by Chanda Hahn
He was gone.
Chapter 3
He gasped as air painfully filled his lungs. A huge weight crushed his chest, but thankfully it wore off as his lungs remembered how to operate.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
His eyes were stiff, heavy, and no matter how many times he blinked, he only saw white. Was he blind? What happened?
Turning his head, the white sheet covering his body slipped, revealing colors. His fingers and arms were tingling, a sensation akin to a hundred little prickly spiders dancing across his skin. He pulled the sheet farther down to his waist and blinked at the sterile gray room that could either be a prison or a hospital.
“So you do have nine lives,” spoke a female voice through an intercom.
Across the room, on the other side of a glass window, a young woman with messy hair and floral-colored glasses sat behind a computer monitor.
“Wh—where am I?” he asked, his voice raspy and dry from disuse.
She didn’t answer, her fingers clicking and tapping on the keyboard. “Nowhere that concerns you.”
“What happened?” He rolled onto his side and sat up, only to realize the sheet covering him was the only covering he had. Underneath he was bare as a newborn baby.
“You’ve been dead twenty-four hours.” She shrugged and gave him a matter-of-fact look. “And now you’re not.”
Wrapping the sheet around his waist, he stepped off the cold metal table. When his feet touched the tile, his unused body betrayed him and he lurched, trying to regain his balance. His steps were tentative but became steadier the closer he came to the glass partition. He leaned on the window and tapped the glass, hoping she would acknowledge him.
The woman looked up at him, her eyes owl-like in appearance through her thick glasses.
“Help me,” he begged, knowing he looked a mess, half naked, covered in a sheet.
She chewed on her lip and shook her head. “Sorry, I’m not in any position to help you leave.”
Leaning his forehead against the glass, he closed his eyes and sighed hopelessly. “I can’t remember—I don’t know . . . anything.”
Her hand moved the mouse and a few clicks later, she read off the screen. “Your name is Peter. You’re nineteen years old and are an original in the D.U.S.T program. You’ve been discovered to carry the Lazarus gene. Your lack of memories after a resurrection is called panning. And let me tell you, you sent Hook into quite uproar when you didn’t immediately come back to life after you died.” The last bit he knew she added for his benefit.
“Who are you?” he asked. Confused and a bit shocked by the information she was telling him. It seemed like she was spinning a fairytale. Maybe if he waited, he would wake up and realize it was a dream.
She exhaled reluctantly. “Candace, but just because you know my name doesn’t mean we’re friends. We’re not. I’ve been assigned to monitor you and help get you back into peak physical health. And that’s just what I’m going to do.”
“Candace,” Peter echoed testing the name on his tongue. “Thank you.” Her name felt like a lifeline to him in these cold and turbulent surroundings.
That was two things he was now sure of, his name and that of the woman on the other side of the glass. Each new bit of information gathered helped him put order into his very blank mind.
When he turned his head just right, he could catch his reflection in the glass. He backed up to study himself, running his hand over his face, turning it this way and that. His hair, unruly and auburn, some might say reddish tones. Eyes that were too green. The person he was staring at was a stranger to him.
“When can I leave?” Peter asked.
“You can’t. You belong to Neverland.”
A buzzer sounded through the room. Then the door opened and a tall man with a slightly crooked nose marched into the room and addressed him with much disdain. “I had thought that was it, boy.” He said the word boy with derision. “Thought you’d given up on me. Glad to see that we have you for a few more rounds of tests.”
“Who are you?” Peter asked, alarmed by the word test. Immediately taking a dislike to the strange man before him who wore a black military uniform with a red skull and crossbones patch on his arm.
Hook ignored him, directing his question to Candace. “This is a tiresome annoyance with his memories being the way they are. Anything you can do about it?”
Candace flicked a Bic pen against her chin in thought. “There’s something I want to try. It might take adjusting and some trial and error but it might be worth a shot.”
“Do it,” Hook snapped. “I want to find out what he’s hiding from me.”
“Yes, Captain Hook,” Candace answered. “But what about the one who controls minds—Curly is it? If I had his help, I could retrieve it faster . . .”
Hook’s face turned downright furious. “Gone. He walked right out the front door, right past the guards after he got his payment. They’re still clucking like chickens from his mind control.” Hook snarled, “If I ever see him again, I’ll—” His hands pantomimed wringing a neck.
After a few seconds, he seemed to remember Peter and stormed toward the glass partition, coming to a stop just inches from him.
“Look closely at my face, boy, and pray you’ll never forget it again. For I tire of this game.”
Peter tried to recall how he knew Captain Hook, but there was nothing but emptiness. Wary, he locked the man’s features into his brain, but wasn’t sure if he was friend or foe?
Hook gave Candace a nod as he turned to leave. Then he punched the code on the door and headed out.
Hook made Peter nervous. There was something sinister about him. He wanted nothing to do with the captain and didn’t trust his intentions. The sooner he could get his memories back the better.
“Did you say you can help me get my memories back?” Peter asked tapping on the glass.
