Page 12 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)

Ava

Bones, Paris, and I are sitting around the fire as dawn surges brilliantly over the lawn and Peter steps into the circle, materializing from a fury of gathered shadows that swarm like an agitated murder of crows.

He holds out an impatient hand. “Come with me, Six.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, standing and fighting the urge to glance at Bones.

The sun smelts strands of Peter’s hair as he tosses his next words over my shoulder. “You too, Bones, and bring our new friend .”

There is a dangerous glint in his vibrant green eyes and I don’t like the way he stares at Paris, but the only thing I can do is put my hand in Peter’s and follow him into the swirling darkness. Because the circle is Pan’s too. It might keep some predators at bay, but it won’t deter the one who made it.

Touching him will provide an opportunity to feel his shadows and try to learn how he gathers and moves through them, how he controls them. So, I soak in every detail I can. The dark mist is cool on my skin, but I can dimly see the forest through them. I see the treehouses and Bones and Paris as they step into the gray with us.

I quickly realize the shadows don’t function as a portal. Peter gathers those cast closest to us and pulls from the shadows ahead to propel us forward, casting off those that belong behind us as we swiftly move across the island.

Peter doesn’t let go of my hand as we travel, and he doesn’t release it when he drops the shadows at the edge of The Cove’s concave shore, lined and littered with shells of every shape and size. From the water, the rock the siren hid behind the last time I walked the beach juts above the surface.

Two men cry out to us for help from where they’re tied to the boulder’s base with coarse rope. The tide has risen to their necks. Every building swell surges over their heads. They hold their breath each time a wave passes over them, then cough and sputter when the sea relents. Who knows how long they’ve been trying not to drown?

I rush over the sharp shells. “Thorn and…”

“Lock,” Peter supplies, strolling casually to stand near the damp sand, stopping short of it.

He can’t go in the water. Can’t save his friends. But I can.

I start toward them, but Peter still has my hand and tugs me to a stop. Pulling my hand away, or trying to, I question him with my eyes. Why won’t he let me go to them?

“You’re being hunted. This is a trap to lure you into the water,” he reveals.

Trap or none, what else can we do? They will die if we don’t do something to stop it, and I can’t stomach the thought of Thorn and Lock knowing we’re so close but refuse to save them. And I swear on the Second Star if Peter wants to argue that he’ll bring them back once they’re dead, I’ll lose my mind.

One way or another, I have to get in that water – water that hides sirens and crocodiles, as well as a plethora of other toothy and toxic creatures I don’t want to think about.

“Bones?” I hold out my palm. “Can I borrow one of your knives?”

Bones approaches and hands me one of his blades. It’s small and lightweight in my grip, but I know how sharp it is. It’ll cut through the ropes quickly.

I hurry into the shallows, water dragging at my sarong.

Behind me, Peter says something and then a scuffle ensues. Paris curses loudly.

I turn to see Bones wrenching the Frenchman’s head back by his dark hair and holding his knife’s sharp point to his chest. He’s not under Peter’s thrall like before, he’s just… doing what he’s been told to survive another moment, another hour, another day on this cursed island.

Peter shouts to the sea. “If anyone or anything tries to take you from us, Paris will slowly be slaughtered on this shore. You’ll hear his screams for hours, for miles all around.”

At first, I assume he’s talking to the pirates or sirens or whomever he thinks set this trap for me, but then I wonder if the threat is meant for me, too.

My chest heaves as I untie the sarong, surrendering it to the incessant swells. I grip the bone knife tightly and dive into deeper water. It’s a short swim to the rock.

“Thanks for coming for us,” Thorn says before his words are severed by a swell.

Lock adds his thanks when the water recedes.

The razor-sharp bone quickly saws through the rough pieces of rope binding them and I thread their weakened arms over my shoulders and walk them toward the shore. It’s slow going, but it’s best to stay together so that in their exhaustion, one of them doesn’t succumb to the strong currents ripping at our legs.

Bones still holds his knife pointed over Paris’s heart. As much as I desperately want to trust him and consider him my friend, I know that if Peter gives the word, Bones will kill him.

I roll my eyes, trying to be flippant as we reach the shallows. “For fuck’s sake, Bones. Let Paris go. We’re safe now.”

Peter stills, his pupils flaring. “Paris?”

