by Chanda Hahn
“Hey.” She waved nonchalantly and then put her hands in her pockets. “What are you doing here?” she asked, all the while eyeing his Red Skull uniform with contempt. Seeing the frown on his face, she quickly rearranged her expression to show doe-eyed innocence.
“Wrong question. What are you doing here?” He still had his weapon aimed at her.
“I’m not really sure,” she quipped and produced her own greatest weapon, her smile and charm. “I signed up for a three hour cruise on the tour ship called the Minnow and—”
“Not funny, Wendy,” he snapped.
Wendy let out a small giggle and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Of course it was funny.” She wanted to stab herself in the eye, but she forced herself to reach up and swirl her finger around her hair.
Jeremy paused, and Wendy knew the moment her ploy to convince him she was unthreatening had worked, because he holstered the gun. He was probably confident in his ability to bring her in without the use of force. To Wendy, this was the perfect opportunity, even though she wanted to gag on a spoon.
In the blondest voice she could muster, she batted her eyelashes. “A big shadowy monster thing grabbed me in the alley and took me to some lab. Where they said I had some special gene. I don’t remember much, except, I was on a boat and then I woke up here,” she lied, trying to feed him enough facts about his own kidnapping and what she knew happened once Neverland got ahold of you.
“I would have seen you at the training facility,” he accused. “You weren’t there.” He took a step toward her and Wendy panicked, wanting to move farther away from the cliff’s edge, but she moved closer to Jeremy.
“I was there. I was in a separate room.”
“I don’t believe you.” He stepped closer, his eyes running over her face and resting on her lips.
Inwardly, she shuddered in revulsion at his appraisal. She hated that he was so handsome on the outside but completely rotten to the core on the inside. He was a junkie and only interested in two things, and she was willing to give him neither.
She held still as Jeremy approached and walked around her, looking her over. “Where’s your uniform?” he asked.
“I don’t need one.” She stood tall and followed him with her eyes.
“All recruits are given one,” he challenged.
“Do you have one of these?” Wendy asked, pulling the neck of her shirt and lifting her hair to expose the small mark with her serial number that deemed her an experiment of Neverland.
Jeremy stilled when he saw the mark, his eyes widening in disgust. “You’re a Prime.”
Prime? Wendy hadn’t heard the term before, but she went with it. Locking eyes with the beast before her, she refused to back down.
“Yes, and you’re not!” she challenged back, throwing it in his face.
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do, because he smiled cruelly. “Hook only wants the strongest. He weeds out the weak, and I don’t think he would mind me culling you from the pack.”
“What?” Wendy asked and was surprised when Jeremy launched himself at her. She fell backwards, his one hundred eighty-pound frame pinning her to the ground.
“C’mon, fight me, Wendy.” He pinned her arms painfully, and she screamed. “If you’re an original, you should be stronger than this. I swore that I would kill a Prime to prove myself to Hook. Funny that it’s going to be you.”
She had a flashback of her training with Jax, when he told her this might happen.
Wendy brought her knee up, but Jeremy was prepared.
He moved to sitting on her torso, his weight crushing her chest, her lungs unable to expand and contract. “You’re pathetic. I want a fight.”
She kicked but was unable to get enough breath to scream for help.
Jeremy opened up his pocket and pulled out an injector pen. “This should help even the playing field, Wendy. Stole it from the lab myself. I wonder what it does.”
His fist rose and Wendy lurched, trying to move just as it came down. She felt the injector hit her in the chest, heard the crack of the plastic applicator, and jerked as it pierced her.
The pain was excruciating. Her body shook, and then she went still, her mouth opening and shutting as he moved off of her. Air filled her lungs, and she cried out and rolled into a ball, the pen still sticking out of her chest.
Grunting with pain, she wrapped her left hand around the injector and carefully pulled it out, marveling that he had used enough force that he broke the casing around the tip and sent the needle in farther than it was designed to go.
