Darling Page 20

  Wendy watched with no small amount of horror and amazement as Tinkerbelle masterfully manipulated Peter in his regressive state.

  “We could have a home together with her,” Tinkerbelle said tenderly, stroking the side of Peter’s cheek. “She came to you all on her own, just like Curly, and she wants to stay with you—she said so herself. You are so lucky, Peter. Don’t waste this opportunity; it’s like she was practically made for you.”

  Tinkerbelle locked eyes with Wendy again and gave a small, helpless shrug. Wendy waved her hand in forgiveness. It was a creepy thing to say, but none of this conversation could possibly be taken seriously between them. Wendy vaguely wondered where the police were and if Curly and Nibs were perched nearby and able to see them.

  Peter seemed to be calming down. He nodded one last time into Tinkerbelle’s neck and pulled his face up, then he turned and reached out a hand for Wendy to take.

  “I will take you to see James, but you have to promise you won’t leave like he did. If you make Slightly, Curly, Nibs, and the rest like you and then you leave us, it wouldn’t be fair,” Peter said, his voice rough.

  Wendy noticed that he didn’t say that he would kill her for it, but that was hardly a relief.

  “I know,” Wendy said carefully. “I won’t.”

  Peter stepped out of the alley and began to lead Tinkerbelle and Wendy toward the train station. “You don’t have to live with us if you don’t want,” Peter said gingerly. “Your parents clearly love you. But I know the littler ones would like to see you again, and you can’t go in and out of their lives recklessly. It hurts them.”

  The cognitive dissonance between watching Peter desperately weeping and needing to be comforted like a child and having him dropping childhood developmental psychology tips like he was an authority on what children need was dizzying. Something inside this man was incredibly broken. He was just thousands of shards of what he may have been in his past, taped haphazardly together, all his sharp edges rubbing and grinding against each other. It would be sad if it wasn’t simultaneously activating her fight-or-flight instinct.

  The night was still dark, but Wendy could tell that it was getting late enough for the sky to start shifting. The wind had picked up, like it was getting ready to rain, and the dress Wendy borrowed from Tinkerbelle was no longer enough to keep her warm. She tried to suppress a shiver, but Peter noticed immediately.

  He let go of her hand, took his gray jacket off, and draped it over her shoulders. “Be careful with it. Don’t let anything fall out of the pockets,” Peter said quietly.

  Tinkerbelle looked shocked behind him, but quickly fixed her face when he grabbed both of their hands and started walking again.

  It would have been too conspicuous to dig around inside the jacket, but Wendy could feel things inside it that she hadn’t been aware of back when she was angrily sewing his sleeve back on, objects sewn into the linings of the cuffs and the bottom of the jacket that scraped against her as she moved. It was heavier than it looked, concentrated mostly on the left front, where it would be quick to slip a hand inside. A magic jacket, indeed. Wendy was warm, but at what cost?

  Peter turned them down a residential street, and they traded the comfort of the main road for darkness. They crept along the side of the elevated train tracks, shadowed by trees and the high wall that separated the train from the grass.

  “I don’t bury anyone. It doesn’t feel right to hide them, to keep them from the sunshine,” Peter admitted. “It helps with forensics, as well. You can never make a scene clean enough, but if you leave it messy, things get muddled, so there’ll be questions.”

  “How ma—” Wendy started, but Tinkerbelle shook her head hard, so Wendy shifted direction. “How close are we going to get to him?”

  Peter hummed and considered it. “Close enough to see, and that’s it. I don’t disturb the bodies; it feels disrespectful.”

  It! Feels! Disrespectful?! Wendy wanted to scream. This line, specifically, would be going right into the mental box where she was planning to keep her trauma regarding this forever.

  They were getting farther from the main road, and Wendy was beginning to worry about whether the police would be able to swarm down on him like she’d been hoping. She hadn’t heard any helicopters, and there weren’t a lot of places to park. If they were coming for him, they’d have to drive into the grass. At the very least, what Peter had said was pretty close to a confession, so if they couldn’t arrest him tonight, maybe they could take him in for questioning tomorrow.

