The tears fall faster. I should have just asked Bash to help me. I should have begged him to help me stay.
I didn’t have to turn on Winnie.
But they’ll never forgive me now.
Why did I do that?
Bash takes my hand in his, threads our fingers together. His skin is dry and a little cold, but his grip is sure. “It’s going to be all right, Cherry. You’ll see.”
The tears return. “Bash.”
“Yes?”
“I have to tell you—”
“Cherry.”
Vane is suddenly taking up the space of my open doorway.
“Oh right,” Bash says. “I forgot to tell you, the Dark One is looking for you.” He gives my hand a pat.
My stomach drops to my toes.
I could risk telling Bash. I can never tell Vane.
“Come,” Vane orders.
“Where?” I look between him and Bash. Bash gives me a shrug.
“Get the fuck up right now, Cherry and come with me.”
I set the wine bottle aside and rise from the bed and sway a little. Bash stays where he is.
Do they already know? Is Vane about to kill me?
I’m sure Vane can hear the loud thumping of my heart and he knows I’m terrified even though he hasn’t turned his power on me.
Taking a deep breath, I follow him down the hall and out of the house.
Vane is silent for the first several minutes and I follow silently beside him as he follows the road that winds away from the house and to Darlington Port.
When he chased me not that long ago, we used the woods, not the beach.
Maybe everything is okay.
Maybe—
“Cherry,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Why wasn’t Winnie in the tomb when we got back?”
I swallow loudly and I know he can hear that too.
There is very little I can hide from Vane.
“I already told you—”
“Don’t lie to me, Cherry.” He stops in the middle of the road and pulls out a cigarette, lights it with a flick of the lighter. The flame paints light across his face as the sun sets beyond the island and the inner land turns dark.
“Is something wrong?” I ask trying to prolong the inevitable, trying to think of a good way to talk myself out of this one.
I used to be good at this.
I was young when Jas left England and I snuck away with him, but I was old enough to learn a thing or two from our father.
Our father might have been an asshole in the privacy of our home, but in public, everyone loved him. He was a respected lawyer who served as chief minister to the king. And what I learned from him was that it was always better to have two sides and best to hide the one that did bad things.
“Tell me what happened,” Vane asks. He takes a hit from the cigarette and squints against the smoke clouding up around his face.
It still hurts to look at him.
I know he doesn’t want me, but just being near him makes my gut hurt and my chest fill with butterflies.
If I could give something, anything, to make that feeling go away, I would.
“There was a bird trapped in my room,” I start and then someone flies out of the shadows and barrels into Vane and tackles him to the ground.
“Oh my god!” I screech.
They roll in the dirt several times until Vane is on his feet again, his boot pressed against the person’s neck.
The person on the ground, with the Dark One peering over him, laughs, though the sound is strangled beneath the sole of Vane’s boot.
“Roc?” Vane says.
The other man grips Vane’s foot and then shoves him back. Vane stumbles. Roc is up again and dusting off his trousers.
“The fuck are you doing?” Vane says, his voice devoid of any excitement to see his brother.
“Testing your reflexes.” Roc runs a hand through his dark hair. “You’re shit at it, apparently. You should have heard me coming.”
“I was fucking busy!”
Roc turns to me and a breath gets lodged in my throat. I’m still a little warm and fuzzy from the wine, and Roc’s attention on me makes me warmer.
Because holy stars, he is hot.
I barely remember him when he was here last, back when he cut off my brother’s hand for some perceived slight with Wendy Darling.
I can still hear Jas’s terror and later his groans of pain as Smee tended to the wound.
“Hi,” Roc says, “And you are?”
“Cherry.” I’m not dressed for meeting new company! Definitely not Vane’s infamous older brother.
He’s an inch or two taller than Vane, which would put him closer to Peter Pan’s height. He’s lean like Vane though, and has a certain litheness to him that would probably serve him well if he decided to become an assassin or a thief.