Pan's Revenge (26 page)

“What? Old?”

“
No.
Cruel.
”

What she said
cut him deep, but he tries to hide his hurt behind compressed
lips.

“You can give Hook the note yourself,” Tami
tells him.

“So you can free Angel in the meantime? I
don’t think so.” Peter’s voice cracks, but he pulls himself
together quickly. “Take the note to Hook. And better be fast. He
has two hours. Then I’ll cut the rope.”

Horrorstruck, Tami’s gaze traces the rope
until we’re looking at each other. She doesn’t say another word
before she wraps her fingers around the sheet of paper that Peter
gave her and zooms off with fluttering wings.

“Why did you do that?” I ask Peter when we’re
alone again, but the words are barely loud enough for him to hear.
He glances over his shoulder to me. “Why did you have to hurt her
so?” I ask again.

He lifts in the air so fast that I gasp when
he’s right at my face. “Because she’s a traitor just like you are,
and Hook, and the Lost Boys. I don’t need her—or them.”

He says that out loud, but his eyes tell a
different story. And then he abruptly sinks, like there’s a gap in
the air. If it wasn’t for his reflex to grab the branch next to my
head, he’d have fallen who knows how far.

“What is it?” I demand with more concern than
he deserves.

“Nothing,” he growls back and cuts a glance
to the cave as he hangs helplessly next to me.

“
It’s not
nothing. You can’t
fly
! Why can’t you fly anymore,
Peter Pan?”

“
Be still. Of
course, I can still fly.” But he doesn’t. Sure, he’s as anxious as
I am. After a moment to deliberate, he starts swinging back and
forth on the branch. When he lets go, the momentum takes him in a
gentle arc through the air. I shriek, because he misses the cave’s
entrance, only can grab the edge with the tips of his fingers. But
it’s enough, thank God, to keep him from falling. He hoists himself
onto the platform. I let out a breath of relief.

When he gives me a sideways look through
narrowed eyes, adjusting the collar of his black leather jacket, I
can feel how he blames me again for what just happened. But what
did I do?

And then the truth smacks me hard in the
face. “Oh my God, it was her. It takes a happy thought to fly, and
you lost yours.” I swallow hard at the way I’m suddenly aching for
Peter. “Tami was your happy thought.”

WHERE THE HELL is the pixie? She said she’d
find Angel and come back to tell me where Peter took her. What
keeps her away so long?

Pacing the
length of the ship, I rake my hands through my hair and scan the
sky for the hundredth time during the past half-hour. But there is
no sign of the pixie. The urge to go find Angel on my own overcomes
me, but I can’t even have the crew set sail, because there’s no way
to tell which direction to go. Hard as it is to bear, at the
moment, the pixie is my best bet.

And then she shoots across the sky like a
tiny green and golden cannonball right into my arms. The impact
knocks us both backward, but I manage to regain my balance and
stand. “Where is she?” I demand as I put the pixie down.

Her cheeks
are wet from crying and she dabs at her tears. “In a cave in the
mountains at the other side of Neverland. You have to leave
immediately. Peter said you have two hours.” She shoves a tiny
piece of paper into my hands. “If you don’t come to him in that
time, he’ll hurt Angel.”

Reading Peter’s note, my jaw hardens to a
point where I might crush out one of my molars. I scrunch it up and
throw it overboard. “Smee! Set sail to the east side!”

“James,” Smee says and startles me as he
stands right next to me. “It’ll take us half a day to get around
the island. The pixie said a couple of hours.”

“And he wants you to come alone,” the small
girl adds.

“What am I supposed to do?” I bark, trying to
contain the worry and wrath that consume me whole, then close my
eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. There’s no way to make it
from one side of Neverland to the other in such a short time.”

“
There is a
way.” It’s the pixie’s small voice that makes me look down. “How
fast can you run?”

“As fast as I’ll have to, to save Angel.”

She nods. “You have to go through the
jungle.”

“Are you kidding?” Smee shouts. “He’ll never
make it even halfway through those trap littering grounds.”

