Seven
The shadow stops so violently that I lose my breath. It turns midair and seems to be staring back through the trees.
“What? Your boss in trouble?” My voice is hoarse.
I try to kick at the shadow, but my foot meets only air.
When it drops suddenly, I scream. We hit the ground, and the shadow takes off, leaving me in a pile of leaf litter in the dark.
I struggle to my feet, dazed from the fall but no more hurt than I already was. The sounds of the battle are growing louder, and then I hear booms.
My senses sharpen, my adrenaline kicking back in and powering my limbs as I push through the undergrowth and rush toward the noise. Those booms—they have to be musket fire. It’s the only explanation. And the only people I’ve ever seen with guns around here? Pirates.
I shouldn’t want to see Hook, shouldn’t care if he’s all right, but my heart betrays me. It beats for him. Even though he’s a villain of the darkest design, cut from a cloth of midnight. He’s so muchmore than that, so much deeper than what others say—and even than whathesays. There is so much good in him. I’ve felt it. Seen it.
When I burst through the woods and into the village, the fray seems to have shifted off to my left. I follow the sounds, hiding behind buildings and moving as quickly as I can.
A pirate rushes past me, his sword held high as he chases a Lost Boy. It’s Cecco. I can see the glint of his earrings as he yells.
More Lost Boys run by me, and I press my back against the wall of a tiny cottage. They don’t look back at me, not when they’re running for their lives.
“Run, cowards!” Bill Jukes lumbers past me, blood streaking down the back of his head.
A Lost Boy staggers only a few feet away from me, falling to his knees as he gasps for breath. It’s stupid, but I pity him. He didn’t choose this. Peter chose it for him.
I move toward him slowly, but then I see another familiar shape. Widow.
She stalks around to the Lost Boy’s front. “This is it for you, lad. Godspeed on your travels.” She ends him with a quick stab to his heart, and he falls forward, not a sound uttered.
“Widow.” I stumble toward her.
“Moira!” She stows her sword and runs to me, catching me before I fall. “We’ve been all over this blasted island looking for you.” She hugs me so tightly I wonder if my ribs might break.
“Peter had me.” I lean on her as she guides me around the house I was hiding behind. “And then I escaped. The Guardians havetaken care of me.” I have to catch my breath, fatigue wearing on me. This sort of tired—the kind that goes all the way to my marrow—is crushing. Not only because it hurts, but because I know my vigor was stolen from me.
I pull up short. “Promise me something.”
“What?” She eyes a Lost Boy who runs into the trees to our left with a pirate hot on his heels.
“If Peter’s shadow gets its hands on me again, kill me before it can take me.”
“Kill you?” She shakes her head and drapes one of my arms over her shoulders, her wings tickling along my skin. “If I were to do that, Hook would hang me from the mizzenmast like a puppet on strings. No, thank you.”
“I mean it.” I trip over nothing in particular, and Widow takes on more of my weight.
“I know you do.” Her voice is softer now. “But it won’t come to that.”
“His shadow can’t be killed. It’s like smoke.”
“Anythingcan be killed.” She says it with such authority that I begin to wonder about all the things she’s killed since taking up the pirate life.
“Moira!” Shiner runs up, her arm bloody.
“I’m all right,” I announce, but Shiner ignores it and loops my other arm over her shoulder. “You look like shit.”
“You’re the one who’s bleeding.” I stop trying to support myself as much and, instead, lean on both of them.
They seem to handle my weight with ease as we pass through the village, only stopping to check on injured Guardians.
