Chapter 13 #3
The more I sit, the more my gaze darts upwards. I want to stay where it’s safe, but I also want to know what the hell is going on. What does a neverbear look like? If it’s as big as Peter says, how do the pirates intend to kill it?
I stand again, nervous energy keeping me moving. Maybe I should’ve offered to help fight off the pirates. But what good am I at fighting? None. I’d probably punch myself in the face. No, better I stay down here.
A bell rings nearby, and then a glittering orb shoots down from the waterfall.
“Tinker Bell?” I step back as she appears in a flash.
“What are you doing down here?” she yells, her golden eyes full of ire.
I clap my hands over my ears then force myself to put them at my sides. “I’m supposed to stay down here.”
“They’re dying up there, and you won’t go help?” She steps toward me, her gossamer wings practically vibrating.
“Wait, they’re dying?” I can feel my face go cold as all the blood drains from it.
“Yes! They need your help, and what are you doing?” She crosses her arms, her nose upturned. “Being a lazy mainlander, letting others fight her battles for her, letting her friends die.”
Ouch. I could argue that the neverbear isn’t my battle, that Peter told me to stay down here, that I’m no good in a fight.
I open my mouth to say all that, but then I pull back. “Hang on a second. You hate me. You tried to set up the scary old lady in the town to poison me and curse me. There’s no way I’m going up there. You’re trying to get me killed.”
She steps closer, and I stand my ground even as she stares up at me with her impossibly golden eyes.
“This is exactly what I warned Peter about. You only think about yourself. You don’t believe in Neverland.
Not really. You don’t care about Peter or the Lost Boys.
All you want to do is cower down here and hope someone will come save you.
” She practically spits the last words at me.
“Even Wendy, with all her prim and proper ways, helped Peter fight off Hook.” She points a short finger at me.
“But you—you aren’t Wendy. You’re just waiting for your chance to get back to the mainland, even if it means you leave this island and everyone on it to die. ”
“That’s not—”
A roar shakes the cavern, stalactites falling and crashing nearby. She doesn’t look away, her eyes still on me. “Too afraid to help. Too afraid to believe.” She scowls and flashes back into her orb form, then flies toward the waterfall.
“Wait!” I call.
She pauses, her orb spinning.
Shit, this is probably so, so dumb, but what if she’s telling the truth? Can I take that chance? I saw what Hook does to the Lost Boys he captures. What if I could save one of my friends?
“If I can help, I will. Just show me where they are.”
The orb flits to my shoulder, and I hear her broken-bell voice. “I’ll take care of Peter myself. You can tend to the rest.”
“Fine, just take me to them.” I don’t know what I can do, but I have to try.
Just the thought of my friends—yes, I think of them as friends now—hurt or afraid gets me moving.
Tinker Bell is loyal to Peter and the Lost Boys, at least that’s what I’ve seen.
I have to trust her. That’s what Peter would want.
He’d want me to believe in her. So, despite my earlier misgivings, I follow her into a side tunnel.
It’s dark and mossy, water leaking along the walls and making faint drip noises as I hurry along. I follow close behind Tinker Bell until she comes to a vertical shaft and flies straight up.
“What am I supposed to—Oh.” There’s a small wooden platform at the bottom with rope wrapped around a crude crank system. Gripping the handle, I begin to turn it, and the platform rises up the dark granite shaft.
I turn as fast as I can and ignore the burn in my muscles. Before long, I see brighter rays of moonlight filtering down to me. I turn faster, the platform moving smoothly, and I finally reach the top. The jungle is all around me now, large leaves and huge, nodding flowers every way I turn.
“Tinker Bell?” I look around for the fairy, but I don’t see her golden glow anywhere. “Tink?” I try her nickname (which I’ve secretly been dying to use), but she doesn’t respond to that either.
A howl sounds to my right. I don’t like it. Not at all. I grip the crank and start turning it counterclockwise.
The platform doesn’t move.
“Come on.” I yank on it, then bring my foot up and try to kick it into motion. “No!” I yell as the crank breaks off and falls into the narrow space between the platform and the stone wall. It clacks and clicks its way down, and I can’t hear it when it hits bottom.
Shit. I’m an idiot. Tinker Bell did this on purpose. But why? Leading me up here and leaving me is a sure way to gain Peter’s wrath. What’s her endgame?
Another roar shakes the forest and leaves begin to fall all around me as I hunch down. That sounded close, way too close.