Dropping the pen, she lay on the ground, her body quivering and shaking as she fought the adrenaline that rushed through her. Never before had she felt such excruciating agony, and she could only close her eyes and pray for it to pass.
“Get up!” he snapped, and when she didn’t move, he kicked her in the stomach. Wendy curled into a ball to protect herself. “Move.” He was drawing his foot back to kick her again when a shadow rushed out of the woods and dove through Jeremy. The cold shock of the invisible mass sent him spinning.
“What was that?” He spun, his hands waving off an invisible threat. He couldn’t see the shadow, but it didn’t mean that he couldn’t feel its presence. When one of them passed through a human, it left them cold and disoriented.
Jeremy’s chest was heaving, his eyes wild, but he could not see his shadow assailant and moved toward Wendy again.
Her veins felt like fire was pulsing through them, but she had to pull it together, needed to get up and get away from Jeremy. She pulled herself to her knees and started to crawl away. A few steps later, she was wobbling but made it to her feet.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Jeremy grabbed Wendy by the back of the hair, and she yelped as he spun her around.
The shadow was back, skirting along the ground and in an animal form. Unlike the ones that usually followed Wendy, this was one third the size. She looked to the shadow, and it zigzagged across the field and leaped, passing through Jeremy a second time.
“What the—?” He spun and clutched his chest again. “Am I having a heart attack?”
Wendy could only assume that’s what it felt like, and she wondered if these other shadows were able to take over and share a body, like Peter had, or was that only because of his gifts? Wishing desperately for a weapon, or a bracer that hadn’t been destroyed by ocean water, Wendy searched for a way to defeat Jeremy and came to a horrible conclusion. She didn’t think she could. He was hyped-up on the PX drugs, made stronger than humanly possible. Even his physique had changed, and he was more muscular than he was days ago.
The shadow jumped out of Jeremy’s body, and Wendy clearly saw the distinct shape of a fox. Her heart fluttered with joy, and she knew then that she wasn’t truly alone on the cliff.
Jeremy confronted her again, his eyes even more crazed with fury than before.
“What is that thing? What are you doing to me?” he accused.
He could see the shadow, without specs. Did that mean he died like her? Wendy became worried. “I’m not doing anything. The shadow, on the other hand . . .” She waved in the direction of the fox. “He doesn’t like what you’re doing to me, so I would suggest you stop.”
“That thing is nothing compared to the morphlings. I wonder what would happen if I radioed in for one to be released?”
“Jeremy,” Wendy said calmly. “You’ve seen the morphlings, and what they can do. You don’t mess with them. They can’t be controlled.”
“Neverland controls them. I’ve seen footage.”
“No one can really control them, just like no one can control a rampant river. You can redirect the flow, but not stop the force.”
He continued to step closer, and Wendy was now on the edge of the cliff, her heel skirting it dangerously, knocking rocks over the edge.
“Come on, Wendy. All I wanted was a shot.”
She was confused by the change of subject. Was he referring to their date?
; “But you had to dump me for him—for Peter. And it turns out that he’s a Prime too. What is it with you two? What makes you so special?”
Her mouth went dry, and she tensed. He was talking like someone at the edge of his rope, with nothing left to lose.
“I can beat a Prime, though, I know I can. I will. That’ll change everything. Then I’ll get respect. Everybody will know my name. I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I have to stay—I belong here—I’m staying. And if that means I have to kill you, then so be it. Besides, my orders were to eliminate the intruder on the island. Even if we know each other, it’s still my orders. No hard feelings, okay?” He turned, his mouth curling into a cruel smile as he unhurriedly unbuttoned and rolled up his left sleeve, then proceeded to roll up the right.
“You’re quick, but you’re not fast enough for me.” In a dramatic show of force, Jeremy threw his weight and punched a rock, splitting it in two.
Out of the corner of her eye, Wendy saw the shadow move to help her again, but she shook her head. She needed to deal with this once and for all.
