Page 99 of The Last Lost Girl

Everyone keeps saying that. They’re lying.

I want to pull the words off his tongue and crush them in my hand, then watch as the wind sifts the dust of them off my fingers.

My emotions are all over the place. Rage and fury. Fear and panic. Sadness. But there’s not an ounce of hope to be found. Then, my sister is in front of me. Belle is keeping the shadows at bay for now – for once. How can I not feel hopeful?

That thought settles my thoughts back into my bones.

“Belle,” I calmly say. Her stare jerks to mine and she lets out a tremulous breath. “What is this?”

She clears her throat. “He returned a sliver of your shadow. It’s not enough to grant you passage home, but it holds some of your memories. I just... I don’t know if you should trust it. It doesn’t feel like you.”

“What do you mean?”

She meets my eye. “It feels like him.” Her chin wobbles and her eyes well with tears. But before they can fall, shadows suddenly burst from her, enveloping the entire room.

Hudson curses as glass shatters. It comes from the direction of the bookshelves.

“Control them, Belle!” Hudson barks. “Don’t let Pan control you.”

She lets out a guttural roar, and the shadows recoil and sink back into my sister’s slight frame. She pants to catch her breath. “I’m sorry,” Belle says in a voice so small I barely recognize it. She looks at me. “I’m so sorry. It’s why I haven’t given them back. The shadows I carry feel like him, too. They did the moment I gathered them in my skin.”

She’s defeated – a ragged twist of spirit like a flag too long flown in determined wind.

I thought the Second Star called her back home, but now the truth settles over me like a stone over its vault. It was Pan.

It’s all Pan.

It’s always been Pan.

He orchestrates our every move, limiting our options and pushing us into the trap he’s been imagining since the day Belle left Neverland – with his shadows. And with me.

He’s so powerful, he even managed to reach us on Tybee Island.

Hudson goes below deck to speak to Smee, and then his crew.

Belle drags me across the room as soon as his distorted form slips past the last windowpane. I lean against the copper tub and she takes the swing, moving it back and forth with her feet. She notices the marks on my arm, left by the stupid Neverland plant that tried to kill me.

“Those won’t fade,” she declares.

I sigh and twist my arm, remembering the tattoo shop we flew past on the night she dragged us here. “Figures.”

Perhaps a tattooist could fix it. Make the twined marks look like plants – no, definitely not plants – tentacles, maybe?

“Will he give the order to sail to town now?” Belle asks. The swing creaks under her slight weight.

“Three of his men are still on Neverland. He’s giving them time in case they’re hiding and can make it back to the ship.”

She bites her thumb. “How long have they been ashore?

“Not long, I think. I don’t know. I can’t remember offhand...”

“How long will he wait?”

I rub my forehead. “I don’t know.”

“What will he do if they don’t make it back to the ship?”

I lock eyes with her. She knows what he will do; the only thing he can. He and the crew will return to Neverland. And I’ll go with them.

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