Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Iplunge beneath the water again, my body at the breaking point as an arm wraps around me. The fangs will come next, and then I’ll be nothing more. Just another one of Neverland’s victims.
But the bite doesn’t happen.
Opening my eyes, I can barely see in the dim water. But I’m being pulled away from the falls and the shore. Away from the yellow eyes of the wolves.
When we finally surface, I drag air into my lungs, then sputter and cough. Before I can even get a look at who has me, I’m pulled under again. Right as I am, I see those yellow eyes on the bank nearby, a whole pack of werewolves pawing at the creek.
We continue through the water until my lungs begin to burn.
Then I’m whipped around, and I finally get a glimpse of flowing hair and pale skin.
Shiner kisses me, her breath pouring into my lungs and giving me life.
Then she takes my arm again and pulls me along beneath the surface.
We swim a good way farther before she drags me to the surface, and we both gasp for air.
I spin, looking for the yellow eyes in the dark trees.
“They won’t come—” She gasps in more air. “—this far. They know.” She points, and up ahead I see the familiar shape of the Guardian village. The round building sits in the middle with smoke rising lazily from its chimney.
Dazed, I doggy paddle toward the bank as Shiner swims by my side. She makes it first, then offers me her hand and drags me from the water.
I collapse on the black sand. She lets out a high whistle of complicated notes, then drops beside me, her back to the village and a blade in her hand as she watches the trees.
“How did you find me?” I can barely get the words out, my body shutting down and my mind going blank.
“Stay awake,” she snaps, and I hear the worry in her voice.
“Awake.” I try to nod, but I slip down to the sand on my side.
“Moira.” She puts one hand on my shoulder and shakes me. “Just hang on.”
“Yes.” That’s when I realize I’m not speaking. I haven’t said a word. I’m trapped in my mind. My eyes close, and there’s the familiar cinderblock wall. At this point, it’s almost a comfort. I know it well. It’s not trying to hurt me.
“Moira!” Shiner’s voice is coming at me through a long, dark tunnel strewn with debris and weeds draped from the ceiling.
More of a cave than a tunnel, one with water dripping all around and clay that makes you sink up to your knees.
Then farther and farther until it’s to your chest, then your neck, then covering your mouth and nose as you suffocate, becoming forever part of this island. Part of Neverland.
I wake screaming. Strong hands hold me down, and I’m unable to fight to free myself.
“Breathe!” A female voice. One I recognize. “Please, Moira. You’re safe. You’re all right.” Tiger Lily appears in my vision and kneels beside me. “Bunk, let her go.”
Bunk, who looms over me, releases his hold on my shoulders and backs away.
I’m in the round building beside the fire. Lifting my hands, I see they’re bandaged. My feet too, though I can’t see them through the blanket. I can feel the gauze between my toes.
“What happened?” I lie back and focus on Tiger Lily. On the now.
“Shiner found you and brought you here. You’re in bad shape, Moira.” Tiger Lily doesn’t mince words.
“I know.” I realize my voice is squeaky, weak.
“We have to get you to the Fairy Village. If we don’t …” She doesn’t have to finish the sentence. I see it in her eyes.
“I’ll die.” I breathe out in a slow whoosh and turn onto my side, my whole body rebelling at the exertion.
“Yes.” She wipes a cool washcloth across my forehead. “We’ve treated your wounds on the surface, but we can’t undo what Peter has done. We can’t give that back to you. Only the Spinner can.”
“She won’t make it.” Wraith glowers at me from the shadows. “A slight breeze would knock her over.”
Tiger Lily cuts him a glare, then returns her gaze to me. “You’re going to rest here. We’ll try to get word to Hook so—”
“No.” I bite the word off and spit it out.
“No?” Tiger Lily seems taken aback. “Why not?”
“I can’t trust him.”
For some reason, she smiles. In it, I see a more youthful version of her, one that must’ve existed when Wendy came to Neverland.
It fades a little as she wipes my forehead again.
“You don’t have to trust him, Moira, but you do need his ship.
It’s the only way you’re going to get to the Fairy Village alive.
The Silver Mountains are too treacherous, even for our strongest warriors. ”
“Like I said, she’ll never make it.” Wraith comes into the light.
Cobweb steps beside him and rests her palm on his arm, a warning look in her eyes.
“I’ll get there.” I stare up at him. “Even if I have to crawl. I’ll get there. I’ll get strong. And then I’ll make Peter pay for everything he’s done.”
“Shh.” Tiger Lily wrings out the washcloth. “Rest now. We’ll make plans later.”
