Page 28 of Veiled in Stars and Silver
It was true. I’d tried to find so many excuses to kill him that day. If it weren’t for my brothers, I probably would have. And despite everything I’d learned, a part of me still wanted to finish him.
I took a long drink. The sweet liquid burned down my throat, but I didn’t let that stop me.
I took another and another. If I drank enough, I could forget it all. Peter, Hook. My failure to save my brothers.
Hook eased the bottle from my hands. “No getting tipsy, remember? Besides, it doesn’t help. You’ll simply wake up with an unexplainable pounding in your head, feeling shitty as ever. We’ll find your brothers. You have my word.”
I forced a smile. “I guess I’ll go to sleep, then.”
He retreated, sitting back next to his crate. “If you can.”
I lay down, pulling the scratchy blanket over myself, and staring at the roof of the underground rum cache. I was never going to sleep. Not with Hook in the same room as me. But the extra bit of rum in my system did its work, and soon I found that whatever danger I was in, it didn’t seem that immediate.
My eyes settled shut, and my mind began to recall memories from years ago. How my brothers and I used to play, late into the evening, past when Mother and Father thought we were asleep. How we would make up adventures in the night, telling them to one another. John was always ready to grab the nearest toy sword or top hat, depending on the part he was enacting. And little Michael’s infectious laugh danced around us before he’d get too tired, and I would have to lift his small body into bed.
No matter how often I put the memories off in the daytime, these scenes always came to me each night, replaying in my head before I went to sleep. And tonight, with the rum in my system, it was no different. Slowly, dreaming of reuniting with my brothers, I drifted off into a fitful slumber.
Chapter 11
Peter
Peter never tired of the wind shifting through his hair when he flew. Neverland spanned before him as he soared. His own personal kingdom.
He headed back to his hideout, seeing his Lost Boys in the distance moving in the same direction. They were calling it a night. The sun’s last rays verged on dipping beneath the horizon. The games of the day had turned out differently than expected, but fruitful in their own way.
Wendy had returned to Neverland, older and much more womanly. He liked that. Perhaps when all this was over, she’d end up at Madame Pearl’s. Recently, the home where the women of the night dwelled drew his curiosity. But he hadn’t gone there. Yet.
Perhaps Wendy would be his first visit.
He frowned. But tonight, she and Hook were off in Neverland, alone.
He very much didn’t like that.
He gripped his sword, looking out over the island, wishing he could pinpoint their whereabouts. A low growl emitted from his lips.
No man deserved death more than James Hook.
With the danger that the pirate captain presented to Neverland, he’d been certain Wendy would have performed her part by now and done him in. Especially after Peter had lied to her and told her about her brothers being dead.
Now he wasn’t sure where her loyalties lie.
He flew to his home, a network of upside-down tree houses built into the side of Raider’s Cliff. A latticework of pathways carved into the stone made it possible to walk from one house to the other, but mostly he and the Lost Boys flew. Peter’s tree house, of course, was the largest and best furnished, and the spot where the Lost Boys often met to plot and play their games. He’d had old hideouts. One he thought used to be in the base of a tree. What had happened? Had the pirates discovered them? Wild beasts run them out? He couldn’t remember.
Opening the moss and leaf covered door to his home, Peter soared in, landing on his favorite perch carved into the cliff face. The space was simple, filled with weapons and other tools he and the Lost Boys used for skinning and cleaning their meals.
He snatched up the thimble he kept at the rear of the alcove, knowing it had something to do with Wendy, but couldn’t rememberwhat. Even though he recalled her, some of their interactions remained hazy. It had been a long time. At least, he thought so.
Pressing the thimble to his lips, he tipped it back and drank the small amount of liquid inside. His medicine. He hoped tonight it would stave off the recurring dream of someone hovering over him, casting a spell while he slept. It always unsettled him and made him momentarily powerless.
He hated that feeling.
But it didn’t worry him like it used to. Peter was older, though he didn’t know how old. When he was in Neverland, he didn’t age, but when he went back to the human world, he aged like any other person. And he’d spent more time there lately, searching for the Dagger of Forgotten Souls.
Although when he compared his height to those boys he saw roaming London’s streets, he’d guess his body may reflect that of a fifteen or sixteen-year-old. The other Lost Boys appeared much younger. When he realized this, he’d become horrified and stopped going to the human realm to search. He set the thimble down harshly. He’d even lost his shadow in the hunt for that cursed object.
But Wendy knew where the dagger was located. That was a surprise. A good one. Surely she’d give it to him. Although, turning over her brothers in exchange wouldn’t happen.
It was the rules of the game.
