I shift my position as I lean slightly forward. “Listen—” I try again, but just then a voice echoes through the dungeon.
“James?”
I whip my head around. “Vera!”
“Who is this Vera, is she a friend of yours?” Pan asks, immediately stopping his little dance. I still and turn back to him.
“Uh… no, not at all,” I say quickly even though Peter Pan starts smirking. “Acquaintance is a better word for it. I barely know her.”
As the words leave my mouth, Vera races up to my cell. She grasps the bars with both her hands, her hair is hanging in waves around her shoulders wild like the sea. She’s dressed up back in my—the real Captain Hook’s?—clothes that she stole off the Jolly Roger. Was that just this morning that happened?
Seems like forever ago.
“Pan,” Vera hisses, narrowing her eyes. There is a sort of familiarity in her tone, a sense of resignation, and it makes me wonder if it was Pan she was trying to escape all along, not the plot. Was this why she wanted me to kill that princeshe had a crush on?
Because the alternative was worse? An alternative that happens to be standing—er, floating—right in front of me.
“Hello, acquaintance,” Peter says grinning and showing off his teeth. I’m not an expert in teeth, but it does seem like he has more than should exist in the human mouth. Just pearly white after pearly white, filling every bit of space in his mouth. “I was about to go on an adventure. How about you join us? After all, the more the merrier!”
“That really isn’t—” I try to say, but Pan whips his head to me.
He isn’t smiling anymore. His curls float around his head as if they have a mind of their own. He reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of Medusa. If Medusa was an angry twelve-year-old boy and not a lady with snakes for hair, that is. It isn’t comforting imagery. “You took Wendy Darling from me. I will bring your Vera Dear with you. Aren’t I a nice boy?”
“No, you’re really not,” Vera says in a low tone.
However, before I can protest or tell him that I had nothing to do with this Wendy incident the shadows seem to leap off the wall. They slide toward me, inky black fingers reaching out for me until they touch just the tip of my shadow. And that’s all it takes for the darkness to claim me.
