Unhooked

by Lisa Maxwell

  Rowan practically growls, his breaths coming in difficult bursts. “Villain,” he rasps.

  “No, boy. You’re quite mistaken. Have you not heard the story? I’m the hero of this piece—the victor,” Pan says. “It was I who conquered the Queen of this world. I who ruled over the Fey, Light and Dark alike.”

  “You who murdered the helpless,” Rowan chokes out, his face contorted with hate.

  “Well, yes, that was unavoidable,” Pan tells him pleasantly. “Though that ridiculous story did help.” Pan looks at me, his eyes alight with amusement. “Imagine my surprise when that first boy gave himself willingly to me, all because he mistook this world for something out of a storybook. As entertaining as it always had been to listen to their screams, it was so much easier to just play along.”

  At first I don’t understand the meaning of his words. And then all of the things Rowan told me about him, about this world, come back to me. “You’re not really Peter Pan?” I say, finally comprehending.

  “Of course I am,” he says pleasantly, his eyes flickering with amusement. “Ask any of my boys.”

  “Nothing but lies,” Rowan says, barely able to get the words out between his painfully gasping breaths. “The boys never see through them.”

  “But you saw through them, didn’t you?” Pan asks, his voice sharp. “When you first arrived, you were like all the others—broken, lost, wanting to believe in a place where you could forget every miserable part of yourself. Like the rest, you wanted to believe I was who I said. You were much too old for fairy tales, Rowan. You should have known better.” His expression goes murderous. “And I should have killed you when I had the chance. Luckily, fate has given me an opportunity to right that particular mistake.”

  The walls of the fortress tremble, sending bits of debris and chunks of the crystal ceiling careening to the floor. Pan turns to me. “I’m afraid our time runs short, my dear.” He presses the knife against Olivia’s throat, and she closes her eyes, her face contorted in fear, in pain. “Do you care for your friend enough to save her?”

  Olivia whimpers, her eyes flying open. For a moment I think it’s my Olivia peering through those green depths.

  “Do you care enough to save them all?” Pan tempts. “Give yourself over to me, and I will defeat the monster you have unleashed.”

  “I . . .” I can’t say the words. Even though I know it is the only choice, the only way to get Olivia home, to save Rowan and the others from the danger we’ve unleashed—I’ve unleashed.

  “Or perhaps you need more of an incentive?” Pan’s beautiful features brighten in anticipation as he gives a tight nod to the boys holding Rowan. At his signal, one of them pulls Rowan’s head back at a painful-looking angle and the other raises a knife to his throat.

  “No!” I shout loudly enough that the boys look to Pan.

  “It’s your choice, Gwendolyn. You will die in this world one way or another, but you can decide who must die with you. Give yourself to me, and perhaps the ones you profess to love will have a chance. Perhaps I will be merciful.”

  “Don’t,” Rowan says, panting, his voice weak. His eyes blaze with fear, with fury. With pain.

  Olivia still struggles in Pan’s arms, and she, too, pleads with me.

  “You know what I want from you.” Pan’s voice is low, a seductive purr. “You’ve seen with your own eyes how gentle I can be, how good I can make the taking for you. You could save them, Gwendolyn. You have only to give me what I want.”

  He’s right. With Fiona and the Queen coming for us, no one will survive. Still . . . “You have to swear they’ll be safe. You have to promise to take them back to our world.”

  “Do I, now?” Pan laughs, his eyes shining with amusement. “I don’t think you are in any position to negotiate, my dear.”

  From my waistband, I draw the dagger Rowan gave me. Before Pan understands what I’m doing, I have it at my own throat. “I think I am,” I say, pressing the tip of the blade against my skin. A sharp jerk upward, and it will be over. “Promise me their safety—swear it—or I’ll spill my own blood here and now, and you will never have my power. Without me, you will be left to the mercy of the Queen—whatever mercy she has in her.”

  The corner of Pan’s mouth curves up in amusement. “She is remarkable, Captain,” Pan murmurs. “Fey or not, she would have been a treat, but with her fire, her own spark—what power her spirit will give me.”

