Page 21 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 21

I stumble backward, the horror rattling through me throwing me off balance.

“Son…” says the wraith behind me, but given Victor’s staring with a look of betrayal and confusion, I take it he can’t see the wraith.

“Is that my boy?”

I nod, hoping it’s imperceptible.

“Who are you talking to, Winds?” asks Victor, taking a step forward. His voice has hiked up, his eyes turning bloodshot. There was a time when I suspected Victor of being the killer tracking down the Lost Boys, but now that I know him, it’s clear he couldn’t have hidden something like that from the rest of us. Not when his emotions lay bare on his face, the blotches creeping up his neck.

I’m so taken off guard myself, I’m not fast enough to catch Michael as he slips out of my grip and runs to Victor, who absent-mindedly tousles his hair.

My pulse pounds against my neck. It’s a wonder my artery doesn’t burst.

“Victor, I can explain, but I want to take Michael back to the Den first.”

Victor looks as if I’ve slapped him. “You think there’s anything you could possibly say that would make me want to hurt him?” He removes his hand from Michael’s head, like the touch is now tainted by something sinister.

Still, the crossbow bobs at his back as Michael plops down in front of him and begins drawing squares in the sand with his finger.

“Winds. You know me.”

But you don’t know me, I want to say, want to plead.

When I don’t answer, he rubs his forehead. “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t…” He releases a trembling exhale. “I can’t…I can’t live like this anymore. Please, everything before Neverland is missing. I can’t live in the dark anymore.”

“You’ll hate me,” I whisper, my voice trembling. But then I think of Peter, how he kept the truth about John’s death from me so long, selfishly afraid of my reaction. How he allowed me to make decisions based on a lie.

How he let me believe my brother left me. Left Michael.

Victor doesn’t respond, other than to swallow effortfully and cock his head to the side.

“Trust my boy,” whispers the wraith behind me.

It’s foolish, to listen to the shadows. Especially the ones who should be seeking out revenge on me.

But it wasn’t the shadows that had killed my brother.

As Victor waits, I try to come up with a way to tell him that will be the easiest. But the longer I fumble for the words, the redder Victor’s neck grows, the more his feet fidget in the sand, and I realize how cruel it is to break it to him gently, to let him dread a moment longer, the truth he already knows deep down.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so frightened of it.

“The man I killed on the beach that day was your father.”

Victor doesn’t move, other than the flick of his eyes, when he glances behind and around me, detecting nothing.

“I didn’t know who he was at the time…”

“But you knew before today,” snaps Victor.

Tears spring from my eyes, but I won’t deny my friend the truth any longer. “Yes.”

Hurt creeps up in the strained muscles in Victor’s neck. He glances at the sand below his feet and nods slowly. “Go on.”

“He’d come to find you and Thomas. That’s why he had Thomas’s bracelet. I thought he’d killed him, but really he’d stumbled across Thomas’s body, taken the bracelet because…”

“Because he’s our father and he loved us,” says Victor, still not looking at me.

“He was trying to kill Peter because he saw him as your kidnapper and blamed him for Thomas’s death. He was trying to take you back home.”

Victor flicks his eyes up at me. “Home?” The word comes out almost childish, desperate.

I bite my lip, nodding.

“Mooring,” says the wraith behind me. “It’s called Mooring. It’s a fishing village.”

I relay the information, and Victor’s jaw bulges, his crossbow rattling at his back as he pretends to wipe sweat from his brow. I don’t miss the way he wipes away the tears in the same motion.

“Is he still here?” Victor asks.

I nod.

“Can you tell him…” Victor pauses, panic overtaking his face. Like he’s waited on this moment for so long, and there are too many things he’d like to say. Like there’s any possible way he could mess this up with his father clinging to his every word. “Can you tell him I’m sorry? I didn’t know it was him. I thought…I thought he had killed Thomas, so I…”

I blanch, because a memory assails me, and I know what’s causing Victor’s hands to tremble.

“I spit on his body,” he says. “But I didn’t know. Does he know that? That I didn’t know?”

“He knows,” I say, without having to ask. Because the wraith is weeping, and he’s glided across the sand to be close to his son. And though Victor can’t feel him, his father is embracing him, weeping into his shoulder. “He’s just so grateful to finally see you all grown up.”

The wraith turns to me, and though I can’t see the gratitude in his expression, I feel it through some odd connection between us.

Victor’s not weeping like his father, but there are water droplets on his cheek that are thicker than the spray of the ocean.

“Winds,” he finally says, nodding toward my hands. “You’re shaking.”

“I—” The words get caught in my throat. Please don’t hate me , the selfish part of me wants to beg, though I have no right.

But I don’t have to finish the sentence, because Victor’s face goes hard and he says, “You’re not the one I blame.”

My tongue grapples for the appropriate words, but I find none. Later, once the wraith disappears, Victor approaches me. He looks more like a man than he did only moments ago, shoulders held tall instead of hunched over like usual.

“I need you to tell me what happened to me, Winds. Before Neverland.”

Nausea encompasses me, but we talk, and I do.

Dark clouds roll in before Victor, Michael, and I leave the beach. I’ve told Victor of the plan, but the storm lingers for the next several days, making informing Tink impossible. Not that we could leave at the moment anyway, seeing as the warping would be nigh impossible to get to between the blistering waves and the level of the tide.

There’s also the matter of me leaving the island.

I’ve tried to rework the definition of “choose” in my mind every moment since discovering the way out of Neverland, but as subjective as language is, there are limits. Just like there are limits to how the word binds me, there are limits to how I can twist its meaning.

I can’t both choose him and leave him. Not without a reason that would be to his benefit.

And I can’t find one.

It occurs to me I’ll have to make one.

Climbing is more difficult than it once was. My grip strength has atrophied with disuse, and so have the muscles in my legs.

Thankfully, trees are easier to climb than cliffs.

The reaping tree is especially easy. The knobs and glowing orbs that protrude from its trunk make for convenient handholds. Besides, there’s something about how even when I slip, there’s always a knob I hadn’t noticed beneath my foot to catch me that makes me believe this tree wants to be climbed.

The satchel tossed around my shoulder is cumbersome, but not too much to manage. By the time I reach the branch I’m aiming for, it’s the dizziness that’s the most threatening to my safety. I’ve chosen this branch for a reason.

It’s the one Peter hung John’s body from, right in front of the entrance of the Den, aware of the possibility that Michael would see.

I’m not sure which is more potent—my nausea or my loathing.

I step out onto the branch all the same. It’s a feat to balance, but crouching helps as I maneuver the satchel to my front and remove its contents. The rope scrapes against my palms, and as I retrieve the noose I already tied, the world spins around me, and I have to grab the branch to keep from toppling over.

Once I’ve breathed through the dizziness, I begin securing the rope around the branch of the tree.

Then I wait.

By the time the beating of Peter’s wings rustles the leaves of the canopy above, my thighs are screaming in protest, my feet and core aching. I don’t care all that much.

This pain is nothing.

I swallow, then place the noose around my neck. The harsh fibers scrape against my throat, calloused fingers lying in wait to choke me.

To snap my neck.

Something moves on the forest floor below. I startle, almost losing my balance on the limb. My heart pounds with the knowledge of how quickly my life could have ended just now.

It’s strange, fearing death instead of welcoming it.

Maybe Astor would be proud of me, after all.

I wait for the beating of Peter’s wings to draw closer. I’ll have to time the jump perfectly. Jump too late, and he’ll know I was waiting for him.

Jump too soon…

My hands go clammy with sweat.

The leaves are rustling now, not with the gust of Peter’s wings, but with the weight of his body as it descends.

I jump.