Page 11 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)

Ava

Clouds drift in, obscuring the pitch sky and stars alike as a stiff breeze rattles the leaves all around us. We’ve been waiting up for Peter and the others, but the fatigue is getting difficult to fend off and Paris and I are tired of playing the very unpopular game of ‘What creature made that noise?’

The jungle is loud at night. The creatures that call it home are far busier and more menacing than they are during the daylight hours.

Paris rubs at the corners of his eyes. He’s sitting on the grass a few feet from Bones, their backs resting against the log adjacent to the one I’ve claimed.

“Bones?” I start, then wait until he looks at me. “Who was Peter going to intercept?”

He groans and tosses a forearm over his eyes dramatically. “You’re not going to stop asking, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

He exhales loudly and rolls his neck from side to side. “The seas surrounding Neverland are plagued by pirates.”

Pirates?

I quirk a brow and he groans. “I swear on my life and yours, pirates exist and that’s who came ashore.”

I guess it makes sense that the island would add another thing to fear in addition to the crocodiles, sirens, Neverbird, bobcats, bears, tarantulas, and a thousand other animals that emit noises that make my skin crawl off my bones, including a million other things that are as deadly as they are unfamiliar to me.

“I’m afraid I’m losing my mind. I feel like I should know who Peter is, but I don’t recall,” Paris breathes, as if trying to laugh and failing miserably.

I pick at a piece of grass beside me. “You just met us. No one expects you to remember anyone’s name yet.”

At that, he manages a grateful half-smile, even if it’s still troubled.

“You look as exhausted as I feel, Paris. I bet sleep will help you feel more like yourself,” I lie to him, trying to soothe the fear that mars his handsome features. I turn to Bones. “Where is Paris sleeping tonight?”

Bones scrubs a hand down his face. “My place. We should probably all get some rest.”

I glance at the empty homes, wondering what each Lost Boy keeps in his and what Peter stores in the empty houses.

What is he hiding?

I stand and start toward Peter’s treehouse, deciding that once Bones and Paris are settled in for the night and quiet, I’ll sneak across the lawn and find out what’s in the houses. Just a quick peek might shed some light on the mystery that is Peter Pan. Of course, it could just as easily reveal nothing but dust motes and cobwebs. We would just have to see.

Bones stands and stretches. “It’s safest if we stay together, Six.”

“I’ll be fine,” I argue. I need to get into that treehouse. “I’ll be in the circle – safe.” I smile, using his words against him.

He shakes his head. “Peter told me to watch both of you. I can’t do that if you’re in another house.”

“You also said he wouldn’t like me being alone with anyone else.”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Bones says, clearly hurt by my protestation.

What makes you think you could?

“That’s not what I meant,” I say instead.

“He’d want us to stay together. He’d want you safe.” There’s a plea in his tone that reminds me that he’s a puppet in all this. One who hates his helplessness.

I sigh and acquiesce, inwardly vowing to find another time to search Peter’s things. “Fine.”

Bones nods at Paris. “I’ll find some clothes that should fit you well enough, and get some water, soap, and rags ready if you want to clean up.”

“ Oui ,” Paris replies, his eyes still closed.

Bones chuckles, then leaves us to prepare his home for unexpected guests. In only a few minutes, he shouts down to Paris that everything’s ready. Paris trudges toward the treehouse, climbs the stairs, and disappears inside.

After taking a minute to show Paris where to find everything, Bones steps back out into the night. He takes his time descending the steps and crossing the lawn, like he’s reluctant to be alone with me, and I don’t understand why.

He sits on the log beside me, quietly pensive, intertwining his fingers as he leans forward and places his elbows on his thighs.

“What did you think of The Falls?” he finally asks.

I clear my throat. “They were beautiful. The temperature of the lake water was perfect.”

He lets out a long, tired breath. “That water’s calling my name, especially since I didn’t get to go last night.”

“You could have come with us,” I tell him, turning to fully face him.

He rolls his neck. “Peter asked us not to. He wanted some time alone with you. So, we made do with rags and basins and tonight, I’ll do the same.”

The power of the falling water calls to me. It would strip all the grime and sweat away, and it is much more enjoyable than cold water and a rag. If we leave now, we could hurry and be back before anyone knows we left.

“Why can’t we just go to The Falls?” I ask, my eyes shining. “Last night, Peter said they were safe.”

