Unhooked (35 page)

Before I can choose, I hear the rustling call of the Dark Ones. They begin to creep out from beneath the dead and brittle plants and begin to gather, swirling, marching themselves around us until they surround the Queen. Again they pull at her, but this time, she stumbles beneath their fingertips, releasing Olivia, who crumples to the floor.

The Queen falls to her knees, the dark blood still spreading from the wound Pan's dagger made in her back—the wound Olivia gave her. The Dark Ones continue to swirl, pulling at the Queen, until they cover her completely. And as she disappears beneath them, she shrieks again, an earsplitting wail that causes the caverns around us to shake and tremble.

Huge chunks of the crystalline ceiling tumble down, crashing with violent explosions to the ground below. The world is quaking, rumbling, and alive by the time the dark wisps form themselves into the shapes of monsters and an army of living shadow stands before me.

The scuttling wind spins faster now, whirling violently in that familiar rustling, but in that rustling, I hear someone speaking to me.

“Please!” I scream, trying to block the sound. I'm not sure what I'm even asking for, but I sob out the word again and again as the Dark Ones swirl. Telling me their secrets, whispering my own truths back to me.

“Please,” I continue to repeat. But my voice is now a feeble whisper, begging for things I don't understand, and then the darkness overwhelms me and I am tossed back—and the voice whispers to me again.

But it's not a single voice. No, this time the voice is a thousand dark voices, singing to me and urging me. And all at once, I'm back in those dark woods of my childhood, the coolness of the night calling to me. The voices calling to me. The trees stretching their fingers wide toward the sky, caging the stars in their hands. Creaking and moaning in the rushing air, like the trees are translating the wind.

I am immersed in too-familiar images. And I remember
everything
then—the strange pull I felt as the voice called to me. The oddest feeling that I needed to go to them, to be with them.
Again.
For it felt so familiar, that wanting, that calling. So I followed the voice, away from the lights of our house. Away from the safety of my mother. Into the darkness, where the forest smelled of damp leaves, and the night spoke in a language I could almost understand.

It wanted me, I realize, but not to kill me. There was nothing frightening or unsettling about the voices I heard in the forest of my childhood. Nothing terrible about the thick and living darkness that brushed against me. It wanted me because I was
part
of it. It wasn't the darkness that hurt me that night. It was everything that came after.

Everything I forgot.

The Dark Ones might have been hunting me then. They were definitely hunting me in my own world and here in Neverland, but now I understand they didn't want to harm me. They wanted to show me what I was—the heir of my father. The heir of both Dark and Light, perfectly balanced. Just like this world should be.

All at once, the swirling darkness spins around me, excited that I've understood them. Joyful their message is clear. Welcoming. Like every soft summer night I've spent sleeping under stars without my mom knowing.

When I went running into the woods that night, it was because this world called to me, pulled me. That was why my mom embedded the rune into my arm. To keep me hidden and also to stop me from realizing what I was. This is the truth the Dark Ones give me.

You belong to us,
they croon.
You can save us and reclaim the world for our King. For our kind.

Neverland is quiet beneath us. It no longer breathes. Its heart no longer beats. The largest of the Dark Ones moves toward me, and even though I no longer sense it as a threat, I throw myself over Rowan more securely. Its faceless head turns and, with a wave of its arm, it shows me what is happening to the world. The fortress all around us is crumbling. Pan was right: without the Queen to hold it together, Neverland is breaking apart.

Then it speaks in that unfamiliar tongue, rough and grating syllables that once sounded like nothing but the wind. But I can't forget what they've shown me, what they've whispered to me about who I am. About the choice I have before me. This time I understand what they say.

Pan hadn't lied. Neverland could truly be my home if I choose it. I could embrace all the Dark Ones have shown me, I could claim what they believe is rightfully mine. For I am both Light and Dark, heir of the Queen and the Dark King. I could balance the power here, reclaim the world and live within it.

