Page 17 of Tick Tock, Darling

“Damn it, Wendy. Get her.” The anger and pain in Pan’s voice spurred me on. If I got caught, I’d pay for what I did.

Fifteen feet away. My hair dangled in front of my face, but through the strands I could see the trees beckoning me to come.

Movemovemovemove

Eight feet. Six.

Adrenaline pushed through me. The scent of pine filled my lungs. Almost there.

Behind me Wendy said, “Silva claudatur. Murus stet. Non transibis.”

Let the forest be closed. Let the wall stand. You will not pass.

I hit something invisible at a dead run.

Nothing there — no light, no shimmer, not one thing to see — and it took me across the chest and the face and put me flat on my back in the sand with the wind knocked clean out of me.

I lay there and couldn’t get a breath. The trees were right there. Close enough to count the leaves.

I got up and put my hands on it. Smooth. Solid the whole way across, and when I pushed, my own magic turned over behind the binding like a dog hearing something outside, and it couldn’t get out to help me.

She’d said three lines. She hadn’t even had to think about it.

Boots came through the sand behind me. Unhurried.

I slid my palms over the barrier, trying to find out where it ended. Hoping there was a limit to her spell. Before…

Strong fingers snagged my hair and lifted me off my feet again. Pan whipped me around until we were nose to nose. His eyes promised pain.

“That wasn’t very nice, Tink. My knee is throbbing. For each throb I ought to take a piece of that beautiful hide.”

My mouth ran dry. Pan had a reputation for being cruel and inventive. I didn’t want to be his next victim.

He hauled me back to the water and threw me in the sand. But it wasn’t him that punished me.

Wendy kicked me in the ribs. Something cracked and the pain went white. I couldn’t pull a breath behind it.

She gripped my hair. “Don’t ever hurt him again.”

A wave came up the sand. She thrust my face in it. Salt water and grit gushed down my throat. I got my hand on her wrist and knocked it loose.

I spit out sand and water. “Don’t touch me.”

Her gray eyes flashed black. The thing inside her was smiling. I could feel it.

“Now that we’ve established who is in control,” Pan said as he clasped my arm and dragged me to my feet. “I suggest you move and not try anything stupid again.”

I wrapped my arm around my waist. Every step drove the broken rib into something it shouldn’t have been touching, and I made myself keep walking anyway.

Nothing I could do about it. Not yet.

Bide my time. There’d be a moment — Pan distracted, Wendy looking somewhere else, a rope, a rail, a dark stretch of deck — and I’d take it. There’s always a moment. You just have to still be alive when it comes.

The plank was down on the clipper.

“Look. It’s Pan.” A man at the rail pointed at us and his voice broke coming out of him.

Then the cheer went up.