  Peter stopped walking. He held out an arm to block Wendy from getting too close.

  Roughly fifty feet away, there was a dark smudge in the grass. They were far enough away that Wendy couldn’t see any details, but close enough that she could tell that it was too large to be roadkill. Wendy glanced up at the elevated tracks, where Peter had pushed James from the train. It was about twenty or thirty feet up. Tall enough for an immediate fatality. Or worse, James may have fallen, been grievously injured, and lain there in pain in the dark until he eventually succumbed to his injuries while Wendy and the rest of the group were dancing at the party.

  Wendy’s heart lurched with disgust and horror and she felt almost like she was going to throw up before disassociation properly kicked in and she began floating above herself. She watched herself gazing at James’s body and vaguely felt herself hoping he was just unconscious.

  Tinkerbelle covered her face. Peter pulled Tinkerbelle to his chest, allowing her to turn away from what he had done. Wendy watched from above and couldn’t imagine how unbearable it would feel to be in the cradle of Peter’s arms right now.

  “Is that him?” Wendy asked. It felt like she was speaking underwater.

  Peter turned as slow as time and fixed her with his golden gaze. “He didn’t even scream as he fell.” He sighed. “It was like he knew he deserved it.”

  Wendy folded her arms in Peter’s jacket and stared at the dark smudge. Nothing was happening police-wise, so she knew she hadn’t finished the job. “I want to stay with you,” Wendy started. “But I need you to help me. I want to be a part of your family, but in order to give Slightly, Curly, Nibs, Prentis, Tootles, and the twins the mother they deserve, I need to understand why this is such a big part of who you are.”

  Peter paused, then tilted his head back until he was looking at the stars. “I never had anything like this when I was younger. I always had to build my families from scratch. There will always be people like me who have nothing and no one, who have to burn themselves alive to stay warm. It’s always easy for me to find other people like that because we know one another on sight. When we finally have the opportunity to belong to each other and build a community, it’s something rare and special. We are the ones who make the rules; we are the ones who build our own home. We take care of one another, and our word is our bond, and nothing but that matters.

  “But it’s hard to keep that going forever. You don’t stop needing your brothers when you turn eighteen, you need them even more. But the world isn’t built in a way that allows people to really hold on to one another how we should. Everyone gets to a certain point where they grow up, and suddenly they don’t think they need anyone. They want to leave and find new people to share their time with, and they rarely come back to visit. The world becomes so big for them, and they look down on the places they stayed and the people they made memories with. It’s such a monumental betrayal to the people they’ve left behind.”

  Peter closed his eyes.

  “I haven’t talked to anyone about this before,” he admitted.

  “It’s okay,” Wendy lied. Good God.

  Peter stood still for a moment, looking at James’s body from a distance. He seemed to deflate a bit. “I’ve heard that people come home to visit their mothers. You know, during the holidays and all of that. No matter how old they get, they always come back home to see her. You see on TV when they say things like, ‘This tastes just like how Mom makes it!’ or, ‘Mom used t
o do this with us,’ and you can tell they really want to go home and see her. You don’t hear that about dads, you don’t hear that about brothers. Mothers are special somehow. I just think … maybe if we had one, my brothers wouldn’t leave and never come back. They might want to come and visit, even if it was just for her,” Peter finished, his eyes fluttering closed.

  The breath felt like it had been punched clean out of Wendy’s lungs. She watched this monster of a boy, backlit by a blanket of stars, and felt herself falling to pieces. “If—if you knew they would come back,” Wendy stammered, “would you still keep … like … James…?”

  Peter’s eyes snapped open and he frowned. “It’s too late for James. I killed James because—”

  The instant that phrase was out of his mouth, Wendy heard two loud bangs, and Peter fell jerkily to his knees and screamed. Tinkerbelle wrenched her hand out of his grip and pulled Wendy backward.

  It took Wendy a second to figure out what had happened. Peter was kneeling and panting hard. The back of his calves began to darken with blood. Wendy looked up and saw a sniper, who had been nestled on the elevated train tracks, climb to his feet. Almost immediately sirens began going off in the distance. Peter gasped and tried to pull himself to his feet, but he collapsed back down to the ground.