  “Don’t, Gwendolyn.” Rowan’s voice comes to me, the pain in it cutting through my fear. “You can’t just give him your power. Not without giving him your life as well.”

  The look of anticipation on Pan’s face tells me Rowan isn’t lying. But I can’t listen to Rowan’s pleas. I saw the bodies in the Great Hall, and I know what the Fey are capable of—what Fiona and her Queen will do to all of them. What she may still do to the world I was taken from if she succeeds. I’m not strong enough on my own to defeat her, but my power combined with Pan’s . . . It might be enough.

  “Promise you will see them safe,” I say, knowing even as I demand it, it is a fool’s bargain. It doesn’t matter what Pan promises. He is the prince of lies, the king of a thousand deceptions. And he is the only chance my friends have. “Let them go—a show of good faith—and I’ll come to you willingly.”

  “Will you, then?” He laughs as he releases Olivia, and I nearly collapse from the relief of seeing her safe from his knife.

  “Olivia?” She’s not running from Pan as I expected. She stays by him, her hand on his arm.

  Pan laughs at my confusion, an amused chuckle that runs along my skin as it echoes through the cavern. “Brilliant little actress, isn’t she?” He pulls her into his arms and gives her an uncomfortably intense kiss.

  “Olivia?” I don’t understand at first, but then a terrible truth settles upon me. She was never in any danger from Pan.

  “I told you I wouldn’t leave him.” She pins me with an empty, emotionless look, her eyes glassy and faraway.

  Pan’s beautiful, cold eyes are laughing at me. This whole scene has been nothing but a game for him, and he’s enjoyed every moment of toying with me. In a blink, he’s bounded across the space that separates us and has me restrained in his arms.

  I fight to keep from struggling against his hold, to keep my voice level. “We had a deal, Pan. Let him go too.”

  “So we did,” he whispers into my ear. His breath is warm on my neck as he buries his nose in my hair. “Run, Rowan,” he says, his face still close to my neck. At the snap of his fingers, the boys release Rowan, who falls to the ground with a ragged groan. “Leave while you can, boy. You haven’t much time before I’m done here.”

  But Rowan can barely move. He’s lost so much blood and is too weak. “I’m not leaving without her,” he pants as he struggles to his knees.

  I want to scream for him to run, but the strangest feeling has come over me. I can’t move. I can barely think.

  Pan’s shadow peels itself up from the floor and stands before me, its dark hand extending toward me. When it brushes my face with the tip of its finger, every molecule of my body wants to rush toward it.

  “It’s too late, Rowan,” I hear Pan say, but even though he’s still close to my ear, his voice sounds very faraway. I feel everything that was once Gwendolyn Allister pulling away from my body, flooding toward the call of the dark shadow, rushing toward Pan’s outstretched hands.

  No! I scream inwardly. It is too fast, too soon. Without a good-bye, without any sort of warning. I can’t fight it, though. I can’t struggle against the pull. Let it be enough, I think as the darkness begins to cloud my vision.

  After, the boy never thought of those he killed. He did not recall their nameless faces and never dwelled on the capriciousness of chance. For when he fell—and fall, one day he would—he did not expect that world to remember him. Until one day he stood over a small body that dripped death from its head like a cracked egg and saw another face instead. One he should have never forgotten. . . .r />
  Chapter 38

  AS PAN DRINKS IN MY life, I can still feel the pull of my flesh. But I’m not completely in my body, not really. I don’t think I’m dead, but I don’t feel quite alive, either. I simply feel apart, like I’m still floating just above my flesh. Above everything, watching it all with a strange detachment through blurred vision.

  Across the clearing, I can just make out Rowan. His body is broken and battered, but he’s still struggling to get to me.

  Above Pan and me, a shadow suddenly appears. Already, my vision is beginning to cloud and go dark, which is why I think at first I’m seeing things. Because it can’t be Fiona who is standing there. It can’t be that treacherous Fey who is taking Pan by the scruff of his neck.

  Pan jerks at Fiona’s touch and releases me from his hold. I hit the ground hard, but I don’t shatter. I don’t come completely back to myself either, though.

  “Rowan?” Fiona’s voice buzzes, dangerously close. She doesn’t release Pan from her grasp.

