Page 18 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)

Ava

Hudson insists that Imani allow me to return. She doesn’t get angry with him; instead, she chooses to shrink back and allow me room to surge forward. I feel her lavish in all the shadows she’s swallowed lately, swimming contentedly through them.

She likes to swim as much as I do…

The thought makes my muscles tense. Because maybe Imani is the one who likes water, and her presence inside me influenced me to love it. Maybe the sensation of being in water makes her feel like she’s floating, assuming Celestials enjoy a lack of gravity. I’m not sure how their world works, how they exist there, or what they prefer.

I spiral into thoughts of who I would have been and what my life might have been like if she’d never landed in my yard. The only thing powerful enough to stop the what if cycle is guilt, which pricks at me like a poisonous thorn. Because how could I possibly regret Belle?

I love her.

How can I regret meeting Hudson, who is a shade darker than morally gray, but rightfully so after enduring Ezryn and this unforgiving place? Who forgave me for cutting off his hand when we were trapped in the cages, even though it meant his freedom? I’m not sure I could have brought myself to forgive him so easily if our roles were reversed.

How can I regret meeting any of the men on his crew? Smee is the biggest cinnamon roll I’ve ever met. He’s so strong, he could smash anyone who got in his way, but he wouldn’t unless he absolutely had to.

Sydney is quiet and sweet, even if at first, he seems untrusting. And the others are combinations of funny and sarcastic, serious and loyal. They’re a family. Playing tricks on each other, but also caring for the others’ wellbeing.

Imani must sense my thoughts, because she sends reminders of the memories I saw when I returned their shadows.

How many lives has she seen pass before her eyes or ruin because she took their shadow and memory away?

I feel the Celestial bristle.

She either hadn’t considered that or doesn’t care. Or maybe she cares more than she’d like to admit, because she wants me to stop thinking about it.

“You’re back.” Hudson looks relieved and angry at the same time.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“Good. Now, if we can only convince her to stop interrupting before we need her help, that would be great.” He says it loudly, like the volume of his voice matters. She can hear everything I can.

I fight a smile at his blatant frustration and feel the splash of shadow Imani pushes toward him in reply.

The earth seems to tilt and my vision slants with it.

Hudson’s hand is on my elbow, his hook hovering between me and the ground in case I fall. “Easy, Lifeguard,” he coaxes as he steadies me.

“Do you feel… off?” I ask him.

He stops to look at me. “No, but I don’t have a Celestial pest overwhelming my body and senses.” He searches over my head and shoulders for the screeching pixie who keeps ducking in and out of the tree branches, hiding in the leaves of a great oak tree. Looking up, he mutters a curse. “Could anything else possibly go wrong right now?”

“Don’t tempt fate, Hudson.” I glance up to see what made him ask such a question.

Through the branches, the full moon is half covering the sun and the eclipse seems to be agitating the pixies, because their shrill, intermittent screams have become constant howls. Their circling searches are now erratic.

I turn a slow circle, jolting when from behind me, Hudson lets out a grunt of pain. A few feet away, he grapples with a female pixie who snaps her teeth at his nose. Another swoops low and tackles me from the side so hard, I fall to the ground with an Oof , ripping broad leaves down as I go. Hudson uses the base of his hook to bat the fairy to the ground. She’s trying to get up when the dust starts to heal her and she finally relents, drawing in deep breaths.

He hauls me up, simultaneously searching for the pixie who hit me and flew away. Some of the dust that was on me transferred onto them, but much more of it lays on the ground, wasted.

“Let’s go,” says Hudson. “The pixie who hit you will be healed soon enough. We don’t have time to search for her. We need to get to the circle.”