Lost Shadow

by Chanda Hahn

  Lost Shadow

  The Neverwood Chronicles Book 3

  Chanda Hahn

  Copyright © 2018 by Chanda Hahn

  Developmental Editor: Carolina Valdez Schneider

  Cover Design: Steve Hahn

  Smashwords Edition

  ISBN: 9780463696712

  * * *

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  Also by Chanda Hahn

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  A twig snapped in the darkness. Wendy froze, her eyes scanning the trees, searching for shadows and the source of the noise. Nerves were frayed, as everyone waited on bated breath for the signal to continue. Tootles reached for her hand, his small body shivering from the cold and fear. Wendy squeezed his hand back reassuringly.

  They had been traveling through the night—sore, beat up, and exhausted— having abandoned the van off of an old logging trail early on to walk most of the way on foot. After Neverwood was destroyed, and the Red Skulls captured the lost boys, they’d had no choice but to leave their home and head to Neverfalls, the safe house, a secret location that Dr. Barrie had built in the mountains. No one had been there since it was constructed years ago, and there was never a road, just an overgrown path. The moonlight gave them enough light to see a few feet in front, but not much else as they worked their way up the mountain.

  Wendy observed their small band of eight, ranging from the youngest—Tootles, who was shivering and wide eyed—to the oldest—Jax, who was grim, focused on the tree line and shadows, his hands clenched, ready to fight. John, her brother, was acting as the pack mule, carrying the largest pack filled with his and Michael’s belongings as well as Tink’s many computers and gadgets.

  Standing in the middle of the moonlit path, Wendy shivered, each breath releasing a white puff of air, as she waited for Tink and Jax to tell them what to do. Tink and Jax were leading their group through the treacherous trail. Ditto and Slightly were pulling up the rear, keeping the youngest and the most vulnerable in the middle—Wendy, John, Tootles, and Michael, who was blindfolded to keep Neverland from hacking into his brain and seeing their location. While Peter’s shadow hung back following them at a safe distance.

  When no other noises came from the woods, Tink motioned for them to keep moving but adjusted her direction to lead away from the snapping sound. They’d already adjusted their course twice before because of mysterious noises.

  They’d only walked another hundred feet when an audible crash came from the left, startling a crow into the air. Jax cussed under his breath. Wendy turned to the woods in alarm.

  “We’re being hunted, aren’t we?” she whispered to Jax.

  His jaw clenched. “No, we're being herded.” He nodded to Tink, the young computer and weapons genius.

  Kneeling on the ground, Tink motioned for John to bring his backpack to her. She untied the bag, dug inside and went to work distributing their small arsenal. At the tail end of their ragged convoy, Slightly and Ditto shook off all traces of fatigue and turned to Jax for direction. After a few silent hand motions, they spread out in a protective circle around John, Tootles, and Michael.

  Tink pulled on her specs, special goggles that let her see the shadows, or lost souls. When enough of these shadows gathered together, they attracted morphlings, shadow monsters that fed on the lost souls, which would pose a serious problem for Wendy and the lost boys. Morphlings were rapacious hunters, controlled and sent out by Neverland, that could emerge and shift through shadows, searching for prey. But after searching the immediate area, she lifted the goggles and shook her head.

  “Do you see anything?” Tink asked Wendy as she handed specs to Jax and Ditto.

  Wendy didn’t need the specs to see the shadows, and she had the ability to call and send them away.

  “There hasn’t been a shadow for miles other than Peter.” Wendy glanced behind her down the trail and her heart ached seeing Peter’s shadow as he hung back, staying far enough away to not attract morphlings, but close enough to keep her in his sight. It pained her to see his soul lost in this shadow form, his body imprisoned somewhere in Neverland Corporation’s hidden base. Peter was sulking, hanging back, then his shadow stilled and he became alert.

  Their moonlight faded as a cloud passed overhead, sending them into darkness.

  “Something’s out there,” Jax growled.

  “It’s too dark to see any—holy cow!” Ditto was cut off as a dark shadow sprang out of the woods. It was Peter rushing them, trying to warn them as more crashing sounds erupted from behind him.

  In that instant, Ditto replicated into two Dittos and everyone armed their braces with light swords, preparing for potential battle.

  “Morphling!” Slightly yelled, his voice deepening into a roar as his slim body ripped through his jersey and grew to four times his normal size, into what Tootles nicknamed The Bulk. He didn’t turn colors or gain any extra appendages, but Slightly could put any wrestler or movie hero to shame. He shifted seconds before a morphling launched from the shadow of a tree, then grabbed its oversized jaw as it lunged at Michael and tried to swallow him in one bite.

  “GAAHH!” Slightly yelled as he flipped the eel-like shadow monster onto the path near Ditto. In a frenzied blur of punches and kicks, Ditto attacked the morphling.

