“Maybe there’s a way out this direction,” says someone. Probably an attendee who just wants to bypass the lines. Still, we can’t risk them seeing us.
“It’s okay, Nolan,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”
It’s not that I trust Peter. It’s just that I know him. And this is more about flexing his power over the situation, making Nolan feel powerless, than it is anything else.
Nolan goes to protest, but then the voices grow closer.
“Your time is running out,” says Peter, tapping his wrist, though there’s nothing there by way of keeping time.
“Fine,” says Nolan. “But if she’s not over the wall immediately, I’m coming back. And it won’t just be me and you.”
“Noted,” says Peter through gritted teeth.
Then he takes Nolan and whisks them both away.
I’m left alone only for a moment before Peter returns. He doesn’t sweep down in front of me like he did for Nolan or Maddox, but behind me, landing softly in the grass so that instead of hearing him, I feel him.
He doesn’t touch me. But he doesn’t have to. His presence is familiar. Even his near-touch is something my body responds to, recognizes immediately.
“Are you ready?” asks Peter.
“Yes,” I say, my voice clipped.
He wraps his arms around my waist. And I know we’re thinking of the same night. The night he launched us into the sky, and I asked him to drop me.
He hesitates for a moment, arms around me, lingering in a moment he knows won’t come again. It makes my skin crawl—his touch, the fact that I know he’s taking pleasure in it.
But I don’t react. Don’t argue.
I’m doing this for my son. And I have endured much worse at these hands.
“Are you happy?” he asks, his voice low, deep. There’s a desperation there, a longing for me to sayno.
I think back to when Nolan asked me the same question, when my voice was shackled underneath Peter’s bargain, and I could not tell him the truth no matter how much I longed to.
But I am no longer in shackles. At least not of Peter’s doing.
“What kind of question is that? My son has been taken from me. No, I am not happy.”
“Of course,” says Peter, shifting uncomfortably, like he too senses that he’s already failed somehow. Like he only has so many chances left to charm me, to win me back, and he squandered one of them with his insensitivity.
“I’ll get him back for you, Wendy Darling,” he says. “I can promise you that.”
Something wriggles in my chest, a mingled relief and discomfort that I truly believe him.
I know the game that Peter is playing. Deep down, this is why I knew he would help me. Because above all else, he wants me back. And he thinks that he can somehow earn it.
He sees me as someone who easily forgives. That’s how he interprets my love for Nolan. He fails to see the difference between the two of them.
And that is exactly what makes him so dangerous.
We launch into the air and over the side of the fortress. For a moment, we’re weightless, and panic races through my blood. I am in Peter’s arms, completely helpless here, a captive once again. If he wanted to fly away with me, he could.
But Peter knows better than that, knows that his only chance of earning my forgiveness lies asleep in a crib deep within the Sister’s lair.
So when we land back on the ground, Peter hands me over to my husband.
CHAPTER 53