He shakes his head. “And today, Peter said to stay in the circle, so in the circle we’ll stay.”

“What did he do to you?” I quietly ask, picking at the bark of the felled trunk we’re sitting on. “Why are you so afraid of him?”

Bones scratches his head and gives a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He leans forward again. “I’m going to give you one piece of invaluable advice, Six, because whether you know it or not, you’re in way over your head and in turbulent water. And the thing is, it doesn’t matter how good a swimmer you are, because you’re still not strong enough to face him. Following me yesterday was bad enough, but if you start questioning him or get too curious, he’ll make you pay for it.”

“Pay for it, how?” I ask, disgusted.

He curses under his breath. “Six… If you are not instantly and completely obedient to Peter Pan, he will do whatever it takes to ensure you never defy him again.”

Within my belly, something rears its head. Something that feels like Bones. Intelligent and cautious. Watchful and caring. And I clutch it like it’s the head of a venomous snake. It writhes as flashes of his past appear in my mind.

Two little boys on plastic swings, pumping their legs to see who can go highest. An older sister sitting nearby on a blanket, a pile of plucked daisies on the fabric by her side.

The boy with shaggy, ash-brown hair yells out, telling her to decide. He’s gone as high as the swing’s chain links will allow and wants her to choose him.

“Look!” he crows. “Wendy, please look before it’s too late!”

His older sister, who sits on the ground braiding a flimsy daisy crown, looks up to see exactly how high they’ve managed to fly. Her dark hair hangs to her waist in broad, loose waves. Her eyes are the color of ice chips. They flare when she takes in just how high the two boys soar. She jumps up and shouts a warning, her daisy crown falling to the earth beside her. “You’re going too high, John! Michael, that’s quite enough.”

My heart drops, and as my eyes fill with tears, I almost lose my grip on the shadowed serpent.

It can’t be…

But it is.

The girl is Wendy Darling. Peter said she was the only Lost who didn’t change her name when she got here.

But this memory isn’t hers. It’s John’s…. or should I call him Bones?

Bones – John – is Wendy’s younger brother.

I manage to keep hold of the dark, thrashing tendril, and see John sitting up against his bed’s headboard with his legs crossed. He holds a storybook in his lap, flipping pages with gilded touches over vibrant drawings of scenes I somehow know by heart. The title of the book, which crests each left-hand page is Peter Pan , and the author on the page to the right is J.M. Barrie.

John stumbles over some of the words as his fingers trace them across the page. His younger brother, Michael sits beside him, gazing at the illustrations. Their freckles are the same. Their small builds are similar. The only difference is that Michael’s hair is ashen where John’s is a richer hue.

Ash . Not because of his cooking, even though his lack of culinary skills makes the nickname fit, too.

Ash is Michael Darling.

My breath turns thready, tangling as a new memory flashes into existence and in it, the boy’s fear overwhelms us both. He sits alone on the sill of his bedroom window, staring out at the sky, and quietly sobs, trying desperately to keep quiet.

Wendy went missing two nights ago.

Michael disappeared last night.

His father guards him from a wingback chair in the corner, his head bobbing as he wakes from nearly falling asleep. It’s only when his head begins to slink back onto his chest that he truly begins to cry. It doesn’t wake his dad.

At the soft sound of his first snore, John is violently torn from his room, his home, and his family…

Wind races over him, making it hard to open his eyes. The soft skin of his cheeks rattles. Soon, he hears a roaring to rival the air whooshing over him. He looks down to see that he’s being flown over mountains and valleys of angry water. The world blurs as he clings to someone’s side. Someone shouts, daring the Star to take them faster.

“Six!” Bones shouts.

He’s crouched in front of me, hands gripping my shoulders, shaking me. His chest rises and crashes.

“What?” I rasp, trying to break free from his hold.

He removes his hands from my biceps, but I still feel their impression.

“What the hell happened to you just now?” he demands, raking nervous hands through his hair.

I open my mouth, unsure what to say.

It only takes a few seconds for the weight of what I saw to fully settle on my chest. I cry. Inconsolably. For him. For her. For all of them. Their parents. They were just little kids when he took them.

“Hey,” Bones says, his voice soft as he moves to sit beside me and awkwardly pats my back. He pulls me into his side. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

How could I see his memories?

He didn’t seem to know Wendy on the shore today. How did he not know his own sister? Or even her name?

Pulling away from him, I feel the need to retch when I think of how he sharpened his sister’s rib bone and fashioned it into a key.

