Pan's Revenge (12 page)

Brittney
Renae and Paulina come running and grab my hands. They twist around
me in a cheerful dance that makes me twirl with them.
Catching a glimpse over my shoulder, I see Peter
lick his bottom lip and briefly suck it between his
teeth.

“Maybe Saturday?” I suggest when I stand
again.

Peter nods, but once again he looks like a
boy from a different world. Smiling to myself, I shake my head and
walk home with the girls.

NOON
HAS PASSED when I wake up in my quarters. My
boots are kicked to the corner, my clothes dropped in a bundle on
the floor along with my hat on top. Chasing after rainbows starts
wearing me out.

I roll onto
my back and place one arm behind my head. For a long time, I just
stare out the window, the sheets draped halfway up my chest. The
sun sneers through the glass from a bright blue sky. It’s another
glorious day in Neverland. I can’t remember the last time I felt
happy to wake up in the morning. Not any day recently or today
either.

With a deep sigh, I rub my hand over my face.
I should get up and make plans for tonight—come up with a new idea
on how to capture a rainbow. But honestly, I think we’ve tried
every possible way there is. And still, we caught none.

Peter’s visit fourteen days ago gave me a new
boost of ideas and ways. But failing time and time again, night
after night, trampled my hopes. At this point I wonder if I’ll ever
see Angel again.

Most likely not.

I don’t even want to get out of bed
anymore.

About to drag
the sheets over my head and drown in gloom, I roll to the other
side when something nailed to the door catches my notice. My
attention on the wooden panel, I roll off the bed. Absently, I pick
up my pants and put them on, eyes focused on the dagger that’s
fixing a picture and a note on the door.

Holding the
picture flat against the wood, I work the dagger out. It’s none of
my knives, but with the
P.P.
engraved in the blade, it’s
not hard to guess to whom it belongs. “Peter Pan,” I murmur. The
bloody bastard. He must have sneaked into my quarters last night
while we were on the volcano again. Dead tired when we returned, I
barely paid attention to anything in my room, let alone the door. I
just wanted to sleep.

I slip the dagger into my belt at my back and
take a look at the picture. My heart sets out. On it, there’s the
prettiest laughing girl in the arms of my filthy half-brother. I
grit my teeth and my throat constricts painfully as I read the
note.

Having fun
with your
girl.

I almost
crunch the picture in my hand but, just in time, I stop. It’s the
only reminder I have of her. She looks lovely in that picture.
Happy. Breathtakingly beautiful. A muscle in my jaw ticks. I run my
thumb over her hair and try to remember how it felt. Silky and
soft. A
strand always fell into her face
when she was angry with me.

Now Peter Pan
is the one who gets to brush her hair
behind her ear. I slam my fist against the door.
How is this fair, goddammit?
Close to breaking, I trudge to the bed and sink
onto the mattress, staring at the picture of the two of them. My
vision blurs. I blink a few times, but it’s not getting
better.

There’s no use in ignoring the truth. I lost
her.

All the hard
work with the rainbows, all the trying had been in vain. I’ll never
be able to go where she is. Where Peter is. He’ll continue sending
me reminders of how happy Angel is with him. And me? Here I am,
forever trapped in Neverland. That’s my fate. My doom. I can’t take
it any longer. I don’t want to go on like this.

At that
moment, I make a decision that allows me to breathe again. It gives
me hope to get rid of the pain inside my chest. Very soon. Feeling
a little lighter, I light a candle and hold the note from Peter
over the flame. It burns and scatters into floating bits of black
ash. The picture of Angel stays untouched on my desk.

Shrugging on a clean white shirt, I walk out
on deck and find Smee on the bridge.

“Afternoon, Cap’n,” he greets me, but my lips
remain closed. I hug him briefly but hard to my chest and clap him
on the back.

“Shit, what’s wrong with you?” he blurts when
I release him.

“Nothing. Just…you’re a good friend,
Jack.”

If I startled him with the hug, I shocked the
hell out of him with my last words.

“
James—” He
frowns at me. “Did you drink too much of the rum last
night?”

