Page 78 of The Last Lost Girl

A flash of heat surges toward my shoulder.

My fingertips start to tingle like they’ve gone numb during sleep.

Hudson curses as I pull away from the vine, part of it breaking off and remaining attached to my skin with the help of a thousand needle-thin barbs.

And then… pain. My mouth opens and I begin to pant, because I feel like I’m being stung by an angry nest of wasps.

“I can’t feel my fingers!” I whisper-shriek, pushing them against my thumb. They move, but if I didn’t see them, I wouldn’t know they were doing anything. I look up at the pirate with terror-filled eyes. “Hudson?”

He’s already deftly torn away the pieces attached to my arm with his hook, but he keeps raking over my skin again to be sure it’s clear. Dropping his gaze to my bare legs, he curses and kneels in front of me to rip away the ones I didn’t even know were there.

My legs, thighs, and calves… prickle. Then the sensation turns into a shocking burn that feels like I’ve been dumped into a vat of boiling water.

The second wash of pain comes so suddenly, so intensely, that I can’t even scream.

Hudson stands and tucks me into his chest as I fight to keep standing, and a keening wail finally escapes my swollen throat. “You’re going to be okay,” he grunts, holding me upright as I buckle.

“My heart…” It’s going too fast.

“You’re going to be okay, Ava.” He scoops me up and begins to run.

A cold sweat forms on my lip and brow. “Am I dying?” I slur.

The sound of crashing waves gets closer. Sand sprays from Hudson’s feet as he tears across the shore and trudges into the water, one long stride at a time.

“The saltwater will help,” he grits, but I hear the panic in his voice.

We’re past the breakers, past where I could likely touch the bottom of the seafloor, but Hudson is taller than I am. The swells rock us upward, then insistently drag us back toward the shore. Hudson fights to keep us in deeper water.

“I hope it doesn’t scar your lovely skin,” comes a male voice from behind us. My head lolls sideways so I can see who it is. It’s not Wraith or Grim. It isn’t any Lost Boy.

It’s Pan.

He walks close but stops just shy of where the sea laps the shore.

I try to squeeze Hudson’s arm, to speak, to warn him. If he senses Pan, he hasn’t given any indication. But my hands no longer obey and neither does my voice.

“Even if you could speak, he wouldn’t be able to see or hear me,” Pan tells me. “Because I don’t want him to.”

I notice a dark film over his body – shadow.

His hazel eyes burn. “Welcome home, Ava.” He holds my stare for a long moment. “You forgot me, but I’ll happily remind you.”

My lips are numb. Three times I try to tell him to go fuck himself, but the sound that emerges from my throat comes out garbled.

“Where’s Tinkerbell?” he asks conversationally, quirking a copper brow at me.

I really wish my lips would work. I want him to hear the conviction in my voice. If he touches my sister, I will do far worse to him than Hook did to his little friends.

“I know she’s here.” He walks sideways as Hook drifts with the waves, watching me with unblinking, unnatural eyes. His movements are smooth. Inhuman. And he’s beautiful. With sharply pointed ears, tousled sun-kissed hair, and a sensual mouth.

I don’t know what Peter Pan did to be cast away and bound to this island, but in my soul, I know he deserved it.

His hair is longer on top and cropped short at the sides. The wind that breaks over my head and Hudson’s doesn’t dare run its fingers through it.

“Is she on his ship?” he tries again more insistently.

He has no idea where Belle is.

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