Ironically, the best-case scenario is that I’m in the middle of having some sort of mental break and I imagined the horrific scenes and emotions. That I just made it all up in some macabre daydream. Their names. The dark… thing inside me that feels like Bones – or rather, John Darling. The image of their father and how he was barely asleep when his last child was torn from his care.

My head injury must be causing me to imagine things. See things that aren’t there. Invent them.

My heart races. A dark swarm buzzes at the edges of my vision, building until all I see is shadow.

Bones utters a low curse. “Six…what’s wrong with your eyes?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like they’ve turned to shadow.” I don’t imagine the tremor in his voice.

The darkness inside me is real, then. It slithers down my arms and into my hands. Hands I brace Bones’s face with, squeezing until I feel his past and future colliding in shadowy fury. And with a roar, I feed it into him until I’m empty of his memories and the dark tendril of them I’d found hidden somewhere deep inside myself.

I look down and see my hands wrenching Bones’s throat and startle, removing them immediately.

He gasps and coughs, his eyes wide and wild.

The next thing I know, I’m tossed to the ground and land hard on my back. I gasp for breath, desperate, writhing on the ground as tears prick my eyes. His hands are vices around my wrists as he holds them by my sides, pinning me to the lawn as he straddles my hips. “What did you do? Make it stop!” Spittle flies from his lips as he screams the question again, an inch from my face. “What. Did. You. Do?”

I don’t know.

I can’t breathe.

My fingers claw at blades of grass and I shake my head side to side. My palms press against the ground as I vainly try to push my chest up. I can’t… breathe.

“Yes, you do !” he roars. “Who are you? What are you?”

I try to buck him off but can’t get my feet to do anything but slip against the dew-dampened grass. I try to break free of his hands, but he holds me tighter.

Angry red marks from my fingers ring his neck.

From my periphery, I watch as a blurred form plows into Bones from the side, knocking him off me.

Paris quickly bounces back up onto his feet with fists balled and ready to beat Bones into a pulp. “Merde! Disgusting pig. Fight someone your own size!” he seethes.

Between gasps and coughs, I plead for Paris not to escalate this any farther. “Don’t, Paris. Bones didn’t hurt me. I hurt him. He was only defending himself.”

Paris scoffs. “ You hurt him ?”

“His neck,” I confirm, sitting up and pointing toward the marks on Bones’s skin. Each would match one of my fingers if I lined my hands up just right.

His head tilts as he takes a step back, his chest still heaving, gaze still wild. “Why did you do that?”

“I’m sorry,” I tell Bones. “I didn’t mean to.”

He stares at me with a look of trepidation. His hands tremble; not from fear, but adrenaline. And from the truth, which is far worse.

“Bones?” I croak. “Did you see?”

Will he know what I mean, or did I imagine all the images I saw?

He offers a haunted, overwhelmed nod.

A hand wiping over a mouth, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Another broken curse.

Twin tears trace his cheeks and splash onto the lawn. He sits on his knees, presses his eyes closed, and rocks back and forth.

Paris, confused and on edge, helps me to my feet. The instant I clasp his hand, I feel the dark strand that I know belongs to Paris – real name Luc , emerge. I meet his panicked stare, unable to explain around the knot in my throat. The sorrow of this impossible truth chokes me more thoroughly than Bones’s hands managed to accomplish.

“Merde,” Paris mutters, pulling out of my grasp. “Tes yeux.” Your eyes.

Violent flashes of Luc’s memory begin. When I reach for him again, ready to return what’s his, Bones is there, pushing me away from him. “Don’t! Don’t do it, Six. Not yet.”

I come back to myself and the darkness that engulfed me recedes into my core again. I slump onto my side, trying to keep from falling off the log and see a flash of my own memory. Of Belle and me in a town on… on the sea? The water swelling to the piers and walkways. Of her and I working together to return the shadows to people I don’t recognize… And what each of those people and shadows hold secret is that the one who robbed them of what was intimately theirs, was Peter Pan.

Bones has his shadow back, and now I know I can return Paris’s and the others that writhe inside me like ebony currents of consciousness. I can give them what Peter took from them.

In any other circumstance, maybe I’d feel like I’d set right a great wrong, but when it comes to what Peter has done with their shadows… I now know that some wrongs are so unspeakable, so abhorrent, they cannot be righted.