I give him a tight smile and shake my head.
Then I turn on my heel and walk to the extended gangplank. Before I
leave the ship, I look back over my shoulder and meet Smee’s
confused gaze. “Take over,” I tell him.

It takes an endless time until he finally
nods and I know he understands and won’t follow me. Tonight, I want
to be alone on top of the volcano.

The sun has set when I reach the foot of the
mountain. It’ll be midnight by the time I get to the top. Fine with
me. Why not go down in a firework of rainbows? It fits, doesn’t
it?

All the way up, it’s Peter’s scornful face I
see. The way he snickers when he got his ultimate revenge. But I
don’t want to waste the last moments of my life thinking about him.
Shoving the image of my brother away, I pull the sound of Angel’s
soft laugh from my memory. That’s better. Thinking of her gives me
peace.

Before long, I stand on the very edge of the
volcano, looking down into the deep black hole. Tiny sparks of gold
glisten far below. I hope the jump will kill me. Neverland and I
have been bonded one day too many.

Closing my eyes, I spread my arms out and
list forward. My feet leave the ground. Warm wind gushes at my
face. I fall.

My only thought is to hold Angel again—until
a battering ram hits me straight in the chest and busts the
thoughts from my mind altogether. The unexpected power catapults me
way back out of the volcano in a high arc. My arms and legs flail
in all directions, but it does me no good. An instant later, I land
hard on my back, the impact pushing out what little air was left in
my lungs. I try to focus on something, anything, but light spots
dot my vision. Or maybe it’s the starry sky above me I see. My body
feels like it’s broken in two. I close my eyes. Everything fades
out.

*

“Good morning, James.”

The soft female voice drifting to me from
miles away brings me back from a deep black hole within me. It was
cold in there, but the farther I climb up to consciousness, the
warmer my body feels.

“It’s time to come back,” the voice tells me,
sounding closer this time. Most likely she stands just across the
room. But which room is this?

“Where am I?” is what I want to say, but all
that comes out of my mouth is a throaty moan. I cough—and
immediately regret it. The pain in my chest is excruciating.
Reaching to my sternum to ease the ache, my hand touches bare skin.
Whoever is talking to me must have taken off my shirt.

“You’re in my house. Tending to your wounds
is easier when I have everything at hand.”

Whose house? A distinct note of warm milk and
blueberry muffins lingers in the air. The scent reminds me of my
early childhood—I haven’t had blueberry muffins in so many years.
But it certainly isn’t my mother talking to me. I do remember her
voice. And she’s dead.

A cold, wet cloth is pressed to my aching
head and ice-cold fingers run from the base of my throat over my
right shoulder and down my arm. A tingling chill races through me.
“Bre?” I croak.

She chuckles. “Oh yes, Captain. It’s good to
see you didn’t lose your mind.”

I draw in a long, slow breath that expands my
chest and hurts like hell. “Why am I still alive?” Or am I?
According to the pain, I might as well be in hell and the person
talking to me could be a deceiver.

“
James Hook,
you disappoint me.” She clicks her tongue as she lays her hand flat
on my stomach. A nauseating sensation comes and goes with that
touch. “You’re much stronger than you think. A rainbow won’t kill
you.”

“Rainbow?” My eyelids flutter open, but
Bre’Shun places her hand over them, sealing them closed.

“No,” she hums. Her cold touch continues to
send strange vibes through my body. Right now they concentrate in
my skull. She cups my face, skimming her thumbs over my cheekbones.
The throbbing I felt in my head since I came to eases and finally
disappears. “Now you can,” she tells me.

I open my eyes.

First, there
are only blurred colors, mostly shades of brown and white. But my
eyes focus fast. I’m lying on my back, looking at a ceiling that’s
made of wooden panels shaping a roof. The bed is placed in a
corner, with a white wall to my left. My gaze wanders about the
room. The floor is made of stone, and so is the furnace built into
the wall. An ironcast pot hangs from a bar over low flames. Steam
erupts from that pot as Bre’Shun stirs the contents with a long
wooden spoon.

“What’s cooking?” I ask.

