Page 2 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 2

“ W endy Darling’s sleeping. Wendy Darling, it’s time to wake up.”

John is dead. My brother is dead.

And I’m awake. Again. Soft hands tug at my loose collar. It’s Peter’s shirt. Big enough that it doesn’t touch me in most places. Why am I awake again?

“Just a minute, Michael,” I say, rolling over in Peter’s bed and burying my face in a pillow that smells of the must of either pine or prison, depending on the day.

The morning, as it always does, greets me with a hammer to my temple.

Peter must have returned last night. Pressed the faerie dust to my lips. I bet I melted into his touch. I don’t sense him in bed, but that doesn’t shock me. He used to hold me close in the mornings, cling to me like he thought letting go of me would cause my bones to come undone. Like I’d just unravel before him.

Peter has been restless as of late.

It’s strange. Missing his touch this morning. Missing his chest pressed to my back, his sturdy legs framing mine.

It’s not real. I know that.

I don’t particularly care.

There was a time when I would have fought the pleasure that snakes through my skin when he puts his hands on me. A time when I would have fortified my mind against his allure.

But the Mating Mark is strong, the bargain even stronger.

And it’s not as if there’s anyone around to help me resist.

I can remember the words John would have uttered, his warnings against Peter. But I can’t remember his voice anymore.

“It’s time to wake up,” Michael says again, shaking me by the shoulder this time. If I know my brother at all, the next attempt to get me out of bed will be an innocent placement of his feet directly on my stomach as he tries to balance standing on top of me.

I debate whether it would be worth it to wait him out, but my brother is nothing if not persistent. So I groan and rub at my temples, grabbing Michael’s hand. This serves the dual purpose of removing it from my shoulder while also keeping him from pinching me. I give his hand a little squeeze.

“Good morning, Wendy Darling.” Michael’s practically singing with delight that his attempts to wake me have been successful. The hammer still thuds against my temple, willing me to go back to sleep, back to the only true reprieve from my grim reality.

But I still have a brother who lives, so I shrug the knit blanket off and drag myself up and over to the side of the bed.

Michael’s other hand finds mine. He twines his fingers through mine and tugs, leading me stumbling over to the little village of toys he’s arranged neatly on the floor. Benjamin’s been busy at work whittling Michael new toys. I think every time he hears Michael call out for John, he whips his blade out and starts on a new one.

“John wants to play too,” says Michael, dragging me to the floor to sit cross-legged next to him as he rearranges his toys for what I imagine is not the first time this morning. Still hazy-eyed, I scan the arrangement today for any new patterns, but find none.

My eyes are heavy as lead. There was a time when I was good at playing with Michael. A time I could enter his little world and sit with him in it.

Now I don’t know what to say. Which toys to pick up. How to reach him. My mind is sluggish, run dry of ideas. There’s just an empty nothingness, the knowledge that John is dead, and the faint craving for faerie dust on the back of my tongue that will compete for my attention with increasing intensity until Peter gives me my next dose.

I’ve almost succumbed to my eyes’ desire to shut when I glimpse a new toy among Michael’s collection. No, not a toy. A stick he must have gathered from outside the Den. Probably on a walk with Victor. He’s stuck it into the ground and tied a string to the top of it, and at the end of the string…

My vision blacks, and when it returns to me, it’s speckled and spotted.

There’s a carving of a boy hanging from the string.

My stomach churns, the vision of John’s corpse swaying from the reaping tree returning to my mind as vividly as if it’s in front of me, not a distant memory from nine months ago.

I can’t remember my brother’s voice, but I can remember the clammy touch of his skin, the bruises on his pale neck, the emptiness in his eyes. The crunch of his glasses against my feet.

I’d hoped Michael had forgotten.

That was foolish of me.

Anger writhes up within me. The urge to swipe my hand across Michael’s toys like a petulant child who knows she’s about to lose at a board game washes over me, but I’m too tired to act on it.

Besides, my brother doesn’t know any better. Or maybe he does, and this is just his way of processing what happened to John. His way of communicating what he can’t find the words for.

Michael builds models commemorating our brother’s death. I just do my best to drown out his memory altogether.

My hands find Michael’s dusty hair, and I scratch his scalp, right behind his ears. He shrugs his shoulders, but not in an attempt to push me away.

“I love you, Michael,” I whisper.

“Wendy Darling is sleeping,” he answers back.

Victor and Peter are arguing again.

I hear the irritated pitches of their voices from down the winding tunnel leading from Peter’s room to the living room portion of the Den.