For a long, stunned moment, no one speaks.

“What were you going to do to me?” Paris quietly asks.

I bite my lip to keep from answering, deciding that the less he knows, the better. Even though I think he might already know too much.

“Take it back.” Bones stands and rushes toward me. Desperate. “You have to take it back and hide it!”

I shake my head. “You need it.”

Bones clasps my elbows. “When he returns, he’ll know. He’ll sense it.” When he moves his arm, I see a slight shadow on the ground behind him. “He’ll see it!” Bones is panicking and now so am I. “You have to take it back. Do you understand me? He’ll kill us all, and this time he won’t bring us back. This is a betrayal he won’t forgive!”

I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do. Or if I can take his shadow back…

What have I done?

My head swivels toward Paris when he whispers, “You’re like Peter. You move the shadows, too.”

I shake my head, fighting a growing knot in my throat. “I’m nothing like him.”

Another moment and my French friend has worked it out. “You have my shadow? And you were trying to return it to me.”

I nod and try to think of something, anything, to explain how I’m not like Peter. But in the end, I come up empty. The only thing I know, even if I can’t justify it with anything tangible, is that Peter is shadow and I’m not.

Paris rakes a hand through his dark hair, then gestures to Bones. “Can you do as Bones asks and remove the shadow from him?”

Now that Bones’s shadow is gone, I realize how heavy the others are. And while I think I could have shed it at any time, there was something primal about the moment his shadow recognized him and demanded to be rejoined. It took no effort on my part to push the shadow into his body. But can I take it back?

“I don’t know.”

“Will you try?” Bones begs. “Please?”

That would help for now, but doing so might damn him in the long run. “If something happens to me while I’m holding it, what do you think will become of your shadow?”

I don’t elaborate, but he can see the rest of the question in my eyes.

What would happen to you?

Because I think the answer is that he would be cursed to stay on Neverland. He would live and die here and never make it home.

Pensive, Bones stares at the sky while Paris stares sadly at me like the hope I have is pointless. But I can’t accept that. Hope always has a purpose. It’s a life preserver in miles-deep water, a shelter from violent storms.

There must be another way.

Peter can walk through shadow. He can conceal himself within it. Can he become it?

What if I’m not like Peter, but I am supposed to counteract him somehow? What if I’m the only thing that can stop him? What if I can take and keep the shadows from the boy who wields them?

“Bones… what if I hide your shadow inside you, like how I kept it inside me without Peter knowing?”

“I don’t know.” Bones is shaken. “What if it seeps out somehow? He’ll see.”

I understand his fear. There is something terrifying about Peter and I’ve only seen a sliver of his surface. “Can I at least try?”

He doesn’t answer.

“I know the truth I just gave you is as horrible as it is heavy, but you deserve it as much as you deserve to leave this place. You and Ash…”

He curses again. His voice wobbles on the word, but he doesn’t mention Wendy’s fate and neither do I.

I rub my throbbing temples while he considers my offer. We’re all going to need a lot of therapy after this nightmare ends, maybe even as a group.

He meets my eyes, his expression grim. “You can try it, but if I’m not satisfied, I want you to agree to take it back.”

I nod. “I will.”

When I take his hand, I feel his shadow pulsing just beneath the surface. I push it deeper, into all the places between cells, then within the miniscule atoms where Peter Pan can’t possibly reach.

When I’m finished, Bones lets out a sigh of relief. “I don’t even feel it now.” He waves his arms and we all rest a little easier when no shadow is cast behind him.

“But you still remember, right?” I test.

He nods once.

Paris watches the two of us intently, his dark brows furrowed in confusion as he tries to puzzle out what he just witnessed and why.

Bones slumps. “I feel awful. And I’m so damn thirsty.” He looks at Paris and nods to his home. “Would you care to run up and get me some water, friend?”

Paris glances over at Bones’s treehouse. “Of course.” He hurries toward it, glancing over his shoulder suspiciously from the stairs.

I’m not sure which one of us he’s more wary of.

The second he’s out of sight, I turn to Bones, waiting for him to talk. When he doesn’t supply an answer quickly enough, I ask, “What was that all about?”

Bones braces his hands on his hips and nods toward his home. Toward Paris. “He’s a problem.”

I know what he means. Paris will eventually forget this night, but until he does, he might tell Peter what he saw and what I did. But if he does manage to remember, something tells me he still wouldn’t tell. “I have his shadow, too,” I remind Bones. “I can just give it back and hide it inside him like I did yours.”

