Page 39 of Losing Wendy

“Exactly. Why would we want to leave when we have all we could ever want here?”

“I thought you said you wanted to pursue a woman,” I tease.

Simon gestures open-palmed at me. “Like I said, everything I could ever want, right here.”

I don’t miss the way his jaw ticks on the side.

I can’t help it. Years of keeping my thoughts to myself have helped me hone my skills at interpreting people. Making others comfortable. I suppose some would call what I’m about to do manipulation, but I don’t know the harm of it when all it does is make someone else feel seen.

“You’re telling me you never think about swiping some of Peter’s faerie dust and getting out of here?” I ask. When Simon bunches his brow, I add, “Just to see what it’s like, then sneak back, I mean. You don’t dream of finding a pretty girl you visit once every full moon or something ridiculous like that?”

Simon’s shoulders relax. “I might have tried once, a few years back. Snuck into Peter’s supply of faerie dust. Got my hands on a pouch, too, before a nightstalker jumped out of the trees and attacked me.” He pulls down the neck of his shirt to show me thescar sliced over his collarbone. It must have been deep if the scar still mars Simon’s fae skin. Then again, legends of nightstalkers claim they rip their victims’ minds apart along with their bodies. It’s a wonder Simon’s speaking to me at all. “Peter tore it to shreds, of course. Ripped it straight out of its pounce. Started hiding the faerie dust in a storehouse on the cliffs after that, where only he can fly to get to it. He was…well, Peter doesn’t ever let it show when he’s upset. But he wasn’t happy. All the good-natured teasing—that was all gone. At first I worried he was angry at me, but then everything went back to normal after that.” Simon turns to me, examining me. “I know you’re afraid of him, but you shouldn’t be.”

“Well,” I say, tucking my hands into Simon’s coat pockets. “I’m at least not afraid of you.”

Simon offers me a toothy grin, then nods his head and leads us to the next trapping location.

On the way, Smalls lets out a yelp. Simon and I spin around to find him screaming and red-faced as a crab dangles out in front of him, its pincer sunk into his fingernail.

Victor keeps his hands in his pockets, unaffected by the younger boy’s pain.

“You’re really not going to help?” asks Simon, shooting Victor a patronizing glare before prying the pincer from Smalls’s finger.

Victor shrugs. “I told him not to mess with it. He wouldn’t listen to me.”

Smalls whimpers, red blotches refusing to fade from his usually white cheeks. The way he clutches his hand reminds me of John after he sliced off his pinkie, so though I’d never admit it to Victor, Smalls’s dramatic reaction is wasted on me as well.

“Nettle told me crabs can’t reach you if you grab them from behind,” Smalls attests between gasps.

“And that’s why we don’t listen to people who think they know more than they do,” says Victor.

“Well,” says Simon, examining Smalls’s bleeding fingernail. “There’s plenty of antiseptic at the Den. We’ll at least get it cleanedup so it doesn’t get infected. Victor, Winds, think you can handle the last trap?”

I’m about to protest—there’s something about Victor that sets me on edge—when Victor says, “I’m sure we can manage, isn’t that right,Winds?”

Before I can come up with an excuse to return to the Den, Simon and Smalls are gone.

Victor isquiet as he leads me deep into the forest. His hands remain pocketed, his footsteps casual yet sure. He doesn’t seem to be in any rush to reach the trap, though I tell myself that’s probably a by-product of living on a remote island, away from the hustle of port life.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to cast off that healthy skepticism if I were you,” he finally says at the same moment I step on a dry twig. The combination of his voice and the snapping has me flinching, to which he offers me a wry smile. “I guess I don’t have to tell you to keep your guard up, then. Though you shouldn’t have agreed to come into the forest alone with me.”

Slowly, I turn toward Victor, panic seizing my mind, my limbs. I fist my hands, as if that’s going to do anything against a fae. I can’t tell if it’s a trick of the light redirected from the canopy overhead, but the shadows underneath Victor’s eyes deepen.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, his gaze dipping to my fist. “All I meant is that you don’t know that.”

“Are we talking about you?” I ask, my mind flitting back to my conversation with Simon on the beach. Was Victor listening in? “Or are we talking about Peter?”

“Simon’s a trusting fellow,” is all Victor says.

“And you’re not?”

Next to him, a butterfly lands on a flaking tree trunk. He stares at its lightning-colored wings. “I used to be.”

A breeze ripples through the leaves, tiptoeing down my spine. “But then something happened.”

Victor doesn’t look at me. For a moment, he seems as petrified as the tree upon which the butterfly has landed.

If this were either of my brothers, or any of the other Lost Boys, for that matter, I might have reached out my hand and placed it on his shoulder. But there’s a clamp on my limbs keeping me from touching Victor, from drawing any closer. “Did someone hurt you, Victor?” I whisper. “Did Peter hurt you?”

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