  “Tink … Tinkerbelle, please,” he groaned, but Tinkerbelle shook her head and backed away from his flailing arms.

  Wendy held on to her hand tight as they watched Peter try to rise to his feet.

  The police cars drove over the grass and were getting close quickly.

  Peter Pan hissed and compressed his wounds with hands slick with blood. “I hate you,” he spat at Tinkerbelle and Wendy.

  “You’re disgusting!” Tinkerbelle shouted.

  “I am many things,” Peter panted, smiling in the face of their betrayal. “I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird who has broken out of the egg.”

  With terrible speed, he snatched a blade from somewhere Wendy didn’t see, and threw it fast.

  Wendy clenched her teeth and shut her eyes, but Peter’s deadly aim had been marred by panic and pain, and the knife cut the sleeve of Tinkerbelle’s dress instead of any precious bit of her.

  The police poured out of their cars and surrounded them, immediately cuffing Peter and holding him down on his knees.

  Nibs and Curly emerged from the dark side of the tracks; they marched straight past James’s body without glancing at it and picked up speed. Nibs outpaced Curly, heading directly for Tinkerbelle, who began crying, arms open to receive him. Curly kept running behind them. The police parted, making way for him as he got closer, holding Peter upright and facing his challenger. Curly pulled out the bar he’d used to pry Ominotago out of the police car.

  “No, Curly, wait,” Peter said, eyes white with terror.

  “Shut up and die,” Curly yelled. He leaped into the air, swinging the bar like a bat, and smashed Peter across the face with incredible violence. Peter’s jaw made a crack that was absolutely bone-shattering, and his scream of agony would haunt Wendy for the next decade of her life.

  The police watched in silence as Curly dropped the bar and flung himself into Tinkerbelle and Nibs. No one yelled at him or made any move to restrain him at all, they just watched.

  The officer holding Peter’s arms behind his back jerked him upright but didn’t pull him to his feet.

  Wendy took off Peter’s jacket and threw it on the ground.

  “Is that evidence, or is that yours?” a nearby officer asked.

  “Evidence,” Wendy said, stepping away from it and wrapping her arms around herself.

  Tinkerbelle, Curly, and Nibs held each other tightly. They had turned completely around and had their backs to Peter, while he gasped through his ruined face.

  Another car drove up to the scene recklessly fast, stopping with a loud screech. Detective Hook stepped out and strode quickly across the grass. He eyed Wendy, the boys, and Tinkerbelle warily, but didn’t stop to speak to them. He headed straight for Peter.

  As if Peter could sense Detective Hook nearby, he stopped whimpering pathetically and sat very still and silent, his head bowed and still bleeding.

  Detective Hook stood over Peter Pan and stared down at him. Then he stooped to one knee, put a meaty hand in Peter’s hair, and wrenched his face up.

  “Who did this?” he called out loudly.

  No one spoke. It was quiet except for the wind and Curly’s and Tinkerbelle’s grateful weeping.

  Wendy began to shiver. She looked around at the officers, but their expressions were stern as they focused on the detective.

  Detective Hook wrenched Peter’s head to the left and then to the right as he surveyed the damage Curly had inflicted. His eyes wandered a few feet up to the bar that Curly had tossed down and followed it up to the huddled three.

  “It looks like you fell,” Detective Hook said, loud enough for the other officers to hear. Then he leaned close to Peter so only the other officers couldn’t hear him. “Unfortunate,” he growled. “I’ve always known you to be graceful.”

  Peter spat at Detective Hook, spraying him with blood spatter. Detective Hook didn’t wipe his cheek; instead he grinned broad and white. Peter gasped involuntarily in pain for a long moment, then he lifted his face of his own volition and met Detective Hook’s grin with one of his own.

  “Yes, James Hook, it is all my doing,” Peter wheezed cockily.

