Page 8 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)

Hudson

A series of frantic shrills has me running to the starboard side of my ship, the fronts of my thighs striking the rail before they brace against it.

Belle appears beside me, equally as frantic. “Where is she?”

“I’m not sure.” We hadn’t seen the siren since she told us about Ava’s fate, and I wasn’t expecting to see her again so soon, or to hear her screaming for us.

Belle moves back and forth, searching for her in the water. “Nyin!”

I don’t see anything remotely coral amid the blue green.

“Where is she?” Belle asks, her voice hoarse. She hasn’t eaten or spoken in days.

I look in the rising crests and troughs for the siren. “I don’t know.”

“You heard her, though, right?” she asks, her golden eyes drowning in a sea full of worry.

Under other circumstances, I would quip that I wouldn’t be standing beside her right now if I hadn’t, but the threads of Belle’s mind have been fraying and now is not the time to make light of anything.

Her hair is a nest of snarled tangles, and dark crescents roost beneath her eyes.

Weakened isn’t a word I would use to describe her, mentally or physically. To call her weak would imply she could potentially bounce back, and I don’t think that’s something Belle is capable of doing at present.

She’s frail. There are splinters in her facade that so easily could fracture her.

Beyond her body, her magic has also been dramatically reduced. We had no choice but to abandon the ship she’d raised from the sea after shuttling the people back to the safety of the town they’d begun to dismantle when she could no longer keep it afloat.

Many chose to abandon town to seek shelter on the crop islands where they thought they’d fare better if Belle’s magic continued to drain, and the town became more compromised than it already was. They begged my crew not to forget them when we sail home.

“I heard her,” I confirm.

A few tense breaths later, Nyin surfaces beside the hull. Her sharp claws rake barnacles from the side as she begins to climb, pulling herself up.

“A rope!” I yell, only to find Smee nearby with one already gathered in his arms. He lumbers to the rail and lobs the looped end to the mermaid, who grips it and lets him drag her up to the rail, where she perches.

She’s breathless, her chest crashing and rising as frantically as the cadence of her words. Belle can’t make out what she’s trying to say, which frustrates the mermaid and pixie to no end.

Aggravated, Nyin snarls. She gouges the wooden rail beneath her to keep her balance as waves rock the ship. Finally, she slowly begins to speak to the fairy, her panicked eyes warily sliding toward me every few sentences.

Belle clutches her chest and tears spring into her eyes, then carve ravines down her cheeks as she sobs, her shoulders folding in on her.

“What is it?” I ask the mermaid, desperately wishing I could understand her.

“She’s alive,” Belle croaks to me with a watery smile. “Ava’s on Neverland.”

I nearly crash to my knees in relief. The heart I had felt wither in my chest when I learned Ava had been dragged beneath the waves by a siren at last gives a hearty beat. Then another. And another.

Until what Nyin said sinks in.

Ava is on Neverland.

And if she’s been on the island since she went missing from the ship… that means she’s with Pan. She’s been with Pan for far too long.

Belle stares toward the island like she can see through the swells of trees to her sister. Her hands grip the rail.

Her hopelessness fled the moment she learned Ava was whole. And while she still looks worse for wear, she also looks like a hurricane that’s building, spiraling, ready to rip all those palm trees up from their roots to get to Ava. Perhaps weakened was the perfect description of what Belle had been.

In a low, deadly tone, she says, “We have to get her off that island right now, Hudson.”

The mermaid says something in a low tone as if she doesn’t want me to hear, even though I have no idea what she’s saying. It’s enough to make me grind my teeth. “What?” I demand of Belle. “What did she say?” The salty pool the mermaid is dribbling onto my deck soaks the soles of my boots as Belle weighs her words.

Belle narrows her golden eyes at me. “It’s none of your concern.”

“If it’s about Ava, it certainly is.”

She folds her arms over her chest and gives a mirthless laugh. “You’ve known her for a handful of weeks. I am her sister.”

“Then for fuck’s sake, be a good one!” I hiss.

Belle’s prissy disposition darkens and somehow the gold of her eyes looks like she’s smelted and sharpened it into a dagger – one she’s considering using to carve out my tongue.

I smirk. Ava would definitely suffer if I lost that appendage, among others.

Ignoring her tantrum, I turn to the mermaid and make a plea to her instead. She loves Ava. She knows I care about Ava, too, and that the feeling is reciprocated. “I need to know what you saw.”