  But Rowan can’t answer. A cough shudders through him, and his body slumps again to the ground, too weak to go on.

  “Was this your work?” Fiona growls at Pan. Before he can answer, Fiona shakes him.

  But Pan’s eyes are unfocused, almost drunk on whatever power he’d taken from me. Fiona shakes him again before placing her hand against Pan’s chest. Her face remains calm as she hisses for him to answer her, and when he does not respond, her fingers pierce his skin and he screams with pain.

  Disgusted, she tosses Pan’s limp body aside.

  My vision is still dark around the edges when Fiona scoops Rowan up and brings him to where I lie.

  “It is time,” she whispers in that strange humming voice. “You have hesitated long enough.” She helps him up to his knees, supporting him as they loom over me. And I see why I don’t feel whole—Fiona has the thread of my life wrapped around her fist. When Fiona tugs on the trailing stream of light, I want to move toward her—and when she offers it to him, toward Rowan.

  “Now, Rowan. It must be now,” Fiona buzzes from somewhere very close. But I can’t see her. My vision is darker now, closer to the end.

  All I can see is Rowan above me, his dark eyes flat with pain, looking more lost than I’ve ever seen him.

  Do it, I think. Because it doesn’t even feel like a betrayal. Do it.

  He leans his forehead against mine. It’s cool, clammy. Do it. Hurry. He needs to take whatever it is I can give him. He needs to go on.

  “Hurry, Rowan,” the Fey buzzes. “My Queen is free. Pan has been defeated. You need not die as well. If only you will take her.”

  “I can’t—” I feel his breath on my skin, hear the weakness in his voice. “Won’t—”

  Fiona hisses, her voice dangerously low. “Do you think I gave you your place in my world to have you waste it on this pathetic excuse for a halfling? Take her Rowan, or I will kill her just the same.”

  “Kill us . . . both. . . .” I hear him say from far off. Vaguely, I feel the weight of his body slump on top of me.

  I’m slipping, though. If a soul had fingers, mine are trying to grab at my frail body, reaching clumsily to stay with myself, but it isn’t working. I don’t have enough spirit in my hollowed-out body to keep my eyes open any longer, and I know, after everything I’ve been through, I’ve finally reached the end.

  There are words. So many words I’ve never said. Words I thought I would have time for. But it’s too late. My soul slides away from my body, the last fragile wisps of it leaving behind the pain and despair until I’m almost nothing more than light.

  And then I no longer feel Rowan’s weight holding me to this world.

  Fiona has my life wrapped around her fist, and every bit of who I once was wants to flee from my body, toward that light.

  But before I can, before my soul slides away completely, a shadow appears over Fiona’s shoulder. A dark form whose eyes burn with hatred.

  And Fiona screams.

  That night the boy dreamed of hell—of fire and brimstone and a face he should never have forgotten. And in the morning it was as though he were waking from an endless dream. . . .

  Chapter 39

  JUST AS THE WORLD BEGINS to slide away into a field of stars, a great roaring brings me back, slamming me into my aching body with a violence that leaves me shaken and rattled from the pain. Next to me, Fiona lies headless, her blood staining the ground. Near her, Rowan lies unconscious, his hand still holding a blade coated with the Fey’s strange dark blood.

  “No,” I croak, my voice barely working. It takes an incredible effort to hoist myself up enough to move toward Rowan’s still form. He could’ve taken everything from me. He could have saved himself, but he didn’t. He used the last of his strength to save me.

  “Don’t leave me,” I whisper, brushing back his hair. His face is so pale. His lips tinged with blue. My hand cups his face, and I press a kiss to his lips. “No,” I whisper again, my throat tight and aching.

  His eyes blink, but he’s very, very far away. His face is almost colorless and his skin is growing ever cooler to the touch.

  Little by little my strength is beginning to return, though. Little by little I become more conscious of everything around me. Pan’s still body is slumped to the ground nearby, his skin covered in a maze of dark lines, like a shattered plate.