I can’t stay here by the shaft without risking falling in or being found by the bear. It’s too open. So, I slink toward the nearest tree and lean against it.
Think, think, think. I look around at the terrain. That’s no help. I have no clue where I am, and when I look up at the moon, I see that it’s getting high in the sky overhead.
“I’m fucked. Fucked by a fucking fairy,” I whisper to myself and press my forehead against the tree.
“That’s no way to talk about Peter.” A gruff voice behind me has me jumping, but a hand comes down over my mouth and a hard body presses me against the tree. “Don’t move. Don’t scream.”
I try to stomp my foot onto his, but I miss and slam it down on a root. “Ow!” My yell is muffled, and then overtaken by another roar, this one so loud I cringe.
“It’s close,” he whispers. “You might want to reconsider fighting me.”
He smells like the wind off a stormy sea, rain and salt and sun all wrapped into his scent. A pirate. Tinker Bell led me right to him. If I ever get my hands on that little glowing bitch, I’m going to wring her neck.
“Are you going to be a good lass?” he asks, his other arm banded around my waist like an iron bar.
He’s tall, even taller than Peter and just as muscled.
“Nod if you say aye.” His voice is accented, but I can’t place it.
Like a mix of Scottish and English, but with something else in there too.
“No screaming. Aye?” His warm breath against my ear sends goosebumps rushing along my skin.
He moves closer, his nose skimming along the side of my throat. “Aye, sweet lass?”
I’m suddenly very aware of how big he is, how he’s pressed me against the tree with ease, how we’re out here alone in the forest, how I have no way out.
Of course I want to scream, but that might bring the bear.
I can’t risk it. Peter found me when the Guardians took me.
He’ll find me again if he has to. He promised to protect me, and that’s what I have to hold onto right now.
I nod slowly.
His large hand slips away from my mouth, and I take a deep breath of his sea air. “The bear is near. Best you stay quiet. Come with me.”
I turn around and look up at him. In the glow of the moon, he’s every bit the pirate.
Tricorn hat, shaggy black hair, and a short, scruffy beard.
His eyes are shadowed by his hat, but I can feel him looking at me.
His white shirt is open to the waist, and he wears leather pants with a black belt slung low across his hips.
An old-fashioned pistol is holstered on one side, and a large knife is on the other.
“Done gawking, lass?” He smirks and takes my hand. “Let’s go.”
“Wait. Where are we going?” The memory of the bodies in the woods is a bucket of ice water over me. Is that what he’s going to do to me?
“To sea.” He pulls me along through the woods, and I look around for some way to escape him. There’s nothing. I don’t know where I am.
Maybe if I can get free, I can outrun him.
I let him pull me along, the moon lighting our way as another roar sounds at our backs. It seems farther away now. That’s good. If I can break away, I won’t run into it.
“Just let me go, okay? I won’t tell Peter that I saw you. You’ll be safe to go back to your ship. You don’t have to hurt me. Okay?”
He doesn’t respond, just keeps pulling me through the undergrowth, unerringly toward the ocean.
“Listen, I know your boss wants me dead, but you—”
“You haven’t a clue about my boss, lass.” He pulls a little harder as we climb over a downed tree. “Best keep your opinions to yourself.”
I most certainly will not. “Captain Hook. The most vicious pirate that ever lived. I know all about him. But I also know Peter, and if you were to let me go or even return me to him, he would give you whatever you wanted.”
“I already have what I want, lass.” He helps me up a hill and then down again into a ravine. “No point trying to change my mind.”
I’m getting winded as he barrels along. That’s when I realize I have to try something. If I don’t do it now, I’ll be too worn out to try it later, especially if he continues at this pace. I definitely don’t want to end up on the wrong end of a rope.
We come out on top of an embankment with another patch of woods on the other side, and he heads down the ridge, keeping to the top and aiming toward a silvery beach I can see below.
This is my last chance. If I can break away and make it to the woods, I might be able to hide. I move closer to him, trying to keep up, trying to make him loosen his grip.
It works. When he stops having to pull me so much, his grip relaxes. I steel myself and yank my hand back with all my strength. I pull myself free and then take off down the hill.
He yells from behind me, frustration in his tone.
I lose my footing and fall, rolling as I go. It hurts—bits of rock and roots poking me as I tumble along the steep embankment, but at least I’m moving away from him. If I can get back to Peter, I’ll be safe. I just have to survive and hide.