Never (Never, #1) (93)

I make my way back to the beach where Peter gave me the berries. I know it’s the same spot because the berries I didn’t eat still rest on the sand.

I can just barely spot Neverland Island from here. It’s not close. A couple hours’ swim at least. I look back at the island I’ve just escaped from and then back at the ocean. I fancy my chances with the sea.

I wade in, hold the dagger under the water, and the red washes away. I put it back in my boot—boots are not great to swim in, by the way—and then I start swimming.

Swimming and swimming for maybe an hour—two possibly, even—and my arms are getting tired, but I’m so far out, and I’ve nowhere to go.

I stop for a minute and tread water.

I don’t know how to summon fairies or even if you can, but being able to right now would be fantastic. Maybe there’s such a thing as water fairies.

I suppose there are mermaids.

That makes me feel uneasy, now that I’m thinking of it. I’m quite sure, given the chance, Marin would let me drown, if not swim on over and drown me herself.

I look beneath me at the clear and crazy blue waters below.

You know how the water can wreak havoc in your mind with benign shadows?

Immediately I am positive that I’m going to die. Again.

I’m sure of it, that something’s there, circling me. It’s not dark, it’s light, but it’s something, and I’m spinning around, splashing as I look everywhere for it—seems dangerous. Splashing attracts sharks, doesn’t it? I go still instead, stare down at whatever’s beneath me.

And then a tiny wave knocks my chin up.

I stare back down at the water.

It does it again.

Then from behind me, a wave scoops me up like I’m in an armchair and propels me forwards. Forward and forwards and through fields and kilometres of water.

The wave carries me home.

It washes me up on the shore next to the dock by the tree house, and I turn to say thank you to it, and I think it laps at my ankles extra to say that I’m welcome.

I empty my boots of ocean water, make sure my dagger’s still tucked away, and then I walk towards the tree house.

I’m out for blood. Ready completely to kill Peter for this, I am.

Part of me hopes he’s not in—that something happened to him, that he’s detained somewhere, or that there’s been an emergency. That’s a horrible thing to hope for someone you care about, but if he’s not detained and if there’s nothing wrong, then it means he just left me to die, and I think that might be worse.

When I walk into the room, the boys are playing football in the house across all the different stories of nets.

It’s Percival who spots me first, and he pulls a face when he does. “What happened to you?”

Kinley flies over to me. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll get you a towel,” says little Holden before darting out of the room.

And it’s then—then, when his game is interrupted—that Peter looks up and over at me.

“Whoa.” Peter laughs. “I totally forgot about you!”

I glare over at him. “I know.” I stand there, hands on my hips, chin low.

Percival gives Kinley a look, nodding away from us, and then scurries out.

Peter watches them go before he looks back at me. “Sorry.” He shrugs.

I shake my head at him. “Peter, I could have died.”

“Yeah, but”—he rolls his eyes like I’m crazy—“dying would be an awfully big adventure though.”

“I don’t want to die,” I tell him very clearly, and he rolls his eyes again.

“Well, then it’s good that you didn’t.”

“Peter.” I frown.

He flies over to me, takes less than three seconds for him to get from one side of the tree house to the other. How quickly he could have saved me if he tried.

He looks at me suspiciously. “How’d you get here?”

“I swam.” I gesture to my saturated self.

“The whole way?”

I shrug. “The waves carried me.”

His face pulls, and his brows knit together. “That’s weird.”

“Why?” I frown. “I would have thought you told them to.”

He pauses. “I did.”

“Right, so?” I lift my shoulders a bit, waiting for his point.

Peter eyes me curiously. “You’re way braver than I thought.”

I blink twice. “Than you thought?”

He nods, but he doesn’t look pleased. “And stronger, I guess?”

My head pulls back. “You guess?”

He crosses his arms, head tilted to the side. “How’d you get out of the maze anyway?”

“What do you mean? It was easy.” I shake my head, and his face flickers. “I stabbed the minotaur in the eye, and then he fell down, and he opened the maze for me.”

Peter says nothing.

“That’s the game, isn’t it?” I stare at him. “I won.”

“Right.” Peter nods, walking past me, and then he pauses, looking back. “You stabbed him in the eye?”

“Yes.” I nod. “He even gave my dagger back.”

“What dagger?”