  Olivia stumbles to Pan, a sleepwalker just beginning to surface from a dream, but when she takes his hand, his body is so fragile, so brittle, it shatters, crumbling beneath her touch. A strangled scream escapes her lips as she draws back in horror.

  I should feel the same horror, the same revulsion, but I’m still too much in shock to feel anything at all at the sight of the headless Fey on the ground nearby. For a moment, I can almost begin to feel relief, but the moment doesn’t last long.

  All around me, the world turns a brilliant white, and I recognize the power strumming through the air that signals the presence of the Queen.

  She comes and floats over us, her face strangely beautiful in its fury. “He has killed one of our own,” she rages, her voice a terrible screech of fury. “He shall pay with his life.” She raises her hands as though to strike him down.

  “No,” I say, covering him with my own body, as he once protected me. I steel myself for what is coming. For the terrible shattering pain that is sure to be my end.

  But a screeching wail echoes in the air, and that blow never comes.

  I look up, squinting against the brightness of the Queen’s glow, and I see what has caused that terrible noise—Olivia is behind the Queen. Her hair is a tangled mass around the blank fury in her face.

  “Olivia?” I whisper.

  She turns to me, but she doesn’t see me. Her gaze is glassy and unknowing. With an almost hysterical laugh, she pulls the dagger from the Queen—Pan’s dagger. It gleams dark silver in the Queen’s light, tipped with the Queen’s own blackish blood.

  The Queen stumbles, her light wavering, her skin crawling with the dark lines of her unmaking. “No,” she screeches, clutching at herself. Pain contorts her beautiful face as she turns on Olivia. A dangerous current crackles through the air in the wake of her fury and pain.

  With a motion as quick and deadly as a striking snake, the Queen takes Olivia by the throat, lifting her until her feet dangle in the air. Black lines creep across Olivia’s skin from beneath the Queen’s hand as Olivia writhes and struggles, her eyes wide with fear. The black lines continue to craw across her skin—up over her face, down her chest, creeping across the soft skin of her arms, until Olivia stops struggling and goes still.

  “No!” I scream, torn between protecting Rowan and helping my friend. Olivia looks up at me, her eyes clear again, and they are filled with pain and confusion.

  Before I can choose, I hear the rustling call of the Dark Ones. They begin to creep out from beneath the dead and brittle plants and begin to gather, swirling, marching themselves around us until they surround the Queen. Again they pull at he
r, but this time, she stumbles beneath their fingertips, releasing Olivia, who crumples to the floor.

  The Queen falls to her knees, the dark blood still spreading from the wound Pan’s dagger made in her back—the wound Olivia gave her. The Dark Ones continue to swirl, pulling at the Queen, until they cover her completely. And as she disappears beneath them, she shrieks again, an earsplitting wail that causes the caverns around us to shake and tremble.

  Huge chunks of the crystalline ceiling tumble down, crashing with violent explosions to the ground below. The world is quaking, rumbling, and alive by the time the dark wisps form themselves into the shapes of monsters and an army of living shadow stands before me.

  The scuttling wind spins faster now, whirling violently in that familiar rustling, but in that rustling, I hear someone speaking to me.

  “Please!” I scream, trying to block the sound. I’m not sure what I’m even asking for, but I sob out the word again and again as the Dark Ones swirl. Telling me their secrets, whispering my own truths back to me.

  “Please,” I continue to repeat. But my voice is now a feeble whisper, begging for things I don’t understand, and then the darkness overwhelms me and I am tossed back—and the voice whispers to me again.

  But it’s not a single voice. No, this time the voice is a thousand dark voices, singing to me and urging me. And all at once, I’m back in those dark woods of my childhood, the coolness of the night calling to me. The voices calling to me. The trees stretching their fingers wide toward the sky, caging the stars in their hands. Creaking and moaning in the rushing air, like the trees are translating the wind.

  I am immersed in too-familiar images. And I remember everything then—the strange pull I felt as the voice called to me. The oddest feeling that I needed to go to them, to be with them. Again. For it felt so familiar, that wanting, that calling. So I followed the voice, away from the lights of our house. Away from the safety of my mother. Into the darkness, where the forest smelled of damp leaves, and the night spoke in a language I could almost understand.