But when I close my eyes, trying to think, all I see is the blue-gray gaze of my mother. When I open my eyes, I see Rowan's unsteady breath, and I know what my choice is. What it will always be. “I need to get them back,” I plead.

I can feel the disappointment rolling from the dark creature, but its faceless head gives a jerk, a nod of assent. Two others come forward, and this time I have no fear of them. I back away as one lifts Rowan effortlessly in its arms. He's pale and unconscious now, and far too close to death.

“Take care of him,” I plead.

I go to Olivia, kneeling beside her as another Dark One approaches. She looks up at me with a lazy half-lidded gaze, surprisingly calm and unaware of what has just happened or of the state she's currently in. Her face is covered in a maze of dark lines. Her arms look like cracked porcelain.

“I'm going to get you home, Liv,” I tell her, brushing her hair back from her face.

Weakly, she opens her eyes and looks at me, and I see them go from the soft glassy forgetting of Neverland to the sharp awareness of my friend.

“Liv?” I say, taking her hand gently. Her skin feels fragile as spun glass, but her eyes are still Olivia's.

“Gwen?” she says, her voice thick with pain and confusion. “What happened?” Her eyes dart wildly around, from me to the monstrous dark Fey lurking above her and back again. Panicked. Frightened. Like she is just waking up, just beginning to remember.

She tries to pull her hand away from me, and I feel pieces of it flake away. So I let her go, and the moment I release her hand, I see her eyes start to go glassy again. All at once I understand.
It's me.
When I hugged her that first day, when I touched her out at the End . . .
I'm
what was causing those moments of clarity in her expression. Because of what I am.

“Liv,” I say, grasping her hand again, refusing to let her go.

Her skin crumbles under my grasp, and she moans in agony. But her eyes are so clear, and I can see the memories flooding back as her expression darkens with horror. “What did she do to me?” she asks, her face contorting in agony.

“It doesn't matter,” I tell her, my throat tight. “We're going back now. We'll fix it. You'll be fine.”

Panicked, I look to the Dark One, who is waiting for my signal. It comes forward, but when the Fey tries to lift her, Olivia screams as part of her forearm shatters and crumbles away. The Dark One hesitates, and Olivia's eyes meet mine and there is a look of such horror, such complete fear, that my vision goes blurry with tears.

“Please, Liv. Let him at least try.”

“I can't,” she rasps.

“I know it might hurt at first, but we can fix this. We're going back and—”

She stops me by laying a hand on my arm. Her fingertips are so fragile, a couple of them crumble beneath the pressure of her grip. But her eyes—those are horribly clear and every bit the Olivia I've always known. “Please,” she whispers. “I can't. Just go. Leave me. You have to get out of here.”

A sobbing gasp erupts from my chest. “I can't do that, Liv. You saved me. Now stop being so damn stubborn, so I can save you back,” I tell her, my voice choked by tears as I cling as gently as I can to her hand.

Her mouth tries to smile, but she's too fragile. Too brittle. When the corners of her lips start to crack, she shakes her head instead, a barely imperceptible motion. Her eyes begin to go dim, and when she speaks, her voice comes out stiff and halting, as though she can barely form the words. “Go,” she says, determined. “Someone has to . . . tell my parents. . . . Make sure they're okay . . .” Her eyes meet mine, filled with pain and so terribly clear. “Go!” she demands in a dry, brittle version of what once was her voice.

I do cry then. In this moment she is completely
my
Olivia—whole and real and just as stubborn as she's ever been.

But I can't accept this. I can't leave her to this world after everything that's happened.

“Let me go, Gwen,” she whispers, her voice like a ragged husk. Her color has all but drained away, and when she speaks, bits of the corners of her mouth crumble, leaving only blackness behind.

I shake my head, even though I know she's right. There is no way to get her back. The Queen has done too much damage. But I can't leave her like this. . . .

“Go,” she whispers, her eyes closing as she tries to pull her hand away from me, her skin crumbling beneath my touch.

I don't have a choice—if I try to keep ahold of her, I'll hurt her even more—so I let her hand go. “Olivia,” I plead.

