“Stop,” I grunt. “We’re both walking off this island.” Another scream echoes from the eye of the skull, mocking my sentence. “Now, let’s move. The faster we get in, the faster we can get out.”
I brace myself for the pain I know will come, the attack, but it doesn’t come right away. We’re left alone while we’re outside the cave, but I know the moment we step over the threshold, we’ll be in danger.
“Whatever happens,” March murmurs, “don’t let go.”
I nod even as we hover outside the cave. Inside, there’s a slight yellow glow that calls to me, that beckons us to come inside. I wonder, briefly, if it’s the same magic the Tribe has been gifted with, or if it’s something horribly twisted. I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, and then we both step over the entrance.
Everything shifts as quickly as Wendy warned it would and the first immediate reaction, besides the loud shrieks, is the violent wrenching of our hold on each other. I grunt in pain as I’m jerked sideways but our fingers hold on. A loud pop echoes in my ears and I glance at March just in time to see him grimace at the sudden pain.
“Your shoulder—”
Something slams into me from the front, taking the air from my lungs, but it doesn’t push us from the cave. No, it latches on fingers and starts to drag me inside. March, by default, follows along, even if I can hear his grunts as he’s attacked the same as I am. “Hold on,” I tell him, but I’m not sure he can hear me over the sounds around us. Besides the screams and moans, it’s like we’re inside a wind tunnel, as if the wind swirls around us inside the cave, drowning out anything else.
A twisted, feminine chuckle echoes around us and the sound of metal dragging on stone has me tensing. The voice isn’t familiar to me, but when March tenses just the smallest amount, I know she’s from his mind rather than mine.
We turn and my eyes land on a beautifully gruesome woman, her large dress as blood red as the actual blood dripping from her claws. A large red crown sits on her mass of white hair, black eyes watching us closely.
“Hello, March,” she purrs. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of gutting you.”
“Hello, Alice,” March tosses back as he shoves his shoulder back into socket. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you dead.”
The Queen charges, no other warning, a large knife in her hand raised as if to cut us apart. March doesn’t move, but I do. I stumble backwards, dragging him with me by default, and we slip off the edge of the stone into water that hadn’t been behind us. Even as we sink, I can hear the Queen’s laugh, hear her goad us as the water closes over out heads.
I expect cold water, but it’s immediately apparent this isn’t the water of the ocean. This is freshwater; murky, dangerous freshwater. My fingers remain locked with March’s, and when I turn to look at him in the water, that’s when I see it. Teeth. A mouth full of teeth. I jerk March toward me just in time for him to avoid being crushed by the gapping maw of the giant crocodile. The beast circles around us, it’s tail long enough to nearly form a complete circle as it does so, waiting for another moment to attack.
This isn’t Wolfbane. I know that, but still, when toxic green eyes focus on me and the crocodile’s grin spreads, I’m not so certain. It’s a near perfect copy of my brother, a near perfect copy of what the Crocodile looks like when swimming in the water. This is his swamp.
“Lily,” the Croc hums in the water, and it carries to my ears. “You shouldn’t have come here to find your answers.”
I can’t speak, not without filling my lungs with water. Luckily, March seems fully capable of holding his breath just like I can, but eventually mine will run out. I can hold my breath for long minutes, but eventually, my body will demand air. March and I start kicking, aiming for the surface that seems just out of reach.
“You can’t escape your destiny, Lily.”
Watch me, I want to say, but I can’t. March kicks just as hard as I do, and when the Croc seizes the chance to attack, his great mouth opening to grab me around the torso, I’m ready for it. I pull the knife from my waist and rely on March to help me. As if sensing my plan, just before the jaws can close around me, he jerks me towards him, avoiding the teeth even as I bring my dagger down in the Crocodile’s eye. He thrashes in pain, his great head slamming into me and knocking what little air I held in my lungs free. The water sucks inside a split second later and I desperately swim for the surface, fighting the tightening of my chest and the feeling of being choked. Blackness creeps around the edges of my vision but March drags me further even as my legs slow and stop kicking. We break the surface seconds later, March dragging me free before giving me a solid whack on the back, the water in my lungs gagging out of me. The Crocodile doesn’t follow.