  “Watch out!” John grabbed Michael and Tootles and pulled them out of the way as a second morphling arose from the ground under the boys’ feet. Its tongue shot out of its mouth and latched onto Michael’s leg. Jax was quick to react and shot a blast from his bracer, severing the morphling’s tongue clean from its mouth as the shadow monster’s tongue burned into a pile of ash.

  The morphling squealed in pain and tried to back away into the shadowy hole it had passed through, but Jax was prepared, lighting up the ground with light.

  Tink whipped out the light gun from the holster on her hip and launched a spray of fiery light beams into the darkness in front of her and heard a squeal of pain.

  “How many are there?” she cried out.

  Ditto, whole again, pulled his light swords, and took off running deeper into the dark woods after the retreating morphling.

  “This is for Fox!” he bellowed in a war cry.

  “No! Don’t, Ditto! Stop!” Tink cried out, but he didn’t heed her warning.
Ditto was angry, filled with determination and a vengeful wrath as he disappeared into the dark.

  Tink and the others waited breathless and paralyzed with worry in the middle of the path as more screams of pain echoed; some were Ditto’s, others the morphling’s.

  “Go after him!” Wendy screamed at Jax, who looked grim as he shook his head.

  “No! It’s complete darkness in there. It’s a suicide mission. He knew better than to abandon his post for a personal vendetta. I will not leave my charges and risk your lives because he risked his.”

  Wendy looked to Tink for help, but she was already shaking her head at her.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Tink said, though without any bite.

  “We can’t just leave him to die!”

  “We don’t stand a chance off the path. It’s just too dark, and they have the advantage there—”

  Training or no training, she wasn’t letting him face a morphling in the dark alone.

  “John,” she called out sharply, turning to her brother, and he tossed her the light brace out of the bags he was carrying.

  Wendy twisted the small bracelet on her wrist and it powered up. “If no one will go after him, then I will.”

  Shadow-Peter flew at her and tried desperately to grab her arm and prevent her from going after Ditto, but his shadow hand would just pass through her, causing chills and goose bumps to rise on her flesh. He gestured frantically at the others to try and get them to stop her, but unlike Wendy, they could not see him, and she said nothing about him. She ran where she’d seen Ditto disappear and halted when she saw movement coming toward her. A silhouette, silent and slow-moving.

  Wendy’s brace hummed, and she gathered a ball of light into her palm and readied herself to destroy the morphling. Then the clouds parted and revealed the moon once again, and in its light, the silhouette became solid.

  Ditto stepped into the moonlight, his face colorless, his chest heaving from exertion.

  “Ditto, are you okay?” Wendy asked.

  He opened his mouth to speak and fell to his knees, his hand going to his side, where a dark stain was spreading on his shirt. He smiled, his teeth, once bright, now covered with blood.

  “I’ll be with you soon, Fox,” he promised, collapsing to the ground.

  Chapter 2

  “Ditto!” Wendy cried, rushing to his aid. Flipping him over to his side, she pressed her hand over the wound, staunching the flow of warm blood. She didn’t want to lose him. Couldn’t lose another boy.

  Tink and Slightly came to help. Slightly narrowed down into his normal body, and his smaller, nimble fingers made quick work of opening the medical bag and reaching for supplies. If there was anyone from Neverwood that could help Ditto, it would be Slightly, their in-house medical wonder.

  He studied the injuries in front of him and his face paled. “This isn’t good.”

  “What do you need?” Tink asked, she slipped her bag off her shoulders and unzipped it.

  “More than what I have in the kit,” he said gravely. “I can’t stop the bleeding here, and if I don’t, he will die before we reach Neverfalls.”

  “We’re still hours away on foot,” Tink estimated. “Slower now that we have to carry him.”

  “What about me?” Wendy spoke up. “What if I walked through the shadow realm with him?”

  “The morphlings would get a whiff of blood and hunt you down in seconds in their world. You wouldn’t make it,” Jax answered.

  She knew he was probably right. “What about Tootles?” Wendy asked.

  “If he could have done it, don’t you think we would’ve had Tootles teleport us to Neverfalls instead of walking?” Tink snapped. “I’m not walking all these miles for my health. Tootles was too young to remember Neverfalls. It was still under construction when he visited with Dr. Barrie. There’s no way he can poss—”

  “I can do it,” Tootles huffed, pushing through John and Michael to stand in front of Tink, his hands on his hips. “I can remember.”

  Tink kneeled, placing her hand on his cheek. “It’s okay. You were only a toddler; your formative memories wouldn’t have kept enough collection points to make the jump safely.”

  Tootles was getting frustrated, tears pouring down his eyes. “Then help me remember. Please!”

