Page 73 of The Last Lost Girl

Belle stands. “And you made an oath to me as well.”

He rakes a hand through his wet hair. “And I’ve kept it.”

With a guttural roar that sounds like the word liar she rushes him, moving so fast she’s nothing but a dark, formless smudge. A smudge that plows into me at full speed because I make a split-second decision to step between them and stop her.

For a breath, I’m weightless. And the next, the back of my skull cracks against the rock I’d been standing on and stars dance in my vision, little sparkles of light I thought only existed in cartoons.

Hudson shouts something that echoes over the cave’s ceiling and walls. The rocks catch it and vibrate beneath me. Or at least, I think they do.

My ears ring – loudly. My head feels fuzzy and strange.

“Belle?” I slur.

Hudson’s fingers feel the back of my skull and he mutters a curse. “She’s your sister, Tinkerbell. She came to find you and save you instead of leaving you to Pan!” Then he lets out a slew of curses so colorful, I’d cackle if the world wasn’t spinning.

His face is blurry as he bends over me. So are his words. My eyelids feel heavy.

“No, no, no. Don’t close your eyes, Lifeguard.”

“I feel weird,” I tell him. “Are your nipples pierced?”

He looks at something beyond me. Mouths something I can’t hear.

“This sucks,” I mutter. “Is Belle still here?”

“Oh, she’s here,” he answers, his voice laced with irritation.

Then I see her. Tentatively, her face drifts into my line of sight, across from Hudson’s. I try to smile, but emotion swells over me and I end up crying and clutching at my forehead. “Belle, I just want to go home.”

My sister’s warm tears splash onto my cheek and cool before they streak to my chin. Her eyes are half-golden again. I watch as the shadow fights its way back, taking control, even as she pushes it away. Her teeth grind and she pants, wearing her very soul thin to stay with me.

“Heal her!” Hudson demands. “Now.”

“I don’t know how much I have left,” she laments. Belle’s hands gingerly frame my skull and the gold in her eyes surges as she mutters words I don’t understand.

I suddenly remember what honeysuckle smells like and smile, letting my eyes drift close.

“Just give the shadows back and we can leave,” I weakly tell her as the pain, pressure, and roaring in my head eases under her gentle touch and magic.

I watch Belle’s eyes darken to soot. “I can’t yet. There’s something I have to do, and it requires wings.”

Wings just carry her away from me. Farther and farther away.

“I don’t want you to go,” I tell her.

She glares at Hudson. “I have to leave, or others won’t be able to.” Her eyes flick meaningfully at me.

“Me?” I ask, trying to sit up.

The shadowy wings buzz at her back. Before we can do or say anything to stop her, she takes flight and surges toward the light at the top of the cave’s ceiling, disappearing through the gap in the rocks in a blink.

Groaning, I gesture upward. “She really just flew away, didn’t she?”

“She did,” Hudson answers tersely.

“Great.” Awesome. Wonderful. Just what we needed.

I lay flat on my back on the rock, my clothes still ice cold, soaked through, and plastered to me. Like the strands of hair stuck to my face and neck. “What happened with Grim?” I’m almost afraid to ask, but I need to know if he’s about to swim under the rock and come at us again. Or if Pan is.

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