“Peter!” Wendy ran and fell to her knees at his side. “Peter, open your eyes, you need to wake up,” she said, frantically shaking his shoulder. She pressed her palm to the side of his face. Her thumb grazed the gold trailing from the corners of his mouth. It was warm and sticky against his icy, pale skin.
He was so pale—was he still alive?
Peter groaned, a guttural sound from deep in his chest.
Something between a sob and a sigh of relief burst past Wendy’s lips. His chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths. “Wendy?” He tried to open his eyes to look at her, but they kept rolling back into his head, unfocused. The cobalt starlight had vanished from them, replaced with nothing but yawning black pupils. His hand, heavy and with little control, fell to the side of her face. His cold fingers pressed into her cheek, his palm on the hammering pulse at her neck. “No,” he moaned, thick with grief, catching on a sob. “You have to—you have to get them out of here.” Peter’s eyes tried to find Benjamin, Ashley, Matthew, Joel, and Alex in their cage. “You have to take care of them.” Another shuddering breath. Peter’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he murmured.
Wendy put her hand over his and squeezed it tight. “It’ll be okay, you’ll be okay,” she told him. A hot tear fell from her chin. “You just have to hang on, okay?” She couldn’t lose him, she wouldn’t. But how could she possibly stop the shadow on her own?
“This is actually quite poetic!” the shadow announced. It smiled, pleased with itself. “You’ll be able to watch as I suck dry what’s left of Peter, and his last thoughts will be of how he failed to save you,” it cooed. Its black, hollow eyes shifted to the children, who shrank back from the bars. “Mmmm.” Craning its back, it inhaled deeply through its nose, mouth splitting into a wicked smile as it refocused on the children. “Delicious.”
Peter’s eyes were wide and pleading. He was too weak to say anything more. His hand chased after Wendy as she pulled away.
With one last look at Peter, Wendy stood and turned to face the shadow. “He doesn’t need to save me.” She planted her feet, placing herself between Peter and the trapped kids, and the shadow in its tree. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I won’t let you take any of them from me,” Wendy said, raising her voice.
Small, panicked voices rose behind her.
“Wendy!”
“Don’t!”
The shadow threw back its head and let out a screeching laugh. “You are terrified!” the shadow howled with cruel mirth. Its smile stretched, peeling back over sharp teeth, ear to ear. “I can smell it on you, Wendy Darling. It spills from your eyes and seeps from your skin.”
It was right. Her knees shook, her eyes burned and she was drenched in a cold sweat, but she refused to back down. “I won’t let you hurt them anymore!” she shouted at the shadow.
A low growl grew in the shadow’s throat. “You dare try to stand up to me?” its voice boomed. Shadows swirled and circled the base of the tree.
“You think you’re so powerful, but all you do is go around frightening little kids!” Wendy shouted.
“Wendy Darling,” the shadow growled. “You can’t save any of them, just like you couldn’t save your brothers!”
The words shook her to her core, but she remained standing.
“Because of you, they’re doomed to wander the in-between, unable to rest or find peace!”
Her brothers’ cries filled the air. Wendy tried to find them, but their cries for help swirled with the building shadows, circling her and pressing in.
“Your own mother and father can hardly even look at you!” the shadow shouted. “You are nothing but a reminder of what they lost!”
Dark thoughts invaded Wendy’s mind. The closed door to her old room. The muffled sound of her mother crying in the bathroom. The reek of alcohol coming off her father as he slumped over his desk. Wind whipped through her hair, which slapped against her cheeks.
“John and Michael were killed because of you, Wendy Darling.” The words struck her like a kick in the gut. Wendy staggered.
Under the haunting voices, Wendy could still hear Ashley’s and Benjamin’s voices calling to her. Through the swarm of shadows circling her, she could barely make them out. The cage was beginning to fade, the bars quivering and thinning as the shadows were sucked into