Fear courses through me, but I’m also pissed, so I force that emotion to the surface instead. “Yes, Paris! You told me to give him a name. He’s got ‘Paris’ carved into his arm, so I went with that. If you wanted to name him, you should have. Or feel free to choose something else. I really don’t give a damn at this point!”

We struggle to push onto the thick, foot-swallowing sand of the shore where Lock and Thorn collapse onto the beach. Their eyes shut, and they groan as their limp bodies finally rest. The second their skin is no longer touching mine, the water begins to singe them. They hiss and scuttle out of the damp sand and into the powder and shells. Their faces contort in anguish until finally, the pain recedes.

Peter crouches between Thorn and Lock. “Explain how you were able to enter the water without being burned.”

Thorn is the first to answer, raking his chin-length, sand-colored, dripping hair out of his face. “We were lured in by a siren, but Tinkerbell was with her. She let us wade into the water, but I heard her say you wouldn’t be able to reach us. That she would have to swim out.” He nods toward me.

“I told you it was a trap for you,” Peter smugly tells me. “Do you know who Tinkerbell is, Six?”

I furrow my brow. “I remember seeing that name on the tree you showed me.”

Peter’s eyes narrow as he stares. Does he think my lie will show up written across my forehead for him to read? I’m not about to give him any indication that I remember Belle is my sister.

I throw my hands in the air, exasperated. Fed up. Done. “Is she a sea witch or something?” I demand. “Why’d she curse the water? Or did she curse you? I can’t really keep up, to be honest.”

Lock fared far worse than Thorn. His vibrant red hair is dulled with the sheer volume of sand he’s managed to amass within its short strands. The top half of his body is sunburnt, while the lower half is an incredibly pale shade peppered with the occasional constellation of freckles.

“Hook was with them,” Lock adds between hacking coughs.

Peter’s countenance darkens at the mention of Hook – the pirate who supposedly came ashore as he helped Belle tie these men to the rock to drown.

“Did you get the siren’s name?” Peter asks carefully.

“No.” Lock shakes his head and looks at Thorn, who mimics him.

Peter grinds his teeth and closes his eyes for a long breath. “What did she look like?”

Looks of confusion mar their features. “I don’t know,” Lock finally admits. “I don’t remember.”

“Neither do I,” Thorn says. “Her song… I just remember having to reach her, no matter the cost. And then we were so deep I could barely touch the sea floor when she stopped singing and took us under.”

“When Tinkerbell, Hook, and the siren left, did you see where they went?” Peter questions.

“With the way we were positioned, we couldn’t see much,” Thorn explains.

Peter gives a sinister smile. “Of course. Last question: have you seen Wraith, Shorty, or Ash?”

The men shake their heads.

Peter looks back at me. “We need to search the coastline. I have a feeling we’ll find them in the water, and unfortunately for them, the tide is almost at its peak.”

When Peter gives the order, Bones removes his blade from Paris’s chest. I return the knife I borrowed and watch his shoulders relax the moment it’s back in his pocket.

I try not to look at Paris but see him in my periphery raking a hand through his dark hair, clearly flustered and terribly confused, but trying to remain calm. Bones claimed he was a member of Hook’s crew, but when they were discussing the pirate, the Frenchman didn’t seem to know who he was.

Bones and I help Thorn and Lock stand and walk with them as they stumble into Peter’s shadows. In the space of a blink, he pulls the shadows across the jungle until we’re back at the circle of grass, then orders the two men to stay inside it.

They don’t argue, completely spent, and immediately start toward their respective treehouses. Before Peter sweeps us away again, I hear Thorn call out, “Thanks again, Six.”

I dip my head as the dark mist envelops us, pleased to have made an ally or two, at least for as long as they remember that I saved them.

Peter pushes us toward the coast, determined to find his friends – or rather, his soldiers, which is what they undoubtedly are. When Peter set out the night before, he’d ordered Wraith to The Lagoon, which is where we find him, tied to a pole driven into the seabed. His limp head drags with the tide as it surges toward us.

My chest aches at the sight.

Wraith drowned.

Did they taunt him as he died, or did he die alone?

Either way, he must have been so afraid.

Who could do this to another person?

I can almost imagine how he screamed for help that never came, begging until his throat was raw from it. Until it filled with seawater for the last time.

“Do you see how cruel they are?” Peter says as he comes to stand beside me. “Do you see what they’re capable of?”