He shakes his head. “Paris can’t be trusted. He’s part of Hook’s crew. You’d be wise to keep his shadow for now. It’s valuable to him and Hook, who has a ship and a way to carry us home. You could barter it for passage.”

Smart, I suppose. Collateral is not a bad thing to possess. “Who is Hook?”

“Captain of the pirates Peter and Wraith went to find tonight,” he explains. “He’s dangerous.”

Right. Pirates…

We don’t finish the conversation, because Paris emerges from Bones’s treehouse carrying three wooden cups filled with water. I try to picture him as a pirate and just… can’t. I have a strange image in my mind of pirates being grizzled and weathered by salt, sun, and storms. In my mind, pirates don’t smile like Paris does. They don’t have nice hair or lilting accents, and they certainly aren’t playful flirts.

“He knows too much,” Bones says under his breath. “If he breathes a word of what he just saw…”

When I look at Paris, one word comes to mind: safe. We just need to watch him until he forgets. It won’t take long. A day or so, and none of this will ever have happened as far as Paris is concerned.

“There’s one way to make him forget everything he saw tonight…” He sizes Paris up as he strolls toward us.

I narrow my eyes at him. He wouldn’t hurt Paris. Would he?

As Paris crosses the lawn, I whisper to Bones. “Paris is not dangerous, but Peter is. I need to know what he’s hiding in the other treehouses.”

He slowly shakes his head. “He sealed the door with shadows. No one can get in.” Then it dawns on him, and he shakes his head with a rueful smile. “Except maybe you.”

“Do you know my name? My real name?” I ask.

Bones ponders it for a moment, but he eventually shakes his head. “No.” He shuffles closer to the fire again to make sure no trace of shadow is cast from its light. He waves his arms while looking over his shoulder.

“Nothing’s there,” I assure him. Paris reaches us and we drink our water in silence for several long moments. Then, “Bones? How do you manage to remember so much?”

He shrugs, his face eerily lit by the glowing fire. “I don’t. I just live by a set of rules I carved into the walls of my house over time. I read them every time I step foot inside and see them every time I leave. They’ve served me well.”

An engraved reminder. Like the tree that bears all the names of the Lost, and the name carved into Paris’s forearm.

I hug my middle as a cold chill skitters up my spine. “Does Peter know about your rules?”

His eyes glint. “Peter knows everything. Rule number eight.”

“That’s not true now , though,” I quietly remind him, wondering if I can really trust Bones or if he’ll tell Peter what happened here the instant he returns.

“I hope you’re right about that,” he whispers.

I want to see the rules Bones cut into his home and heart and commit them to memory, so I’ll know how Bones is playing this game and why Peter approves of his parameters. He likely set them, after all. But knowing them might give me an advantage or at least insight into the psychotic enigma that is Peter Pan.

Besides, how can you win a game without knowing how to play? How else can you figure out how to shatter the strategy of your opponent?

Bones stretches his arms over his head, then bends and twists his back until a few of his vertebrae crack. He starts toward his house, then suddenly stops just behind Paris. In a flash, he bands an arm around Paris’s neck and squeezes so tightly, the veins in his forearm bulge.

Paris drops his cup to pry the larger boy’s arms away, trying to break free of his iron hold. Paris’s face turns red, then purple.

I toss my cup and rush toward the struggling men, shouting at Bones to let him go. Pushing against his face, I try to tear his arm away. “Stop! Don’t hurt him!”

“It’s the only way to be sure!” he grits, twisting so I can’t reach his eyes as I try to claw at them.

Paris fights for air, bucking and twisting as much as he can, tugging at Bones’s corded arm, but in less than one minute, the strength in his hands bleeds away, his legs turn to rubber, and his feet sloppily rake the damp grass until even his toes will barely bend. He loses consciousness and slumps.

Bones holds onto Paris no matter what I do. When he finally releases him and eases him to the ground, he catches my wrist mid-air as I try to connect my fist with his nose and rounds on me. “That’s enough .” His chest heaves, and blood and sweat pool in the marks I raked into his skin. “I didn’t kill him. What I did is save your ass and mine. He’ll forget the last few hours, maybe even the entire day, and Peter will be none the wiser if I can get him inside before he gets back. Feel free to help. Or not. I don’t give a damn.”