Jeremy rushed her, his fist drawing back for a punch, and she sidestepped and ducked, spinning away so now Jeremy was the one standing on the edge of the cliff.
He slowed his momentum and turned, bouncing on the balls of his feet, like a boxer getting ready for a bout. He took a few more practice punches. “Come on, Wendy, show me what you got.”
The fox shadow ran toward her, followed by two more shadows. A jolt of cold air passed through her, followed by a second and third. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as a vision came of the future. She saw it clearly.
She was falling, and Jeremy was falling as well.
Wendy glanced over Jeremy’s shoulder to the cliff’s edge, her heart thumping faster with fear. She knew what she would have to do. Take him over the cliff, no matter the consequences. Was she prepared? Yes. Could she do it? No.
This is where she wasn’t like Peter. She didn’t want to kill, especially not Jeremy, whose bravado and cold heart she knew were just symptoms of his insecurities. He was uncertain and depressed. How lonely he must be, how very lost, to look to the Red Skulls and to drugs for a sense of comfort and acceptance This was not his future, not if she had a choice.
She hesitated too long in her vision as his fist connected with her face, and she stumbled backwards. Wendy’s cheek quickly swelled, and she tasted blood on her lip. She wiped it off with the back of her hand and turned away, giving him her back.
“No!” Jeremy called after her. “Come back here!”
She kept walking, ignoring Jeremy’s cursing, but the moment she heard him chasing her down, she called for help.
Closing her eyes, she stopped where she stood and turned her face up to the sky, she called to the shadows. And just like that, three shadows rushed in to join her. From where they came, she wasn’t sure, but she was grateful for their assistance. Would they be enough? She hoped so.
She threw open her arms and jumped into the air. Letting the three shadows wrap around her, in a flash she disappeared and reappeared one hundred feet away in the underbrush. After her last experience teleporting with the shadows, Wendy didn’t dare travel farther, not with a city full of morphlings underground, dying to hunt down the shadows.
She crouched down in the underbrush and pressed her cheek to the ground, trying to slow her breathing. Jeremy was screaming her name, chasing her down, and stopped in the spot where she disappeared. Through the brush, she saw him turn full circle, studying the grass and then looking up in the air and surrounding trees. He looked right at her—no, not at her, beyond her. He cursed, and she smiled, silently congratulating herself for not killing him and for proving the future wrong. She didn’t fall from the cliff.
She was safe . . . for now.
Then she felt the barrel of a gun press against the back of her head.
“Don’t move, Wendy,” said a familiar feminine voice.
“Hi, Lily,” Wendy said calmly without turning around, knowing the Red Skull with Tiger-like features had found her in the underbrush.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Lily said snidely.
“I know, right?” Wendy held very still, calculating her odds of getting out of here alive. It wasn’t looking good. “I was hoping we’d get a chance to reconnect sometime. Maybe we can start over? We used to be friends, at one time.”
A sharp blow across the side of her face was her answer to that question.
Chapter 33
“I’m sorry, Peter,” Onyx whispered as he placed his hand on Peter’s shaking shoulders. They had freed twenty of the lost boys, but two of them—Torque and Rash—didn’t awaken from their drug-induced comas. Their vitals were stable, but there was no brain activity on the monitors.
“Is there nothing we can do?” Peter asked Candace.
Seeing Torque and Rash laid out on the floor attached to the machines, lifeless and nonresponsive, seemed to have an adverse effect on Candace. She had become withdrawn, sullen and depressed.
“No,” she sniffed, her eyes red from holding back tears. Her fingers flew over the tablet and she looked up at Peter confused. “They’re gone. We’ve never been able to account for why some wake up and others don’t.”
“Maybe it’s too much for their hearts to handle?” Nibs said. He, like the other lost boys, had found a towel and wrapped it around his torso. “It was awful, like being trapped in a nightmare that you can’t wake up from. Your mind screams and screams and screams, but no one hears you.” Nib’s brown hair was still wet and trickling down his face, masking his own tears and grief.
