Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,53

Tinkerbelle glanced up at Wendy and nodded. Then Ominotago looked at everyone in the group individually, from Curly and Nibs to Charles and Minsu, and up to Fyodor, and waited for them all to give their silent agreement. Then Ominotago closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She looked up at Wendy and opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Fyodor interrupted.

“And maybe you should consider that next time, da?” Fyodor said.

“Yeah, whatever,” Minsu replied sassily. “You don’t control me.”

Charles, Tinkerbelle, Ominotago, and Curly laughed loudly just as Peter pushed the train divider door open. Wendy realized instantly that Fyodor had seen Peter coming and faked being in the middle of a conversation. Hearing the other kids laughing, fake and loud, made Wendy feel like she was about to pass out. People don’t get good at doing things like that unless they needed to. Unless they’ve done it often and for their own protection.

“Anyway,” Curly added to the phony conversation, looking alarmingly fresh-eyed, “when we get there, both of you are buying me drinks.”

“Fine,” Fyodor said, rolling his eyes. “So spoiled.”

Wendy could feel Peter watching them, even though she wasn’t looking at him. She knew that if she looked up, his eyes would be shiny and piercing again.

Fyodor was the first to face him. He had another unlit cigarette in his hand. “Peter. You have light?” he asked.

To Wendy’s surprise, Peter’s eyes actually looked a little glazed, like he’d just woken up or something. The boy shook his head for a second as if to snap it out of something. “No…,” he said finally. “And you should stop smoking. You too, Tinkerbelle, and yes, a pipe counts.”

Tinkerbelle stuck her tongue out at him cheekily, but Wendy could see her hand shaking in Curly’s grip.

“Hey, Darling,” Peter said, body still half outside the train car. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

The tension in the train car spiked. Wendy saw Tinkerbelle’s head twitch in her direction, but Tinkerbelle successfully kept herself from turning all the way. Instead she laughed and slapped Curly’s knee, and Curly mocked being hurt by the gesture. Charles, the farthest from Peter, was openly staring at Wendy, so horrified that Wendy could see the whites around his brown doe-eyes. Minsu said something about drinks being expensive, but dug his fingers into the side of Charles’s leg in panic. Charles snapped out of it and jumped back into the fake conversation, promising to buy Curly’s drink on Minsu’s behalf.

Wendy had never been more terrified in her life.

“Go,” Ominotago whispered. She was blocked from Peter’s view by the divider by the door, her lips barely moving. “You have to.”

Wendy forced a smile onto her face. “I’ll be right back,” she said to the group.

“Don’t get lost,” Curly teased with an answering grin, his eyes haunted like he was never going to see her again.

“I won’t,” Wendy replied flirtingly, and made her legs carry her across the train car.

Peter was waiting for her patiently. As she got closer, Wendy could see that his cheeks were red and his nose was a bit pink, as if he’d been crying. Unlike last time, she still saw the ghost of Charles’s terror, and her heart did not move.

CHAPTER 11

Peter held the door open for her, forcing their proximity as she ducked under his arm into the space between the train cars. To her surprise, James wasn’t there, and she couldn’t see him in the other car, either, though it was hard to see through the dirt encrusted windows.

The train was going significantly slower than it had earlier in the evening and it was quieter, but that didn’t make Wendy feel any safer.

Peter leaned against the door and pushed his hair back from his face with a shaking hand. “Things haven’t been going very well tonight, have they?” he asked quietly, not meeting her gaze.

Wendy wasn’t sure of the safest way to answer that question. She wrapped both hands around the railing chains and squared her feet for better balance, then she shrugged. “Things could have gone worse,” she said finally.

To her great relief, Peter laughed. “They definitely could have.”

He mirrored her gesture, curling his hands around the chains and sighed. “I didn’t want any of this to happen. I had been hoping to just show you a good time.” The moonlight illuminated his handsome face in a soft glow. “I was thinking that you and Tinkerbelle would become fast friends because you seemed so similar. I was going to