Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,21
he’d tried to obscure that fact by rolling the legs up into partial capris. His skin was very pale, and he had curly dark hair that he’d braided into two long pigtails. In spite of the warm weather, he was wearing a sweater that had clearly been darned by a novice.
“Curly—” Slightly began plaintively, but the silent redheaded boy next to him shook his head sharply. This one was definitely the oldest. He stood placidly with his arms crossed. He had bright red hair, was wearing a hearing aid, and was a little short for his age. His arms were incredibly muscular and bulged intimidatingly. He’d clearly torn the sleeves off his shirt to show them off. He hadn’t yet spoken, but every so often he would gesture crisply or shake his head in a particular way, which set the boy in front of him into hysterics. The darker the look on the redhead’s face got, the louder Curly screamed.
“I can’t just not listen when I’m given a direct order, Nibs!” Curly yelled, throwing his arms out dramatically. “I’m a fucking lieutenant! Not a captain, like you! I can’t just waltz up to him all, ‘Hey, Peter, I decided not to get the girl you wanted because it felt weird.’ He would bash my head against the sidewalk!”
Slightly scoffed. “You could have gotten her on your own. You don’t know what’s out there tonight! We could have lost someone!”
“She’s not a fucking baby, and I’m not a brute like Nibs,” Curly remarked. “I’m not strong enough to drag someone around over hill and dale, like we’re supposed to when we bring people here, all by myself.”
Nibs grinned. “You could be,” he said. His voice was startlingly deep, and hoarse to the point of softness. “If you cared to try.”
“STOP CRITICIZING MY WORKOUT ROUTINE!” Curly howled.
Nibs ignored Curly’s outburst very intentionally and instead nodded over at Wendy. The smallest boy near Wendy’s left ankle tightened his grip and growled at her. “Either way, we took some liberties.”
“Peter didn’t say that he wanted her tied?” Slightly gasped. “Curly, then why did you—”
“IT WAS NIBS’S IDEA! GOD! Every deviation from Peter’s rules isn’t always me, Slightly.” Curly spat Slightly’s name, like saying it tasted horrible in his mouth.
Nibs raised an eyebrow and gestured quickly.
“Fuck you both. It’s always ‘Curly this’ and ‘Curly that.’ For once this isn’t my fault. I’m fuckin’ done.” Curly stomped out of the kitchen and down the hall.
Slightly and Nibs turned to look at Wendy, who wisely didn’t try to say a word, before continuing their argument.
“I know she’s one of them, not one of us, but if Peter just said to bring her over, he didn’t really specify that she was our prisoner…,” Slightly said.
Nibs shrugged one shoulder and snapped his left hand, saying something so low and quiet that Wendy couldn’t hear him.
Slightly sighed loudly. “It doesn’t make sense, but you can’t make those kinds of decisions without Peter’s permission. Yes, we can’t trust her, and yes, it’s better to be safe than sorry, but none of us ever know what Peter wants unless he tells us. You’re still on thin ice from the incident with the peaches. I just … Nibs, you’ve got to be more careful with—”
The front door of the apartment slammed open and Peter and Tinkerbelle walked in. Nibs and Slightly flinched. Slightly backed away toward the wall. But Nibs stood firm and held Peter’s gaze defiantly.
Peter took in the scene with a tight look on his face. He surveyed the group of boys holding Wendy down, and Wendy herself with the T-shirt still stuck in her mouth, sitting very still in a veritable throne of limbs. He glanced at Slightly, who held up his hands defensively, as if to say, It wasn’t me. His eyes tracked from the ladle in Slightly’s right hand to the pot of still-steaming soup on the stovetop. Then his gaze landed firmly on Nibs.
Tinkerbelle opened her mouth to say something, but Curly pushed in from behind her and blurted, “I didn’t do it.”
“I know you didn’t, Curly,” Peter said, still staring at Nibs. “It’s not your style.”
Nibs’s face was blazing red, but he stood stock-still, not bowing beneath the ferocity of Peter’s stare. Tinkerbelle reached out a hand and put it on Nibs’s arm.
Nibs kept his eyes on Peter but nodded over at Tinkerbelle.
“That wasn’t your call to make,” Peter said. “She is our guest. Untie her.”
The younger boys jumped to follow Peter’s order. Peter turned to