“You can come back now, girl,” he tells me, nodding. “You can stay in my bed.”
I shake my head at him. “I don’t want to stay in your bed, Peter.”
Peter pulls back. “But you’ll stay in his?”
His eyes fall down me like I’m a traitor or a whore, and I open my mouth to defend myself, to say absolutely yes, that it’s a decision I wish I made sooner, that it’s something I’d do every day, again and again, when Jamison jumps in.
“Do ye really think so little o’ her?” he says, and both his mother and I look at him, confused.
Hurt, actually. I don’t understand.
Hook gestures towards me. “She’s my guest.”
“You can’t have her,” Peter spits at him.
“Neither can you,” I tell Peter quickly.
Peter stares down at me in the seat I’m in. His eyes pinch. “You are mine.”
I stand up and step around Hook. “I am banished,” I remind him, and then Peter does a silly thing. Peter often does silly things, and though he wouldn’t have known it at the time because Jamison didn’t make the nature of our relationship known to him, this would prove to be one of the sillier ones.
He grabs me, Peter does. It’s rough, by the arm, and he yanks me over to him.
Within that split second, Jamison’s sword is drawn, Itheelia’s wand （that I didn’t know she had） is drawn, Orson runs in from outside, and Rye starts edging around the table.
“Ye let her go,” Jem tells him, an edge in his eye that makes me feel uneasy.
“Don’t think I will.” Peter shrugs. “She is mine after all.”
Hook pulls a face. “If ye hae to hold on to her thon tightly, is she really?”
Peter’s grip on me loosens, and I snatch my arm away from him, going and standing behind Jem.
Peter nods his chin over at us. “Do you think she’s yours?”
Jamison shrugs with his shoulders and his mouth. “Sure, I think she’s her own, and I’ll fight anybody who says otherwise.”
Peter stands tall. “I say otherwise.”
Jem nods a few times calmly, then gives him an indifferent smile. “Then draw.”
I stare over at him, eyes wide.
Peter scoffs. “Are you challenging me to a duel?”
Jem blows air out of his mouth. “Mate, I’m just trying t’ shut ye up.”
Peter sniffs a little laugh. “Tomorrow. Cannibal Cove.”
“Jem.” I touch his arm, but he shrugs me off.
“When the second sun is a third down the left of the sky,” Peter tells him.
Hook nods. “Okay.”
“To the death,” Peter tells him.
Itheelia’s eyes go wide, but Jamison’s don’t. He just rolls them. “Everything’s so dramatic wi’ ye.” Jem pulls a face, then offers an alternative. “First t’ draw blood.”
Peter shrugs, bored. “Fine.” And then he gives me a glare. “When he bleeds, you’ll come home with me.”
I straighten my back and stare over at him. “There’s no such thing as ‘home with you,’ Peter. You made sure of that.”
Something whispers over his face like sadness, but it’s just for a second and then it’s gone.
Peter brushes past me before he flies off, the Lost Boys running after him.
Itheelia smacks Jamison in the arm. “What were you thinking?”
He scowls at his mother. “I was thinking he cannae talk t’ her like that.”
“He won’t fight fair,” she tells him, and I sidle up next to her.
“She’s right, he won’t.”
Jamison scoffs, looking mildly offended. “I can take on the boy.”
“You mustn’t play fair if he doesn’t,” his mother tells him.
“Sure, but that’d just be poor form. My old man would be rolling in his grave.”
Itheelia gives him a stern look. “Better than you in one alongside him.”
Jem gives her a look before he kisses her cheek, then he hooks his arm around my neck and pulls me out of the rotunda.
“Are y’okay?” he asks after a moment.
I stare straight ahead, breathing out of my nose.
Do I care that Peter looked sad? Do I care that he said he’d drag me back to England himself? That he wants me off this island?
No. I don’t care about any of that, not compared to the burning question I have in the centre of me.
I look up at him, frowning already.
“Are you embarrassed of me?”