I nod as a painful knot forms in my throat. Tears build in my eyes and spill down my cheeks.

Belle did this?

Even if she knew Peter would restore him, how could she?

The few memories I have of her are tinged in gold and laughter. None are sinister. There is no fear. Did I only see that side of her because I was on her side?

Everyone’s a monster to someone.

At Peter’s behest, Bones again holds Paris at knifepoint after handing me a blade to cut Wraith free. I step onto the damp sand, then into the calm shallows with a churning stomach and shaking hands.

I sob as I swim out to him. The water here is deeper than the rock at The Cove where we just came from. I dive underwater to free his legs first, saw at the tight bindings, then surface and free his hands from behind his back. Lastly, I sever the rope holding his shoulders to the wood.

His body twists as he floats free.

“I’m sorry,” I choke, turning him over so that his eyes see the sky instead of the sea where he died.

“Six!” Bones yells. His voice is oddly shrill. My first thought is that something happened to Paris, but he appears to be fine. Then I see his stricken face. He wipes a nervous hand over his mouth as he stares in my direction.

He yells something else that I can’t make out. I shake my head. “What?”

Goosebumps spread across my arms. Something is wrong.

Bones cups his hands over his mouth and shouts, “Crocodile!”

Just then, the water to my right begins to sway and tremble as an enormous, armored nightmare surfaces.

“Leave him!” Peter yells, pacing the shore. “Get out of the water!”

No . I can’t do that. I won’t.

I grab Wraith’s wrist and maneuver him closer to me and away from the creature as slowly as I can.

Peter’s agitated voice carries across the water. “I said to leave him , Six.”

I slant my eyes toward him and slightly shake my head.

Peter curses, then repeats himself a third time before he realizes I’m not going to obey.

If I abandon Wraith to the crocodile, there will be nothing left to preserve. No bones to shape into something useful, and no way to bring him back. I ease Wraith behind me, place myself between him and the crocodile, and point the bone knife at the beast. I wonder whose bone I’m holding. The blade is no longer than my palm.

But I realize I can’t lose it either…

Not to the croc and not to the sea.

Slowly, I move one foot backward, then another as I ease toward the shore, my feet sinking into deep sand.

I can’t out-swim or out-run the croc. It’s too close. Too huge.

The beast sees my retreat and lets out a guttural growl that rattles the water around its gaping mouth. Its tail whips through the water, propelling it forward with monstrous efficiency.

I lose my footing and water surges into my ears; I hear Bones curse and Peter shouts at me to come to him – now .

There’s no time to flee. If the croc wants me, he’s got me.

I swipe the knife at him in a feeble attempt to deter his forward momentum.

Some animals are afraid of threats or will at least think twice about them if something sharp and pointy is aimed their way. Other animals enjoy the chase or proving anything that thinks they’re stronger wrong.

The crocodile is among the latter, because I swear it smiles and proceeds forward, undeterred. His skin is comprised of thick plates fitted together with no visible skin showing. And while I know the knife is sharp, I doubt it can penetrate his hide.

My only chance is to aim for his eye and swim like hell if I actually manage to stab it.

A whimper flees my throat as the beast surges forward again. I shove Wraith’s body toward the breakers and firmly plant my feet, gripping the knife tighter in my palm.

The croc bucks suddenly, roaring and whipping its head from side to side. Clouds of red plume in the water, lending warmth to the cool sea as the metallic tang of blood fills the air.

Is Peter doing this somehow, or is it a siren?

“Run!” Bones shouts through cupped hands. “Get the fuck out of the water!”

Scrambling backward and keeping the beast in sight, I push Wraith’s limp body into the shallower waves and out of the crocodile’s reach as it snaps, thrashes, and rolls, trying to fend off whatever wounded it. The croc is gargantuan, and I don’t want to think about the fact that whatever caused it so much damage is in the water with me.

There! I see a flash of coral and gasp. The siren who tried to lure me into the water at The Cove attacked the crocodile. She… she just saved me from it.

I don’t tell Peter. Don’t breathe a word as my heart thunders. I just focus on getting Wraith out of the water in case sirens aren’t strong enough to kill saltwater crocodiles.

The breakers make moving Wraith easy, but once his body lodges on the wet sand, I can barely move him. I grab his ankles at Bones’s suggestion and slowly drag him up onto Neverland’s shore.

