Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,81

knees and screamed. Tinkerbelle wrenched her hand out of his grip and pulled Wendy backward.

It took Wendy a second to figure out what had happened. Peter was kneeling and panting hard. The back of his calves began to darken with blood. Wendy looked up and saw a sniper, who had been nestled on the elevated train tracks, climb to his feet. Almost immediately sirens began going off in the distance. Peter gasped and tried to pull himself to his feet, but he collapsed back down to the ground.

“Tink … Tinkerbelle, please,” he groaned, but Tinkerbelle shook her head and backed away from his flailing arms.

Wendy held on to her hand tight as they watched Peter try to rise to his feet.

The police cars drove over the grass and were getting close quickly.

Peter Pan hissed and compressed his wounds with hands slick with blood. “I hate you,” he spat at Tinkerbelle and Wendy.

“You’re disgusting!” Tinkerbelle shouted.

“I am many things,” Peter panted, smiling in the face of their betrayal. “I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird who has broken out of the egg.”

With terrible speed, he snatched a blade from somewhere Wendy didn’t see, and threw it fast.

Wendy clenched her teeth and shut her eyes, but Peter’s deadly aim had been marred by panic and pain, and the knife cut the sleeve of Tinkerbelle’s dress instead of any precious bit of her.

The police poured out of their cars and surrounded them, immediately cuffing Peter and holding him down on his knees.

Nibs and Curly emerged from the dark side of the tracks; they marched straight past James’s body without glancing at it and picked up speed. Nibs outpaced Curly, heading directly for Tinkerbelle, who began crying, arms open to receive him. Curly kept running behind them. The police parted, making way for him as he got closer, holding Peter upright and facing his challenger. Curly pulled out the bar he’d used to pry Ominotago out of the police car.

“No, Curly, wait,” Peter said, eyes white with terror.

“Shut up and die,” Curly yelled. He leaped into the air, swinging the bar like a bat, and smashed Peter across the face with incredible violence. Peter’s jaw made a crack that was absolutely bone-shattering, and his scream of agony would haunt Wendy for the next decade of her life.

The police watched in silence as Curly dropped the bar and flung himself into Tinkerbelle and Nibs. No one yelled at him or made any move to restrain him at all, they just watched.

The officer holding Peter’s arms behind his back jerked him upright but didn’t pull him to his feet.

Wendy took off Peter’s jacket and threw it on the ground.

“Is that evidence, or is that yours?” a nearby officer asked.

“Evidence,” Wendy said, stepping away from it and wrapping her arms around herself.

Tinkerbelle, Curly, and Nibs held each other tightly. They had turned completely around and had their backs to Peter, while he gasped through his ruined face.

Another car drove up to the scene recklessly fast, stopping with a loud screech. Detective Hook stepped out and strode quickly across the grass. He eyed Wendy, the boys, and Tinkerbelle warily, but didn’t stop to speak to them. He headed straight for Peter.

As if Peter could sense Detective Hook nearby, he stopped whimpering pathetically and sat very still and silent, his head bowed and still bleeding.

Detective Hook stood over Peter Pan and stared down at him. Then he stooped to one knee, put a meaty hand in Peter’s hair, and wrenched his face up.

“Who did this?” he called out loudly.

No one spoke. It was quiet except for the wind and Curly’s and Tinkerbelle’s grateful weeping.

Wendy began to shiver. She looked around at the officers, but their expressions were stern as they focused on the detective.

Detective Hook wrenched Peter’s head to the left and then to the right as he surveyed the damage Curly had inflicted. His eyes wandered a few feet up to the bar that Curly had tossed down and followed it up to the huddled three.

“It looks like you fell,” Detective Hook said, loud enough for the other officers to hear. Then he leaned close to Peter so only the other officers couldn’t hear him. “Unfortunate,” he growled. “I’ve always known you to be graceful.”

Peter spat at Detective Hook, spraying him with blood spatter. Detective Hook didn’t wipe his cheek; instead he grinned broad and white. Peter gasped involuntarily in pain for a long moment, then he lifted his face of his own volition and met Detective