Onyx came over and gave Nib’s a hug. “It’s okay, little brother. Maybe they were needed somewhere else.”
Nibs nodded and wiped at his eyes. The boys turned to stare at the other unopened pods, where girls in silver swimsuits floated in the water. Peter didn’t recognize any of them. Is this what would have happened to Wendy if she hadn’t escaped? He looked away, anger and bile rising in his throat.
“Who are they?” Nibs asked.
“The lost girls,” Peter answered. “The ones we left behind all those years ago.”
“Correct,” Candace said, nodding in agreement. “These were the ones that refused to fight or didn’t have abilities that Hook found useful so they were kept here in stasis. But most of the girls and the few boys left behind that survived harvesting are in the program.”
“Well, let’s free them.” Nibs was shaking, his lower lip trembling from the cold. “No one should be left in there.”
“Wait!” Onyx shifted uncomfortably, holding the towel around his waist. “We’re barely dressed.”
Candace nodded over to the lockers. “You’ll find clothes and uniforms in there. Boys on the left.”
It was night and day, what wearing clothes and being warm and dry did for a boy’s confidence.
After they were dressed they felt stronger and now were able to refocus on saving the rest. But they recognized it was risky to continue opening the stasis pods, after having lost Torque and Rash. Did they really have the right to unplug them from their life support, to risk their lives just on the hope that they might be aware enough to breathe on their own?
Peter was the leader of the boys. They would have trusted him to make this decision for them. But he didn’t know these girls.
No, he should have known them. They should have grown up with them at Neverwood. They shouldn’t have left them on the island in the first place. Dr. Barrie should have gone back for them, and he wasn’t about to leave them on the island any longer. He wouldn’t dare make the same mistake twice.
“Open them,” Peter declared decisively.
Onyx walked over to the closest pod, which held a girl with black wavy hair, and waited for Candace to begin the drain. Each boy took up a position outside of one of the girls’ pods, and when the doors swung open, they were there to help, to encourage, and to wrap them in towels.
“Shhh, you’re safe,” Onyx spoke, wrapp
ing the towel around the dark-haired girl’s shoulder. She was shivering and looking about with wildly with forest-green eyes. “We won’t harm you.” Her eyes turned even darker and her face paled when she spotted what he was wearing.
“Now, I know we look like the enemy wearing these uniforms. But we’re not. We’re just like you. I’m just like you. More than you realize. I’m going to help you up, okay?”
She nodded.
“I’m Onyx.”
“Jade.” She looked around at the girls from the other pods waking up.
Curly placed his hand on Peter’s shoulder and pulled him over to an opened pod. One of the newly released girls with honey brown hair was holding a girl in her lap and was calmly stroking her wet curls as she was convulsing. “It’s okay, Vivi, you’re safe. You can wake up now.”
Vivi let out a soft wail of distress and clawed the air, as if to ward off monsters in her sleep. Seconds later, she stopped breathing. Her body went limp in the other girl’s arms.
Cries littered the warehouse floor as the girls gathered together and hugged each other. Two more nameless girls didn’t survive the removal.
“Listen up,” Peter spoke loudly to the girls. “You’re safe and out of the pods, but it doesn’t mean the danger is over. We are back on the island, back at Neverland.” Wails of grief came from the recently released girls, and the boys, who’d had time to adjust to the news, did their best to comfort them. “But we won’t leave you. We will get off the island together.”
Questions came at him as the girls tried to piece together what had happened.
“Follow me, girls,” Candace called out when the room had calmed, and led them over to the backside of the lockers, where they had privacy to change and get dressed.
Peter let out a long sigh and rubbed the back of his neck in worry.
“Are you okay?” Curly asked.
Peter shook his head. “The guilt is weighing heavily on me. We all knew there were others there with us, that night.”
“But we didn’t know they’d still be here.”
“I know. But don’t tell me you didn’t have nightmares about being left behind. Or waking up still there.”
