Page 74 of The Last Lost Girl

Hudson sits with his back against a rock, propping his hook on his knee. I turn to see him better, not bothering to lift my head. “He’s no longer a threat,” he says, the corner of his lips curling proudly.

In case he’s thinking about giving me the gory details, I raise a hand. “Don’t tell me what you did. Please.”

At that, he laughs. “How’s your head?”

“It’s… whatever. I’m fine.” My heart, on the other hand, isn’t. Hudson probably sees as much. He doesn’t tell me it will be okay or point out that Belle just left her seemingly safe hiding place because I pushed her too hard. He doesn’t tell me what an idiot I am – even though I feel like the world’s biggest, and the universe’s worst sister.

He picks up a small stone and tosses it into the water. I hear it hit and imagine the ripples it makes spreading over the dark, placid water. “How long has she been like that?”

Laboriously, I sit up and put my head in my hands, not because there is any residual pain – Belle took every bit away – but because I know the conversation we’re about to have will give me a headache anyway.

“If I had to guess, I’d say about a year. I don’t remember for sure.” What I do know is that too much time has passed since I came home and first saw the darkness in her eyes, the split in her pendant, and the tear in the paper-thin life we’d built.

twenty-six

The beam of light from the hole Belle flew through weakens. Hudson notices and curses. “We can’t move toward The Cove tonight. It’s too far. And too dangerous.”

“Because of animals or the Lost Boys?” I ask.

“Both.”

How will we make it out of this cave? “We can’t stay here. Won’t Pan come looking for Grim?”

“He will, so we need to hurry. There are other places we can hide until it’s safer to move.”

I stand and dust the grit off my backside. Hudson works to knock it from my shirt at my shoulders. “What about the rest of your crew?”

What if they come looking for us? What if they’ve been captured?

“Those who make it to the ship will be safe on the water, and they have orders to stay put until we arrive to regroup. Each person makes a conscious choice every time they leave the ship and step foot onto this island. They know and accept the risks involved.”

That may be true, but it doesn’t comfort me in the least.

I look at the lake, dreading the swim back through the frigid water.

Hudson follows my eyes and shakes his head. “We can’t go that way. Pan could be on the other side. And besides that, parts of Grim are…”

I almost gag. “Gross.” I peer into the darkest part of the cave.

Hudson jerks his head toward it. “I know this cave system. I can get us out of it, but you’ll have to stay close, and we have to move quietly. There are places where the rock is very thin and plenty of seams along the cliff wall.”

“Okay,” I agree.

Hudson’s forest green eyes meet mine as he extends his hand and I notice something swim within them. Not a gentle treading of water, but a desperate struggle against a current I can’t see.

He’s hiding something from me.

I place my hand in his and let him draw me into the dark.

Hudson tells me when there is a rock we need to skirt around, warns me of the streams we must wade through before the icy water seeps into my shoes again, and of boulders we need to climb up and over.

The path through the dark is treacherous, but we haven’t entered absolute darkness where even your own hand waving in front of your face can’t be seen. Here and there, evening light cuts in through a fissure overhead, or in the seams of rock in the cave wall.

It’s beside one of these more imposing crevices that Hudson stops. He slowly draws our entwined hands to his mouth and taps a finger against his lips.

I quietly nod and we listen as two male voices trickle in through the sliver.

“Pan senses him inside the cave,” one boy says. He trudges by so close, I’m worried there’s not enough rock between them and us. Maybe he’ll somehow hear the pounding of my heart or the way my breath saws in and out of my chest. Perhaps he’ll feel the way my bones tremble under my skin.

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