Bones releases my wrist and looks at Paris lying unconscious on the ground.

Oh. My mouth gapes. “Why didn’t you warn me before he came back with the water? Or better yet, you could have told him! He probably would have let you,” I argue, still shaken from adrenaline spiked by the unexpected violence of the last few minutes.

“I told you why. Because I don’t trust him.” Bones looks me over speculatively, his eyes crawling over the shadowy mark Peter gave me. “I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”

“Then we have that much in common,” I retort.

“You can trust me, Six,” he says. “I’m not sure if you can trust yourself, though.”

My head ticks back in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He smooths a hand over the stubble on his upper lip and jaw. “I don’t know how much Peter can sense through the mark, or if he’ll eventually be able to manipulate you with it. He’s done that to others in the past.”

I twist my arms back and forth to see the vines that coil around them from shoulder to wrist.

His eyes track every leaf and shadowy hair clinging to my skin. “He pushed shadows into the sirens and when he did, he could control them immediately.”

“The way he controls you?” I ask. “I don’t see a mark.”

His brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t know what happens to him and the others when Pan pulls his strings. “He manipulates everyone one way or another.” I try to brush off my comment. “But his mark – his shadow – is not in me. It’s on me.”

Bones is unconvinced. “You’re wrong about that. Some of it may be superficial, but shadow swirls in your eyes sometimes. That means it comes from inside you.”

Inexplicably, a sudden memory surfaces and I remember the same thing happening to Belle when the acorn necklace cracked and she had to take on the shadows. Her golden eyes turned dark and she lost herself to them little by little, piece by piece, day by day.

I don’t want to lose myself to the shadows, or to him.

I look away and he tips my chin up, waiting until I look at him. “I’m not saying all this to scare you, Six. You deserve the truth, too.”

Is that so? “Then tell me how I got my nickname.”

He hesitates and I know – know – that he remembers that much. If he’s as trustworthy as he claims to be, he’ll grant me the truth he claims I deserve.

He holds my stare unflinchingly. “Because that’s how many times Peter killed you to make you forget everything but him.”

My breath rushes out of me. “You mean he made me lose consciousness that many times, right? Like you just did to Paris,” I correct him, even as my stomach churns. I press a hand to it, trying to calm it and my racing mind.

He shakes his head. “No. It’s because you died six times.” His eyes are haunted. He smooths a hand over his mouth. “And each time I just stood there, powerless to help you, even though you begged and screamed for me to do something.”

“Did he push me out of the window?”

Bones nods. “That was how he killed you the second time.” His voice splinters. “I’m so sorry. I was inside the house, and you begged me to help you, to do something , and I just couldn’t. I was a coward.”

A tear slips down my cheek. “If you’d done even the tiniest thing to try to intervene, he would’ve killed you, too.”

“That doesn’t make it right.” He cranes his neck and looks up at the stars. “I don’t know how he can do it, only that he can bring people back. He seems to need a connection of some kind, though. He has your shadow, but as far as everyone else…” Bones sighs. “It’s why I make my blades out of their bones. In case I ever get the leverage, I need to make him bring them all back.”

My heart skips a beat. That’s why he keeps their bones? To keep all the Lost close in case he gets a chance to force Peter to resurrect his friends? I don’t know if he remembers most of them, but he knows who Wendy is now… and I bet he’d do anything to make Peter bring his sister back.

And because Peter would get suspicious about why Bones keeps a remnant of each person unless he uses them for something… he makes knives. Keys. Anything he can.

How many times has Bones died by Peter’s hand?

How many times have all those who’ve survived him thus far paid the ultimate price?

I consider his confession. “How do you remember what they’re for?”

He swallows and pulls a knife from his pocket. The handle is carved and beautiful, and at first glance, I dismiss the pattern as meaningless. Until Bones points to the corner and the engraving flares to life. In the inverse, a name appears: Grim.

“Peter noticed the names,” Bones admits, “but he thinks the designs are just memorials, like gravestones.” He tucks the knife back into his pocket and lets out a troubled breath, then gently bends and lifts Paris from the ground and carries him into his home.

I wait while he settles him in, wondering where we go from here. Glancing down at my arms, I focus on the vines creeping over my skin. This time, when I go to pinch the vine, my fingers peel it away.

I wonder if Paris was right after all when he said that I’m like Peter Pan. Can I do everything he can? And if so, can I fight him, win, and bring back the people he’s taken away from this world?