Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,62

would recognize her as a person who’d been reported missing and escort her home. Which might be a pretty good way to go out, since it wouldn’t look like she’d “escaped,” and Peter might not hunt her down like Tinkerbelle and the others had hinted he would. The other possibility was that they would just let her out of the barricade like everyone else. Then she could just make an incredibly long walk home or wait at the barrier edge for it to spit out someone she knew.

The lines were moving pretty quickly, but the girls in front of her were complaining loudly about the party being shut down.

Wendy took out her phone and swiped so she could at least use this free time and the last dregs of her battery to contact Eleanor.

She had seventeen text notifications, which wasn’t a huge surprise, but she only had 1 percent battery left. She swiped all the way to the bottom of Eleanor’s texts, noticing with a spark of humor that they descended from lowercase to caps lock, ending with a final text:

I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL WAKE UP MY PARENTS AND COME FIND YOU MYSELF

Wendy began typing a quick message, but before she could even get I’m okay for now out, her screen froze and then went black. Wendy clicked the home button desperately, but it was over. Her phone was dead. Wendy closed her eyes and whined, taking a moment to feel the full brunt of her own irritation and despair, but got herself back together, unclenched her fists, and kept on going.

“What time is it?” Wendy asked the girls in front of her.

They all turned around and a girl with hair as pink as her dress pulled her phone out. “1:03. Is your phone dead?”

Wendy shrugged. “I think it died about an hour ago, and I’ve been floating through time ever since. I didn’t have time to charge it before I left home.”

A girl with wild blond curls like Eleanor’s started digging in her purse. “What kind is it? I have a portable charger.”

Wendy pulled her phone out. “Oh my God, thank you. It’s just a regular micro-USB—”

“Like an Android?” the girl asked. “I have an iPhone, but the base should still work. Does anyone have an Android cord?”

The girls in her group shook their heads, so she turned around and shouted to the rest of the line. “Does anyone have an Android cord?” Everyone within earshot turned around and shouted some version of “No.” Which sucked, but definitely wasn’t as bad as what happened immediately afterward. The yelling alerted the attention of all the nearby officers, who immediately zoomed in on Wendy. The officer closest to her, a frighteningly muscular white man in combat boots with his face partially obscured by a mask, grabbed Wendy’s arm and pulled out a walkie-talkie.

“Got her, moving her now,” the officer said as he marched Wendy roughly away from the group. “Anyone else still unaccounted for? Over.”

The girls gaped at Wendy as she was dragged away, the nice girl with the portable charger holding it dangling as she watched Wendy go.

The officer took Wendy around the back of the warehouse, where there were significantly fewer people. Standing next to several unmarked cop cars was Detective Hook himself.

He stared hard at her as she got closer, surly eyebrows furrowed dark over his eyes, maroon coat blowing in the wind.

Wendy could see Tinkerbelle, Ominotago, and Curly in one car, Nibs and Fyodor in another, and Charles and Minsu being cuffed and ducked into a last car—which Wendy was getting hauled toward.

But Detective Hook put up a hand to stop the officer pulling Wendy. The detective looked hard at Wendy’s face for a long moment, then waved her on to the car.

Wendy was passed off to a policewoman, who cuffed Wendy with actual metal handcuffs, not zip ties like before. The officer pushed Wendy’s head down roughly as she was ushered into the car, and closed the door on her with sharp finality.

Charles and Minsu looked miserable, but also like they were handling this arrest much better than their previous one. Their hands were cuffed behind their backs, and Charles was leaning heavily on Minsu’s shoulder again. The officer got into the front of the car, and without saying another word, she started the engine and pulled out of the lot.

Wendy had never been inside the back of a police car before, but the entire situation had incredibly bad energy. She desperately wanted to ask