“He’ll come for me.” I fold my bandaged hands beneath my cheek. “Peter won’t stop searching, and he’ll find me. What will you do?”
Tiger Lily’s face turns back into that beautiful, yet grim, visage I’m used to. “We’ll deal with him. The Guardians will always defend themselves. And we’ll also defend the island.”
“He’ll bring all the Lost Boys he has left.” I sigh. “He won’t stop until you’re all dead.”
“He can try,” Bunk grunts.
“He knows what will happen if he spills blood in our village.” Tiger Lily gestures for Cobweb to hand her a cup from the little table on the floor beside my cot. “We’ve fought him before.”
“Not like this.” I groan as she helps me lift my head and brings the cup to my parched lips.
She only lets me have a few swallows before pulling it away. “That’s enough. Go slow.”
I keep my gaze on her, on the mystery she represents. She defends the island, hears it speak to her, but she still doesn’t know what part I’m meant to play. Why won’t the island tell her? Why won’t it say decisively “Moira’s a threat” or “Moira’s a keeper”?
“Tinker Bell said the island told her not to kill me. Has the island told you the same?”
Tiger Lily’s dark eyebrows go up, and she motions for everyone else to leave us. They do, melting into the shadows and out of the room.
“You saw Tinker Bell?”
“She helped me escape. Peter had me trapped in the cave again. Drugged. Some potion of hers that he was giving me. She tricked him—gave me a watered-down dose—so I could escape, and then she helped me climb out.”
She sits back on her heels, her brow furrowed. “I suppose that’s how we found this in your pocket.” She pulls the small vial of fairy dust from a satchel at her waist.
“Yes. She gave it to me and told me to fly away back to the mainland and never return.”
Tiger Lily puts the vial on the small table. “But you didn’t. Why?”
“Peter.”
“Peter?” She shakes her head. “How so?”
“He killed Tootles. Right in front of me.” I can see him as if I’m still in that cage in the cave.
“Geo—killed him too.” He drained so many Lost Boys, trapping them here forever.
They’ll never get to see their loved ones again in whatever sort of life comes next—if there is one.
I don’t know, but I know whatever it is, it’s better than being a ghoul child with fire red eyes that rises each full moon.
“He’s hurt me so badly, tricked me in ways that stole parts of my soul.
I’m tainted by him. I … I killed Slightly.
” My body shakes violently as I confess, but the shudders settle, and I continue.
“So I could escape. Slightly—he’d never hurt anyone.
” I let the dissonance in that statement sink in.
“Except he did, didn’t he? He hurt me.” I push my bandaged knuckles into my eyes and rub.
“Because Peter made him do it. The Lost Boys have no choice. They’re forced to do horrible things by Peter.
Peter is the reason for all of it, even though I don’t know why.
I don’t know what he wants. I wish I did. ”
Tiger Lily’s eyes widen when I use the dreaded word.
“But it doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t care what he wished for.
I don’t care what his reasons are. All I know is that I want him dead.
” I pull the blanket up to my chin. “I want him to die for everything he’s taken from me and so many others.
” My words are so vicious, so unnatural coming from my own lips.
But what’s worse is that I find I mean every single one of them.
I want to avenge Coy, Tootles, Slightly—all of them.
All the lives Peter has taken. A memory cuts through my train of thought.
“He killed fairies. Did you know that? Tinker Bell told me he made her hunt down her own kind. Then he forced her to watch as he drained them.”
Tiger Lily’s face goes pale in the firelight.
“She wants him dead as much as I do, but she’s under his control, too. That’s how he operates—control.”
“Surely, she’s lying.” Tiger Lily runs a hand down her face. “The fae—they’re sacred. The closest thing the island has to physical embodiments of its magic and its will. To kill them, to drain them… If he’s done that, Peter is cursed. The island will not forgive him.”
“Is that so?” I’m growing tired, my voice hoarse. “Then why does the island let him run wild? Why does the island do nothing as he kills his way through the fae, the Lost Boys—”
“My people,” she says quietly. “We started finding them drained and some simply murdered. It was soon after Hook went into the island’s sacred heart.
We thought it was him for the longest time.
It made sense. His deal with the island set so much darkness into motion.
” She stands and paces beside me. “If I could go back, I would’ve cut him down right then and there.
It would’ve stopped all of this from happening. ”
“Is that true, though? I don’t think so. All these things were already in motion.” I let my eyes fall closed and listen to the quiet sound of her feet moving back and forth. “Peter’s evil didn’t just spring up overnight.”