Page 25 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)

Ezryn

“Can we touch the water now? How are we going to get to the ship if it’s cursed?” Thorn demands as he, Lock, and Paris follow me through the Never Wood for the last time.

“Why? Don’t feel like swimming through the crocs and sirens?” I tease.

“No, actually.”

“Then I guess we’ll take the skiff.” Assuming it will still answer to Hudson’s form. Belle seemed rather preoccupied when I left her. Hopefully, she hasn’t considered rescinding the gift she bequeathed to Hudson so very long ago.

“The pixies are coming!” Lock shouts, ducking his tall head when a pixie flies overhead and darts into the treetops. Pixies are notoriously foolish. They’re also cowardly. They won’t attack us. They’re merely keeping watch for Belle.

“They want us to leave their island,” I reassure them with a laugh. “Didn’t you hear them? We’ve worn out our welcome. They’re just making sure we leave.”

Jameson is taller than Peter. Stronger, too. I feel like I finally have room to stretch and move, and I enjoy that delicious freedom of movement as I push faster through the foliage with the remaining Lost Boys on my heels.

I sprint over a fallen log stretching across the creek, feel the salt wind in my hair, and reach out my hook and slice through every leaf that dares grow too close to the path. The ripping sound is music to my ears.

“Peter! Hudson! Whatever you want us to call you!” Lock shouts. “Look!”

I glance over my shoulder where he and the others have stopped and see a bright contrail soaring across the darkened sky.

Another Celestial has fallen!

My heart lurches at the sight and the hollow in my stomach gnashes at the light, ravenous. But I can’t go to the Celestial who fell. I must push on and leave this place. This might be my only chance.

Grinding to a halt, I wipe the sweat from my brow and tell the men, “Hurry! Let’s board the ship and raise the anchor.”

Jameson angrily stirs within our shared consciousness as we bolt for the beach.

You are not welcome on my ship! he seethes. You’re not welcome in my sea.

I scoff. You have no say in the matter. The ship has a new captain.

A shout from Lock is cut short. I glance back over my shoulder to find him, Thorn, and Paris – gone.

I press on and burst from Neverland’s heart as viciously as I did Peter’s back there, sand flying under my feet as I consider how Jameson called for the skiff. The ship is anchored in deep water, beyond the reefs and shallows. It’s so close, but so far away.

Jameson could swim, even with his hook. He swam even though he couldn’t sense the dangers in the water. I haven’t been in this body long enough. Everything is overwhelming because it’s so new. I don’t trust that I’ll notice threats if they approach, too focused on making this form serve me.

“Hudson?” someone calls out.

I look over to see Wraith limping out from the tree line, wary to get too close to our friend Hook, but willing to risk rescue. He won’t be able to outrun anything in the shape he’s in…

Turning back toward the water and ship, I don’t see the tiny vessel.

Lifting my hand, I try to feel for the little boat.

Nothing responds.

I whistle and nothing comes.

How did he call the skiff? There must be a trigger for it. I push on the hook’s tip, down its curve, and around its base.

Still nothing happens.

Is this your doing? I ask Jameson.

You can call me Hudson or Captain, Ezryn. But you’ll never call the skiff without my help.

I feel the bastard smile.

Is that right?

It is, he answers as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.

I suppressed Peter Pan faster than anyone realized. You won’t last a week.

He laughs now. Heartily. Confidently. I think you’ll find that my hatred for you is as deeply-rooted as my stubbornness.

I’m considering what I can use to make him cooperate when something sharp cuts into my ankle. A sharp pull to the extremity, and I fall flat on my back before I’m dragged toward the water.

And when I hear her voice, I know which mermaid has me in her grip. I twist and gouge my hook toward her belly, but she’s lithe and fast, easily evading me with calculated movements.

Taking advantage of the situation, Jameson begins to fight me, too.

“Drown me!” he shouts to her. “Nyin, drown me. I’d rather die, than…”

The mermaid cuts his words off with a snap of her serrated teeth, clawing across the sand so quickly I can’t find purchase. I manage to shove Jameson into the dark where he belongs. He rages at me and tries to surge forward again.

