Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,52

and radiating anger.

He grabbed James’s upper arm in a punishing grip and wrenched him forward toward the dividers between the train cars.

“No! No, please,” James gasped, clawing back toward the center of the car, but Peter was relentless.

“We need to talk,” Peter said in a voice Wendy had never heard come out of him before. Peter forced James out of the train car and into the divider and closed the door firmly behind them.

The silence in his wake was deafening.

Nibs was the first to move. He lunged forward, eyes locked on the space where James had been standing, but Curly snatched him back. Nibs tried to shrug Curly off, but to Wendy’s surprise, Curly slammed Nibs back to the seat and hissed, “Stop. He can see us through that window. James is gone, Nibs. He was gone to us before, when we thought Peter had gotten to him, and he’s gone now.” Wendy looked out the window on the dividing doors, but it was barely half the width of a man, and Peter’s back currently covered the entirety of it. She couldn’t even hear them outside with the noise from the tracks. She turned back to the group.

Curly shook Nibs hard by the shoulder just once before letting go. “We can’t think about him. Not right now. We can’t go after him, and you know why we can’t. He is gone.”

Nibs leaned his head against the window and squeezed his eyes tight in pain. “We lost him and now we have him and we’re losing him again,” he choked out, like the words were costing him.

“I know,” Curly said, much gentler. “But we can’t. I’m not losing you to him, too.”

Nibs scrubbed his hands over his face and let out what Wendy could only describe as a whimper. She tore her eyes away from him.

Ominotago let go of Tinkerbelle’s hand so she could curl her own into angry fists on her thighs.

“What—” Wendy started, but Minsu waved a hand in a quick “don’t even bother” gesture. He was weak and pale now, like a puppet with his strings cut, all the class-clown energy stripped from him completely. The entire group was having some sort of extreme reaction that Wendy didn’t have the context for, and it was scaring her badly.

Fyodor was visibly furious. “We couldn’t even have five whole minutes of happiness,” he spat. “He ruins everything. We almost made it relaxed for her and—”

He folded his arms around himself, too angry to continue talking, and glared out the train window. Wendy hadn’t realized that Fyodor and Minsu’s friendly bickering and the dramatic shift of mood that followed had been for her benefit alone. She felt a surge of tenderness.

Now that she was looking for it, Wendy could see the half-moons on the inside of Fyodor’s palms from him clenching his hands into fists.

Charles had his arm around Minsu again, a gesture Wendy realized was actually for Charles’s own reassurance.

Minsu had the sort of bags under his eyes that people only get from prolonged dread. They were harder to see when he was smiling. Perhaps that’s why he’d been doing it so often.

Tinkerbelle, who Wendy already knew wasn’t a quiet person, had been quieter than ever since seeing Ominotago in the police car, so it was clear that she was shaken.

Poor Nibs was in the middle of some sort of breakdown. Curly, jaw clenched, held Nibs close and rocked him in a way that made it clear that they had done this together many times before.

Ominotago was letting off a steady sort of anger, like she expected these circumstances but could not do anything to avoid them. Everyone was looking away from the doorway where Peter and James had gone.

“Nibs,” Ominotago said suddenly. “He cannot see you like this. Not tonight.”

Nibs let out a soft whimper of a sigh, and Curly shook him one last time before letting go. Eyes closed, Nibs pulled himself upright and breathed hard, forcing himself to relax. He clenched his hands into fists, then he rolled his shoulders. Nibs’s face, which had been red enough to nearly match his hair, was beginning to fade back to normal. When his eyes fluttered back open, they were still a bit wet, but his face was bone-dry, and somehow that was worse to witness.

Tinkerbelle reached over and put a small hand on Curly’s knee. Curly threaded his fingers between hers.

“Okay. You all need to tell me what is going on right now,” Wendy demanded quietly.

Ominotago turned to Tinkerbelle.