My bag is packed.
There’s no sense even saying goodbye. None of them will miss me, after all.
I take one more look around my room. There is nothing here that is a representation of me. I think it’s been so long since I had something that was mine that I can’t quite put my finger on who I am beyond my brother and the Lost Boys.
I don’t want to leave the treehouse and the thought of finally letting go of Vane makes me want to puke, but there is nothing left for me here.
And I don’t know if there’s anything left for me on Neverland.
I flick off the light and leave the room and pull the door closed behind me. Down the hall, a dark shadow blocks out the golden glow of the light in the foyer and I know it’s Vane even though I can’t make out his face.
I know him because I would know him anywhere.
And because my body is reckless and stupid, my stomach fills with butterflies and my heart leaps to my throat.
My heart is excited to see him. My brain is yelling RUN.
The first thread of terror ribbons around my ribs.
“Vane,” I start, but when he passes through a spot of light cast by one of the sconces, I see the look on his face and I know…I know.
He’s on me in a second and he takes me by the hair and yanks me down the hallway.
Pain lances through my scalp. I stumble over my own feet trying to keep up with him.
“Vane, please,” I beg even though he hasn’t said a word.
Through the foyer, he goes to the front door and whips it open. It bangs against the wall.
The others watch from the winding staircase. None of them stop Vane. None of them care.
Maybe they never did.
It makes me feel worthless.
Before Vane can get me over the threshold, I trip, caught up in my own panic and I slam down to my butt.
I’m facing the stairwell now, my hair twisted around in Vane’s grip and I lock eyes with Winnie at the top of the stairs. There’s no hint of what she’s thinking, no hint of the shadow holding her hostage.
But I know they all know.
There’s no talking my way out of this one.
“I didn’t mean to,” I say, my voice cracking as Vane drags me across the wide threshold and then down the steps, each straight edge banging against my hip. I hold on to his wrist trying to take some of the pressure off my hair.
When I hit the ground, dirt puffs up around us and grits between my teeth.
The gravel crunches beneath his boots as it scrapes my skin raw.
I try to get my feet beneath me, but it’s no use. He’s impatient and far too strong to fight.
A dull ache thuds in my head as several chunks of hair tear loose.
When he reaches the fork in the pathway, he drops me, steps back and points his head toward the twilight sky, eyes closed. He takes a deep breath.
Blood is starting to well in the scrapes along my calves, but the pain is distant now as the fear takes over and adrenaline pumps through my veins.
I scramble to my feet. Tears blur my vision, turning Vane into a dark smudge against the night. “You have to believe me. I didn’t know what would happen.”
I’m not lying, exactly.
I didn’t know the shadow would take hold in Winnie. I thought it would kill her. Which is so much worse.
And I think he knows exactly what I intended.
And I think I’ve never seen him as angry as he is now.
My stomach churns and all of the butterflies are gone.
With a grit of his teeth, Vane pulls out a cigarette, puts the dark filter between his lips. His lighter flashes beneath the moonlight a second later and the lid clicks open.
The flame paints him in sharp gold as he brings the end to the cigarette and inhales.
He closes the lighter with a definitive snap.
He’s angry with me and I want him to love me and I don’t know how to undo this.
Stupid Winnie.
Why did she have to…well…be so damn likable?
Even now, I don’t want to hate her. I wanted her to be my friend. I wanted to belong. I wanted…
My chin wobbles with the threat of tears.
I wanted Vane to love me more than anything in the world.
Winnie has him and I don’t.
In the woods, the wolves are yipping and the crickets are chirping and here at the fork in the path, my body is trembling.
Vane pulls the cigarette away and exhales a breath of smoke.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, but my voice is barely above a whisper.
“I know you are, Cherry.’
My heart breaks hearing the regret in his voice.
“I didn’t…I mean…”
He takes another hit from the cigarette and watches me with his mismatched eyes.
“Tell me what to do. I’ll do it. Just please—” I reach out for him and he pivots away.
“You want to know what to do?” The cigarette hangs at his side, clipped between his fingers, glowing in the dark. The night smells of honeysuckle and burning tobacco and Vane.
Tell me what to do.
I’m desperate for his forgiveness and I’ll do fucking anything.
“Start running,” he says.
I gulp down a breath and stagger back as his violet eye goes black and his hair turns white.
“Start running, Cherry. Because I’m going to fucking kill you.”