“In theory. Before you panned you were in a . . . well, you wouldn’t understand, not yet. But because of where you were, I happened to be able to record your memories and was able to get snapshots of your life from them. “I’m going to upload them to you like you would a computer.”
“You can do that?” he stammered pressing a hand to his head, wondering if it would hurt.
“I’m going to try.”
“Please . . .” Peter turned, still holding the sheet around his waist, pressing his palm against the glass. “I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?” Candace grinned. “I thought I was going to have to talk you into it. I see that I was wrong. But first things first.” Her eyes dropped to the sheet, the corner of her mouth rising in a crooked smile. “You need to get some pants on.”
Chapter 4
The starched military clothes given to Peter to wear were black with a red skull on the arm, like Hook’s. The boots, like the rest of the uniform, were spotless, stiff and clearly brand new.
He tied the laces on his boot and stood up to present himself to Candace, but she had turned around to give him privacy, so he cleared his throat to give her the all clear.
Candace swiveled back around to face him and leaned forward to speak into the intercom. “Good, now sit your butt down in the chair and strap your arms into the restraints.”
There was only one chair in the room by the far wall, and over each of the armrests were leather bands with metal buckles. He didn’t like the look of the chair and he refused to budge.
“It’s the rules. I can’t enter the room unless you’re restrained,” she explained over the com.
Peter darted frantic looks around the room, looking for an escape route, even though he knew there was no way out. There was only a single exit—the door he’d been led through to enter this room not ten minutes before, through the observation room, where Candace now sat behind a glass partition watching him with a bored expression. The door had no handle on his side, only a keypad to open it from his end, and he didn’t think he would be able to figure out the code.
/>
When he didn’t move toward the chair, Candace spoke up again. “Fine. You can live your life as an empty shell with no memories.”
Peter gave her a heated look and threw himself into the chair, then used his right hand to secure his left with the leather strap. He couldn’t get his right hand strapped down, but he didn’t have to wait long. The door buzzed and Candace wheeled into his room. It was then he took note of her wheelchair, which her desk had hidden from his view.
She made quick work of his other restraint and then moved to a table and lifted a helmet covered with various tubes and electrodes and wires. Because of the difference in their heights, she struggled to reach his head, but with a grunt a determined lunge, she succeeded and fastened the buckle under his chin.
Next, she pulled out a syringe and tested his arm, searching for veins to see what arm would be the best.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’d rather not say.”
“Will it hurt?”
“No, just a pinch for the shot. Now let me explain. What I’ve been doing for the last eight years is observing, recording, and processing what I learn. I started because of a special case we have here. And though you weren’t my primary—”
“Special case?”
“It doesn’t matter. Pay attention. The important thing is that when you arrived, I was already in the habit of recording all subjects. Including your dreams, thoughts, and projections, etcetera are recorded in my computer. You weren’t in the pod long before you died, but it was enough, I believe, to jump-start your brain.”
“Pod?” he asked.
“Yeah, um . . . you’ll learn quickly. Don’t worry.”
“How is it going to work?”
“Pretty much, I’d be doing an info dump into your brain. Just imagine me knocking over five boxes of photos from your life and some would land face-up and others wouldn’t. The ones that didn’t turn up—you’d never recover those. But of the ones that did, you would have something to rebuild your life with. It’s better than no—”
“It’s okay,” he said, anxious to begin. “Some memories are better than none.” Peter’s fingers curled around the armrest. His foot kept tapping the ground in nervousness.
“You seem in a hurry?” she asked, as she flipped a few buttons and prepped the machine on a table beside him. Peter heard the whine of the machine turning on.
“I can’t explain it, other than an underlying feeling of having to be somewhere.”
“Like I said before, Peter. You’re not going anywhere,” she said sadly and flipped the switch.
Peter’s head snapped back as a current shot through his brain. His body seized up, his eyes rolled back into his head, and all he could do was scream.
Chapter 5
“We need to keep going,” Jax argued, pointing up the mountain path. It had been an hour since Tootles and the others had teleported, and it was obvious that no one was coming back for them. Or at least not right away.
“Not yet,” Wendy said from her position on the ground, her hands wrapped around her knees. She hadn’t moved from the spot where she had last seen Peter. She wasn’t in a hurry to leave in case he came back.
“We should stay,” John said, then sat on a rock and began leisurely cleaning his glasses to emphasize his point. He wasn’t in any hurry to scurry off in the woods. “You said so yourself, that you don’t know where you’re going. It’s dark and we’re tired. It’s better to stay and wait for help than to wander around in the dark, stumbling into who knows what.”
“I’ll protect us,” Jax turned, his eyes flashing in frustration. Wendy recognized that look. Of the lost boys at Neverwood, he had the shortest fuse, along with the strongest and most destructive power. He was the one who’d trained all of them in hand-to-hand combat. “But we need to move to a more secure location where I can do that. We are out in the open.”
“If we move, Tootles won’t be able to find us,” Michael piped up, his teeth chattering. He was shivering from the cold, his fingers trembling as he messed with the blindfold that was irritating his eyes. “He’ll come back. I know he will.”