  “Proud and insolent to the end,” Detective Hook replied. His expression didn’t change as he reached down and grabbed Peter’s jaw with his prosthetic. He yanked Peter’s head, exposing the purpling side of his face to the light of the moon so he could appraise the effects of Curly’s blow.

  Peter gasped in agony as the metal ground into his flesh, flinching away from the hand he’d made necessary and the grip that he’d earned.

  Curly jolted at the sound, and Nibs and Tinkerbelle held him tighter.

  Detective Hook dropped Peter’s face and climbed to his feet. He met the eyes of the officer holding Peter’s arms behind his back. “Take him in.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The drive to the station was quiet. Detective Hook drove them himself. He let all four of them sit in the back even though there was only room for three, and Wendy was thankful for it. She was still floating above herself, but she didn’t think she could take having to sit next to Detective Hook while he had Peter’s blood and spit on his face, dripping down to stain his white shirt, and drying sticky and dark on his prosthetic.

  Nibs, Curly, and Tinkerbelle were so wrapped up in the trauma of their escape, they hadn’t paid Wendy an inch of attention since Curly broke Peter’s jaw. They huddled close together like little rabbits, shaking. Wendy was cold and still dealing with the drama of the night, but she could understand the difference between her terror and the old fear that had lurked in every movement for these kids since she had met them.

  Wendy leaned against the car window and tried to relax. Now that the adrenaline of trying to trick a grown man into confessing and the entire night in general was wearing off, she could feel waves of exhaustion on the horizon. The sky was the light purple that was more morning than night, and her stomach was beginning to cramp with hunger from staying up too late.

  When they pulled into the precinct parking lot, Wendy opened her eyes, and with a jolt of horror and relief, saw her dad’s car parked in front.

  “I think my parents are here,” she said quietly.

  Detective Hook looked over his shoulder at her and grunted. He didn’t elaborate; he just parked and unlocked the car. Instead of taking them in the front door, Hook led them through a side door and straight to the room where he had shown Wendy the folders of evidence and Peter’s mug shot. Curly and Nibs were separated from them and taken somewhere else. Wendy stared blankly as an officer removed the wire she was wearing, then went to go sit beside Tinkerbelle, waiting for her to finish having hers removed, as well. Wendy was chilled and sluggish and didn’t feel capable of
reacting to anything else tonight.

  Tinkerbelle looked much the same. Her blond hair was spiked in all directions from being mussed by Curly and Nibs’s embrace. The circles beneath her eyes were so deep they almost looked like bruises.

  When the officer finished removing the tape from the wire and Tinkerbelle had her dress back on and zipped, she trudged over to the seat next to Wendy and flung herself heavily into it. “What a night, huh?” She closed her eyes and dropped her head onto the wall behind her.

  “Yeah,” Wendy said, physically incapable of thinking of something better to say.

  Tinkerbelle took a deep breath and let it out all at once in a sharp huff. They sat in silence next to each other. A few minutes later, there were the sounds of many feet running.

  “You got him!” someone shouted.

  The entire precinct broke out into muffled cheers and applause.

  Wendy closed her eyes against the noise, but opened them again when she felt a soft nudge. Instead of turning, Wendy just let her eyes swivel over to Tinkerbelle.

  The corner of Tinkerbelle’s mouth ticked up as they listened to the officers cheer Detective Hook for his big catch, while the detective himself yelled for them to calm down already.

  “Do you think they’re gonna get him a cake?” Tinkerbelle asked quietly, her smirk slowly blossoming into a true smile.

  Wendy couldn’t help but smile back. “Best day of his life.” She snorted.

  Tinkerbelle closed her eyes again and shook her head, still grinning. “God, it better be someone’s.”

  “Punch me if it’s too early to ask,” Wendy said, exhaustion making her bold, “but what are you going to do now?”

  Tinkerbelle pursed her lips, then turned her head until it was lying against the top of the chair. “Live, I guess. They’ll be taking us out of Peter’s house and putting us in a hotel for the night, and then maybe we’ll get doled out to foster families afterward. Whoooo.” Tinkerbelle raised her arm in fake celebration.

  “I’m so sorry—” Wendy started, but Tinkerbelle shook her head.