Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,83

going to do now?”

Tinkerbelle pursed her lips, then turned her head until it was lying against the top of the chair. “Live, I guess. They’ll be taking us out of Peter’s house and putting us in a hotel for the night, and then maybe we’ll get doled out to foster families afterward. Whoooo.” Tinkerbelle raised her arm in fake celebration.

“I’m so sorry—” Wendy started, but Tinkerbelle shook her head.

“No. You shouldn’t be saying sorry; I should be saying thank you,” Tinkerbelle told her honestly. “You really held your own out there. Almost had me scared for real, for a moment.”

Suddenly, without knowing why, Wendy’s throat got hot and tight, and her eyes began to prickle. “I went to theater camp,” she managed to choke out before starting to cry.

Tinkerbelle scooted closer and put an arm over the back of Wendy’s chair so Wendy could lean on her.

“I … don’t know why I’m … nothing is even happening to me anymore!” Wendy wiped at her face roughly, half angry at herself and more than a little embarrassed.

Tinkerbelle patted Wendy’s shoulder and sighed again, her thousandth sigh of the night.

“It’s like that sometimes,” she admitted. “It’s easier to cry afterward when you finally know that you’re safe.”

Tinkerbelle held her like that for a long time, completely unlike the way she’d held Peter while he was crying.

Wendy kept wiping her face until it was dry, and the bees quit buzzing in her chest.

Tinkerbelle waited until Wendy gathered control of her breathing before she began tenderly removing the dried flowers from Wendy’s hair. She plucked them out one by one, untangling them from Wendy’s curls and laying them in her lap. Then she wiggled the pins that had held Wendy’s hair back from her face until they came free. Tinkerbelle dipped her fingers into Wendy’s hair and shook it lightly until it fell around Wendy’s face, messy and free.

“There,” Tinkerbelle said. “Now you’re yourself again.”

Fresh tears sprung to Wendy’s eyes, and she covered her face with both hands, but Tinkerbelle tugged her wrists until she dropped them to her lap once again.

“You’re a very brave friend, Wendy,” she whispered.

The door to the interrogation room opened again, and Detective Hook was standing there, cheeks red and jolly, eyes sparkling. “Come on, Wendy, your parents are waiting for you in the lobby. Your mom remembers me, can you believe it? Fifty pounds and twenty years, and I’ve still got it!” He gleefully smacked a hand over his gut.

Wendy shot him a dirty look and stood up, letting all the dried flowers and pins fall on the floor.

Detective Hook glanced at the mess, then at both Wendy and Tinkerbelle—who stared back in placid amusement.

“Normally I’d yell at you about that, but there’s literally nothing that can ruin my good mood,” he said chipperly. “We’ve even sprung for a two-star hotel for the orphans.”

Tinkerbelle scowled at being referred to like that.

“Merry Christmas!” Detective Hook exclaimed before turning on a heel and heading back down the hallway.

Wendy’s heart raced at the thought of facing her parents after what had happened, but Tinkerbelle stood up and stretched, yawning loudly. “Okay. Let’s go get yelled at,” she said, and trudged out the door.

Wendy followed Tinkerbelle through the precinct and out to the front lobby. To her surprise, Fyodor, Charles, Minsu, and Ominotago were all back and reunited with their families.

Charles’s mom was large and muscular, like she played football, herself, but his dad was tall and thin. They both looked incredibly glamorous for having been awoken at three a.m. to come collect their child from a police station, and both were crying and holding him. Fyodor’s parents were both much shorter than him, and while his mom was round and sweet-looking, his father had a face more chiseled than Fyodor himself, and the sort of hair that would make an angel weep. Fyodor’s mom was shouting at Fyodor in quick, angry Russian—clearly trying to yell some sense back into him, while Fyodor argued back with tears in his eyes, pointing at Ominotago and Curly emphatically. By the time Wendy had stepped fully into the lobby, Fyodor’s mother had begun to cry, too, and Fyodor pulled her quickly into his arms.

Curly was standing dejectedly by Ominotago and getting a soft talking-to by a man who had to be Ominotago’s father. Waatese, who looked more than half asleep, had been dragged back into the night and was slumped on the shoulder of a woman who looked a lot like him. It was clearly