Wendy finally left her spot on the ground and moved nearer to Michael, wrapping her arm around him, trying to keep him warm.
“And when he does, we could have hundreds of morphlings on our tail,” Jax snapped. “Tink is smart. She’ll track my light brace.” He held up his wrist, displaying the brace, which by all appearances was little more than a silver band about two inches wide. When activated, the bands gathered energy and, with a small three-inch wand tool that slid into a palm, could fling light orbs. Some of the lost boys had special braces that created light swords and axes.
Jax began to pace and stopped in front of Wendy. “Wendy, surely you can be reasonable. It’s freezing out here. Just look at your brother.”
Wendy squeezed her arm tighter around Michael and glared up at Jax. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. Too much had happened, and the loss of Peter was still just so fresh. She felt wholly unequipped to cope with Jax at the moment and just wanted to mourn in peace. But she could feel Michael trembling beneath her arm, and she could no longer justify sticking around.
“Jax is right, we should keep moving. But I’d feel better if we found a place where we could stop for the night and start again come morning.”
Jax sighed and ran his hands through his dark hair. “Thank you.”
He leaned down and picked up the extra bags their companions had left behind. Wendy nodded to John, and he collected his backpacks. Wendy grabbed her own, and Michael stuck to her side like glue.
After a half mile of walking, Michael was lagging, his steps slowing, his head drooping. Wendy slipped off his blindfold, pushed her backpack around to her front, and kneeled in front of her brother, urging him onto her back, all under the watchful eye of Jax. It was evident from his furrowed brow and frown that he was not pleased with the young boy and former Neverland soldier.
Wendy had no idea that Michael was her blood brother when they stumbled upon him—only to realize later that he was a Trojan horse, implanted with a computer virus that accessed Neverland’s mainframe and shut down their defense systems. Which led to the Red Skulls infiltrating their home and kidnapping most of the students. Michael had done what he could to try to fight them, and had successfully kept them at bay for days, but his young mind could only do so much.
Jax’s steps slowed, and he waited for Wendy to catch up with him. “This is a mistake,” he said.
“Following you? Always,” Wendy grumbled, keeping her focus on the ground, trying to not trip or fumble and send them both to the dirt.
“Bringing him with us. Neverland accessed him once, they can do it again.”
“And I blame myself!” she hissed.
Jax was caught off guard by her statement. He swallowed and motioned to the bandana. “You should put it back on.”
“Give me a break. He’s asleep. He needed a breather from being treated like a prisoner. Can you even imagine how terrified he was during the attack to not be able to see anything? And he didn’t once budge the blindfold or complain, for fear of putting us in danger. I know grown men that wouldn’t be able to handle what he’s been through, much less a young boy.”
“Still, he’s—”
“My brother,” Wendy interrupted. “That’s all I’m going to say about it.” Carrying on the heated argument and carrying Michael was making it difficult for Wendy to catch her breath.
Jax’s lip curled in disapproval, but then he sighed and made a move to take Michael from her.
“No!” she snapped, backing away. “Stay away from him.”
“I won’t harm him. You’re being slow and dragging the whole group down. Hand him to me, and you can get him back when you catch your breath,” he whispered, careful to not wake the sleeping boy, but the look on his face left no room for argument.
John had paused farther up the trail and was observing the power struggle between the
two of them with interest.
“Fine, but only until I catch my breath,” Wendy agreed.
“Then hurry up and you can have him back,” Jax remarked while adjusting Michael’s arm around his neck. He lifted him in his arms and picked up the pace.
Even carrying multiple bags and a boy, Jax’s pace was relentless. Wendy still had to take double steps to keep up with his much longer legs.
John dropped back to walk with his sister. “You doing okay?” he asked.
She shook her head, tears threatening to spill forth, but she took a deep breath and held it in.
“Not really,” she said for his ears only. “I would do better if I knew where Peter is.” Rubbing her arms, she glanced back over her shoulders, praying to see him.
He wasn’t there.
“We don’t know what happened, Wendy. Maybe he is here and we just can’t see him.”
“I know you’re trying to help, but I would know if he’s still out there. He’s gone. I can’t see him, and the thought that he is gone for good . . . and not coming back terrifies me.”
“Wendy, he’ll find a way to come back.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
“I found a place to stop for the night,” Jax announced, coming down the path. Still carrying Michael, he didn’t even look winded or to have worked up a sweat.
“Thank God,” John murmured and followed Jax to a small rock outcropping that had created a natural shelter from the wind and cold. It wasn’t deep enough to cast shadows but enough for four people to lie next to each other.
John used the packs to shape a makeshift pillow for Michael as Jax set him down next to him. John slipped a pack behind his back and propped himself up, leaning against it while he stretched his long legs out in front of him. He dug through a second pack looking for snacks. Wendy carefully set hers down on the other side of Michael. The only space left for Jax was next to Wendy, but he didn’t sit, choosing instead to stand outside the makeshift shelter. He kept his arms crossed as he stared into the night, his face grim, as if his determination alone could chase away the monsters.