“March!” My Hare’s head whips away from my eyes with the new voice, his ears twitching, and when I follow his gaze, it’s to find a man with rabbit ears standing in the middle of the cave. “Didn’t I tell you about bringing your mess inside?”
“You’re not here,” March murmurs. “I watched you get ripped to shreds.”
“Good lot of help you were,” the man snarls, his face morphing. “Can’t even find the door, let alone help your own father.”
I perk up, the mention of the door catching my attention more than anything else. “What door?” I ask, and March shoots me a look.
The man’s eyes turn to me, a sneer pulling at his lips. “Leave it to my son to find just as gruesome a beast as I did for a mate.” I don’t flinch. I’ve been called far worse than a gruesome beast. “You’ll get no answers from me, beast.”
“I found the door when you were ripped to shreds,” March points out, distracting the man, his father, from focusing on me. “You told me to run, and I was a child. There was nothing I could do to stop mom.”
My heart squeezes in my chest. There’s no emotion in March’s voice as he speaks of the event, of when his own mother gave into her beastly side and ripped his father to shreds, of when his father did the same to his mother, but I can tell it still eats at him. Witnessing such a thing is not something anyone could forget, let alone a child.
As if our thoughts conjure her, the chimera comes from nowhere, slamming into us from the side and knocking us down. March rolls in an attempt to cushion me, but there’s no way. We both slam into the ground violently, our fingers still somehow staying locked together, but it’s awkward using only one hand to try and push the snapping chimera off us. With our hands twisted together, we can’t protect our middles, and that’s where the chimera latches on.
I scream in agony as razor sharp teeth slice into the skin of my shoulder, ripping, pulling away, before coming again.
March snarls at the smell of my blood leaking around us, his form shifting in anger. We both push against her, but it’ll take a few minutes for my shoulder to heal enough to use it.
“You’re going to have to let go,” I grunt when the chimera latches onto March’s forearm. “You can’t protect yourself with one hand.”
“Neither can you,” he snarls, glancing at my injured arm. “Don’t you dare let go, Lily.”
The chimera lands another blow on March’s chest and I uncurl my fingers, but March keeps hold, a snarl on his face as he realizes my plan.
“Let go, March.”
“No!” He hits the chimera, but she does nothing more than shake her head and resume fighting, clawed fingers latching onto March’s free wrist and pinning it to the floor.
“March, let go!”
The chimera lunges for the Hare’s neck and I react quicker than I even realize what I’m doing. I slam my knee up and my fist into the chimera’s head, knocking the mask from her face, knocking her backwards just enough to draw her attention. She screeches in fury and descends on the link between us, but we can’t face what we must missing limbs.
Everything slows when I meet March’s eyes and I realize he understands the same thing I do: we can’t survive linked, not when everything i
s determined to tear us apart. March doesn’t want to, but his fingers release and we jerk our hands away from the snapping teeth of the chimera, of March’s mother. It takes only a half second for March to jerk away from me, for him to disappear in the darkness.
Our eyes hold until they can’t anymore, and I hope he can survive.
But hope is such a flighty thing.
MARCH
The moment Tiger Lily disappears, I panic. Not only do I fear for her life after I see the sort of twisted memories that surround Skull Rock, but I fear what she’ll see, what she’ll have to face. This isn’t like the memories of Wonderland. This is something far worse.
The metallic tang of blood. Gruesome pieces. Madness, madness, madness.
I shake my head to clear the thoughts, to clear the sight of blood that isn’t there. Someone screams in the cave and I’m relieved it doesn’t sound like my Pretty Lily, but even though the chimera disappears before me, even though my ravenous mother is taken away, a new sound takes its place as I stand and adjust myself. A low growl runs along my skin, making my hair stand on end, and I freeze. I’d know that growl anywhere.
