Page 13 of The Last Lost Girl

But Belle is entranced as she floats toward the water, her attention fixed on the sky.

A pair of twin stars I’ve never seen before – one shining far brighter than the other – is set in the night sky. Its reflection, beside the waxing moon’s, is caught in the facets of the rippling sapphire ocean.

The sea breeze tousles her hair.

“Belle!” I rush toward her and the water.

My sister doesn’t hear me.

“You promised!”

At that, she turns her head and tilts it in question.

“You promised to say goodbye to me.” My voice breaks an instant before terror-filled tears start to slip down my cheeks.

My sister softens and turns toward me. “How could I forget that?”

I begin to cry in earnest now because I know she’s already forgotten me. She’s leaving and going somewhere I can’t follow.

Belle is everything to me. Other than Devin, she’s my only friend. My comfort. My sister, as she dubbed herself and I agreed. But now she’s completely Overshadowed, and all she can see is Neverland and its bright Second Star.

She touches down on the sand, rushes toward me, and throws her hands around my neck. And for a second, she hugs me as fiercely as she always has. With her whole heart. With all that she is and has.

But something changes. Her grip tightens around my back until it becomes uncomfortable. Then painful. “Belle?” I grit. “You’re hurting me.” I dig my feet into the sand when she starts dragging me into the water. She pulls her face back so I can meet her eyes, and a shiver worms down my spine when I see they are wholly black.

“You. Don’t. Belong. Here.”

The voice that hisses from her mouth is not hers. I need to get away. Now. My feet splash as I try to pull myself back onto land.

“Let me go!” I push her arms, then her face, but I barely manage to move her. She squeezes harder, so hard my ribs feel like they’ll crack under her pressure. “Belle. Let go.”

I keep trying to dislodge her, but she’s so much stronger than I am. She teeters on a different ledge now, but instead of me dragging her from it, she’s going to drag me over with her. I don’t see even a hint of gold in my sister’s eyes. Can’t see any of the love I know she holds in her heart for me.

Belle is gone, and in her place is nothing but this insidious malevolence. The shadow she never should have stolen.

The night swallows my scream as Belle shoots into the air and soars us out over the ocean. I panic when I finally comprehend what I’m seeing as we spiral through the air. The starry sky, so far above us, alternates with the waves that are so close, the sea spray stings my face and eyes as we skim over it. The tips of my hair drag through more crests than I can count as we move forward with blistering speed.

A panicked yelp is pushed from my throat when she accelerates. We fly so fast, I fight to keep my eyes open; so fast, that even the stars above her back blur like we’re in one of the Star Wars movies.

I no longer fight Belle. The last thing I want is for her to drop me at this height, or in the middle of the Atlantic if she slows her ascent. Instead, I wrap my arms around her neck and my legs around her middle as I cling to her like a baby koala.

Suddenly, Belle slams into an invisible wall. Our stop is so abrupt that we tumble, then land in the surf of an island that smells like the ocean just after a storm.

I can’t bear to open my eyes.

Breathing hurts.

Everything hurts.

That means I’m alive, but I’m not sure if I will be for long.

Every inch of my skin stings. I wiggle my fingers to be sure I still can and notice that they’re gritty, coated in salt and sand. The many, many abrasions I collected on impact burn, although the feeling is so widespread, I can’t tell whether my skin is flayed or I’m covered in a million tiny cuts.

A bone-deep ache sets in. My spine, neck, and the back of my head throb.

The impact hurt, even if Belle absorbed much of it, which I know she did. I remember her twisting hard at the last minute to put her back to the earth.

At least the sea water is warm. It sweeps up my legs to clean my fingers and pushes up to my sides, then takes its touch away only to tentatively brush at me again. And again. It feels like it’s nudging me to see if I actually survived.

---