Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,47

face, and reminded her that this man, Hook, had seen a younger version of Slightly and decided it was okay to hurt him. This made her dislike him on the spot.

The Crocodile saw her, but his eyes slipped off her disinterestedly, focusing on Peter. Detective Hook had a different reaction. Barely seconds after Wendy had turned in his direction to escape Peter’s magnetism, Detective Hook’s expression changed.

When Wendy and the detective locked eyes, he switched rapidly from a tight grimace of anger to confusion, then surprise, then to an anger ten times more potent. He wrestled his hand out of the Crocodile’s grip and lunged to his feet so aggressively that the table they were sharing jerked loudly, screeching against the floor.

“Get away from her!” the detective roared. All the diners stopped eating and looked over at the spectacle. Even the waitresses stopped and didn’t make a sound.

Peter was unfazed. He smiled at the detective and waved chipperly.

The Crocodile immediately rose, as if receiving an order, clamped Detective Hook’s shoulder in his monstrous grip, and hauled him toward the exit. Detective Hook struggled against the Crocodile’s strength, his face nearly purple as his anger choked him.

“That’s enough!” the Crocodile said loudly, sharply, and in an accent way more Australian than Wendy would have guessed, and he heaved the detective through the door. There was an audible struggle outside as the two men grappled with each other. The diners watched their shadows through the window curtains in scandalized silence. After a while, Detective Hook got the upper hand, took a valiant leap in Peter’s direction, and managed to get his head back inside the restaurant.

“I swear, I will see you in chains,” Detective Hook promised darkly before the Crocodile overpowered him and pulled the door firmly shut after them both.

Peter shook his head. “Pirates don’t like the Molotov fireworks. It’s a lot of paperwork.”

Wendy took stock of the expressions at the table. Nibs and Curly looked carefully blank. Minsu’s and Charles’s eyes were as big as dinner plates. Fyodor was looking away from the table in the same way he had on the bus, what Ominotago had described as “pretending he’s not scared.” Waatese, on the other hand, was looking at Ominotago, openly terrified.

Ominotago and Tinkerbelle were as blank-faced as Nibs and Curly, but they were holding hands tightly.

“Go home, little brother,” Ominotago said quietly. “It is too dangerous for you.”

Waatese immediately stood up.

“You heading out?” Charles asked warily.

“Yeah.” His voice was higher than Wendy thought it would be, and she wondered again just how young he was. “It’s getting late. I … have some homework to finish.”

That sounded very obviously like a lie, but no one challenged it, and Waatese made his way to the door. Minsu and Charles gazed longingly at Waatese’s back as he was allowed to leave what was clearly a situation they yearned to escape from. Wendy wondered why they didn’t leave, too, but then saw how they crowded even closer to Ominotago protectively, and understood at once.

The detective’s outburst had been dramatic, but it wasn’t enough to keep the crowded restaurant quiet for long. The waitresses returned to bussing the tables, and the rest of the diners went back to talking, but Peter’s table stayed deathly quiet, even while a waitress dropped off a few plates of fries and refilled all the drinks. Aside from Peter, they might as well have been wax carvings. Even Nibs seemed a bit shaken.

Peter rolled his shoulders contentedly and looked at his phone. “It’s almost time for the show.”

Like magic the ceiling lights grew dimmer, and the stage lights brightened.

“Oh, great,” Wendy heard Fyodor say behind her, and it took all the discipline she had not to laugh in hysteria.

The music shifted from background jazz to a swelling classical score, and a long, slender leg covered in feathers slowly peeked out from between strands of the tinsel seagrass curtain. The leg wiggled a familiar foot, then coyly snatched itself back behind the curtain. Then two feathered legs split the tinsel, wide and suggestive, before tucking back behind the glimmering strings.

Peter leaned back over to Wendy. “This is Bella’s dance, the ‘Never Bird.’ She’s been doing it at this place for fifteen years, I’ve heard. That’s why it’s so busy. Generally, on the nights she’s scheduled, this place is booked out for weeks.” He smiled softly. “I promised I’d show you something special, so I pulled a few strings.”

The curtains pulled slowly back to reveal Bella, the drag queen who