Page 110 of Losing Wendy

“I just don’t know why they would do it. Why Joel?”

“To be honest, I would have expected him to do the killing, not the other way around,” says John, finding the truth so much easier to say aloud than I ever do.

“After I saw him torturing those rats, I kept my distance for a while. Maybe someone else knew about his…habits. Maybe they were scared of him. People have a tendency to harm the things that frighten them.”

John shakes his head, placing the hand that’s not holding Michael’s onto his chin as he thinks. “Maybe.”

“John, do you think…” I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that will help me get the words out.

“That we got the wrong guy before?”

I peek at him from slitted lids, nodding.

“No. The man had Thomas’s bracelet. We found Thomas’s murderer, that’s for sure,” John says, each word hauling another coil of iron chain from my shoulders.

“But it’s possible that the same person who killed Joel killed Freckles?”

John nods.

I chew on my lip. “That would make some sense as to why Freckles’s murderer carved the constellation into his cheek. To make us think the murders were connected.”

John’s pacing in circles now, Michael following him. “That would explain why the methods of killing were different, too. Maybe whoever killed Freckles didn’t intend to do it. If it happened in the heat of the moment, the murderer could have panicked, then tried to make it look like the murders were connected afterward.” He halts in place, the abruptness causing Michael to slam into his back. “There’s only one problem with that theory.”

I gulp. “It would mean marking him with the Reaper’s fox wasn’t a coincidence. It would mean that whoever killed Freckles knew Thomas. Well enough to think of his favorite constellation, even while panicking.”

We stand in silence for a moment. “It could be someone else. In Neverland,” I say.

John peers at me from behind his spectacles. They’re smudged and scratched after weeks on the island. It’s a wonder he can still see out of them. I consider what will happen when they break. Will Peter travel outside of Neverland to fetch him new ones if I ask him to? Will the Sister even allow such an excursion?

“Do you know of anyone else on the island?” he asks.

The captain’s swarthy, cruel grin flashes before my eyes, but I quickly stuff it away. It’s not possible that he’s the murderer. He canbarely bring a spoon to his mouth thanks to the drugs I’ve been force-feeding him. Much less murder a boy and hack off his finger.

“No, but we didn’t know Thomas’s murderer was here until he attacked Peter, either.”

“Which begs the question, how did the murderer end up here?”

John looks at me with that curious gaze I’m so familiar with. This is the point in the conversation when we’d usually brainstorm together, except I already know how the murderer came to be on the island. Through the flaws in Neverland itself. The gaps in the Fabric.

I just can’t tell John that. Not without him questioning what else I know about why the Lost Boys are here.

But then another thought strikes me. “There’s Tink.”

John frowns.

“The faerie who attacked me when she found me in Peter’s rooms,” I say.

“Ah. The one you called ‘suspicious and jealous for no reason,’” says John, referencing a conversation we had after the attack.

I draw back. “Surely you’re not defending her.”

“I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that perhaps she has better intuition than you gave her credit for.”

I cross my arms, but it’s not as if I have anything to say to that. I am engaged to Peter, after all, which I suppose was exactly what Tink was afraid of.

John just shrugs and continues on, not nearly as bothered by the sentiment he just expressed as I am. “Do you think she has motive?” he asks, wiping his hair from his forehead. It’s grown out since we arrived in Neverland. I suppose he no longer has Mother fussing over its length. The thought makes my heart hurt.

“Does a jealous psycho have to have motive?”

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