  She leaned back on her heels, her own eyes welling with tears. “I don’t know how.”

  Peter’s shadow drew near Wendy, and she could feel his presence tickling along her skin. His shadowy hand reached out and touched Wendy’s palm, and he spoke to her using images. A house built into a waterfall.

  Wendy gasped aloud. She ran to kneel next to Tootles. “Give me your hand,” she commanded. “Maybe I can help you.”

  Tootles reached for Wendy, and she clasped his hands between hers and gave them a quick kiss. “Okay, this may not even work, but I’m going to try. It might feel strange. Cold even, but I’m right here with you, and so is Peter. We will help you remember, okay?”

  He nodded, his bottom lip protruding in stubbornness.

  Wendy looked at Peter’s shadow and signaled to him. Peter placed his shadowy hands over the top and bottom of Wendy’s as she wrapped hers around Tootles’, sandwiching the boy’s between her palms. He shared his memories with her, and she hoped Tootles picked up glimmers, flecks of any image that would spark his own memory. At first nothing happened. His face scrunched up in concentration, and she didn’t see any change in his expression.

  It must not have worked.

  It was a long shot, she supposed. She was about to pull her hands away when Tootles gasped, his mouth opening in surprise. “Oh, I see,” he whispered. A few seconds later, a smile appeared. “Yes, yes. I see it.”

  “Good job, Tootles.” Wendy beamed, cupping his face and pressing her forehead to his. “Do you have enough? Can you see it now?”

  He nodded, his tears drying.

  “Go,” she whispered encouragingly, giving him a slight nudge.

  He pulled away and ran straight toward Tink, who was cradling Ditto in her lap. Tootles leaped toward Ditto and grabbed his arm, and with his left hand, grabbed Slightly’s wrist.

  All four disappeared in a flash of light, teleporting them to the house in the waterfall.

  Jax turned and gave Wendy a wry smile. “Do you think he’d remember to come back for us?”

  “I hope so?” Wendy said, but when the flash of light didn’t reappear, her hope dwindled.

  Twenty minutes came and went as they paced and waited for Tootles to return and teleport them to Neverfalls. If they left this spot, Tootles wouldn’t be able to find them. Or they could try finding their way on their own.

  “Do you happen to know where the house is?” Wendy asked Jax hopefully.

  “Nope, only Tink does.” He never took his eyes off the surrounding forest. “And apparently Tootles.”

  “Great,” John groaned sarcastically. “We’re going to die. Bunch of teens lost in the woods. Enter madman in a hockey mask. And based on the numbers of all the blockbuster algorithms, I would be the first to go.”

  “He’ll come back for us,” Wendy said firmly. “He’s just distracted because of Ditto. I’m sure as soon as he’s stable, they’ll remember where we are.”

  “I don’t even know where we are.” John threw his hands in the air, and addressing no one in particular, he yelled, “I’m over here, axe murderer. Pick off nerdy white guy number one.”

  “Stop being so dramatic,” Jax snapped.

  Her brother and Jax bickered like old ladies. Wendy knew that whenever her brother would get overly stressed or anxious he would act out. She wasn’t worried about his hysterics, though. If anyone deserved a moment to vent about the world, it was her brother.

  She looked back at Peter, needing to reassure herself that he was still there. He raised a hand when he saw her looking at him, and for a moment, his shadow appeared to flicker. Then, it almost appeared as if his shadow was lighter. Like he was waning. “Peter?” Wendy walked down the path to
where he’d retreated to keep the morphlings away again. He was trying to speak to her, but she couldn’t “hear” him unless they touched. But it was clear something was wrong. He was diminishing, his shadow filling with light and becoming translucent.

  She ran to him and his misty hand reached for hers, but she knew she wouldn’t make it. In a last-ditch effort, she jumped, reaching for him. Her fingers brushed the cold tip of his shadow just as he dissolved into nothing.

  “No!” She fell to ground, her elbow and her face buried in the wet, muddy leaves. “Peter!”

  In the midst of her grief, Wendy remembered she was not helpless here. Not even close. She had power at her fingertips—no, on her arms. There within the tattoos hidden beneath her sleeves, she had the power to call and control the shadows—the souls—and they would do her bidding. This was her gift, and with it, maybe she could get Peter back. Damp earth caked on her face as she rose to her feet using her powers over shadows to summon them, not caring whether the influx of shadows brought ten morphlings down on her. She would deal with them later. The hidden tattoos glowed and rose on her arm, and the shadows came in droves.

  Wendy walked among them as she searched her shadow subjects, but the one she sought never came. If he was in the shadow world, he would have come. They touched her arm tentatively and communicated to her with images. Peter was no longer in the shadow realm.