Page 6 of The Last Lost Girl

“Don’t even think about it,” I warn.

Belle huffs.

I snatch the other books she’s pulled from the shelves that line every inch of our apartment walls and walk to the kitchen to drench her handiwork. As the water soaks into the tomes, I throw open the windows, grab a sheet pan, and fan the smoke away from the detector.

Hitting the button won’t help if there’s still smoke curling around the damn thing.

I make quick headway, clearing the ceiling and pushing the fog toward the windows.

“Get the broom!” I bark. The handle is the only way I can reach the button on the blasted, screaming device. The ceilings in this old building are too tall for me to reach without the broom or standing on one of the kitchen chairs. “Help me.”

“I am helping!” she cries, back on her knees and rocking back and forth. “The less they know about him, the better.”

“They who?”

“Everyone!” she screams.

I’m not sure whether she’s fighting the shadow or her own intrusive thoughts, but either way, she’s lost once more, just as we knew she would be.

I dart for the broom and position it beneath the alarm, finally striking the button to make the blaring stop. My heart still roars, but at least the alarm is calm.

Less than two minutes have passed since it woke me, but my ears ring like I’ve been at a heavy metal concert for the past four hours. I look at Belle, who’s already pulled out another edition. Holding it in her hands, her eyes scrape across the words as if she can scratch them all away.

The cover is deep green with a sketch of Peter Pan perched on a limb, playing his pan flute, foiled in a shade of yellow that envies gold.

Belle turns the page and I inwardly curse. It’s an illustrated edition. When she sees the elegant image of Peter and Wendy with their hands clasped, flying through the sky at sunset, the muscles in her back tense. Below them is a ship sailing on a sea of deep blue water with a crocodile trailing in the ship’s wake.

“Hook ou moi cette fois,” she reads, sliding a fingertip along the words.

I crouch before her. “What does that mean?”

“Hook or me this time.” She looks up from the page. “Jamais Pan, Ava. Never Pan.”

My brows furrow. “When did you learn to speak French?”

“I can read all the translations,” she rasps.

All of them? She has copies in at least seven different languages I can name off the top of my head. Knowing Belle, she has many more than that tucked amongst the books lining our walls.

Her eyes fill with tears again as they drift back down, and I see the second she begins to spiral back into the dark place where her thoughts always fester. I drag the tome from her tight grip and snap it closed. Belle startles, but I have her attention. She needs to hear what I’m about to say.

“Even if it holds all of these copies, burning the apartment building to cinders won’t keep this book out of the hands of anyone who wants to read it, but it could hurt someone, if not kill them, Belle.”

She flicks a glance at the door, and I already know she’s likely thinking that the world wouldn’t miss Mrs. Jennings…

“There are kids downstairs,” I remind her. “I know you wouldn’t hurt them on purpose, but the next time you get the urge to go all Fahrenheit 451 Fireman on your collection, please think of who else might be caught in the flames.”

She nods apologetically, then says, “I’ll try so hard to remember.”

My heart cracks a little. “I know you will.”

But trying isn’t the same as doing, is it?

“Besides, the people reading these,” I gesture around us, “don’t believe that Peter Pan is real.”

In my sister’s mind, he is very real. He haunts her every thought. He and Neverland consume her.

“You believe though, right?” she asks in a suddenly sharp tone. “You believe me? Believe in me?”

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