Bandersnatch.
I turn to the great hulking beast dripping rot and blood from its maw, Alice riding on its back like she always has. The Bandersnatch growls, its lips peeling back over its face to reveal putrid teeth and the stench of blood.
The Red Queen grins. “Run, little hare,” she teases. “Run, run, run!”
So, I do.
I run,
and run,
and run.
TIGER LILY
The chimera disappears the moment we’re ripped apart, but I don’t take it for the relief it should be. I know whatever March is suffering is bad, just as I know whatever comes next for me will have all the power of Skull Rock behind it. Finally having separated us, we’re at the mercy of the cursed island, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to make it out on our own. Wendy seemed adamant she hadn’t simply walked from the cave.
She’d had some sort of help.
“What are you doing here, Lily?” I look up at Peter as he stands over me, but he’s not the Peter I know now. This is the Peter before he started aging, the Peter who doesn’t understand consequences. His shadow rips violently at his feet, and every vicious tug, Peter’s face morphs a little darker, a little more animalistic. I remember Peter’s shadow days well. We’d nearly killed each other during it.
“Looking for you,” I murmur, dragging myself to my feet. My shoulder slowly stitches back together but I know it won’t be fast enough if the phantom Peter attacks me. And he will. I know he will. Just as I know he has no intention of letting me walk out of here.
But I have more to live for than just myself.
Peter tilts his head to the side and it’s unnatural, a movement I’ve never seen the real Peter make. “What a strange place to look for me, Lily.” His eyes flash. “What a dangerous place to look for me.”
“I’ve just been searching for a door.” I try to keep my voice even, to keep my plans away. If I can keep the phantom talking, maybe he’ll relax and give me the information I need.
The shadow at Peter’s feet gets partially free and it snarls at me. That is the true threat. The Shadow was always quicker to maim than Peter was. “You’ll find no door on Skull Rock,” Peter says, “but you already know that, Lily.”
“Did I?” I flick my eyes to the Shadow fighting to get free. “Can you tell me where I might find a door?” My fingers flex around air, wishing for the dagger I’d used on the Crocodile lost somewhere in the cave. “We could play a game.”
False Peter’s eyes light with mischief. He always did like games. “What sort of game?”
“I can name a part of Neverland, and if there’s a door there, you let me go. And if I’m wrong—”
“For every wrong answer, I get to cause you pain.” Peter grins and his teeth are too sharp, too predator-like. He’ll kill me if I get too many wrong answers—I know that—but still I tilt my chin up.
“Deal.”
The Shadow rips free and snarls but Peter holds up his hand, halting the thing from descending on me. Not yet. I haven’t gotten an answer wrong yet.
“Ask me your first question, Lily.” Peter’s voice sounds different, as if the phantom is bleeding through, as if morphing his appearance, and I realize, this phantom may be far more menacing than Peter ever was.
“Is there a door in Wendy’s domain?” It makes the most sense, for there to be a door somewhere in the sea and that’s why we’ve never seen it. It would be a feat to get our people through it, especially if the door is deep, but I shouldn’t ponder over it without knowing the answer. I know I’m wrong the second the phantom Peter smiles. It’s a knife-edged smile, a deadly one, that’s far too excited with my question.
“No,” he answers, and he lowers his hand.
The Shadow slams into me violently, teeth that make no sense on a shadow creature clamping around my leg before I even hit the floor. I scream as it tears into me, and that’s when I realize we never agreed how long the attacks will last. I curse my own stupidity as the Shadow bites my leg again, gritting my teeth against the pain.
And then it stops, and I drag myself to my feet, hiding the wince putting weight on my mutilated leg causes. I won’t give the Phantom that satisfaction, even if there’s bone showing through my leg, even if the pain nearly chokes me.
“Ask another,” Peter murmurs, his eyes glittering dangerously.