“You have to wean her off of it.” That would be Victor. Even if I didn’t recognize the voice, I’d recognize the sentiment. He’s expressed it often enough. It would irritate me—that he’s trying to take my last bit of relief away from me—if I thought there was any chance of Peter heeding him.

But Peter can’t stand to see me in pain. Unlike some people.

Peter would never shove me to the ground just to see if I’d get back up. He’d never push me, just so I’d hurt enough to fight back.

He’d never leave me. He’ll never let me leave, either. But it’s not as if I have anywhere to go.

“She’s not strong enough,” says Peter. His claim is worn out, even if it is true.

“She’s not strong enough, or you’re worried about how strong she’d be without it?” asks Victor.

The silence between them is blistering. Though I haven’t reached the living area yet, I don’t have to see them to imagine their stances. Victor’s arms are fisted at his sides, the veins in his eyes popping scarlet. Peter’s firm arms are crossed across his chest.

“You saw her that night,” says Peter.

“I didn’t just see her that night,” says Victor. “I’ve lived that night. With my own brother.”

“Which is why I’m confused as to why you, of all people, can’t understand the need to relieve her pain.”

“It’s been nine months,” says Victor. “It’s not relief at this point. It’s repression. Avoidance. She’s not healthy. She barely touches her food. Peter, the skin around her collarbones is sagging.”

“How would you know that?” Jealousy twinges my counterfeit Mate’s tone. It’s a dangerous emotion on him.

“Because she goes around in clothes that don’t fit her. Like she thinks she can hide from us how much weight she’s lost.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a tad too invested in what’s mine,” says Peter.

Victor scoffs. “Well, someone has to be, don’t they?”

Footsteps grow louder as Victor storms out of the room and down the hall. When he turns the corner and sees me, his nose flares. At first I think it’s in frustration, but then his face softens. “It’s your day at the pool, Winds.”

Embarrassment pierces my gut. Victor recently instated a bathing schedule for the Lost Boys and me. He said it was for my benefit, to give me privacy so that there’d be no risk of the boys walking up on me.

But I know better.

It’s for my benefit, all right. But it’s because Victor thinks that if he doesn’t remind me it’s my day to bathe, I won’t.

That’s what the nose flare was for, I gather.

“Right.” I find myself crossing my arms over my chest like I can somehow hold the odor back.

Victor looks as if he’s about to leave, but then he bites his lip and turns back to me. The shadows underneath his eyes are deeper than ever. When I first arrived in Neverland, it seemed as if time hardly passed here. Now I know better. Time passes; the Lost Boys simply don’t age. Even so, Victor looks older than when I first met him. Maybe it’s just how the unhinged temper of the Victor I first met has settled into something more determined, more focused.

“Is Michael up yet?” He asks it so casually. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe he actually needed the answer and wasn’t just trying to make conversation with me for my benefit.

“You know Michael,” I say.

Victor laughs, though there’s no energy to it. “He’s got that internal clock, doesn’t he?”

I nod.

Victor swallows and runs his hand through his black hair. “I’ll probably take him for a walk in a bit. You could come, if you wanted.”

No is the word that immediately comes to my lips. But there’s something strange about the word. It halts before it leaves my mouth. The thousands of excuses—I’m too tired, I didn’t get much sleep last night, I don’t even have the energy to kill myself, how could I possibly have the energy to go for a walk—don’t come out.

I don’t want to go. But there’s something about the vulnerability in Victor’s request, something about the fact that he looks as if he really does want to spend time with me, even though I’m no fun to be around and I stink of a girl who’s lost all purpose in life, that has me wanting to say yes.

A hand lands on my shoulder, firm and warm and screaming mine with its touch. “I’ll take her out, don’t you worry,” says Peter from behind me. When he wraps his arms around my waist from behind, the will to keep myself upright by the power of my own legs corrodes, and I dissolve into the sultry warmth of his chest, a more than eager crutch.

Pleasure at his touch creeps through my veins, gooseflesh skittering up my torso.

“You sure, Wendy?” Victor asks, holding his ground. Peter’s arms stiffen around me.

“I want to go with Peter.” The words glide out easily. Effortless. It’s a relief really, not to have to try.

Victor glances at the crook of my elbow and grimaces. I hope Peter doesn’t notice.

When Victor leaves, Peter leans over and plants a kiss behind my ear. It’s soft and gentle and adoring, inciting a feverish warmth throughout my body.

Why do you never fight back?

Because I tried that, and it wasn’t enough.

Because I’ve tasted so little pleasure in my life, I know the real stuff is unattainable. And I will settle for what I can get.

“What if I took you flying tonight, my Darling little thing?” Peter asks, his breath a warm whisper in my ear.

“You can take me wherever you want.”