7
WINNIE
I can’t breathe. I wasn’t made to run.
The sand is uneven beneath my feet and it’s making every step twice as hard as it should be. Tears are streaming down my face.
I hate fucking crying.
I don’t cry.
How far do I run?
Why am I running?
Haven’t they warned me over and over not to run?
The panic returns and this time, I think it’s all me. This might be a tight situation I can’t negotiate my way out of.
There’s a cliff in the distance rimmed in the glow of the moonlight. Mist from the ocean waves glitters in the devouring night air.
Suddenly Peter Pan is in front of me and the terror steals the air from my lungs.
I lurch to a stop before I slam into him. He catches me easily, his grip rough on my arms.
“What the fuck did I tell you, Darling?” His voice is edged in rage.
“I don’t know…I was…” I can’t catch my breath. I don’t know what is happening. “I was afraid,” I admit, even though I don’t remember becoming afraid.
Suddenly I just was, just like when I first woke up in the house and Vane came into the room.
For a split second, Pan softens.
I can sense it in the fading of the tension in his body. “That was Vane,” he says. “He has the ability to make people feel terror.
“He…what?”
“If it’s any consolation, he didn’t mean it.”
I laugh and for a split second, I hear my mother in my voice. The madness bleeding through.
“It’s not,” I say, “a consolation.” I swipe at a tear as it trails down my cheek. “Is it like…magic or something?”
“Or something. Come on.” He gestures back toward the house.
“I want to go home.”
“Why?”
“Because…because you all are assholes.”
“And?”
“And…and I don’t want to be broken.”
Raw emotion leaks through my voice. I didn’t mean to show it but it came out anyway and now I can’t take it back.
Pan frowns at me. “How much you break is entirely up to you,” he says. “The more you fight it, the harder it’ll be.”
I snort. “Right. There is no easy way. I remember.”
He reaches out for me again. I dance away.
“Darling,” he says. “I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you back if I have to.”
“When do I get to go home?”
“As soon as I find out whether or not you can help me.”
The wind picks up and the waves crash against the shore so I have to shout at Pan to make sure he can hear me. “And when is that?”
“Do you always ask so many fucking questions?”
“When I’m kidnapped, yes!”
“Christ.” He runs his hand through his hair and turns away. “I’m beginning to think this is a curse.”
“Just tell me—”
“No.” He comes at me, grabs my arm, puts his shoulder to my chest and lifts me over his shoulder.
“Hey!”
“Fight me and I’ll tie you up and drag you back to the house.”
His arm is tight across the back of my thighs. I’m still wearing my t-shirt dress and the hem rides up. At any second, I could be flashing him.
But fighting him will only make the skirt ride higher.
I go limp against him, hanging over his shoulder and down the broad length of his back as he makes his way up the beach.
“Run again, Darling,” he says, “and next time I’ll let Vane chase you.”
My heart thuds loudly in my ears. It felt like I might choke on the terror. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be chased by Vane while his…magic…does what it does.
Am I really going to believe in all of this?
Peter Pan came on my 18th birthday just like my mother warned me he would.
He came and he took me away.
I can’t deny the reality of it any longer. The sooner I accept it all, the quicker I can figure out how to escape it.
Pan carts me back to the house and through the crowd of boys gathered around the bonfire. I can feel them all watching me, tossed over Pan’s shoulder like a conquest.
Pan doesn’t say anything to them and the guitar music picks up once we’re on the stone balcony of the house.
Inside, I’m tossed unceremoniously on the couch with my skirt bunched around my waist.
The twins notice.
I take my time fixing it.
Pan goes to the bar and pours himself another drink. When he returns with it in hand, he sits in one of the plush leather chairs across from me. If the leather is anything like the couch, it’s buttery soft to the touch.