Page 85 of Losing Wendy

“Right,” I say, shaking my head back and forth. This was a madman. Not only was he going to kill Peter, he had Thomas’s bracelet. The one that they never found when they recovered Thomas’s body.

This man had killed an innocent boy. And I had killed him.

It was only right.

“You did the right thing,” echoes Peter.

It sounds true on his lips, so why is my soul so skeptical? Perhaps it’s forever imprinted from the plunging of my dagger into his flesh, the awful crunch of ribs and burst of fleshy cardiac muscle underneath my blade’s too-dull point.

“Wendy Darling, I need patching up,” Peter says, flicking his tattered wing to emphasize his words.

I nod my head like doing so will shake out the shock paralyzing my body. It doesn’t feel as though it should work. I can’t feel my limbs, a horrible numbness settling over me so completely it’s a wonder they move at all.

I watch my fingers as if I’m not the one guiding them, as if I’m an apprentice gazing upon another’s hands at work. It’s someone else’s hands that follow Peter’s instructions to get the stitching material out of the pouch hanging from his belt.

I take a breath.

I can do this.

Luckily, the motion of stitching is familiar to me, having taken so many lessons in embroidery as a child. Peter’s hide is tougher than cloth, but I tell myself it’s not the flesh of his wings. That I’m simply stitching a crisp pattern into leather.

Leather is already dead.

My mind repeats these words as if they’ll help, but I find it’s thefamiliar task that steadies my quivering fingers. I thread the needle in and out, paying careful attention to the section where a flap of wing hangs, almost separated from the wing itself. The man must have struck while they struggled in the sky. No wonder Peter dove.

As a fae, Peter should heal quickly, though I’m sure it helps if all the pieces that need healing are in the correct place. Likely, that makes it even more imperative that I stitch Peter up quickly.

“You’re not even flinching,” I say.

Peter cranes his neck, his cheek dusted with black sand, and winks at me. “I have an abnormally high pain tolerance.”

I think he’s trying to make me feel better. That much is obvious. Or perhaps he’s keeping himself from flinching because he knows if I feel the slightest indication that I’m causing him pain by ripping into his skin, I’ll lose the contents of my gut.

At least, that’s what should happen.

I’m not sure why it’s not happening. I just killed a man, after all.

Peter closes his eyes and breathes deeply throughout the entire process, not even clenching his jaw to brace himself. I read once that fae wings are highly sensitive to both touch and pain. I’m not sure what to make of it that Peter is pretending this isn’t excruciating for him. Maybe he innately knows what I need right now.

“The man…” I say, hoping if I say this aloud, maybe I’ll feel something. Maybe the words will get stuck in my throat and I’ll sob. I don’t, so I continue. “I found Thomas’s bracelet on him.”

Peter goes still as the surface of an undisturbed pond.

“Why…” I swallow. “Why do you think he hurt him? Why was he trying to hurt you?”

Peter’s breathing isn’t quite as even anymore, and from where I have one hand braced on his wing, I can feel his pulse accelerate.

“How did he even get here?” Finally, my voice breaks, though it’s not with guilt so much as anger. Anguish ripples through me each time I make a puncture in Peter’s skin. Each cut feels like piercing my own flesh.

It’s not only Peter I’m angry for. I’m angry for me. Angry at the stranger who forced me to shed blood, who stole my innocence.Whose back did not break easily, whose ribs protected him and forced me to linger longer in the moment than I should have.

I hate the stranger for ripping my soul from my chest, almost as much as I hate him for doing worse to Thomas and Freckles. For leaving those poor boys’ bodies mangled for their friends to find.

A scream riles at my throat, but I hold it back as Peter takes a breath to respond.

“When the Sister formed this realm, she warned me it was unnatural. Different from the rest. That its pull would attract lost souls. It’s one reason she sent me to watch after the Lost Boys. She warned that her other Sisters would not like that their fates had been tampered with, their threads pulled. It’s not so easy to rewrite a fate that has been set several times. Because of Neverland’s origins, there are lost souls who find themselves wandering in.”

“But how do they get in?” I almost choke the question out. It’s hot in my throat, on my chapped lips, in the freezing air.

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