Page 139 of Losing Wendy

“Simon, please,” I say. “Please bring Michael over here to me.”

Simon doesn’t appear to hear me. “You made me a killer.”

“But I didn’t make you like it. That was all you, Simon. Can’t you see, Wendy, why someone needed to step in?”

I feel as if I’m going to be sick. “You knew Joel tortured animals sometimes. You told me in the kitchen that night that Peter had relocated him to the garden.”

“You have to know it’s a sign of an imbalanced mind,” says Nettle, then he stares sadly down at John. “As is the ability to chop off one’s own finger.”

My heart stops. “What? No, John did that to get into the reaping tree.”

“You really think that’s the case?” Nettle says. “It’s not natural, Wendy, to harm oneself. You shouldn’t be able to make your mind do it. None of us who end up in this place are natural. Besides, I overheard what he said in the bathroom about wanting to take vengeance out on the man who killed your parents. He’s going to trigger that vile part of himself someday, if he hasn’t already.”

“Nettle,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. I reach my palms out in an appeasing gesture, but Nettle shakes his head, and I bring them back to my sides, fisted. “John came here because of me. No Fate came to get him. I made a bargain with Peter to bring him and Michael along. They’re here because of me, not because of some Fate. Not because of anything to do with them.”

“No one just comes here, Wendy. Not even you. Did you think we wouldn’t notice you wandering off? Did you think we couldn’tsee it in your eyes? Your pupils—they were pits by the time you came back from your little excursion the night Joel died. We see the effect the faerie dust has on you. It’s only a matter of time.”

My breath fogs the dark, moonlit air in front of me. “Only a matter of time until what?”

“Until John’s a killer like the rest of us. You. Me. Simon. You think the way you stabbed that man was normal? I saw the wound. That wasn’t the kind of blow you administer in self-defense. There’s a rage inside of you, Wendy. One that you don’t often let out, but when you do…” Nettle whistles.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was innocent. He was coming after Peter. There’s so much I didn’t know.”

“Did it stop you from liking it?” asks Simon, his voice dry. “When you let him fall to the ground, did you like it?”

“Simon.” I blink back tears. I open my mouth to say of course not. That killing that man has been haunting me since the moment I took his life. It’s all true, but Simon’s eyes are begging me to be like him. Like he sees some purity in me, and he’s thinking if perhaps I could struggle with the same brand of darkness, he could glimpse a light in himself as well. And then I hear John’s voice, echoing the same sentiment. Wondering if it felt good, cathartic.

I swallow any words of reassurance, and something like a shadow overcomes Simon’s face.

“You know we’re right,” says Nettle. “You know there’s evil in your brother, just like the rest of us.”

“There’s evil in all of us,” I say. “There’s evil in the people back home.” I think of my suitors in the parlor. Of my mother, who left me in there with them. Of the creature who dwells within Peter. Of Captain Astor, who for all his cruelty, cherished his wife so dearly. “That doesn’t make us special.”

“No,” says Nettle. “No, it doesn’t. But it does make us dangerous.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask, dreading the fact that I think I already know.

Nettle glances at Simon, like he thinks he’ll be able to console mebetter. Simon barely looks at me. “Peter was supposed to take us out if we started showing signs of going down that path. So far, he hasn’t. We worry he’s grown too attached.”

“So the two of you have taken it upon yourselves?” I ask. “That’s why you killed Joel.”

“You saw him with those innocent animals, Wendy.”

Salty tears sting at my eyes. “Joel needed help. He hadn’t killed anyone yet.”

“It was only a matter of time.”

“Of course it was only a matter of time,” I snap. “He was tortured, abused. Broken as a child. And then he had even the memory of that taken away from him. You said yourself that the memories couldn’t take away the damage that had been done. The body remembers that sort of thing, even if the mind doesn’t. Joel needed help, and the two of you stalked him down in the night and killed him.”

Simon shakes his head. “I didn’t hurt Joel.” I can’t help but notice he says nothing about Freckles. I consider how sick Simon was the day he came to tell Peter about Freckles’s death. How he kept having to take breaks to vomit in the woods.

Nettle offers him a withering look. “As if you didn’t know I did it. You’re as complicit as I am. So is Wendy. You sure did make it easy, luring him out into the open while you were high as the rafters in this storehouse.”

The words stab at my chest, but all it does is make me crave more, more, more. Behind Nettle and John is the shed, and within it, I can hear the faerie dust whispering to me, promising me.

I can take away your pain.

I should have trusted Peter. Should have come to him about the journal and had him explain. Should have trusted my Mate.

---