Page 22 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)
Ava
This stretch of shore is empty. There are no crocodiles. No Neverbirds. They didn’t bring me back to where Wraith is still likely perched in a tree and Nyin swims amid the waves.
After Imani drinks Ezryn’s shadows, the pixies slowly emerge from Peter’s insidious fog and come back into their power slowly, drawing magic and energy from the island they have called home for as long as it has been habitable.
A tall male fairy with golden hair, shredded clothes, and matching limp wings that drag the ground stands and helps a similarly disheveled flaxen-haired female stand. They desperately embrace, touching one another’s face. Clasping hands. Embracing. Nearly weeping.
At the same time, their heads snap toward the Never Wood. Do they hear something I can’t?
Belle, Imani answers. They sired her.
The woman’s wide, worried eyes fill with tears. “Was that…?”
A guttural, strangled sound tears from the male’s throat. “Yes,” he breathes. “It’s her! Tinkerbell!”
The two take off running into the trees to find their daughter.
My heart squeezes as the blanks of Belle’s story are filled in and become more real. This is my sister’s home. That is her family. They love her fiercely… They’ve missed her. And she left them behind to try to return me to a life I might never remember.
Imani seeped into me just before Peter found me as a child. She will never be able to tell me anything about who or where I came from.
Belle’s parents didn’t spare me a glance. Truthfully, they didn’t seem to notice me at all.
They don’t know me. Why would I expect them to?
When I look down, I realize they weren’t overlooking me – they couldn’t see me because Imani shrouded me with shadow during the flight. When she releases them and I suddenly appear to the few pixies who remain, they startle and scuttle backward before fumbling into the woods, following the path hastily cut by Belle’s parents.
“Was that necessary?” I gripe at the Celestial responsible.
Imani simply laughs.
Sharing this body would be so much easier if our senses of humor aligned.
She shrouds me again and the shadows she wields pull me back into the Neverwood. While I know she wants me to hurry toward the circular sanctuary Peter has built around himself, I ask one favor from her. “Can you sense where Hudson is?”
She surges forward and I feel both of us fitting too tightly in my skin before we settle into place together. We inhale deeply and catch his scent: weathered wood and sea breeze. Then a frisson of panic crawls over my skin.
“What’s the matter?” I demand as Imani urges us into a sprint.
“Ezryn,” she spits his name as though it’s poison, pumping our arms and pushing harder and faster over the earth, “…has laid a trap for us, and he is using your Hudson as bait.”
“What kind of trap?” I shout into the void.
Ragged breaths saw from our lungs as we race through the rain that quickly morphs into torrents, pouring over us and making our steps slow, slippery, and unsure.
Since I realized she was within me, she’s felt so certain she can end him and yet beneath her pointed bravery as she pushes us headlong toward Ezryn, for the first time I feel a kernel of doubt.
What changed?
What has he done?
We scramble up a steep knoll to find Smee and Alette grappling with two brutishly strong pixies. Alette pins a young male pixie to the ground and violently pushes her sparkling dust onto him. It spreads up his fingers, wrists, forearms and biceps, trickling over his shoulders and spilling down his skin.
Ezryn’s primal influence quickly bleeds from the male, who crashes onto his side and tries to catch his breath and find his place in a world that’s been upended for so long.
Alette rushes to help Smee, who’s embroiled in a nastier fight. The rain has washed most of the precious, restorative dust off Smee’s skin and what little is left isn’t enough to push away Ezryn’s shadows.
Imani growls and draws the shadows from the determined pixie in one long gulp. They are cool as they slither into the shadowy lake to settle among the others.
They feel like him. Bitter and tainted and wrong .
We reach out a hand and help Smee up as Alette braces against the broad trunk of a maple tree and catches her breath.
“Thanks,” Hudson’s most trusted friend wheezes.
“We have to get to Hudson before it’s too late!” I choke.
Smee straightens. “Where is he?”
Imani nearly beams as I invite her forward to stand with me. She tells us all, “Ezryn has locked him in one of the cages and it’s filling with water.”
“Stop the rain!” I demand. “You’re stronger than Ezryn. If he can start the rain, you can stop it.”
We smile. “Of course we are more powerful, but we love the element of surprise. We want to see the fear in his eyes when we appear in front of him, ready to swallow him whole.”
“Whole?” Alette quietly echoes.
“She’s speaking figuratively… I think,” Smee offers soothingly. Rivulets of water carve down his skin, dripping from his lips as he considers us. “We need to hurry,” he insists. “Trap or not, Hudson still requires air.”