The mermaid says Ava’s name and holds my stare as she recounts the sighting to Belle – or so I assume. Her story picks up speed and soon she’s gesturing wildly and almost loses her balance atop the rail, scowling at it like the wood is at fault for not supporting her properly.

Slivers of wood cascade from beneath her nails as she claws further into the rail. But though the mermaid hates me – and rightly so, I suppose – she seems to understand that I want Ava safely back and out of Pan’s reach because she looks at Belle and ticks her head toward me.

The stubborn fairy clenches her jaw.

I pinch the bridge of my nose to keep from tossing her wingless ass over the rail and blow out a slow breath. “Belle, please,” I beg. The fairy glares at me like I’m not good enough for the information, let alone her sister. Which, in all fairness, is correct. But she must know I’m willing to go to Neverland and do whatever it takes to get Ava back.

“You would be a fool to step foot on that island now that you have your shadow back,” she tells me, pointedly jutting her chin at Smee to let him know the same applies to him, the rest of the crew, and anyone else who can now go home.

I wet my lips. “Better a fool than a coward.”

Belle huffs. “And your crew? They’re looking to you to lead them home , Hudson.”

“We’re not children anymore, Belle. The others can weigh the risk and decide for themselves.”

Smee wrings his hat beside me, twisting so hard I hear stitches pull, and chimes in. “Belle, we came to like Ava. We’re worried about her. We want her safe, is all. And we need to get Paris back, too. Don’t forget about him.”

“How could I?” Belle’s shoulders sink with her heavy sigh.

I fight a smile, knowing she won’t deny Smee. He has the biggest heart of anyone I know and wears it on his sleeve. Tinkerbell has always had a soft spot for him.

She clears her throat and points a finger at my chest before poking it once for good measure. “Fine. But when you hear what I have to say, you don’t react. You don’t fly off the handle or into dramatics. The situation simply is what it is, and we need to get her out of it without anyone dying in the process.”

I don’t like the sound of that.

“Agreed,” Smee and I say in unison, though Smee shifts his weight uneasily. He knows me well enough to know I’ll react as I see fit, agreement or none.

“Nyin saw Peter in The Cove today. He’d sounded a conch to call for the sirens, and of course none answered.”

Because there are none under his influence now. Nyin was quick and efficient in hunting and healing those she could and eviscerating any who resisted. Now that the healed mermaids are free of Pan’s shadow magic and influence, they know to avoid the surface anywhere close to the shore, and only breach when it’s necessary.

“He cast shadows out over the sea and became irritated when they couldn’t find any of the merfolk he’d corrupted.”

If he can do that, proximity to the shore won’t matter. Nyin will tell the others to be careful anytime they want to surface, and to hurry back beneath the waves when they must risk breaching.

“That much I expected, but what does it have to do with Ava?” I ask pointedly.

“She was with him at The Cove.”

“Had-no,” Nyin adamantly interjects.

And she’s still marked with his shadows, I take it.

“So he has the Lost Boys’ and Paris’s shadow now, too?”

Belle shakes her head. “Not necessarily. Ava could still be hiding them. I’m not sure Ava even remembers that she’s holding them,” Belle replies.

“What do you mean by that? Why wouldn’t she remember?”

Belle looks toward Neverland and stares at its glistening shore. “ Only Ava can reach and reveal them.”

What did Belle do to ensure that?

“She’s on Neverland, surrounded by shadows that he manipulates. Why wouldn’t Pan be able to sense them within her?” I demand.

Thoughts begin to flit through my mind. She can use the Lost Boys’ shadows as leverage, but only if she knows she has them… Her memory was becoming unreliable before she was stolen away, but it hadn’t failed her completely.

The fairy’s complexion pales and her shoulders cave as she lets out a long breath. There is something else she’s not telling us. Something she knows or fears. Maybe she’s afraid to manifest more trouble at this point by speaking it aloud. Second star knows we have it aplenty.

Belle speaks to Nyin in her tongue and the mermaid shakes her head in response. “Nyin couldn’t risk being at the surface for long, so she didn’t see as much as she would have liked.”

“What else can she tell us?” I ask. I know there’s more, and I want to know every detail small and large, of every second she witnessed. “How did she look? Was she well? Give me something , damn it!” I turn toward Nyin. “Did Ava say anything? Did she and Pan speak?”

Belle translates on my behalf before Nyin answers, waiting between thoughts for the fairy to feed them to me.

Nyin chatters something to Belle, then stares at me with her wide, dark eyes, watching for my reaction.

