I was in pain. The sand was a little better than the pebbled path. My feet sank into the sand.
The sun rose higher and higher into the sky. It had been the middle of the night in the Bywater when Pan snatched me out of my bed, and here the sun was up. I had no idea what day it was. Time difference. Nothing.
Was Caspian looking for me? He had been sent to protect me. Hopefully, he hadn’t given up. I didn’t think I could escape from here on my own. I needed help.
I pulled on my arm, but Pan only yanked harder, nearly lifting me off my feet. I needed to wait for a time when he wasn’t focused on me, a time I could make a break.
A ship came into view. My heart sank. Get on that boat and it was over.
A clipper. Sails up and flapping, men moving on her deck like men who’d done it a thousand times.
If I didn’t escape now, I would totally be trapped on that damn boat and then the island.
Pan’s grip went slack. “You’ve done well, Wendy.”
There it was. I kicked his knee as hard as I had ever kicked anything. Something gave.
“Fuck!” He bent over.
I shoved him off me and ran for the trees, feet screaming, arms pumping. Twenty feet away.
“Damn it, Wendy. Get her.” The anger and pain in Pan’s voice spurred me on. If I got caught, I’d pay for what I did.
Fifteen feet away. My hair dangled in front of my face, but through the strands I could see the trees beckoning me to come.
Movemovemovemove
Eight feet. Six.
Adrenaline pushed through me. The scent of pine filled my lungs. Almost there.
Behind me Wendy said, “Silva claudatur. Murus stet. Non transibis.”
Let the forest be closed. Let the wall stand. You will not pass.
I hit something invisible at a dead run.
Nothing there — no light, no shimmer, not one thing to see — and it took me across the chest and the face and put me flat on my back in the sand with the wind knocked clean out of me.
I lay there and couldn’t get a breath. The trees were right there. Close enough to count the leaves.
I got up and put my hands on it. Smooth. Solid the whole way across, and when I pushed, my own magic turned over behind the binding like a dog hearing something outside, and it couldn’t get out to help me.
She’d said three lines. She hadn’t even had to think about it.
Boots came through the sand behind me. Unhurried.
I slid my palms over the barrier, trying to find out where it ended. Hoping there was a limit to her spell. Before…
Strong fingers snagged my hair and lifted me off my feet again. Pan whipped me around until we were nose to nose. His eyes promised pain.
“That wasn’t very nice, Tink. My knee is throbbing. For each throb I ought to take a piece of that beautiful hide.”
My mouth ran dry. Pan had a reputation for being cruel and inventive. I didn’t want to be his next victim.
He hauled me back to the water and threw me in the sand. But it wasn’t him that punished me.
Wendy kicked me in the ribs. Something cracked and the pain went white. I couldn’t pull a breath behind it.
She gripped my hair. “Don’t ever hurt him again.”
A wave came up the sand. She thrust my face in it. Salt water and grit gushed down my throat. I got my hand on her wrist and knocked it loose.
I spit out sand and water. “Don’t touch me.”
Her gray eyes flashed black. The thing inside her was smiling. I could feel it.
“Now that we’ve established who is in control,” Pan said as he clasped my arm and dragged me to my feet. “I suggest you move and not try anything stupid again.”
I wrapped my arm around my waist. Every step drove the broken rib into something it shouldn’t have been touching, and I made myself keep walking anyway.
Nothing I could do about it. Not yet.
Bide my time. There’d be a moment — Pan distracted, Wendy looking somewhere else, a rope, a rail, a dark stretch of deck — and I’d take it. There’s always a moment. You just have to still be alive when it comes.
The plank was down on the clipper.
“Look. It’s Pan.” A man at the rail pointed at us and his voice broke coming out of him.
Then the cheer went up.
Not a welcome. It was too loud for that, and too rough — men shouting nothing at all, one of them beating the rail with both hands. A man near the mast sat down where he stood and put his face in his hands.
That wasn’t glad to see him. I didn’t know what it was.
A heavy man ran down the plank, more muscle than fat. He spread out his arms. “Captain, it’s good to see you.”
They embraced, sealing my doom.
I knew what it meant for me. Whatever Pan was to these men, I wasn’t going to find a friend among them.