Page 98 of Losing Wendy

Rushweed.

The same herb Victor gifted me after Tink’s attack.

It’s not faerie dust by any means. Back at home, it’s what doctors used to keep their patients still while they operated on them.

If only it helped with the pain.

For now, I’m glad it doesn’t.

I left Victor’s pouch back at the Den, so I’ll have to make do with what I have on hand. My hands trembling, not just with fear, but from the muscular exhaustion of dragging the tall and broad captain across the rocks, I grab a handful of rushweed, then grind it between two rocks. The leaves are brittle and dissolve easily into a powder, which I press to the captain’s lips. They’re softer than I imagined, and the feel of them against my skin brings an unwanted fantasy to the forefront of my mind—the reaction I’d expected from the mysterious man with the golden Mark when I approached him at the ball. I’d thought he’d press his lips to the back of my hand, hold my gaze in a trance.

I’d been a stupid girl then.

I’m probably still a stupid girl, but at least I know better than to blush like that.

I swallow my reaction and watch as the captain’s tense face goes lax, his breathing stabilizing. In hindsight, I probably should have waited to make sure he coughed up all the water, but I’m still not convinced Idon’twant the captain to die. I just don’t want his blood on my hands.

It’s still several hours until the sun rises, and I can’t very well go back to the Den. If any of the Lost Boys see me quaking like this, they’ll think I’m as high as the clock tower, and Peter will find out I went looking for faerie dust. Even if I did turn back.

Besides. Now that I have the captain subdued, I have so many questions. Questions I buried when we crossed into Neverland. I’d accepted the fact that I’d left the answers behind in my home realm. But now that Captain Astor is here, they’re flooding back in with such urgency, I have to restrain myself from grabbing the captain’s shoulders and shaking him awake.

Instead, I sit and wait.

I’m not sure how much time passes before the captain’s long, black eyelashes flutter and reveal those stunning green eyes.

They’re awash with confusion. I watch as realization slowly overcomes him. It’s in the way his fingers tense in an attempt to curl together, but fail. In the way his boots flick as he tries to move his legs. I’ve been dosed with rushweed before, and it feels as if the doctors poured concrete into your limbs.

Painfully, the captain squeezes his eyes shut—I suppose in an attempt to contain his frustration.

Then, effortfully, judging by the way his neck muscles flex, he cranes his neck to look at me.

The breath whooshes out of my lungs when those ivy irises pierce my very soul. As with the first time we met, I feel as though I’m naked. Not because he stares at me as some of my suitors did, as if they were undressing me in their mind. It’s more like I showed up at a gathering having forgotten to don clothes, and the captain is the first to notice.

I fight the heat crawling up my cheeks.

I don’t have to be intimidated by this man. For once in my life, I’m the one in control.

Then why do I let him be the first to speak?

“You didn’t kill me,” he says, slowly. I can’t tell if he’s testing out the words, careful not to startle a rabid animal, or if the drugs are just making him have to focus more on speaking. “Tell me why.’’

My response catches in my throat, and I fumble for an answer. “I—”

No. I shake my head. “I’m the one who has you subdued, not the other way around.”

“Forgive me if your tone isn’t convincing.”

Okay, so the captain isn’t having difficulty finding his words, after all. He’s right though; my voice is shaking terribly, coming out in short screeches at parts. His pointing it out only causes my tongue to grow thicker in my mouth, a stumbling block for any witty response I might have come up with.

“Now tell me why you didn’t kill me,” says the captain.

My heart stills.

My father used to say that I was the most compliant child in the world. That I’d do anything I was asked.

Being told to do something, on the other hand?

That’s when I would dig my heels in. I wouldn’t tantrum like some children or outright refuse like others. But if it was a chore I didn’t find fair, I’d do it poorly. If it was schoolwork, I’d do it so slowly, force my tutors to suffer through a long afternoon with me.

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