Lost Girl || Complete

Chapter 28: No Kings in Neverland

    Five scouts dead. The scene at the camp when I returned was angry and remorseful. Felix barked orders for reinforcements to flood the south camp while Pan attempted to reign in the chaos.

    "What's happening?" I asked a crowd of passing boys.

    No one answered.

    I made my way to the stump where Pan stood. "What's happening?" I asked again.

    "Where were you?!"

    Taken aback, I stared like a deer in the headlights at his fiery expression.

    "Pirates," he cut in. "They knew exactly where to hit our southern forces. Only someone on the inside could've told them that."

    I finally got the implication.

    "Three of my men dead, maybe more! Meanwhile, you were sipping brandy with the Captain himself."

    Part of me suddenly realized that he was now hovering above the ground. I've never seen Peter Pan fly before. As amazing as it should have been, however, I barely acknowledged it. "You're following me now?!"

    Pan's face flushed with embarrassment, but the last straw had already been drawn.

    "What happened to trusting me?" I demanded.

    The blonde boy just shook his head. "Do you trust me, Lost Girl?"

    "How can I? You killed Smee!"

    Peter's face fell as though I'd just thrown a hidden dagger at his chest. Floating back to the ground, he stepped off the stump to stand at eye level with me.

    "You killed him!" I shouted again. "Just admit it!"

    I think that was the first time I ever saw his face overcome by true surprise. "The scallywag had it coming," he said finally.

    "But he was just a man."

    "A man that tried to kill you, Leona!" Pan yelled. "What cost is his death to you? Worth more than those three boys I lost today?"

    I grabbed my hair in frustration. Something resembling instant remorse swept across his hazel eyes, but it was interrupted by a sweaty Barosa barging through the hoard of boys.

    "Barosa!" Pan exclaimed. "Report from the south camp."

    "The pirates overtook us," the general conveyed between gasps. "Five dead; the rest of us barely made it out alive."

    Clenched fists only began to portray the boy's fury.

    "Glen was among the dead."

    Pan's eyes shut as he turned away. His pain, streaming from his tight lips to his clenched fists, momentarily paralyzed him.

    Not Glen... I thought. He was the first one who welcomed me... the first true friend I made on this forsaken island.

    When again Pan's eyes opened, they shimmered with that gold fire so many feared. "Take reinforcements to the south camp, and notify Felix. Overwhelm the pirates; stomp them out. Our dead will be avenged."

    "As you wish." Barosa nodded and retreated to the armory.

    Pan hadn't unclenched his fists since hearing the news, and a pang of guilt for adding to his pain gripped my heart. "Peter..."

    "Who are you to come at me with accusations?" Pan continued, to my surprise. "You're as conniving as you claim me to be."

    I knew we'd crossed the line into saying things in grief that we didn't mean, but I was already hurt beyond the point of caring. "You have no right to say that," I retaliated. "You know nothing-"

    "You think I don't know you snuck to the Neverpeak cliffs to find the fairies?" he chuckled. "And what's more, you met Tinkerbell."

    "Yes I did, and I think you're one to talk considering all that you've done to her kind."

    "You would, wouldn't you." He looked me up and down as though accepting that I'd turned on him and added, "You know nothing of their kind."

    "No, but I know you. You're the commander who sits by the fire at night, lost in his own thoughts. You're the savior of Neverland while posing as its destruction because you're scared to reveal that you care. You're the boy from the Echo Caves-"

    He chuckled maniacally. "What, you think that kiss actually meant something?"

    All other arguments abandoned me after those words escaped his lips. He doesn't mean it, I reassured myself. He feels it too...

    Something like remorse crossed his hazel eyes, but I didn't stare long enough to find out for sure. I brushed past him toward the camp.

    "Leona..." he said quietly, reaching for my arm.

    I tore away from his reach, whipping around to face him. "You want to play 'higher and mightier' than us? Fine. But you're no king!" I screamed. "You're just... you."

    Little did I know how that one statement, uttered in anger, would stick with Pan for the rest of his days. From then on, although the Lost Boys might have, never again did he refer to himself as king of Neverland.