Bones abandons Paris to help me with Wraith, crying out when his skin sizzles as he steps onto the damp sand to help drag him onto the dry beach.

“What are you waiting for? She almost died to get him out of the water. Bring him back!” Bones seethes at Peter, pointing to his dead friend.

Peter’s eyes narrow at his tone, unimpressed by his edict. He crouches beside Wraith’s pale form and closes his eyes. “No.”

“What do you mean, no ?” Bones demands, refusing to back down. “Bring him back, Peter.”

I wonder if Bones sees his own face when he looks at Wraith lying dead at his feet. Does he wonder whether Peter will consider reviving him or if he’ll leave him to be torn apart by the scavengers of Neverland until there’s no evidence that he ever even existed? He would be quickly forgotten by the world and those he once knew in it.

He already has been.

“You don’t get to demand anything of me,” Peter rages, spittle flying from his mouth as he shouts at Bones, squaring up to him, every muscle in his back tense. “ I lead the Lost. I decide who lives and dies. Not you!”

I have to do something to keep Peter from killing Bones, and I refuse to put my lips on him again. Instead, I choose violence. Something he’s fluent in. I drop my shoulder and plow into Peter’s side. He doesn’t expect the hit and loses his balance. Stumbling to the side, his mouth is comically agape that someone would dare try to hurt him. “Then make the right decision!” I demand.

Peter rounds on me.

I plant my hands on his chest and push.

He bares his teeth and gives a pain-filled hiss when the water from my hands sears him. “You wretch!”

“Why did you come and get me and send me into water you knew was infested with crocodiles if you were just going to let them have him?” My chest heaves. “You act like people’s lives and deaths are nothing more but pieces on a chess board, but they’re not! Wraith is dead . And I could have died just now, Peter.” My body trembles as adrenaline and fear meld with the fury racing through me.

It’s not until Peter cocks his head, his eyes trained on something at my side, that I pause to consider what he’s staring at. My hand is the only thing I find.

Not some croc slipping up behind us to take advantage of our distraction with each other.

Not a siren, ready to sing us all to our deaths. Just my hand, fingers clenched around a bone knife so tightly, my knuckles blanch.

I hold it and face him just like I did to the crocodile when it started toward me, full of menace.

Cloaked in malice and shadow, Peter is just as well armored. I don’t know if drawing this knife across his skin would leave a mark, but like the croc, he must have a soft, vulnerable place I can strike.

My eyes snap to his chest and hover over his heart.

If I pierced it, would his blood run in red rivulets, or would dark mist plume from the wound and billow into the sky?

Suddenly, Peter’s shoulders relax. He rolls his neck and laughs like Bones and I are being ridiculous.

“Calm down,” he says.

I jab the knife closer to his ribs and hiss, “Can I offer you a piece of advice about females, Peter Pan?”

His eyes narrow, even as he shrugs like it doesn’t matter to him.

“ Never in the history of time has a woman ever calmed down because a man told her to.”

Peter slowly crouches beside Wraith, holding my angry stare. I imagine dragging the bone knife’s blade across his throat. When he smiles, it’s obvious he knows exactly what I’m picturing.

“You don’t need me to bring him back, Bones,” he tells his friend. “Six can do it.”

I scoff. “Yeah, right.”

Peter chuckles, a bright, crystalline sound. His clever green eyes gleam, daring… knowing. “Oh, but you can.”

Bones shakes his head in confusion. Even he’s not sure what Peter’s playing at.

“Bones can’t do it,” Peter adds when he notices our silent conversation. “But you can, Six. Try it. Prove me wrong.”

Paris intervenes. “Stop bullying her. She said she cannot do such a thing!”

Peter laughs, though the sound lacks humor. “And I told you she can.”

“If I try and fail, will you immediately bring Wraith back?” I try to word the question carefully, to stipulate when as well as what he will do. Peter’s as slippery as an eel. An eel with angelic features who acts like an absolute demon.

“If you can’t resurrect him, then yes,” Peter concedes. “I’ll immediately intervene.”

It’s not a great concession when I think about it, though. He could bring Wraith back in one breath and snap his neck the next. No one can predict Peter’s next move, so preparing for all possibilities is impossible.