“He will, if I show him the way.” Tami’s
determination and honest concern for Angel has me convinced in an
instant.

“All right. I’ll go. You”—I turn to
Smee—“follow with the Jolly Roger. If anything happens in the
jungle, you have to save Angel for me.” I don’t wait for Jack to
hurl any bullshit about it being too dangerous but dash down the
gangplank and run up toward the forest, the pixie flying above my
head.

The shoes I got from Bre are a great help
right now. I don’t think I’d be able to make it that fast wearing
my boots.

When I reach
the first trees of the jungle about thirty minutes later, I’m
drenched in sweat and quite out of breath. Bracing myself with my
hands on my knees, I rest for a moment, but Tami pulls on my shirt,
fluttering her wings anxiously. “Come on, Captain. We don’t have a
minute to lose.”

I want to brush her off with my arm, but
she’s right. Sucking in one last deep breath, I straighten and jog
after her through the thickening jungle. She flies in a zigzag
course, telling me where and when to watch out, jump, duck or stop
until she could trigger yet another trap before a heavy trunk
swinging down could knock me off my feet.

Time is ticking away, and we haven’t made it
very far. I start to wonder if going through the jungle was the
best choice after all. At this pace, it’ll probably save me a
quarter of an hour to going by ship, but no more.

“Wait here!” the pixie suddenly cries out to
me then and bats her wings harder to reach the top of a high tree.
She cups her hands around her mouth and shouts into the twigs,
“Lost Boys, come out! I need your help!”

An hour ago, she told me to go to Peter
alone, and now she calls for support? I quirk my brows as she sinks
back to my side, but she says nothing. The boys won’t be happy to
see me here. I only hope they still care for Angel as much as they
did a few months ago.

Moments later, the top of a stump flaps open
and two guys climb out. One looks like a man-sized squirrel with
huge ears and teeth inclined like those of a troll. The other wears
a hat with fox ears. I don’t remember this one’s name, but the
first one’s called Skippy. They look just as appalled as I imagined
when they see me and pull out the knives they carry in their
belts.

Placating them with my hands up, I say in a
calm voice, “I’m not here to fight. I just need to find—”

“
Peter
kidnapped Angel,” Tami cuts me off, flying in front of me,
shielding me from the boys. “He has changes so much. I think he
doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s threatened to kill Angel if Hook
doesn’t get there within the next hour.”

“Wait!” I yell and spin her around. “Kill?
You said he might hurt her. You never said he would go as far as to
kill her!”

“
Let her go!”
the Lost Boys immediately growl at me, one pointing his knife at
the base of my throat. “You already did enough harm to Peter. We
won’t let you hurt Tami, too.”

I ease my grip on the pixie’s shoulders and
step back. Drawing my sword and engaging Fox Hat in a fight
wouldn’t help Angel right now. And I sure didn’t intend to hurt the
little girl. Or my brother for that matter…

“Stop it, boys!” Tami warns us all. “We have
to take Hook to the mountains. Fast. He must save Angel. Cart him
through the jungle.”

Whatever did she mean by that? What could
these boys do to get me to Peter faster than if I ran?

The two boys
glare at me, but finally they seem to grasp the urgency of the
moment. Angel needs help. Skippy puts two fingers in his mouth and
whistles as he leads us over to the hole in the stump that’s
obviously the entrance to their hideout. “Get out here, boys!” he
shouts then.

Three more Lost Boys join us and Tami
explains everything that happened in one breath. My heart stops as
I hear about Angel being tied up and left hanging from the cliff. I
might have not wanted to hurt Peter Pan before. But right now it
all changed. I want him dead.

The guy with black hair, which he has tied to
a ponytail, and three quarter length buffalo leather pants, seems
to be their new leader since Pan has left them. He calls
everyone—except me—to a small circle to explain whatever he thinks
needs to be done. When all the boys nod their agreement, he grabs a
fistful of my shirt and pulls me along through the jungle after his
friends.

