Page 67 of Losing Wendy

I glance up at Peter, who’s peering down at the body thoughtfully.

I bite my lip, wishing John were here. He’s always been my sounding board, helped me organize the thoughts swarming in my head.

“Victor thinks the same person who killed Freckles killed Thomas too,” I say. “But if that’s the case, why are the wounds so different?”

Everything I know about repeat killers is that they almost always kill using the same method.

Joel’s the one who answers. “Maybe the killer is just honing their technique.”

I glance up at him, his sparking green eyes.

Suddenly, I realize which memory Freckles’s singed hair is tugging on.

CHAPTER 27

We bury Freckles under a mound of rocks off of the shoreline of the cove. It takes long enough that Benjamin and Joel go back to the Den to ask Victor and Simon if they want to take part. I don’t realize Benjamin is wandering off with Joel until they’re already gone, and Smalls tells me. The next half hour is spent with me digging my nails into my palms, wondering if I should tell Peter to run after them, that Benjamin is in danger. But they return soon enough, Benjamin unharmed, Joel glancing at me often—or am I imagining that?

Either way, they both report that Victor turned them down.

I can’t help but wonder if Victor knew about Freckles’s disdain for Thomas. Part of me fills with unease thinking about Victor’s tendency toward violence, but he’d seemed just as rattled as the other Lost Boys at the sight of Freckles’s body. Perhaps he doesn’t wish to help bury Freckles because of the emotions it brings up of burying his brother.

Once we’ve finished the burial, Peter turns to fly off. I go to him, calling his name, but he blatantly ignores me—I can tell because I glimpsed his ears flick at my voice—and launches into the sky.

I stand there with my hands on my hips, watching as he disappears toward the northern bluffs.

“He goes there sometimes, when something bad happens,” says Simon, coming up beside me, brushing his arm against my shoulder. “Went up there after Thomas died, too.”

“Bearing the secrets so you don’t have to?” I ask, not managing to hide the accusation in my tone.

Simon shifts uncomfortably. “Come on. Let’s go home,” he says, gesturing back in the direction of the Den, where the other boys are now heading.

I nod, following the others from behind, but I can’t shake the feeling that my brothers are in danger here, and that there’s only one person on this island who has any answers that might save them. It’s a risk, not warning John about my suspicions regarding Joel. Possibly even Victor. But John’s more skeptical of the Lost Boys than I’ve been. I find it unlikely he’ll follow any of them to remote sections of the island.

Besides, I’ve been unable to coax any information out of Peter up to this point. It’s cruel of me, but I’d be foolish not to recognize that getting to Peter while he’s emotional over the death of one of his Lost Boys might be my only shot at garnering information to help my brothers.

So when Simon catches up to the others, I lag behind, then slip into the trees.

Night falls swiftly.I’m sweating and brambles pierce my skin by the time I reach the top of the bluff.

Peter sits atop a rock across the way, watching me as I struggle to pull myself over the side of the cliff. He doesn’t rise to help, but it’s not as if I expect him to.

The far-off look is still in his eyes, even as he stares at me. Like he’s not looking at me, but through me.

I recognize it. The grief that empties instead of overcomes, drowns instead of burns.

I put myself through pain to mask what’s inside, hoist myself toward a baseline that I can convince myself is normal. Peter runs away from his. Well, flies away, sweeping it under the rug of frivolity and riddles and games.

But happiness can’t drown out pain. It simply isn’t potent enough, or else my mother would have managed it. So I scramble over to Peter and wipe the dust off my clothes as I confront him.

“You shouldn’t have followed me up here,” says Peter, and the way he swivels his head around to meet me makes me wonder if he’s drunk, though I smell nothing on him, and I’ve yet to witness any wine on the island.

“You’re hurting,” I say, hugging my chest and fiddling with my loose sleeves, which are too long given that this tunic was originally Simon’s.

A wry smile casts a shadow over Peter’s face. One that’s outside of his control, not a by-product of his magic, but of his demeanor. “I can assure you that’s not the case.”

Frustration boils up within me. “You love those boys. Adore them. Fight for them, for their protection. And you’re hurting from losing two of them.”

“And what use would that be, Wendy Darling? To hurt? What has that dreadful emotion ever done for you, as much as you like to keep it close to you, as much as you like to cloak yourself in it? Tell me a single time in your life that pain saved you from anything. Did it keep you from being swallowed by the shadows? Did it protect your parents from slitting their own throats? What did it ever do for you to hurt?”

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