But a second after I release her hand, her eyes open again, and the sharpness that had once been there disappears. Her eyes take on that glassy, forgetful look, and when they do, her body relaxes—all panic, all fear, gone.

My body shakes with the sobs I cannot hold back. “I love you, Liv,” I say through my tears. “Whatever happens, I always will.” She blinks up at me, her eyes soft, and I know she doesn't recognize me. My Olivia is gone. But at least the girl who looks back at me isn't afraid.

The Dark Ones stir behind me, their wings rustling. The largest of them holds out its great clawed hand. I look once more at Olivia, searching for some other way, but the world around me is already crumbling to dust. Even now I sense the Dark One's impatience, so without any other choice but to stay and die, I take its hand. And I leave my friend and everything I thought I was behind.

He remembered everything, then. In that frightful moment, his fierce heart broke. . . .

I
WAKE TO THE ICY kiss of snow on my cheek. My hair is damp, and my body aches from its awkward position on the cold ground. In the distance, the sounds of the city wash over me. Above, the stars hold a steady, unflinching vigil. All at once, the memory of what happened and my own bone-deep regret flood through me. And it's only the sound of a weak, rattling moan nearby that urges me to do something other than give in to the icy cold.

Hours later, when the wailing sirens have stopped and the doctors have decided that I will be okay, my mother finds me. She perches carefully on the edge of the narrow hospital bed, her usually wild red hair tied back in a braid and her face as drawn and tired as I've ever seen it. When she sees me stirring, she takes my hand in hers carefully, like I'll shatter if jostled too much.

“I thought I'd lost you.” Her hands are cool and welcoming as they feel my brow and brush the flopping hair back from my face. “I thought they'd finally won.”

I want to say a million things. I want to apologize for all the times I thought she'd lost her mind. I want to rail and scream at her for what she did to me. In the end, what I've lost is too great, and all I can do is cry huge body-wracking sobs that shake me to my core and leave me feeling emptied out as she holds me tight. Even after the last of my gasping sobs have eased, it still takes a few minutes before I feel like I can speak without losing it again. “All those years, all those moves. You could have told me. You
should
have told me.”

She brushes my hair back. “Your father thought we could protect you. And I thought you deserved a chance at normal—a chance not to let what you were determine everything.”

“So my father really did leave to protect us? He really knew about me—what I was?”

“He arranged everything before he left us. He thought he could draw off the danger somehow if he wasn't around, but”—my mom's lips press together—“none of those loyal to him have heard from him in years.”

All at once the immensity of my mother's loss—of both our losses—overwhelms me, and I start sobbing all over again.

It's much later when I finally find the words to tell her everything that happened—how we were taken, how I found a way back, what I left behind. And when my story is spun out, when there's nothing else for us to say, I take a deep breath and ask the question I've been wondering—and afraid to ask—since I awoke. “Did Rowan make it?”

Her expression is guarded. “He's had a couple of transfusions already, but they think he'll be okay . . . eventually.”

I sit myself up in the narrow hospital bad. “I need to see him.”

“You need to rest,” my mom says, sounding more like a mother than she ever has before.

“I've got an entire lifetime to rest.” Somehow the thought is not comforting. “I need to see him.” I need to make sure he is real, whole. That I haven't lost him, too. “Please.”

She gives me the look she usually reserves for blank canvases, but in the end she relents and gets the nurse to wheel me down to the ward where Rowan is being monitored.

“Do they know who he is?” I ask once the nurse leaves us alone.

“Papers have been arranged.” My mom bites her lip, a sure sign she's uncomfortable. “Not many knew what your father was,” she said. “But there were those who wanted to see his world united once again. Those who have helped to protect us over the years.”

“The landlord?” I ask.

She gives a small nod. “Not all my commissions knew who we were. But things had gotten more dangerous.”

I let out a shaking breath, understanding why. It must have been after Fiona learned how the Queen was being kept. I would have been hunted by Light and Dark alike, then.