Not far from
their den, they make me climb a tree. At this point, I don’t ask
but just follow orders, trusting them to do whatever they can to
help me save my girl. There’s a shaky wooden platform on top where
we all gather. Hanging from ropes above this platform are three
tiny boats that sit two persons. Little Bear pushes me into one of
them. The construction sways a little, and I really start to wonder
what the hell this is. He climbs in after me and takes the front
seat.

I’m surprised that he’s the one teaming up
with me. After all, I’d threatened to cut his throat if Peter
didn't save Angel from a deathly trap the night after I met
her.

“Are you ready?” the leader calls to my
companion, who’s still in that fury vest he always wears when I see
him.

“Get it going, Toby!” Little Bear calls back,
then he slides a glance at me over his shoulder. “Hold on
tight.”

A queasy
feeling makes my stomach roll. I grip the edge of the boat. Toby,
who’s still standing on the platform, pushes down a long branch
that’s obviously a switch and our boat starts to glide forward.
First we go at a gentle pace, but after a few seconds, the rope
tied from tree to tree where we obviously hang on to takes a sharp
tilt downward and we reach a speed that knocks the air out of my
lungs in a surprised gasp. The wind in my face makes my eyes
water.

As we race through the jungle, twigs and
leaves brush my shoulders and the sides of my head. Little Bear
ducks forwards. He knows best, so I follow suit and escape further
cuts to my skin.

We move along
the tree suspended line for what feels like about three to four
minutes, then the boat starts to sink and a row of bushes slows us
down. The end of the line is tied to another tree, but this one’s
far lower than at the start of our ride. On top of the tree is
another platform. From there, one line leads in the direction we
just came from, and another goes further on.

“We have to unhook the cart and carry it up
there,” my assigned Lost Boy tells me. The boat is made of water
reed, so that’s not a difficult thing to do. After we attached it
to the new line, the second part of our journey through the jungle
begins. This time, he reaches out and flips the switch himself.

Sink
me
, these guys definitely made themselves
comfortable in the jungle. Their creativity impresses me and I'm
more than grateful for it right now. In less than ten minutes, we
covered a distance that would have taken me at least three hours,
if I was on my own.

When we finally step out of the boat after
the second ride, I glimpse the mountains through the thinning tree
tops. We wait for the others. They arrive only minutes later, then
all of them accompany me to the foot of the mountain.

Together we
climb the smooth bottom until we’re out of the jungle. Everyone
turns their heads skyward, up to the mouth of a cave. The air
freezes in my lungs. Despite the distance, I can see Angel dangling
helplessly from a tree that grows sideways out of the rock face.
“Peter, you bloody bastard,” I mumble, clenching my teeth. Then I
face my followership. “Listen, the pixie said I was supposed to
meet Peter alone. What you did was great, but from here I’ll go
unaccompanied.”

The boys look
uncomfortable. It impresses me how much they want to come up there
with me to save Angel. But at Tami’s urging, they
relent.

“We’ll wait down here. If you need help,
whistle,” Toby tells me with insistence.

I nod and shake his hand. “Thanks.”

Then I start climbing the steep mountainside.
Peter must see me coming. He sure is prepared and I wonder if I’m
going to get hit by a rock before I even make it up to the cave.
Nothing falls on my head, however. Maybe he’s at the back and
hasn’t seen me yet.

Every now and then, I cast a glance down to
the ground and up to the tree where Angel is hanging. Her eyes are
closed, but the pain is obvious on her face. For the first time in
my life, I really want to be able to fly, so I could move up there
and release her from her torture. But I don’t dare shout her
name.

I’m almost to the top when Angel looks down
at me for the first time. She sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes
filling with hope and fear at the same time. It’s apparent that
she’s going to call to me, but before she can I shake my head. If
Peter hasn’t noticed me yet, I’d rather have the advantage of
surprise on my side.

Angel nods slowly, readjusting her grip on
the ropes above her tied hands. Knowing about her pain tortures me.
I can’t look at her any longer, because the cave is right above me
now and I need to keep a clear head when I face Peter. I may only
have one chance to save Angel and I can’t screw it up.