“No,” Wendy said quickly with a shake of her head. She’d been safe and sound in her room last night, but that did little to comfort her. The thought of Peter, alone in the woods, being attacked by the shadow was enough to make her sick. She should’ve been there to protect him. She shouldn’t have left him. She should’ve made him come home. Wendy swallowed down a lump in her throat. She hated herself for letting him go.
“We’re in this together, okay?” Wendy insisted, stepping closer to Peter, making him look her in the eyes. “No more going off on your own. We beat it together, or not at all, just like you said, right?” Peter looked miserable and unconvinced. “You’re not the only one with something to lose,” she told him.
Peter held her gaze. She realized how close they were standing, Peter leaning against a trash can and she standing between his knees. There was a low rush in her belly. Warmth flooded her face.
Peter’s eyes drifted from hers, down to her mouth, and then to her neck.
A tired grin curled the corners of his lips. “Hey, you found it,” he murmured.
He was staring at the acorn she wore around her neck. “Yeah, I-I did,” Wendy stammered, and she quickly came back to reality. “I mean, I’ve always had it,” she corrected herself, holding it in the palm of her hand. “I just kept it in a jewelry box.” Some of Peter’s light seemed to slowly start returning. “I wore it around my neck last night when I fell asleep, and I had this dream—but it was a memory—about Neverland, and my brothers, and you.” Wendy looked up into Peter’s face. “I remembered you giving it to me. Do you remember that?”
Dimples pressed gently into Peter’s cheeks as he took the acorn between his thumb and forefinger. “Of course I do,” he said. Their bowed heads and close bodies made a small alcove. “I gave it to you so you wouldn’t forget me, you know, when you came back here. I mean, it clearly didn’t work,” he added with an airy laugh. He glanced up at her then, face close, eyes watching her so intently that she almost moved away. “But now that you’ve found it again, I guess it’s helping you start to get your memories back…” Peter’s smile was small and tight.
Wendy bit down on her bottom lip. Did that mean that all this time, she could’ve just used the acorn to get her memories back? She’d spent years without them, hating herself for not being able to remember when everyone asked her questions she didn’t know the answers to, when they accused her of lying, when she became a social outcast. This could change everything. She could get more of her memories back now. For some reason Wendy’s heart fluttered in her chest and her head swam.
“When you gave this to me,” Wendy said, changing the subject and thinking back to how Peter had looked in her memory, “did you already know you were going to have to take us home?”
Peter nodded. “I could tell things were going wrong in Neverland—it wasn’t safe for you to stay any longer,” he said, watching her carefully.
“It was so weird to see them so clearly,” Wendy told him. He gave her a sad smile. She sighed and stepped back. “There’s a lot I need to tell you. Two more kids went missing last night, and the cops are starting to search the woods.” Peter’s smile faded. “We need to find that tree, and your shadow, fast.” Wendy glanced toward the front of the house. With sudden determination, she tugged on Peter’s arm. “Come on,” Wendy said as she led him from the side of the house to the driveway. Checking to make sure no one was looking in their direction, she guided him to her truck and opened the door.
Peter obediently slid into the passenger seat. He sat up straight, suddenly looking much more awake as he peered at the dashboard. “I’ve never been in a car before,” he confessed, his fingers brushing over the knobs of the stereo.
“Technically, you were in an ambulance,” Wendy pointed out.
Peter looked at her, unamused. “That doesn’t count, I was unconscious.”
Wendy’s lips twisted as she suppressed a smirk. She turned the key and the old truck roared to life. Peter’s hands latched on to the dashboard. If she weren’t so worried about him, she would’ve laughed at the deeply concerned expression on his face. “Put on your seat belt,” she told him as she pulled her own across her chest.
He took the seat belt in his hand and pulled it across, mimicking what Wendy did, but then his longer fingers fumbled with the buckle. She gently took it out of his hand and clicked it into position.