Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,76

at the back of her head. “She was running from you, but I’ve been looking for you,” she said, tilting her chin up to gaze at him beneath lowered eyelids.

Peter clenched his teeth angrily, but the rest of his face crumpled into the expectant despair of a man who knew he couldn’t keep getting away forever. “What do you want? Did you come here to kill me?” he rasped, shaking her shoulders roughly.

Wendy clenched her left hand into a fist as she struggled not to react to the skin on the back of her arm tearing as it scraped against the brick. “I came to watch you,” she said.

Peter instantly let go of her arm in confusion. He backed away from her and began pacing, like a tiger as he circled her.

“Sorry for the girl next door act, but I had to see for myself if you were really him. Or if you had…” Wendy looked him up and down wolfishly, then continued, “… depreciated or retired. You’re very rare, Peter. No one who meets you can ever forget.”

Peter hissed air through his teeth angrily, and Wendy tried not to flinch. She started again: “I’ve grown up hearing stories about you for as long as I’ve been alive. No one can catch the great Peter Pan,” she lied triumphantly. “No one would ever want to.”

“They can catch me, and you’re a liability,” Peter said firmly. He grabbed Wendy by the top of her dress and Tinkerbelle by her sleeve and marched them into an alley where there would be even less likelihood of witnesses.

“I’m not a liability,” Wendy said quickly as they stumbled into the darkness. “I’m an asset.”

Tinkerbelle had begun to cry, and it took everything in Wendy’s power not to reach out to comfort her.

Peter looked at Tinkerbelle and sneered in disgust. “Stop it, you’re being too loud,” he shouted at her.

Tinkerbelle covered her face with her hands and worked to quiet herself.

Wendy felt a spark of anger, and it was enough to fuel her. The fact that he was shouting when he wanted quiet was just more proof that as dangerous as Peter was, he was fallible, and he was messy.

“How long do you think you can keep this up?” Wendy asked, challenging him. “Can you even still do it, or are you retired already? It would be such a letdown for me.”

Peter paused, clearly surprised that she would ask that. “I’m not retired,” he said with no small amount of offense.

Wendy put her hand on her hip. “Really? Because it would be very disappointing to have come all this way and gotten to meet you only to learn that you were done.”

“And why does that even matter to you?” Peter asked darkly. “Do you want an autograph or something?”

It was Wendy’s turn to pretend to be offended. “No. I want to help.”

Peter gasped. Then he threw his head back and laughed at her, his delight crawling up the alley walls and spiraling out into the night sky. He held his stomach and laughed until tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes.

Tinkerbelle nudged Wendy in the side and nodded at a beer bottle on the ground while Peter was distracted.

Wendy made a decision. “Fine. I thought you might be looking for a protégé, but I guess not. I’ll get started on my own then,” she said loudly, nodding back at Tinkerbelle in understanding. She crouched down, snatched the bottle off the ground, and smashed its end against the wall. Then Wendy turned and stabbed it close to Tinkerbelle. Tinkerbelle shrieked as the sharp glass edges skittered off the brick near her head.

Wendy reared her arm back to stab at Tinkerbelle again, but Peter lunged forward and slapped the side of Wendy’s arm so hard that she smashed the bottle to pieces against the wall, rendering it useless.

“No,” Peter growled, stepping close to her, all traces of levity gone from his beautiful face. “Tinkerbelle is mine.”

“Then take me seriously,” Wendy said, keeping her face blank. “I’ve taken you seriously.”

Tinkerbelle was gasping in feigned terror, crouched on the ground. Her hands were shaking like they usually did when she was afraid, but Wendy could tell she was doing it a little bit too fast. She was acting.

Wendy’s chest squeezed hard and her throat felt hot. They just might succeed. They just might be able to do this.

Peter reached down and wrenched Tinkerbelle up, then shook her hard with one hand. “It is too dangerous for you, and