Page 60 of Darling

Roughly fifty feet away, there was a dark smudge in the grass. They were far enough away that Wendy couldn’t see any details, but close enough that she could tell that it was too large to be roadkill. Wendy glanced up at the elevated tracks, where Peter had pushed James from the train. It was about twenty or thirty feet up. Tall enough for an immediate fatality. Or worse, James may have fallen, been grievously injured, and lain there in pain in the dark until he eventually succumbed to his injuries while Wendy and the rest of the group were dancing at the party.

Wendy’s heart lurched with disgust and horror and she felt almost like she was going to throw up before disassociation properly kicked in and she began floating above herself. She watched herself gazing at James’s body and vaguely felt herself hoping he was just unconscious.

Tinkerbelle covered her face. Peter pulled Tinkerbelle to his chest, allowing her to turn away from what he had done. Wendy watched from above and couldn’t imagine how unbearable it would feel to be in the cradle of Peter’s arms right now.

“Is that him?” Wendy asked. It felt like she was speaking underwater.

Peter turned as slow as time and fixed her with his golden gaze. “He didn’t even scream as he fell.” He sighed. “It was like he knew he deserved it.”

Wendy folded her arms in Peter’s jacket and stared at the dark smudge. Nothing was happening police-wise, so she knew she hadn’t finished the job. “I want to stay with you,” Wendy started. “But I need you to help me. I want to be a part of your family, but in order to give Slightly, Curly, Nibs, Prentis, Tootles, and the twins the mother they deserve, I need to understand why this is such a big part of who you are.”

Peter paused, then tilted his head back until he was looking at the stars. “I never had anything like this when I was younger. I always had to build my families from scratch. There will always be people like me who have nothing and no one, who have to burn themselves alive to stay warm. It’s always easy for me to find other people like that because we know one another on sight. When we finally have the opportunity to belong to each other and build a community, it’s something rare and special. We are the ones who make the rules; we are the ones who build our own home. We take care of one another, and our word is our bond, and nothing but that matters.

“But it’s hard to keep that going forever. You don’t stop needing your brothers when you turn eighteen, you need them even more. But the world isn’t built in a way that allows people to really hold on to one another how we should. Everyone gets to a certain point where they grow up, and suddenly they don’t think they need anyone. They want to leave and find new people to share their time with, and they rarely come back to visit. The world becomes so big for them, and they look down on the places they stayed and the people they made memories with. It’s such a monumental betrayal to the people they’ve left behind.”

Peter closed his eyes.

“I haven’t talked to anyone about this before,” he admitted.

“It’s okay,” Wendy lied. Good God.

Peter stood still for a moment, looking at James’s body from a distance. He seemed to deflate a bit. “I’ve heard that people come home to visit their mothers. You know, during the holidays and all of that. No matter how old they get, they always come back home to see her. You see on TV when they say things like, ‘This tastes just like how Mom makes it!’ or, ‘Mom used to do this with us,’ and you can tell they really want to go home and see her. You don’t hear that about dads, you don’t hear that about brothers. Mothers are special somehow. I just think … maybe if we had one, my brothers wouldn’t leave and never come back. They might want to come and visit, even if it was just for her,” Peter finished, his eyes fluttering closed.

The breath felt like it had been punched clean out of Wendy’s lungs. She watched this monster of a boy, backlit by a blanket of stars, and felt herself falling to pieces. “If—if you knew they would come back,” Wendy stammered, “would you still keep … like … James…?”

Peter’s eyes snapped open and he frowned. “It’s too late for James. I killed James because—”

The instant that phrase was out of his mouth, Wendy heard two loud bangs, and Peter fell jerkily to his knees and screamed. Tinkerbelle wrenched her hand out of his grip and pulled Wendy backward.

It took Wendy a second to figure out what had happened. Peter was kneeling and panting hard. The back of his calves began to darken with blood. Wendy looked up and saw a sniper, who had been nestled on the elevated train tracks, climb to his feet. Almost immediately sirens began going off in the distance. Peter gasped and tried to pull himself to his feet, but he collapsed back down to the ground.

“Tink … Tinkerbelle, please,” he groaned, but Tinkerbelle shook her head and backed away from his flailing arms.

Wendy held on to her hand tight as they watched Peter try to rise to his feet.

The police cars drove over the grass and were getting close quickly.

Peter Pan hissed and compressed his wounds with hands slick with blood. “I hate you,” he spat at Tinkerbelle and Wendy.

“You’re disgusting!” Tinkerbelle shouted.

“I am many things,” Peter panted, smiling in the face of their betrayal. “I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird who has broken out of the egg.”

With terrible speed, he snatched a blade from somewhere Wendy didn’t see, and threw it fast.

Wendy clenched her teeth and shut her eyes, but Peter’s deadly aim had been marred by panic and pain, and the knife cut the sleeve of Tinkerbelle’s dress instead of any precious bit of her.

The police poured out of their cars and surrounded them, immediately cuffing Peter and holding him down on his knees.

Nibs and Curly emerged from the dark side of the tracks; they marched straight past James’s body without glancing at it and picked up speed. Nibs outpaced Curly, heading directly for Tinkerbelle, who began crying, arms open to receive him. Curly kept running behind them. The police parted, making way for him as he got closer, holding Peter upright and facing his challenger. Curly pulled out the bar he’d used to pry Ominotago out of the police car.

“No, Curly, wait,” Peter said, eyes white with terror.

“Shut up and die,” Curly yelled. He leaped into the air, swinging the bar like a bat, and smashed Peter across the face with incredible violence. Peter’s jaw made a crack that was absolutely bone-shattering, and his scream of agony would haunt Wendy for the next decade of her life.

The police watched in silence as Curly dropped the bar and flung himself into Tinkerbelle and Nibs. No one yelled at him or made any move to restrain him at all, they just watched.

The officer holding Peter’s arms behind his back jerked him upright but didn’t pull him to his feet.