This feels like a trap. Like the cages behind their treehouses where they hold their prisoners. I can almost smell the earth and feel the roots draping onto my shoulder. Can almost see Peter looming above me, holding the rusty door in his hands. Holding the brittle bone key ready.

“What do I do?” I ask, still holding Bones’s knife as I sink to my knees beside Wraith.

“Just coax his spirit back into his body.” He shrugs like he’s explaining how to scoop food with a spoon.

I glare at him. “How can I possibly do that?”

His smile is crafty. “Do you see it, Six?”

There’s no anomaly as far as I can tell. No spirit floating in the area. “Of course not.”

“Close your eyes and try to sense it,” he suggests.

But doing so would put me in a vulnerable position.

Peter has killed me six times already, and I can confidently say he’s not afraid of ending me a seventh. I shift uneasily, considering how to locate Wraith’s soul without letting Pan out of my sight.

“Give her your word that you won’t harm or kill her,” Bones blurts.

Peter’s head slowly swivels toward his Lost Boy. “‘Disloyalty will be repaid in kind.’ Rule number twelve.”

“I’m not disloyal,” Bones argues. “I’m trying to help you both and bring Wraith back. She’s clearly afraid to close her eyes,” he points out, waving a hand in my direction.

Peter’s gaze lazily shifts back to mine. There is no anger in it. In fact, he appears pleased. He’s glad I’m afraid of him. Glad that I know he can kill me whenever he likes and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I could, and would, fight like hell, but he’ll overpower me like he does everyone else.

Peter’s lips part. “I promise not to harm or kill you before the sun sets today, Six.”

“And after that?” I grouse.

He offers an infuriating smirk and shrugs. “We’ll negotiate future terms after sunset.”

Peter looks at me differently now. There’s no hunger in his gaze; only challenge. In the blink of an eye, he’s gone from looking at me like something he wants to possess, to looking at me like something he wants to obliterate. I just wish I knew why and what changed.

I close my eyes and pretend to be fearless.

As soon as I do, the dark thing hidden deep within my bones awakens. I feel its awareness and the thrum of its pulse, so much stronger and steadier than mine. I sense its hesitance to emerge and reveal itself at war with its desperate longing to strike out.

This darkness isn’t what a soul feels like. It’s frigid and somehow feels full and empty at the same time. It feels wrong. It’s not a shadow. I can sense the other ones I carry. This is something solid. It has mass. It’s powerful. And it’s not me , even though it’s inside me.

“Do you feel it?” Peter prods.

Wraith’s soul feels warm and bright compared to the thing coiled inside me, and suddenly I sense it hovering just over my left shoulder. When I open my eyes and turn my head, I see its soft, white glow.

My stomach sinks because I wouldn’t have seen the soul if the darkness hadn’t stirred and revealed it to me. I don’t know what to make of that or begin to imagine how it got inside me.

If it’s part of me, it doesn’t feel like it. Besides that, surely I would have felt it before now, and I don’t think I have. I remember Belle, along with bits and pieces from our life on Tybee Island, but I don’t recall feeling anything like this.

Peter smiles. “You found his soul. You see it. Just like I knew you would.”

I glance at Bones and Paris with wide eyes. “Do you see it?”

Bones shakes his head. Paris rasps a wary, “ Non .”

“Did Bones tell you how you got your nickname, Six?” Peter asks conversationally, drawing my attention back to him. Always to him.

Grinding my molars, my heart pounds at his unmistakable threat as electricity fills the air, lifting the hair on my neck and arms. Energy builds around us as thick as the clouds forming over our heads.

Peter’s flinty smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes. I wonder what else Bones revealed while I was away.”

I stay quiet, refusing to incriminate Bones or suggest that he’s aligned with me in any way. But in my heart, I worry that Peter knows I’m holding the shadows of his Lost and have already returned one of them. I’m afraid he’ll see Bones’s shadow and rip it out of him somehow. Or else torture him until I do it for him.

Worse than that, I’m afraid he’ll kill Bones. If Peter is right and I can resurrect like he can, I’ll bring him back, but it won’t be the same. He won’t know me. We won’t have the same shared understanding that we have now. I won’t have a friend here.

“My dearest and oldest friend abandoned me for you,” Peter quietly tells me. “Tinkerbell wouldn’t have betrayed me if I’d confided in her about what you are. That was a very difficult lesson and a mistake I refuse to repeat.”

