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Don’t do anything stupid.
Yeah, I was a little offended? It wasn’t like I ever set out to do the stupid thing. Sometimes shit just happened. But what if he was right to be worried? Not about me being stupid, but about how risky it was coming here.
Worst-case scenario: I would fail and die. And Leo would die. And Hook would fail, only he wouldn’t die.
I would be the first to admit that outcome would suck. Don’t get me wrong,Death by Pixiewould be a hell of a phrase to have on my tombstone. But would I have a tombstone?
If I died here today, my brother would never know.
That thought hurt. Way down deep. If the tables were turned, I would want to know. It would tear my heart into little pieces of bloody confetti, but knowing that he was dead would be a hell of a lot better than spending a lifetime imagining what might have happened.
“So, Plan A, obviously, is to stay alive,” I said to myself.
In terms of pep talks, it left a lot to be desired.
I scanned the stretch of dark sand again. Everything about this side of the island was darker. The sand, the water, the trees. Not to mention the shadows lurking beneath those trees. It all made my skin crawl.
Rolling my shoulders back, I eyed the jungle. “Quit stalling,” I said aloud, forcing myself to take one step toward the darkness that seemed to swallow the ground. “There’s always the chance the pixie won’t show.”
In which case, I would end up hanging out in the jungle, by my lonesome, while Hook did most of the heavy lifting. My brain headed down the path of what might happen to him if he wasn’t able to get his hands on Petra, or how many things could go wrong even if he managed to put her in that makeshift cage, before I shut down that dismal train of thought.
Mostly.
I was trying to keep a positive outlook, really I was, but that cage was a fucking joke. He’d said the wood was enchanted. Which, yay, I guess. That didn’t change the fact that it was still a glorified crate meant to hold a demon that could bat me around like a badminton shuttlecock.
“But hey, what do I know?” I muttered.
It’s not like I’m an expert on all things magical.That was the thought that followed me into the shadows. The minute I couldn’t feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, every short hair along the back of my neck rose to attention, and all my senses tried to kick into high gear at once.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I called out with a fuck ton of false confidence, sending a handful of colorful birds squawking into flight.
Was it smart to taunt anything on this island? Probably not, but why wait for something to happen when I could be the bad bitch making it happen?
I was the shark in this situation.
I was the hunter.
Never mind that it was even warmer in the shade of the jungle. The humid air was thicker in here. Heavier. It had my clothes clinging to my skin and a fine sheen of sweat already forming on my forehead.
“Come on, Anya,” I called again, pitching my voice loud and clear into those eerie shadows. “Let’s play a game.”
I drew in a steadying breath, winced at the sickly sweet scent of decay, and double-checked my sketchy as fuck internal walls to make sure the uncertainty coursing through me wasn’t leaking out.
If Hook could have sensed what I was feeling, he probably would have flashed right back. And if he could have heard me? He would’ve had his big hand wrapped around my mouth in a heartbeat.
Luckily, he wasn’t there to silence me with his overbearing protectiveness. A protectiveness I would never publicly admit I found kind of hot.
Okay, all kinds of hot.
A flutter of movement pulled my attention to the branches of a twisted tree. At first glance, it looked ancient and alien. That was before I realized it was just a tree that had been dead long enough that the bark had all peeled away, leaving behind a ghostly pale skeleton. The mass of deep green vines hanging from every limb might have played a role in its demise, but even if it didn’t, the creeping, crawling plant had certainly taken advantage of the countless knots and tortured angles.
And there, perched in the heart of that dead tree, sat my nemesis. She glared at me with an intensity that sent a renewed rush of adrenaline through me.
“Well, hello, pixie,” I said, sounding a hell of a lot more confident than I felt.
Sure, she might be the size of a softball at that moment, but we’d done this dance before. I knew it would only take a matter of seconds for her to match my height and then some.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” she said flatly.
