Page 20 of Tick Tock, Darling

Wendy was in there too.

That was the one I couldn’t get my hands around. Pan I could kill. I’d been planning how since Angelo’s office. But my sister was going to come at me with that thing behind her eyes and her own face on, and I had no idea what I’d do when she did.

I’d been telling myself for years that if I ever got her back I’d know what to do.

I don’t scare easy. I was scared.

I jumped through the portal after her.

Chapter Eight

Tinker Bell

I pulled on the chains that strapped me to the bed. The metal scraped my flesh and trapped my magic — even the shard’s. I felt for it anyway. Reached down into myself the way I’d done ten thousand times, and hit iron.

This wasn’t just anyone’s bed. It was Pan’s. If he thought he was going to have me, fuck him. Not happening.

The boat rocked. Outside the cabin, men laughed and shouted at each other, and somebody dropped something heavy on the deck above my head. Ordinary noise. Men working. It could have been any ship anywhere and I’d have found it comforting on a different night.

Caspian had a ship. He’d stood on a deck like this one a thousand times, giving orders in that easy voice of his.

Wrong ship. Wrong man giving the orders.

I’d wanted to see where we were going. Get my bearings, count the turns, learn something. Pan handled that with four words to Smee about his bed.

Ankles strapped wide at the bottom corners. Arms over my head. Nothing I could cover and nowhere to turn.

Tears came up hot behind my eyes and I blinked them back down.

I hadn’t felt like this since I was eighteen at Salem Academy, sitting on the floor of the practice room with my hands shaking, unable to make the smallest thing happen. They’d all gone on to lunch. I’d stayed and cried where nobody could see me and then I’d learned. That’s what I did. I got up off the floor and I learned.

There was nothing here to learn. The iron didn’t care how good I’d gotten.

I thought about Caspian and I hated myself for it.

Twice I’d told him I didn’t need his protection. Snapped my fingers at him for that shard like he was hired help. And the last thing I did before Pan took me over the rooftops was look down at that man on the sidewalk and plead with him with my eyes.

He couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. That was how we left it.

Nobody knew where I was. Not him, not Alice, not anybody. I could want him all night and it wouldn’t put him one foot closer.

Footsteps approached the door and it opened. Peter Pan looked down at me. He had on his green tights, tunic, and shirt. The perpetual young man.

No, not a man. A fucking demon.

His gaze crawled from my ankles to my face. “Tink, how inviting you look.”

Nonononono

I pressed my body into the bed, trying to disappear. There was nowhere to go. That was the whole point of the position and he’d chosen it on purpose.

I yanked on the chains and twisted my body. The metal bit into my flesh even harder. “Stay away from me, you bastard.”

I was powerless. He could do whatever he wanted and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

He smiled like a spider speaking to a fly. “Don’t worry. I have no intention of raping you.” His voice was smooth and there was something ugly under it. Pan only acted nice when he wanted something.

I gritted my teeth. “What do you want?”