“Nyin hid behind Cove Rock and called out to Ava after Peter took the trail into the woods. He was angry and went ahead of her…Ava heard Nyin’s cry and turned. She thinks Ava saw her for a second, but…” Belle shifts her weight and looks back at the mermaid.

“But?” I prod.

“Nyin doesn’t think that Ava knew her.”

“Doesn’t think? How unsure is she?” I grit.

“Quite.” Belle’s voice trembles over the word.

Fury. Fills. My. Bones.

My teeth and fists clench.

She’s not been gone long enough to completely forget Nyin. Moments in time. Hours and days might be missing, but not weeks. Not yet.

If she’s forgotten the mermaid entirely, it can only mean one thing.

Ava died.

And Pan brought her back to life.

“We don’t know that he was the one who hurt her,” Belle defends, putting out a hand like she could possibly hold off my anger if I wanted to unleash it. “It could have been the wound Wendy dealt.”

“He sent the sirens to capture her. How can you possibly defend him?” I spit, disgusted.

“I… I’m not. I just think it’s possible that…” Belle says, quieter.

But I’m having none of it. “You’re her sister , Belle. By the way you mourned her, I thought you actually gave a damn.”

Belle can hardly breathe as she shouts, “I love her!” She pushes a hand against her heart as if soothing an ache there, which leaves me dumbfounded as to how she can possibly try to find reason with Pan’s actions.

Is she still in love with him? Still a besotted, stupid girl who fell for a golden boy whose tongue is only capable of lashing lies?

“Then act like it! Love isn’t just something you feel , Belle. It’s something you do . It should be evident in every action and word.”

Smee positions himself between us, blocking Belle from my sight, and presses my shoulder back, grounding me. “Easy, Hudson,” he gently warns, something tender passing over his face before he pushes me back.

I fight to keep my voice steady as panic claws at my middle. “You know she couldn’t have completely forgotten Nyin yet, unless he brought her back.”

Belle clutches her throat at its base, her hand trembling with… what? Rage? Fear? Or something far worse for which I have no name? “I’m not defending him, Hudson. I want to bleed his darkness from this earth. I want to burn his shadows into nothing, until I’m sure that no part of him will ever come into contact with another soul, but I also know that Ava…” She releases a shaky breath and presses a trembling hand to her brow. “I can’t… Just… Maybe she just forgot, and she’s been busy, and he didn’t hurt her, and she didn’t die. Because I brought her back here, Hudson. That means I’m responsible if he…”

Her words are a plea.

They beg me to stop feeding her the truth she can’t stomach.

Tinkerbell has known Pan longer than any of us. She knows him better than we ever could. She knows who he is – what he is. What he does. How he thinks. But if she keeps imagining the ways that Ava might have suffered at his hands, she might splinter.

The shadows dragged Belle and Ava back to Neverland, but Belle didn’t run to Peter. When she came back to herself, after shaking off Pan’s shadowy influence, she stood with Ava. And now, she stands on my ship. With my crew and the town full of people who never asked to be brought here.

She’ll wage war for her sister, for our freedom, and I’ll be damned if I won’t fight at her side.

Shame washes over me and I clear my throat. “You’re right,” I quietly agree. “She probably just forgot. She’d been forgetting more and more. Losing her grasp on entire days.”

Except that Ava doesn’t forget as quickly as everyone else who’s ever been dragged to Neverland. Ava always remembered things far too long for Pan’s liking.

Belle tries to smile. A tear slips from one of her eyes. Then the other. “Right.”

Nyin’s sultry tone cuts through the desperate sorrow, and whatever she says makes Belle groan and throw her head up to the sky. “By the Second Star!” the fairy curses.

“What?” I ask, muscles tightening once more. As if they might form a wall in front of my heart to protect it from what I already suspect and don’t want to hear.

Tinkerbell closes her eyes. “Ava kissed Peter at The Cove.”

Every muscle in my body turns to stone. “Come again?”

Belle sighs. “Ava initiated the kiss, Hudson.”

Every muscle in my shoulders and back stiffen as I try to breathe through the rush of anger.

Long have I imagined the feel of my hook slipping into Pan’s guts before I tear them from his foul stomach and stuff the foul, slippery organs into his lying mouth, the sound of the iron squelching into his eyes, the satisfaction of hacking into him until he’s nothing but bloody, unrecognizable pulp, and the pristine joy I’ll feel watching the gulls fight for what little I leave them, until the sea sweeps his blood, bone, and existence away in an unremarkable wash.

But imagining Ava’s lips on his… his fucking hands on her.

My prior imaginings aren’t nearly creative enough for what he deserves.