She smiles at me over her shoulder.
“Medicine. I’m sorry, I couldn’t heal you thoroughly yet. You’d
cope with my touch for only so long before icicles start forming on
your nose.”

“
Yeah.” I
chuckle and it hurts. “There’s just something
cold
about your
personality, fairy.”

“Back to joking, pirate? I’m glad you are.”
She skims off some of the brew and pours it into a cup. Expecting
this to be for me, Bre startles me when she sips it herself. Her
eyes focus on mine over the brim of the cup until she downed it
all. Then she puts the cup away and comes back to my bedside. “Turn
over, James Hook.”

It’s never a good idea to question one of the
fairies, but with all the pain and prospect of getting frozen by
her hands again, an odd reluctance creeps over me.

“Come on,” she urges me in a friendly way
like she was talking to a child. The mattress sinks as she lowers
herself next to me. “You want this done as long as the medicine is
still fresh in my veins.”

Moaning from the pain, I roll on my stomach.
“So you’re what? The conduit for the thing you just drank?”

“One could put it that way.” She pulls the
covers down to my waist and places her thrilling cold palms over my
kidneys. In a slow caress they move up and run in wide circles over
the back of my ribcage. “If I gave you the medicine to drink
instead of letting the power flow into you through myself, you’d be
forever happy, all knowing, and unbreakable.” A short pause, and
she laughs. “But that would be cheating on life, wouldn’t it?”

Right now, I wouldn’t mind some cheating,
especially concerning the unbreakable part. But then I’m happy with
whatever Bre’s doing to me. The pain eases. I can breathe, cough
and talk again without feeling like a swordfish is stuck in my
chest.

She continues massaging the spot between my
shoulder blades until a sigh of pleasure escapes me. “Damn, you’re
doing some good magic there,” I groan.

Bre laughs and stops the kneading. “That last
part was just to loosen you up, James Hook. Way too much tension
here.” She pinches the base of my neck.

I rub that
spot as I turn around again and sit up in bed. Only now I take in
the rest of the room—or maybe it wasn’t there before, like so often
in the past. A heavy wooden door is built into the wall next to the
bed, and across from it warm daylight flows in through a square
window that begs for some cleaning. Flowerpots in various sizes
stand on and beneath the window sill, and even though the window is
closed, butterflies and bees busy themselves in the jungle of
colorful wild flowers inside.

But the strangest thing is the mechanic
structure placed next to the stone fireplace. It’s as tall as
Bre’Shun, made completely of wood, with cogwheels that connect to a
tiny replica of a ship’s helm. Bre grips the handles and spins the
wheel three times in one direction. Clamps on both sides of the
construction hold what looks to be my shirt in the middle. Only
it’s not white anymore but shimmers in all colors of—

“The rainbow,” Bre finishes my thought and
gives me one of her typical omniscient looks that come with her
smiles. “You finally captured one.”

“I did?”

The more she
turns the wheel, the tighter my shirt is twisted between the clamps
and something similar to sparkling liquid is wrung from it. A
bucket beneath the construction collects the mysterious
stuff.

“Well, it might have caught you first when
you threw yourself from the edge of the volcano, but that it soaked
into your clothes is what counts in the end. Which reminds me…would
you care to give me your pants, too? I wasn’t sure if it was okay
to strip you naked, so I decided to leave the leathers on you.”

Lifting the
covers, I peer underneath. My pants glow in shades of blue and
violet from the waist down to the middle of my thighs. The rest is
the dark rough leather it should be. “So, um, you want me to walk
back to my ship in the nude?”

“Oh no, silly, of course not. It’ll be a
trade-off, like always.” She winks one warm, turquoise eye at me.
“Where you go you need different clothes.”

“
Where
do
I
go?”

Her mouth curves up even wider. “London?”

I almost swallow my tongue. Angel. Her face,
her laugh, her growl when she’s angry—it all rushes over me,
leaving me breathless. “I can see her again?”

Bre’Shun
nods. “It is time, Captain.” She wrings my shirt some more. “You
brought me the last ingredient for the potion, now I will keep my
part of the deal. I shall have the charm ready for you in a few
minutes.”