Page 55 of Losing Wendy
Except that this predator already has her claws in me.
If I don’t move, I’m going to die, but I can’t seem to make my body understand that. Perhaps it does understand; it simply doesn’t care.
There’s hunger in her gaze. There are legends, rumors that the unseelie faeries feast on the flesh of humans. Not quite cannibals because of the difference in species, but close enough.
No. No, I’ve come too far, avoided too much peril to die like this.
It’s like slogging through the marshes in iron-soled boots, but eventually my will overcomes my fear.
And I scratch back.
It’s not the noblest or most honorable of ways to fight, but it’s the only way I know to inflict damage quickly. I go for the faerie’s piercing blue eyes. She’s faster and jerks her head to the side in time for me to miss, but I draw blood at her cheek.
My nails dig in deep, but no scream comes. Just a hiss of displeasureas the faerie swats my hands away, then grabs my wrists, wrestling for control as she attempts to force me to my knees. I writhe in her arms, remembering what it’s like to try to console Michael when his body is out of his control. How taxing it is to hold him to my chest when his movements threaten to cause him harm.
So I fight back like Michael would, flailing my limbs and allowing the weight of my body to become more cumbersome than my mass should allow.
All the while, I try to force the scream from my throat, but it won’t come.
The faerie lands another blow to my face, but this time I’m ready for it and thrash out of her way, allowing her momentary shift in balance to release me from under her grip. Again, I aim for the eyes, sure that’s the only place I have a chance to inflict damage upon a faerie.
I miss, but this time my fingernails find a handhold in the faerie’s throat.
It shouldn’t be as debilitating of a wound as it is. It’s not as if I’ve ripped out her larynx or anything. But as if by instinct, the faerie’s limbs freeze. Her fingers go limp, and I fall. I use the opportunity to crawl backward on my forearms, my legs still trembling too much to support me.
She clutches the scratch, cradling it as if I inflicted the sort of lacerating wound that might cause the contents of her throat to spill out. She blinks rapidly, momentarily stunned. So am I, confused by the reaction this faerie has had to a scratch that, though dripping blood, might very well heal up on its own within the next few minutes.
The faerie blinks herself back into the present until the fog in her gaze disappears. She homes back in on me, but then her pointed ears flicker upward and back as she senses something I cannot.
Panic overtakes her features, pretty now that she’s not flashing her teeth at me. Before I can push myself off the floor, she slips out the door and into the hallway, leaving behind a trail of glowing light.
Moments later Peter rushes in, his dark form taking up the entire space of the doorway. Wings rattle as he pushes his way into the room. His gaze flickers with rage when he finds me on the floor.
“Where’d she go?”
I raise a trembling hand to point to the left, where the faerie escaped down the tunnel.
Peter’s out of the room faster than I can blink. I coax myself onto my feet. My heart is racing so quickly I have to prop myself against the wall for support as I stumble away.
I’ve no idea what Peter will do to me when he returns from hunting the faerie, but I can’t imagine it will be anything good. He might have tolerated my ascent to the cliffside where I tried to steal his faerie dust, but I know I’ve crossed a line by pilfering through his room. The Lost Boys might look up to Peter. Simon might consider him their protector. But I’m familiar enough with those who use good-natured humor and dazzling smiles as a mask. I’ve witnessed the smirks he flashes them, the way he ruffles their hair and picks food off their plates and uses every ancient trick to put them at ease.
I know those tricks as well as I know my parents’ faces.
Even as I try to conjure them for strength, I find the edges fading, warped and distorted, slightly off like the sketch of the missing Lost Boy.
I’m halfway down the hallway when a dark figure appears before me. Peter’s still in his physical form, though his shadows wrap themselves around me as fury blazes in his blue eyes.
A mischievous grin cuts across his beautiful face. “Now, where do you think you’re going?”
CHAPTER 22
Idon’t resist as Peter lifts me into his arms and carries me back to his rooms. The meager fight I had in me I expended struggling with the faerie. Besides, I know better than to fight back against the Shadow Keeper, the very being who, if I attempted to land a blow, could simply slip into shadows and out of the grasp of my doomed attempts.
In a way, it strikes me as exactly what should have happened when I first arrived here. The behavior I always anticipated from the Shadow Keeper. To carry me in chains of shadows to his rooms and steal my very will to live from my bones as he pillaged the last tendril of agency I still possessed.
But when Peter brings me to his rooms, he doesn’t place me on the bed as I expect, but in the wooden, knotted rocking chair in the corner of the room. He then lights the lantern I’d brought in, which had toppled over in my struggle with the faerie. Casually, as if nothing odd has occurred tonight, he props himself atop the footrest in front of me, bracing his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands.
There’s something so boyish about the position, it’s almost charming.