Page 96 of Losing Wendy

It’s a physically arduous task, but I turn myself back around, the magnetism of Peter’s storehouse screaming at me.

That’s when I see it.

Further down the beach, a silhouette lies prostrate in the sand, highlighted by the moonlight.

My steps accelerate into a run. Thoughts of who might be laid out on the sand bombard me. Is it a Lost Boy, or perhaps Peter?

No, it wouldn’t be Peter. I don’t see any wings.

When I approach, I find the man face-down in the sand. When I go to turn him, I’m throttled with a horrible flashback to flipping the murderer’s body in the sand. I hesitate, then tuck my finger into the crook of the man’s jaw. It’s stubbly, rough against my skin, but I feel a faint pulse there, begging me softly to save the stranger. I bite my lip. I can’t make out the man’s features, but he’s dressed in soaked breeches and a white shirt.

What had Peter said?

That Neverland attracts those with darkness in their souls?

My heart flutters, racing faster than it should even under stress due to the faerie dust, but I defy my better judgment and loop my arms underneath the man’s torso, struggling with his limp body as I flip him over.

His back thuds against the ground at the same moment the moonlight flashes across his face, like the sky itself is intent on exposing him.

My gut turns over, my head whirling. Blood painted in the shape of open smiles streaks across my vision, my memories, but none of them obscure his hauntingly beautiful face.

Because the man who lies before me is the one who forced my parents to take their own lives.

Captain Nolan Astor.

Sand lodgesitself between my toes as I pace up and down the shoreline. My fingers are in my mouth as I bite at my nails, something I haven’t done since that first time my father took the bottle away from me. My heart thuds against my chest, Peter’s storehouse calling to me even louder than before.

I need more. My throat bulges with pain, pain that just a drop against my tongue would whisk away, but no.

The captain is here, in Neverland, on the beach with me, and I have to figure out what to do about it.

My belt digs into my flesh as I fumble for my dagger. Even the weight of the hilt against my palm feels like a judge’s gavel, resoundingly permanent. It’s heavier than before, like it absorbed the resistance of the murderer’s flesh, and now I can sense the reverberations of his crunching ribs reaching out to me from the past.

It would be easier this time, I tell myself. Captain Astor isn’t moving.

The very thought makes me want to vomit, but I crawl next to him on my hands and knees anyway. Then I place the tip of myblade to his chest, allowing it to follow the curve of his ribs until I find the soft, open flesh between.

There. I’ll just aim there.

I lift the blade, but my hands are trembling so violently, I lose my place. I don’t know if I can bear to strike him twice, no matter how my hate for him surges in my chest. So I touch the tip of the blade to his chest and determine to throw all my weight into the hilt.

I push there lightly, too lightly. Sweat beads on my forehead, mingling with rainwater, as I remember just how much pressure I’m going to have to apply to actually pierce this fae through.

I close my eyes and try again, but it’s like an invisible hand sneaks in through the past, from the beach where I killed the stranger, and stops me.

I can’t do it.

I can’t do it.

My mother slitting her throat.

I can’t do it for her.

My father crumpling to the floor in a pool of his own blood.

I can’t do it for him.

My scream.

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