Begrudgingly, Wendy followed.
“Since when are you afraid of the dark, anyway?” Peter asked, glancing back at her over his shoulder.
Wendy almost stopped, wanting to pull back from the familiar way he kept talking to her. He stared at her, so open and unabashed. Meanwhile, her own cheeks felt hot under his gaze.
Wendy’s hands shook so fiercely that the metal handle of the lantern clattered. Peter frowned at it. She gripped it tighter in an attempt to stop the shaking. The strain made the dry, cracked skin of her knuckles sting.
Peter continued leading the way through the woods. His bare feet easily traversed rocks and tree roots. “I mean, lions, quicksand, nasty-tasting medicine: Those are all valid things to be afraid of,” he said, leaping onto a fallen tree, his arms out at his sides as he walked along it. He seemed perfectly at home. “But the dark?” he asked. Peter jumped down and fell back into step next to Wendy. “Really?” There was a teasing note in his voice as he ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch.
Wendy only needed to dip her head a bit to clear the same branch.
She scowled at him. Her sense of pride tried to bubble its way to the surface through the sour fear in her belly. “I’m not afraid of the dark,” Wendy said, correcting her previous statement. “I’m cautious of what’s in the dark that I can’t see.” She lifted the lantern a bit higher in an attempt to get a better view of the woods ahead. Her shadow caught her eye as it walked along the tree to their right, unaccompanied. Peter’s shadow was still nowhere in sight. It was just so … odd. “Something that could hurt me,” she mumbled, more to herself than Peter. The cut on her leg ached, and it was hard to keep branches and leaves in the underbrush from slapping it.
Peter stopped walking and stared at her for a moment, his head tilted to the side. It reminded her of her old dog, Nana, when Wendy used to speak to her—confused and trying to understand. It was an innocent and kind of stupid expression. Despite present circumstances, Wendy felt a laugh rise in her throat.
But then Peter started walking again. “I think people are more frightening than the dark,” he said. “A person can stand right in front of you and be dangerous without you even knowing it.”
His back continued to retreat into the darkness, but Wendy remained where she stood. That was … surprisingly insightful.
Jogging a bit to catch up, Wendy fell into step next to Peter. Against all logic, she felt better being in the woods with him by her side. It was almost like he emitted his own light that kept the darkness of the woods at bay.
“So that’s what you’re afraid of?” Wendy asked. “People?”
“What?” Peter snorted and gave a fierce shake of his head. “No. I’m not afraid of anything.”
Wendy rolled her eyes. What a childish response. “Everyone’s afraid of something,” she insisted.
“Everyone but me,” Peter corrected.
She fought the urge to give him a shove.
Wendy concentrated on his face, trying to read his expression as the light danced across his features. She wetted her lips, tasting the questions that were demanding to be asked.
“How old are you?” she finally asked.
“How old are you?” he countered evasively, lifting an eyebrow.
Wendy had to bite back a petulant reply of I asked you first.
“I’m eighteen,” Wendy told him.
Peter looked like he’d just been slapped. He jerked back with a blink before scrunching up his face. “You’re eighteen?”
Wendy felt very exposed as he blatantly looked her up and down. Indignant, even. She knew she was short, but she thought she at least looked her age.
Wendy smoothed a hand through her short hair and cleared her throat. “It was actually my birthday when we—when…” When I almost hit you with my car? When you freaked me and half the hospital out? When you came crashing into my life? “Yesterday. My birthday was yesterday.”
“Oh.” His stare was unfocused as he looked ahead, lost in thought. Still, he walked through the woods with ease while Wendy tripped along behind him. “I’m nineteen,” Peter said, coming out of his daze and tilting his chin up. Even the smallest grin pulled deep dimples into his cheeks.
Wendy was starting to get a headache from frowning so much. “Nineteen? There’s no way you’re nineteen,” she said flatly. “You look like you’re fifteen.”
His face still had a childlike roundness to it—his nose turned up at the end and was a little too small for his face. Even though he had muscles, they were still lean and sinewy. He could easily fit in with the crowds of lanky freshmen at her school.