Never (Never, #1) (42)

“It’s better like this.” He shakes his head. “He was happy with me.”

“And now?”

He shrugs, rolls his eyes, says what he says next like it’s a betrayal lobbed against him specifically.

“He grew up.”

He starts to walk away from me, but I chase after him.

“So where is he?” I ask him, reaching for his wrist.

He shakes me off. “I don’t know!”

“What do you mean ‘you don’t know’?”

He looks at me, angry and frustrated. “I forgot where I put him, that’s all.”

“Put him?” I blink over at him. “Why would you put him anywhere?”

Peter throws me a look. “That’s an expression.”

“For what?” I ask loudly, and he doesn’t say anything back, so I take another run at it. “So you stole a boy from his mother in Kensington Gardens, and you’ve since misplaced him somewhere in Neverland?”

“Yep.” He overenunciates, and he sounds unaffected.

“Well, did someone steal you?” I stare over at him. “How did you get here?” I try to pull on his arm, and he spins on his heel as I do.

“I don’t know!” he bellows. “I don’t know! Stop asking me. I don’t know.” His eyes are dark now, no green or gold in sight. More like molasses. Wild now too, like those Atlantic storms get. “I don’t like your questions.” Peter growls, standing above me, nose pressed against mine but not in a way that feels sweet or good. “I don’t like how they make me feel. I feel sick with your talking. Always talking! I need you to stop. I remember what I remember and I forget what I forget, and if you ask me any more things, then I will forget you.” He roars, and thunder claps so loudly and directly above us that I jump in fright, right off the ground, and once my feet aren’t touching it anymore, I swim through the air to my bed.

Only my bed is his bed, and he chases right after me.

“Wendy!”

“Daphne!” I yell at him, staring up ragged from the nest.

“Daphne.” He sighs almost like he’s sad at himself. “I’m sorry. I know you’re just a nosy girl.”

I scoff, looking away.

“Sorry.” He frowns as he sits down next to me. He touches my cheek with his finger—pokes it almost. “Was that bad to say?”

I glance over at him, my anger from a second ago a bit destabilised by his touch. “Yes.”

He gives me a pointed look. “You are nosy though.”

“I’m not nosy.” I cross my arms, indignant. “I’m just trying to know you.”

Peter shrugs, a lightness to him again. “You know me.”

“No.” I shake my head, and I tell myself that I’m not even remotely unnerved by how quickly the tides of him can change. Because the ocean changes quickly too, and it’s fine and safe and people hardly ever die in it.

“I don’t,” I tell him. “Not really.”

“Yes, you do!” He sighs. “I love the sun and flying and treasure and adventure and—”

“That’s not who you are. That’s what you love.”

Peter gives me a look like I’m stupid. “We are what we love, girl.”

“I love rocks and the earth and learning, but I’m not those things!”

“Well, I love danger and I love freedom, but try to tell me for a second that I’m not those.” He lifts an eyebrow, daring me.

I nod and my shoulders slump, because I’m tired and he’s right. He is.

“You are those things,” I concede.

He nudges me with his elbow. “The good kind of dangerous…”

“Yes.” I nod. Even though I’m not entirely sure.

He sighs, looking at his hands. “I shouldn’t have stormed at you.”

I stare over at him, taken aback. “Was that you?”

I had wondered.

“Yes,” he says, staring at his hands.

My face lightens up a bit. Maybe it shouldn’t, but awe happens without your permission most of the time. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t know. Just happens.” He shrugs. “Sometimes when I think about you, the sky turns pink.”

My eyes go round.* “Really?”

He shrugs again. “The first time we kissed, there was a meteor shower that night after.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugs.

“Felt dumb.” He flashes me a smile as he looks away.

I duck so our eyes catch. “Peter, how could that possibly feel dumb?”

“I don’t know how I got here.” he says rather suddenly, and his brows bend in the middle in a way that makes my heart’s knees bend. “Or where I came from or who my parents are. They just didn’t want me or to know me, because I’m here, and that’s all I know.”

“Oh,” I say, wishing we didn’t have that in common. It’s an awful club to belong to.

“The fairies raised me though,” he says, catching my eye. “Together with the land. I think that’s why it happens. The land’s my friend.”

I reach for his hand, and he lets me take it now. “It listens to you?”