I furrow my brows. “What I am?”

Bones and Paris shift uncomfortably. Everything in me wants to scream at them not to listen to his lies, but I can’t. Because they can’t see Wraith’s soul. They can’t peel away Pan’s shadow and repel his influence. They don’t have unsettling darkness settled inside their bones.

But I do.

He leans forward, watching Wraith’s aura. “Do you remember when the person you love the most first learned you weren’t human? How did she react? Was she afraid or shocked?”

“I am very much human.” My voice echoes around us as the wind stirs and swirls.

“Just before dawn the morning I found you, the brightest falling star I’d ever seen crossed the Never Sky, determined to reach the ground. The moment the sun rose and blotted the Second Star’s light, I soared across to the mainland to find where it had landed.” Peter met my eyes. “You left a deep scar in the earth, a line of scorched grass and dirt, but there you were, innocently watching the sky like you were waiting for me to come for you.”

I shake my head, disgusted. “Stars don’t fall, Peter. The streaks across the sky are meteorites; nothing more than chunks of space rock. I had parents. I was a little girl, and you tore me from my home the same way you tore them from theirs!” Bones flinches when I fling my hand toward him. Did my words hit home, or is he afraid of me?

Peter gives me a pitying look. “I know that stars don’t actually fall, love. But Celestial fairies do when they descend to earth. And they would be greatly offended to be referred to as chunks of rock .”

His story is preposterous! “I’m not a fairy, Peter,” I scoff.

He chuckles like he doesn’t believe me, or like I’m stupid and na?ve and a million condescending things that make me want to wrap my hands around his neck and throttle him.

I brush my hair back to reveal very rounded, very human ears. “I’m not.”

“The shape of your ears means nothing. Celestials settle in things native to the planets they live nearest to. They’ve settled in humans, animals, pixies, trees…”

Trees. Right . I suppose the tree he’s carved with all the names of the Lost is some “Celestial fairy” and he’s been cutting her flesh for the last hundred years.

And pixies? Really?

“Are you implying that Belle is a… space fairy?” I grit. There’s no way. My sister loves plants, and if she ever looked at the sky until the night the shadows finally broke her, it was only because I dragged her to the rooftop…

My breath whooshes out as I clutch my stomach.

Peter’s golden face is too bright to look at. “My guess is that you’re considering how much you love the stars, the depth of your knowledge of them, and how you’ve never felt at home in any place you’ve existed. And maybe now you’re wondering why you can see Wraith’s soul and how you can cast your host’s shadow into pretty vines.”

His smug smile is too much.

My shadow stirs and creeping hairs rake over my skin as they stretch and drag a memory forth. It’s of me lying in the back yard with my mother, eating popcorn and laughing. She loved the stars. Not me. “My mom used to take me outside at night. She taught me all about them. I’m not a fairy, Peter.”

Bones won’t look me in the eye. His eyes dart from Peter’s to the sea and back. He even prefers looking at Wraith’s lifeless body over me.

“When my siren dragged you ashore, your chest was as still as Wraith’s,” Peter says, gesturing to his friend. “Your lips were as blue. Your skin blanched as bone. There was no soul hovering around you.

“I sat with you for several long moments to make sure you were dead. You didn’t breathe. Your heart did not pump. Still… no soul illuminated. I was starting to think it was because you didn’t have one, but then you started to cough and sputter, gasp and panic. And it wasn’t because of anything I’d done or attempted to do. You came back on your own.” He tosses over his shoulder, “Didn’t she, Bones?”

Bones nervously beats a thumb on his thigh. “I don’t remember that day,” he tersely replies.

Peter’s smile is cruel as he leans in close. “I didn’t bring you back any of the times I killed you.”

I hate him with every inch of my body. Not because of what he’s saying, but because he’s the cruelest, most horrid monster to ever grace the earth.

“You being a Celestial fairy is the only explanation for why you can’t die, why you don’t forget as easily as the others, how you can touch the shadows and turn them into something beautiful, and how you sense wayward souls, Six. You’re just like me.”

Peter is a Celestial fairy?

Bones’s mouth gapes. He looks at Peter like a stranger he’s never seen before. Did he know at one point and forget, or did Peter never tell them?

You are just like me.

Paris grinds his teeth. Whatever part of him recognizes Peter as an adversary seems to be alive and well.

You are just like me.

