by Anna Katmore
Reality drags me out of my daze. I swallow hard and hiss, “How did you get up here?” The frightened rabbit metaphor hits a little closer home right now. It was romantic to think of this guy waiting for me down in the garden. To find him just outside my room is creepy.
He nods to the tree next to my balcony.
A frown pulls my brows together. “You climbed up? But why?”
He hesitates a second before he finally speaks. “Because I couldn’t wait another minute to see you again, Angel.” His melodic deep voice, weaved with the evening breeze, settles like a veil around me. It tries to stir something awake. A memory maybe, but there’s no way to be sure.
“See me again?” I cock my head. “Do I know you?”
He reaches for my hands and strokes his thumbs over my knuckles. I jerk my hands away. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s just been so long, and you have no idea what it took to finally come here and find you.”
I don’t have a clue what that means, but with the confusion comes also the suspicion that he’s not quite right in his mind. Jeez, what if he’s a stalker? Or worse, a serial killer? Fair enough, I never imagined serial killers to be this gorgeous, dressed in skate pants and black hoodies, but one can never be cautious enough, right? I take a step back and promptly knock into the balustrade behind me.
He reaches out to help me but stops before he touches me this time. “Careful,” he warns in a drawl. “You don’t want to fall off this balcony a second time.”
If I do, it’s his fault, because the sound of his voice makes my head spin in the weirdest way. Where did I hear it before? He acts like he knows me. But I certainly don’t know him. “Who are you?”
“My name is Jamie. We met some time ago. In a different…place?” The last word sounds like he’s probing for something. But I don’t know what place that should have been, so I only shake my head at a loss.
His hopeful face falls. “I know you don’t remember anything from the time we spent together. Peter told me.”
“Peter?” I stiffen. That’s just too much of a coincident. “Peter from next door?”
“No. Peter from Neverland.”
Yeah, that’s too funny. “Why is everyone speaking of Neverland these days?” Now I’m almost certain the two guys know each other. “Is this a prank you and Peter plotted together?” I snap as I jab my finger at the center of his rock-hard chest. “Because I don’t find that funny.”
Jamie backs off, hands lifted in surrender, but the shadow of a smile settles on his face. What’s amusing him so?
A beat passes before his expression sobers. “I didn’t talk to my brother recently. And this is most definitely not a joke,” he says.
“Oh, now he’s your brother? Well, if this isn’t getting more enthralling by the minute.”
“Please, let me explain.”
“Go ahead. I’m dying to hear this.” Saccharin sweet sarcasm drips from my voice.
All of a sudden, Jamie takes my hand in his, preventing me from stabbing him with my finger once more. His grip is rough but gentle all the same. This time he doesn’t release me when I try to tug myself free. Instead, he pulls me closer. Mere inches separate us now. The wild scent of tangerines and seawater clings to him like a tropical cologne. It calls to me. My knees go weak and I realize to my horror, I enjoy being near him.
No, no, no! Serial killer! Serial killer! The only reasonable thing is to back off and scream, but I just can’t. There’s something absolutely non-frightening about him hidden under this obvious aura of danger that surrounds him. Something untouchable, yet unmistakably there.
“A few months ago, you dropped from this very balcony and landed in Neverland where Peter Pan caught you as you fell from the sky,” Jamie starts to explain. And that’s the exact moment when I opt out of this conversation and suck in a breath to scream for help.
I don’t know what gave me away to him, maybe the horrified expression that must be on my face, but he claps his hand over my mouth before so much as a tiny squeak comes out. “Please, listen to me,” he urges.
In my current position—pressed flush against his front with one of his arms wrapped tightly around me and the other hand still placed over my mouth—I don’t have much of a choice here. Wide-eyed, I stare at his face. He tries to soothe me with a reassuring smile, pretending everything is alright. I’m tempted to fall for it.
“Promise not to scream when I take my hand off?”
It’s easy for him to ask that, he’s not the one being trapped, so I neither nod nor shake my head.
“Fine.” His shoulders sink. “Maybe if I trust you first and just let you go, you will you give me the chance to explain?” With a hopeful tilt of his eyebrows, he waits for my reaction, but I still don’t move. In the end, his hand slowly lifts from my mouth.
To scream, or not to scream?
Our gazes stay locked, even after he lets me go with only the tips of his fingers still touching my arm. It’s like he tries to but just doesn’t want to fully let go. Until now, I haven’t screamed. I’m still considering, though. Maybe I should make it dependent on what he says next. But Jamie doesn’t say anything for a really long moment.
At one point, his eyes lower to my collar and then quickly move up again. A streak of red crosses his face, but he seems sad. His look makes me feel a little warm…edgy. I can't understand why he affects me this way. And for some reason his dejection troubles me.
“Why aren’t you wearing the ruby heart necklace anymore?” he asks me then.
Now that definitely holds my interest. “How do you know of that necklace? And it’s not a ruby, it’s a glass heart from my sister,” I add in a reprimanding tone.
“You think so?”
“Of course. What else could it be?”
“As far as I know, I put it around your neck, so yeah…I’m pretty sure it’s a piece from my treasure. Back in Neverland.”
