Page 46 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 46

W hittaker mansion is about how one would expect.

It’s crafted from sleek black onyx, each stone set upon the other without mortar, as if each stone was cut to perfectly fit those around it.

It’s precise, and thought out, and intentional.

My heart flutters in my chest as I gaze up at the turrets piercing the cloudy night sky, not a star in sight. Not a handhold in sight either, not for either tower.

This manor is impenetrable. And there’s no climbing down from it either.

I think of Michael, trapped up in one of those towers, if he’s allowed to live here at all. My mind races with all the dreadful possibilities of what might have befallen my brother, each of them seeming more and more likely as they parade through my mind.

If Lord Whittaker is as cruel as his reputation, if he’s as obsessed with perfection as his qualifications for infants and the architecture of his manor indicates, I see no way he’s allowing my brother to take up a bed here, even in the servants’ quarters.

“Peter, what if Michael’s not here? What if the Whittakers cast him out…” I picture my brother cast out on the street, Tink trapped inside these walls, unable to help him. Would Victor and the other Lost Boys have taken him in if that was the case? Were they even able to reunite with Tink and Michael once they escaped Neverland?

Peter places a hand on my shoulder, and when I gaze up at him, he’s wincing, true pain in his expression. It’s something I’ve struggled to grapple with. How Peter can be the way he is, so selfish, so manipulative, so cruel, yet still love my brother so ardently. It doesn’t seem right, seem fair, that amidst all the selfishness, he harbors that little piece of goodness in him. That he excels in a kindness that so many people, much kinder than himself, struggle with.

It hurts, sometimes, knowing Peter loves my brother. I can’t quite pinpoint why.

“If the Whittakers have hurt Michael, they die. I don’t care what I told the Nomad,” says Peter.

I can’t help but find some amount of comfort in that.

“Are you ready for this?” Peter asks.

“No,” I say, without having to think about it. This isn’t a conversation I want to be having with Peter. I want to have it with Astor, but Peter’s ear is the best I’m offered in the moment. “I don’t want to betray my friend.”

Peter adjusts his broad shoulders, covered with a thick wool coat to stave off the cold. Whether his discomfort stems from the fact that I care for the woman he tricked and enslaved, or the general concept of betraying friends, I’ll never know.

“Tink wouldn’t want you to die for her,” says Peter.

“Is that how you justified sacrificing her for the Lost Boys?”

Peter stares at me for a long while. When he’d first realized what I’d done in getting the Lost Boys off of Neverland, he’d been furious. As obsessed as he is with keeping me, I’m not sure that he’s ever truly forgiven me for taking away the children he considers his family. Though it’s difficult to tell, considering Peter has coped by simply acting as if they never existed at all.

“It is,” he says. “And I’d make the same decision to protect them.”

“A lot of good her sacrifice has done them,” I say.

Peter’s jaw stiffens, and guilt pierces my stomach. Again, I’m confounded by the hurt Peter feels for the children. I forget sometimes that he practically raised them in the orphanage.

I find myself relenting, but not completely. “If I die, it will be my own doing, not Tink’s. I’m the one who made the bargain. I’m the one who put my life up as collateral for hers. You might have turned Tink over for a good cause, but I didn’t. My terms weren’t worth it. You didn’t even want your curse broken. Yet I was so convinced you and I could be happy together if it was.”

I watch my words land. Watch Peter’s expression distort. I don’t even get the same satisfaction that I once did from it. I can’t bring myself to care if Peter hurts. His pain is irrelevant.

It’s the betrayal I know I’ll find in Tink’s face that haunts me.

“I’m so afraid of losing you,” says Peter.

I glance up at him, shocked by the genuineness in his tone. And for a moment, I feel pity for the man who is too blinded by his own fears of the future to realize it’s the past that’s already stolen his heart’s desire out from under him.