“I’m fucked. Fucked by a fucking fairy,” I whisper to myself and press my forehead against the tree.
“That’s no way to talk about Peter.” A gruff voice behind me has me jumping, but a hand comes down over my mouth and a hard body presses me against the tree. “Don’t move. Don’t scream.”
I try to stomp my foot onto his, but I miss and slam it down on a root. “Ow!” My yell is muffled, and then overtaken by another roar, this one so loud I cringe.
“It’s close,” he whispers. “You might want to reconsider fighting me.”
He smells like the wind off a stormy sea, rain and salt and sun all wrapped into his scent. A pirate. Tinker Bell led me right to him. If I ever get my hands on that little glowing bitch, I’m going to wring her neck.
“Are you going to be a good lass?” he asks, his other arm banded around my waist like an iron bar. He’s tall, even taller than Peter and just as muscled. “Nod if you say aye.” His voice is accented, but I can’t place it. Like a mix of Scottish and English, but with something else in there too. “No screaming. Aye?” His warm breath against my ear sends goosebumps rushing along my skin. He moves closer, his nose skimming along the side of my throat. “Aye, sweet lass?”
I’m suddenly very aware of how big he is, how he’s pressed me against the tree with ease, how we’re out here alone in the forest, how I have no way out. Of course I want to scream, but that might bring the bear. I can’t risk it. Peter found me when the Guardians took me. He’ll find me again if he has to. He promised to protect me, and that’s what I have to hold onto right now.
I nod slowly.
His large hand slips away from my mouth, and I take a deep breath of his sea air. “The bear is near. Best you stay quiet. Come with me.”
I turn around and look up at him. In the glow of the moon, he’s every bit the pirate. Tricorn hat, shaggy black hair, and a short, scruffy beard. His eyes are shadowed by his hat, but I can feel him looking at me. His white shirt is open to the waist, and he wears leather pants with a black belt slung low across his hips. An old-fashioned pistol is holstered on one side, and a large knife is on the other.
“Done gawking, lass?” He smirks and takes my hand. “Let’s go.”
“Wait. Where are we going?” The memory of the bodies in the woods is a bucket of ice water over me. Is that what he’s going to do to me?
“To sea.” He pulls me along through the woods, and I look around for some way to escape him. There’s nothing. I don’t know where I am.
Maybe if I can get free, I can outrun him.
I let him pull me along, the moon lighting our way as another roar sounds at our backs. It seems farther away now. That’s good. If I can break away, I won’t run into it.
“Just let me go, okay? I won’t tell Peter that I saw you. You’ll be safe to go back to your ship. You don’t have to hurt me. Okay?”
He doesn’t respond, just keeps pulling me through the undergrowth, unerringly toward the ocean.
“Listen, I know your boss wants me dead, but you?—”
“You haven’t a clue about my boss, lass.” He pulls a little harder as we climb over a downed tree. “Best keep your opinions to yourself.”
I most certainly will not. “Captain Hook. The most vicious pirate that ever lived. I know all about him. But I also know Peter, and if you were to let me go or even return me to him, he would give you whatever you wanted.”
“I already have what I want, lass.” He helps me up a hill and then down again into a ravine. “No point trying to change my mind.”
I’m getting winded as he barrels along. That’s when I realize I have to try something. If I don’t do it now, I’ll be too worn out to try it later, especially if he continues at this pace. I definitely don’t want to end up on the wrong end of a rope.
We come out on top of an embankment with another patch of woods on the other side, and he heads down the ridge, keeping to the top and aiming toward a silvery beach I can see below.
This is my last chance. If I can break away and make it to the woods, I might be able to hide. I move closer to him, trying to keep up, trying to make him loosen his grip.
It works. When he stops having to pull me so much, his grip relaxes. I steel myself and yank my hand back with all my strength. I pull myself free and then take off down the hill.
He yells from behind me, frustration in his tone.
I lose my footing and fall, rolling as I go. It hurts—bits of rock and roots poking me as I tumble along the steep embankment, but at least I’m moving away from him. If I can get back to Peter, I’ll be safe. I just have to survive and hide.
When my momentum finally lets up, I scramble to my knees and then my feet. Glancing behind me, I don’t see the pirate. Did he give up and head down to the beach without me?
I stumble toward the trees and sigh with relief once I’m under their canopy, but I can’t stop, not until I find somewhere to hide. Pushing myself despite the aches erupting all over me, I forge ahead though the ground here is soggy. It pulls at my shoes as I search around for a good tree or patch of bushes to hide in.
The farther I go, the mushier the ground gets, and the smell is like nothing I’ve ever known—rotten with a side of boiled eggs. I have to stop and yank one of my legs free, and that’s when I realize I’ve come too far. My other leg is sinking more, the black muck beneath me oozing up and swallowing my leg up to the knee. Fear hits me. Panic like I’ve never known bubbles like lava as I watch myself sinking into the muck.