A knot swells in the back of my throat.

You are just like me.

My eyes flood with tears. “I am nothing like you.”

He taps a finger on Wraith’s still chest. “Bring. Him. Back.”

Fear and anger roil inside my chest. I don’t want any of this to be true, but nothing else explains how I’m able to do what I can. Tears spill down my cheeks and a silent scream builds in my chest.

There is a reason I can separate and move shadows when even Belle can’t. Why I can feel how different each one is and see the memories recorded in them.

I thought it was Peter’s mark and influence, and maybe that’s part of it, but how can I be sure that his words are wrong?

And I’m so angry.

Peter Pan is a beast, and I don’t want to become one… if it’s not already too late. If it’s even preventable.

“I won’t do it,” Pan adamantly says. “If you don’t revive him, he won’t live again. I’ll promise you that.”

You are just like me.

“You gave your word!” Bones roars.

I don’t look up at my former friend, deciding to spare him from the sight of someone he no doubt hates now. Instead, I reach up and take Wraith’s soul in my hand, squeezing it like a pitcher would a baseball. I’m not sure what to do with the glowing warmth or how to return it to the lifeless body laying before me. So, I imagine what Peter would do if he was holding Wraith’s soul in his fist.

You are just like me.

Peter does not coax.

He doesn’t ask, suggest, offer, or plead with the souls of the people whose lives he’s stolen.

He pushes, demands, orders, insists.

So that’s what I do.

I violently smash that glowing aura into Wraith’s chest and scream for him to Wake up! as a phantom wind whips my hair all around me. Shadowy vines peel from my skin and writhe like serpents. A flicker of fear shimmers in Pan’s wide stare.

I give him a sinister smile, reveling in his unease. If I’m so much like him, let him fear me . Let him wonder if he’s finally met his match.

The glowing soul is absorbed into Wraith’s skin where it spreads through his tissue and settles into his bones. A gurgling sound comes from his lungs. Water dribbles from the corner of Wraith’s mouth. A slithering trail of it forms, flowing over his cheek and into his hair, dampening the sand under his head.

“What’s happening to him?” Bones breathes. “Six?”

Saltwater stops trickling from his friend’s body.

Wraith gasps, sucking in a long breath as his sternum bucks from the sand and his eyes fly open. Coughs wrack his frame, slowly filling his gray pallor with warmth as he rolls onto his side and digs his fingers into the sand. When he finally regains control of his body, his first words are aimed at me, a poisoned-tipped arrow. “Who are you?” He takes in the island, the sea, Bones, Paris, and Peter. “Where am I?”

Peter defers to me with a nod.

I want to tell him he’s safe, but I can’t bring myself to lie. Can’t conjure a single word in that moment. How can I tell Wraith he’s on an island that shouldn’t exist? That everything on the sand and sea that surround it wants him dead? That I just brought him back to life? That Paris is a pirate, Bones is a pawn, Peter is an abomination, and I might be one, too?

Wraith notices the shadows slowly settling back over my skin and scuttles away from me. “ What are you?”

Peter Pan smirks. “Go ahead. Tell him what you are.”

From the pointed tips of his ears to his sandy, mussed hair. From his relaxed, lithe form that oozes self-confidence to the dare sitting in the smirk his lips make. And from the Lost he leads, and this strange island that answers to his will, Peter Pan is a beautiful, horrible monster.

What am I?

A barrage of memory comes back to me. Of Belle on the couch surrounded by walls of books, days of strife and evenings of chlorine and laughter, of feeling safe and happy, of some awful orange cat clawing at our door, Devin’s funny texts, my mom’s perfume and my dad’s hands. I’m not from the stars. I was made here .

I’m a sister and a friend.

I’m somebody’s daughter.

And the only reason I ever got ‘lost’ was because Peter Pan found me.

I look Peter in his cutting green eyes and reply, “I’m a lifeguard, asshole.”

Despite Wraith’s panic and disorientation, Peter wastes no time using his shadows to carry us all down the shore to search for the other Lost Boys, Shorty and Ash. The only thing we find is Ash’s net bag on the beach, lying beside a wooden spear with his name carved into the handle.

Peter thrums with anger when he picks up both items and scans the sea. “He took them.”

A large ship looms before us, anchored in deeper water. Someone stands at the stern watching us.

“Hook,” Peter seethes.