“Stop!” I cry out under my breath and lift my hands to keep him at a distance. “I don’t know how you found out about that necklace, but I’m not listening to this crap. And don’t give me rubbish about Neverland. I know the story of Peter Pan. Every kid does. You and Peter next door are certainly not figures from it. So either you are serious with me or better yet go down the way you came up.” I point a straight finger at the tree. Should I mention that I’ll call the police too?
The silence that follows gives my heart time to calm, and I get lost in his gorgeous eyes. They are the color of the wild sea, and no matter what expression he wears, confused, determined, or if he smiles, there’s always this devilish spark in them.
He heaves a resigned sigh as if deliberating my last words. “When your sisters were born, you sneaked into their room after everyone else went to sleep.” He takes the tiniest step closer and his voice lowers a little more. “You slept on the floor between their beds, because you couldn’t stand to be away from them for even just one night.”
My chin hits my chest. Where in the world did he get that information from? I told this to nobody. But he’s not done yet. “If your mother had found out, she’d given you the shittiest lecture of all times about how well-behaved girls don’t sleep on the floor.” He lifts his hands, palms up, and smirks. “Your words not mine.”
Motionless and full of intrigue, I stare at him. “You’re on to something here.”
“I certainly am. I’m trying to make you believe me. You told me this when you were about to lose your memory back in—” He coughs and rolls his eyes. “Well, you know where.”
“Neverland,” I say flatly.
“Yeah, you see…” He hesitates. “ We never figured out how you landed in my world.” Slowly, he lifts his hand and brushes the backs of his fingers along my jaw. “And believe me, it was damn difficult to find out how to send you back to London.”
I can’t believe that I’m listening to him and letting him touch me. About to jerk my head to the side, push him away and run, the haunted look on his face keeps me rooted to the spo
t.
Suddenly something he mentioned before hits me again. “You said I fell off this balcony and landed in Neverland. And that’s when you gave me the necklace?”
He nods.
Boy, if this is a prank, they really did some good research. I woke up with the glass heart around my neck the morning after I fell. And the twins are the only ones who know about this mishap. We decided not to tell it to my parents, so they won’t start to worry for nothing and find a new nanny. It’s all so weird. My confused gaze drops to my toes.
“Not convinced yet?” Jamie ask, as if aware of my jumbled thoughts.
I look up into his eyes. “How can I possibly be?”
After taking a deep breath through his nose, he suggests, “Let me try something.”
“What do you have in mind?”
His gaze turns intense. “Let me kiss you.”
“What?”
“Please. Just once. If I fail to recall your memory with it and if you feel absolutely nothing for me afterward, I’ll leave and not bother you again.”
“You’re— No way!”
He gauges my reaction for a moment, then the left side of his mouth slides up. “Why not? Are you afraid I could be right and you’ll feel something?”
“Am not!”
His frown becomes mocking. “Ah, I see. So you just don’t want me to leave you alone…”
I don’t know why, but his taunting, self-assured attitude makes me laugh. “You’re insane, you know that, Jamie.”
The teasing expression disappears from his eyes. Hands clasped behind his back, he leans closer and whispers in my ear, “Say it again.”
“What?” I croak, suddenly all too aware of how good he smells.
“My name.” His lips brush my skin. “You’re the only one who ever called me Jamie.”
“I—um…” My breaths come twice as fast as usual. No idea how he does it, but when he moves his lips across my cheekbone, there are stars in my mind instead of any real thought. I lick my lips.
His hands gently lay down on my hips. “Are you ready to be kissed?” he breathes against the corner of my mouth.
My knees start to tremble. There are butterflies in my belly now. Way too many. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“I think it’s the best idea I had in a long time.” His forehead touches against mine. We’re eye to eye and, once again, I’m lost in the fathomless blue of the sea.
As his palm shapes against my cheek, my gaze lowers. His breath feathers against my skin. With a will of their own, my hands move to his chest. There’s a steady, faster-than-normal heartbeat underneath. Heck, for all it’s worth, I’m ready to make out with a complete stranger.
Eyes at half-mast, I part my lips for him. But he never gets the chance to go through with the kiss. Something huge flies in from the side and knocks Jamie out of my arms, right over the balcony’s balustrade. Too appalled to scream, I lung forward, gripping the edge of the rail, and gape down. Jamie lies in the grass beneath. On top of him is the guy who rammed him. My heart stops.
The attacker gets to his feet and kicks Jamie hard in his side. He lies still on the ground from the impact of the drop. Fear crashes through me that he could be unconscious. Then a low, pained moan crawls out of his mouth.
As fast as my wobbly legs carry me, I dash back into my room and fumble with the lock at my door. My parents have to call the police. “Mother, Father,” I croak, but I’m still in too much shock to get a real sound out, and the door just doesn’t want to come open. And then there’s this abysmal click behind as someone closes the balcony door. From inside.
Shaking like a leaf, my fingers keep working the key. Just when the bolt springs back, strong arms reach around me and firm hands wrap around mine. I’m being pulled away from the door, and I still can’t scream.
“Shh,” the person behind me whispers in my ear. He turns me around.