I hesitate, racking my brain for some place we haven’t been, but I know I have to ask the one question I know will be a wrong answer, just in case it’s the right one. The door could have been under our noses the whole time. It could be in plain sight.
“Is there a door in Tink’s and my domain?”
This time, he doesn’t even answer me. He flicks a finger and the shadow rips into me again.
The shadow focuses on arm for the second attack, on the one just barely gaining its function back after the chimera ripped my shoulder. When I feel the muscles tear, I can’t stop the scream that rolls up my throat and echoes around the cave. As punishment, the pain lasts longer, because I’d asked two questions in one. I don’t regret it. It makes far more sense to take it at once rather than split it up, but I start to question that decision when the shadow clamps sharp teeth around my hip and pulls.
“Enough,” Peter finally murmurs and the shadow backs away. This time, I can’t stand, not right away, and so I’m forced to kneel before Peter, blood dripping from my slowly healing wounds to pool around me. I may be immortal, but I still feel pain; I still bleed.
He looks me over curiously, his eyes taking in all my bleeding wounds, an excited smile on his face at my expense. This phantom enjoys torture, and I hate to think of what sort of creature he’d been before he became trapped in Skull Rock.
Panting, I meet his eyes, and even though he stands taller than me with my forced position, I don’t let it intimidate me. “Is there. . .is there a door in. . .the Crocodile’s domain?” I can barely get the words grit out through my teeth, the pain almost overwhelming, but I’m not just a prisoner of this world. I’m a Daughter of Neverland, and I will not cower to a savage phantom trapped on Skull Rock. Still, I brace myself, just in case the question is wrong. Perhaps, I’m asking the wrong questions.
Peter frowns and holds up his hand when the Shadow would have attacked. He doesn’t say anything, not right away, but after we stare at each other for what seems like hours, he grits his teeth and answers, forced by our deal.
“Yes.”
My heart throbs in my chest. I did it. The door is somewhere on the Dark Side of the island. Now I just need to find March and get us out of this torturous place.
“The deal was you let me go when I get a question correct,” I remind him, dragging myself to my feet when I finally heal just enough to limp away. “That was the deal.”
“You’re right,” the phantom wearing Peter’s face murmurs, but when he gri
ns, I know he’s found a way to go against that. “But I never said when I’d let you go.”
And he can keep me here forever.
“I didn’t expect a phantom to honor his word,” I murmur, tilting my chin up. “Will you kill me? Will that be your version of letting me go?”
Peter moves towards me and I don’t back away. Even though he’s younger than me now, his sixteen-year-old face meeting mine, he’s still the same height as me. Peter has always been taller, so it’s easy for him to look me in the eyes. Where my Peter’s eyes would be green, this one’s eyes flash black and remain that way, making him look demonic. Perhaps, Peter has always been a demon and I’ve just never noticed. Either way, I don’t flinch from his gaze. I show no weakness.
“That’s the secret, Lily,” he whispers, touching a finger to my cheek. “Dying is an awfully big adventure.”
I thought I needed to worry about the Shadow, but as it turns out, I should have known the phantom would be just as dangerous. The sharp teeth that are nestled in his mouth lengthen before my eyes, and when I turn to run, to get away, he slams into me, knocking me down, pinning my chest against the stone with his knee in my back.
“Don’t struggle too much, Lily,” he murmurs in my ear. “It’ll only make it hurt worse.”
And then razor-sharp teeth sink into the back of my neck.
MARCH
The screams shatter around me, and it gives me just enough strength to jerk my arm free of the Bandersnatch’s mouth and stumble away, searching for Tiger Lily in this maze of nightmares.
“Tiger Lily!” I shout, searching in the darkness.
The metallic tang of blood. Death. Screams.
No, the screams aren’t a part of my madness. They’re Lily’s.
“Tiger Lily!” I yell again, searching for her, searching.
Fierce as a Tiger Lily (Daughters of Neverland Book 2) Page 15