If it was, I didn’t know. Then again, I’m so far removed from what life is on my island.
“Nice to meet you, Darlina,” Darling says. “And thank you for this delicious meal.”
The server dips down like she means to curtsy and then thinks better of it. “My pleasure,” she says and then darts away.
“Darlina?” Darling whispers to me. “They’ve adopted a name like my surname?”
“The Darling stories go back generations,” I tell her. “I’m not surprised.”
“But I thought we were your villain or whatever?”
“No, Darling.” I steal one of her fries. “I am the villain here.”
14
ROC
Peter Pan and his Darling are nowhere to be found and my patience is growing thin.
Behind the house, a party is well underway. Plenty of Lost Boys and girls drinking and carousing. I would join them if it hadn’t been years and years since I saw my baby brother.
He pours us each a drink at the bar in the loft. He doesn’t ask what I want, but I’m sure he remembers I prefer bourbon.
Time may have stretched between us, but there are some things brothers never forget.
He brings the glass over to me and sits in the leather chair across from the couch where I’m lounging in the crook.
The loft is quiet. The twins disappeared with Cherry as soon as I arrived.
I suppose my reputation precedes me. The twins were not with Pan last I was here. They came much later.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I tell Vane.
He takes a healthy drink of his liquor and barely winces as it burns down his throat.
“Whatever your plan is,” Vane says, “I won’t let you see it through.”
I smile at him and try not to let the irritation reach my eyes. My baby brother has changed and I’m not entirely sure by how much.
A pinch? A mile? A fucking cavern’s length?
“Let me ask you a question.” I sit forward and prop my elbows on my knees. “If it came down to choosing between Peter Pan and me, who would you choose?”
“If it came down to it, why would you make me?”
Something sinister glitters in his black eye. I vividly recall him flailing beneath me as I tried to tend to the wound. I remember the paleness of his skin, the hollowness of his cheeks, and the very real fear that he wouldn’t survive.
He and I are not like most men. But even special men are sometimes no match for a shadow.
“Did you know?” I ask him.
The quiet grows loud.
“Did you, Vane?”
“I only just found out.” He drains the rest of the glass and sets it down hard on the table between us. “And don’t pretend you were slighted. You barely knew Wendy.”
“I knew her enough.” I upend my own glass and welcome the alcohol’s sweetness and its heat. I need more. I need so much more. “The fae queen shared a memory she plucked from a Darling’s head.” I reach into my pocket and pull out a handful of peanuts. “As you know, memories are passed down by blood.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And Peter Pan left Wendy as she begged for his help and then begged him to seek mine.”
“You had already left, remember? After she jilted you.”
“Because of fucking James Hook.”
“You and your mountain of enemies.”
“Don’t make me add you to the pile.”
He lurches upright. “Why do you fucking care? That was ages ago. Don’t pretend like he took the great love of your life.”
“Would you have left Lainey?”
The look on my baby brother’s face is the same look a man might have right after he’s been slapped across the face with a sledgehammer.
I almost regret it.
Almost.
“Do not bring her into this.” His violet eye goes black. “Wendy is not Lainey.”
I am not my brother. I don’t feel emotion like he does. But I can almost imagine it when we talk of our little sister.
I didn’t want to dig up old graves, but I’ve already dug too far.
“Peter Pan does what he wants. Should there be no consequences for him?”
Vane grits his teeth. “And what do you call what you do?”
“I have rules, baby brother. Peter Pan has none.”
“Rules.” He scoffs and turns away. “Rules only you know. Rules that you seem to pull out of thin air.”
I follow him down the main staircase.
“When have I ever left an innocent girl to fend for herself?”