19. Wendy

"What am I looking at?" I ask.

We're standing on a white cliff over the sea. The sun is wreathed in red and orange clouds, gilding the waves. In the distance, I think I see dolphins jumping.

Or maybe it's mermaids. Hard to tell.

"This cliff," Peter says, toying with the golden acorn hanging around his neck. It's the most nervous gesture I've ever seen him make so far. I wonder if smoking is another nervous tick.

"What about it?" I glance down and take a step back. Jesus, it's high. That's a long fall down to the water.

"This cliff wasn't here yesterday."

"It wasn't?" I try to wrap my head around this. "So what was here then? Did we have an earthquake?"

"We don't get earthquakes in Neverland. And here used to be a hunters' hut with a black door. The shore was about a kilometer away, and there was a—"

"Pier," I say automatically, "a small floating pier. Very old."

"I think so, yeah." He's frowning at me. "You know the place."

"My father…" I have to stop and swallow hard. "My father used to take us there sometimes. Me and my brothers."

"Does it have a special significance for you?"

It's my turn to frown at him. "You could say that."

The place of my worst nightmare, now washed away into nothingness. Peter doesn't remember it? Maybe it wasn't really him who pulled me out of the water?

"You have to face your fears," he says. "Those who fear are lost. Do you know what fears are?"

"What do you mean?"

"Fears are the things you avoid," he explains. "Once you've faced them, they are just problems."

"That's simplistic," I whisper.

"It's realistic. And problems can be hard to solve, too."

"Oh come on, Peter. What do you expect me to do with this bit of wisdom? What does this all mean?"

"It means that the island is growing smaller," he says. "Your nightmares are eating at Neverland. Growing bigger. Stronger. Any idea why?"

"Beats me. All of this does. Sometimes I wonder if I'm dreaming. You did say my dreams shaped this place. But I wonder if it's all in my head."

"Would you have dreamed up an asshole like me?" he growls.

"Good point. But then, what's happening? If this is all real… Why is the island changing?"

"Because you are changing? How the fuck should I know?" He's rubbing at the back of his neck, a faraway look in his blue eyes.

"How am I changing?"

"You tell me."

"I don't know." I frown at the sea churning below. "I don't feel any different. Have more things changed?"

"Smaller things," he admits. He sounds weary. Exhausted. For the first time since he brought me to this island, since I woke up to find him unconscious on the beach, I study his face, the dark crescents under his eyes, the lines of tiredness at the corners of his mouth, the pale cheeks.

"Like what?"

"The geography is changing though it's nothing major. Woods turning to fields. Houses rising where before there was nothing. Parts of the town crumbling. Any idea what it might mean?"

"No. If… if this goes on," I gesture at the sea, "what happens then?"

"You mean after the sea has taken over? What do you think?"

"We'll sink and be eaten by mermaids?" I suggest.

"Probably. Unless there's a miracle."

I open my mouth to ask what sort of miracles would be necessary to stop this dark magic—my darkest memories coming to life only to be swallowed by the one element I fear the most—the water, the sea—when there's a crash behind us.

Peter turns, drawing his knives, his cigarette falling forgotten to the ground, and I spin with him, my heart pounding.

"Is it the Reds? Or Hook?"

"Don't know," he says shortly. "I guess we'll find out soon enough. Do you know how to fight?"

"Fight? As in, I don't know," I gulp, "with swords and guns and stuff?"

"I'll take that as a no."

"I'll do my best if you give me weapons."

He stares at me. Then, with a soft curse, he flips one of his knives over and offers it to me, handle first. "Don't lose it," he warns. "These are my lucky knives."

"What luck have they brought you?" I mutter, gripping the knife, my eyes scanning the woods.

"Fuck all," he bites out, and I glance sideways at the dark scowl on his face.

"Then what—?"

Something huge bursts out of the cover of trees, coming at us.

"Watch out!" Peter roars, pushing me away and launching himself at the creature, leaping through the air like some superhero and stabbing his knife into it.

Reds.

Massive, gnarled forms, a cross-breed between grizzlies and robots, patches of fur and scales but also metal plates and gears, metal ridges jutting out of their backs. I see now why they call them Reds. The metal parts on their bodies are scarlet, as are their necks and chests.

As if splashed with blood.

Peter is a whirlwind of motion, stabbing and kicking, twisting and slicing, dark hair flying. I'm so stunned that I just stand there, watching, as he brings down, one, two, three Reds, even as more come lumbering out of the tree line.

I never expected him to be so… efficient.

So good a fighter.

I guess… with him acting so crazy and violent, I never thought he could pull himself together like that and become a… a killing machine.

Then again, crazy and violent is the definition of a berserk warrior, isn't it?

And I realize that I can't see his shadow swirling around him. He and his shadow right now are one.

Just like they were when he fucked me on the bed.

A growl alerts me to the fact that daydreaming while monsters rush you isn't exactly the best idea. The knife is shaking in my hand.

Or rather, it's my hand that's shaking. My arm. My torso. My entire body.

This is a different kind of fear. Not arousing at all. I realize it's because tied up in bed, I… I trust them not to hurt me. To give me what I need even as I protest, but not to acutely cause me pain, whereas this…

This is true danger.

The monster is coming at me and I'm frozen on the spot. Ice is running through my veins. My limbs feel frozen.

