Then I see the fangs jutting from its mouth, each of them at least a foot long. “Holy shit.”
“Time to go.” The pirate stows his gun and pulls me up. “That shot will keep the creatures off us for only a moment. We have to get to sea.”
He crashes through a thicket, pulling me along with him. “Faster, lass.”
What sounds like a nest of rattlesnakes causes him to veer away from the top of the rise, and we plunge deeper into the trees.
I stumble, my ankle twisting on the rough terrain. The rattling grows louder, my mind conjuring an enormous snake wrapped around one of the trees. Given the bat, I’m probably not far off.
“Shit.” He turns and scoops me into his arms, and then he’s running through the forest, his heart thumping against me as I cling to him.
Something slithers behind us, and I catch a glimpse of slitted, glowing eyes.
“There’s a …” I don’t know what it is. “There’s something behind us!”
“Cockatrice.” He grunts and jumps a stream, then launches us up the other side, his boots sliding on the loose shale.
I don’t want to be in the pirate’s arms, but I want even less to be eaten by whatever a cockatrice is, so I wrap my arms around his neck and hang on.
“We’re almost there.” His grip tightens on me as he runs down a rocky slope toward the sea that crashes far below us. The trees thin, and the ground lightens with sandy striations and outcrops of rock.
I chance another look behind us and see the creature. It’s still chasing us, its slitted eyes in the head of a rooster with impossible fangs, and a tail whipping out behind it with a rattle on the end. I can’t stop the scream, the terror inside me boiling over at the monster in the trees.
“Hold on tight.” The pirate turns around, facing the creature, and flings his left arm forward. A blade flies away through the moonlight, but it glances off the creature’s scaly neck.
“Fuck me.” He starts to run again, his entire body tense as he tries to keep his balance down the increasingly vertical slope to the beach.
The monster hisses, the rattle rising high in the air behind it as it plunges after us.
The pirate stops suddenly, and I turn to look. We’re on a cliff over the sea. It’s a trip straight down into dark waters, no path to the beach at all.
“Brace yourself.” He hefts me up higher.
“Don’t.” I try to pull out of the pirate’s grip. “I can’t go into the water again. Ican’t.” Nothing good ever comes of me swimming in the waters of Neverland. “Please!” I scream.
His mouth is set into a grim line as he clutches me to his chest. “Hold onto me, lass. Don’t let go.” He looks behind us one more time at the approaching beast, then with a running leap that carries us off the cliff, we plunge down into the cold, dark waters that promise only death.