He’s persistent. I’ll give him that.

And he’s splitting my attention. Something at present, I don’t need.

Soon, the foam-laden sea splashes over our chest, stomach, and thighs. We’re taken deeper where two more mermaids appear, the spined fins along their spines flared in warning. Nyin tells them to hold me and gut me if I break free. They take hold of my wrists.

Nyin swims back to the shore to converse with a few of the more self-important pixies as they start to gather at the edge of the sea, Tinkerbell’s parents among them. I suppose she had been paying attention, after all.

Wraith is intercepted and ushered into the pixies’ midst. While they don’t restrain him, it’s clear that he’s no longer free to roam their island. He’s guided to and made to stand with Paris, Thorn, and Lock.

My lip curls when Bones the traitor, Peter Pan the confused, Tinkerbell the liar, and Imani the desperate, burst from the vegetation and spill onto the shore like beetles scurrying from beneath the rotten bark of an equally rotten tree.

The crowd of pixies part for them, allowing them passage to the water.

Shadows roll from my skin. I will end them all and send Neverland crashing into the sea…

A strange energy hums around me and my shadows dissipate.

What’s happening to me? Are you doing this? I demand of Hudson.

Murmurs roll through the crowd when something blindingly bright beams from the north end of the shore. Even when watery tears fall from these borrowed eyes into the sea, I can’t keep them closed. Because I know the taste of that light. A deep, dissatisfied hunger stirs within me. My mouth waters just thinking about drinking it in.

I jerk and twist, raging as I try to break free from the mermaids’ grasp.

I need to reach that light. I must feed on it. “Let me go!”

I can’t live without it.

Can’t breathe without tasting that light.

I buck and shove and writhe in a frenzy, trying to break their holds, but the mermaids tighten their grip and pull me under for a moment. I swallow salt water and come up coughing and gasping for air, but the ocean does nothing to douse the fire burning in my gut for that light.

Nyin appears in front of me, a hunger in her eyes that says she understands how I feel. She tells her friends to let me go. They release me and I swim until my feet push against the sandy bottom. I struggle through the breakers, starving. Pangs ripple through my stomach and all I can think of is that light and how much I want it. I need it. I crave it and must have it right now . I’ll die if I don’t drink from it.

I slog out of the shallows onto the shore, shoving the nearest pixies out of my way as I leave the wet sand for the packed shore, where my feet find it far easier to push me toward that light…

Jameson laughs.

But he’ll understand once he tastes it, too.

I stop short when I’m close enough to touch it. I close my eyes and breathe in its cool, clean aroma. It smells like home.

Like power.

And then, that light winks out and I’m face-to-face with the last Celestial I ever expected to see again: the First Star.

I retreat a step, the host’s heart stuttering. “You can’t be here. You’re dead!”

“Mother?” Imani wails in question and disbelief as she pushes her way forward.

“I am reborn,” the First Star explains, pointing to the heavens where only one star remains to shine over Neverland now. “I am made new. I can come and go as I please. Fall and rise again. I have you to thank for that, Ezryn. In seeking to balance your despicable act, the universe gifted me a new form, purpose, and power that you will never be able to fathom or steal.”

I swallow thickly.

Jameson chuckles within me, the sound resonating through the cage of bones cinching around my chest.

The First Star looks to her daughter when Imani crashes to her knees before her and weeps. “I missed you so much, Mother.”

“I know,” the First Star replies. “I felt every ounce of your heartache as I reformed. Even the moment your heart could withstand no more and you exploded, giving yourself over to the darkness.”

The despair in her voice draws every eye to Imani.

“I had to stop him,” Imani whispers.

“And so you have,” the First Star replies. She looks at me and that delicious light flames in her irises, stirring my hunger again.

I reach for her, a moth to her flame, and sigh when her fingers curl around my forearm. All I feel is blissful warmth, until all that warmth is suddenly and harshly severed, and I feel my essence breaking apart so that only my soul remains.