It takes a moment for the information to sink in who is holding me. Then I fling my arms around Peter and cling to his body, sobbing against his chest.
“Hey,” he says. “It’s all good. He can’t hurt you now. I won’t let him.”
He? The guy who wanted to kiss me? Or the one who knocked him off my balcony? Suddenly a realization hits me hard and I jump back, struggling to swallow through a throat that closed up in horror. “How did you get in here?”
He ignores my question. “We need to talk.”
These words and the way he looks scare me even more. I take a wary step back. “Did you just push the guy off the balcony?”
Peter waits a second before he nods. His entire composure radiates doom. “I had to. He’s here to kidnap you, Angel.”
Both my palms press against my temples. I rake my hands over my skull. “What?”
Peter walks closer, disentangling my fingers from my hair. He leads me to my bed and has me sitting down. Good thing because my knees would have given out any second.
“Listen, and listen well, because this is important.” He lowers and rests on his heels in front of me so we’re on eyelevel. “I tried to tell you when we first met, but you didn’t remember me or Hook or Neverland. You thought it was a joke. But it’s not. Neverland is not a made-up story from a book. It’s real.” He pauses then speaks with more insistence. “I live there.”
I blink a few times. “You live in Neverland?” My voice is flat. Detached.
“I do, indeed. And you were there a while ago.”
“When I fell off my balcony.”
Peter’s eyes take on a hopeful shine. “You remember?”
A crazy laugh escapes me. “That’s what Jamie told me before you knocked him over.” Oh my God. My spine goes stiff. “Did you kill him?” As I jump to my feet, Peter pushes me back down, his hands on my shoulders.
“I wish I had.” He rolls his eyes. “But no.”
“We must go down and help him!”
His fingers dig into my bones. “Did you hear what I said? He wants to kidnap you.”
Yes, and he said weird things about Neverland, but I don’t believe him. “He wanted to kiss me is all.”
“He wanted to seduce you onto his ship. So he could steal you back to Neverland. He’s a pirate, Angel. One of the worst sort. Believe me, there’s nothing romantic about his intentions.”
“His ship?” Things take a spiral tonight, from weird to worse. “Where in the world would he park a ship anywhere close? This is London.”
“Right above your house.”
Oh god, I'm surrounded by crazy people. I stare at Peter for an immeasurable time. He seemed like such a nice guy in the park. Now I’m scared that I’m with the wrong man in my room. He’s a lunatic.
Slowly, I stand up, ignoring his restraining grip, and walk to the French doors. There’s not much to see through the pane. Glancing over my shoulder, I cast Peter a scrutinizing look. His chest heaves in a resigned sigh. I open the door and step out.
Down below, the garden is quiet. There’s no sign of Jamie, or evidence of a fight. Lifting my head—and I’m not saying that I believe Peter about the ship—I scan the sky for anything unusual. Nothing. Not the tiniest boat hovering above the roof. Not even a raft. The sky is clear, black, with a milky way to die for.
“His men came down to take their captain away.”
At Peter’s voice so near me, I jerk around. “You want me to believe that Jamie is the captain of the invisible ship above my house?”
“His name is Captain James Hook, and his ship has gone. It’s not invisible.” His brows furrow to a line. “Not to me, anyway.”
“James Hook. From the story of Peter Pan,” I say, casting him a wry look. Deliberately, I rub my temples. “I’m coming down with a headache.”
“You make it really hard for me to convince you, Angel.” Peter pinches the bridge of his nose, then he throws me a determined look. “Now just don’t freak out, okay?” All of a sudden, he bends down and scoops me up in his arms. A surprised gasp escapes me, but no one can hear it becaus
e we’re shooting upward into the sky.
I shriek and he winces, but it doesn’t make him fly slower.
Fly.
Dear Lord.
I’m going insane.
When the city lights of London zoom past beneath us, he finally starts to speak. “You have this book in your room. Peter Pan. I borrowed it a while ago and read it.”
Okay?
“I don’t know what the story about Wendy has to do with my life, but I do remember this guy called Tootles. A long time ago he’s been to Neverland.” Tilting his head, Peter glares at me. “Like you.”
I’m cold up here. In a dream you normally don’t feel cold, do you?
“Somehow he returned to your world and obviously he wrote this story about what he saw in Neverland. To you it’s just a fairy tale. To me…it’s reality.”
I swallow hard, because now even I can’t deny that there’s something very fictional about the man who flies with me over London. “Are you saying that you’re Peter Pan? The real Peter Pan?”
A muscle beats in his jaw. “The only Peter Pan.”
What am I to make of all this? Everything that’s happened tonight shouldn’t be happening at all. But obviously it has. My head spins. “Please take me back home,” I whisper.
Peter looks me sternly in the eye. “You believe me now?”
One deep breath. Two. Three. I nod.
“Good, because there’s a lot more you need to know. But let’s get you back to your house first.” He flies a loop, his arms tight around me all the time, and carries me back to my house. As soon as he lands on my balcony and releases me, I pad into my room and walk straight out through the door into the hallway.
Peter closes the balcony door and follows me. “Where are you going?”