I lift my hand with the knife and it feels like I'm moving through water—dark water closing over me, hands grabbing my ankles, pulling me down, no air in my lungs, instead a burning pain that makes me scream and choke and drown—

"Run!" Peter yells but I can't move. Because for the first time, I see the Reds' face, and looking past it, more coming.

I can only stare at them, frozen—human faces, even if grotesquely twisted, familiar faces.

The same face, in fact, repeated over and over on every monster.

A female face.

Which looks too much like my own face for comfort.

"Goddammit," Peter is hollering, "move your pretty ass!" He turns and races toward me, grabbing me around the waist as he goes, lifting me up. "Have you gone deaf?"

Definitely not, because the sounds—the growling, crashing, the pounding of Peter's feet, the uneven thudding of his heart against my side are way too loud, even through the numbness and the pulse thundering in my ears—but they feel oddly distant.

Everything feels distant.

He's running pretty fast for a guy carrying a girl clutched to his side, I think, and of course that's when he stumbles and almost falls. He staggers a few more steps and stops, panting harshly, his hold on me loosening until my feet touch the ground.

"Fuck," he breathes and turns around, lifting his knife again. "See anything?"

"No." I scan the trees. We're standing in what looks like the grounds of a burned-down factory, just like the one near home back in the real world. The similarities don't surprise me anymore. Not much, anyway, after the small initial shock of recognition. "Did we lose them?"

"Perhaps." His frown tells me he's not convinced, but he doesn't move. After a while, he presses a hand to his side. His fingers come away streaked with red.

"You're hurt."

He grunts something I don't make out. Drops his hand with the knife to his side.

"How bad is it? Show me," I demand.

"Are you a nurse now?"

"No, I just want to see if you're dying or if I need to put up with you for longer."

That brings a smirk to his lips as if my reply pleased him. "Are you sure? Not going to faint at the sight of blood?"

"I'm a woman," I remind him. "I see lots of blood every month. Fainting all the time would be inconvenient."

He looks slightly puzzled at that, too confused for a guy so intimate with female anatomy, but maybe he's just dazed. There does seem to be quite a lot of blood on his white shirt. When he shrugs it off, it clings wetly to his muscular chest and stomach, and I help him peel it away.

Through the blood smeared on his skin, his tattoos wind like serpents, spirals and labyrinths, abstract geometrical patterns webbing his flesh, and something inside me shivers and wonders.

But the gash on his side commands my attention more. It's deep, seeping blood as I watch, one end deeper than the other. A claw gouge.

"Looks like it will need stitches," I say absently, trying not to gawk at all those inked, smooth muscles, the planes and ridges of a chest that looks like it was sculpted by some ancient master.

"You mean like… embroidery?"

A snort escapes me. "Have you never gotten stitches for a bad wound? Didn't you ever get cut up in your life and had to go to the ER?"

"I've rarely been so careless. I was distracted."

"By the changes in the island?"

"No." He's gazing down at me, his eyes very dark. "By you."

A beat of silence throbs between us.

"Sorry," I whisper. "What did I do?"

"You didn't do anything. You just…" He makes a frustrated sound.

"I just, what?" The thin, dark scar I'd noticed before running down his neck from his ear ends over his heart—but there is another one, fainter, running over his ribs. I trace it with my fingertip and he draws a hissing breath. "Who did this?"

"The Fae. Kill me or crown me, they said. I survived the crowning. But not without a cost."

"What cost?"

"The cost is my memory… my soul."

I swallow hard. "Why would they want you to be king? You're human, like me. Or used to be."

He chuckles darkly. "As you say."

"Peter…"

"We're not the same. I was born in between, on the crossroad of liminal place and time."

"Meaning what?" I'm frustrated by his vague, ambiguous answers that aren't answers at all. "Tell me."

"I'm not inside nor out, not at night nor in the day, not of Fae but also not of man, not really born but delivered, not quite dead but not alive, either."

Like I said.

Frustrating.

His eyes glitter, pinning me to the spot. It feels as if he's looking inside my head and at the same time hoping, willing me to understand.

But he's wrong.

"What? I… I don't know what all this means," I whisper, bewildered.

And the intensity fades from his gaze. "All you need to know," he says, "is that I was never quite like you, girl… whatever your name is."

"You forgot my name again?"

His brow furrows. "I forget stuff. I have lived too long. The others joined me more recently. Tink, and then the Twins, Colt and then Wes. But Hook and me, we've been here from the start. He was brought here first, and then I joined him."

"And when was that? Why?"

He shakes his head. "I can't fucking remember."

"Peter—"

"Fuck. Listen. Know how it feels when you start a story in the middle instead of the beginning, then you turn back you find that all those pages are missing, or printed funny so you can't fucking read?" He shoves a hand through his dark locks. "In my book, more and more pages go missing all the goddamn time and… Fuck this."

He's still holding his bunched-up, bloody shirt and he throws it to the ground in disgust, turning away from me, but not before I see his face. He looks so dispirited and worn out, so lost that I reach for him, to touch and comfort him.

He lets me. Turns toward me, hauls me into his arms.

God.I am so stupid. I was wrong. The true danger wasn't the Reds. No, it's the monsters in my bed. It's Peter and the Lost Boys.

The true danger is how they touch my heart.