Checkmate

14. Secrets and truths

I awoke in a strange bed, in a large dark tent, the sun just about visible through the thick fabric. To my right was a desk covered with papers and random items I didn't understand. I sat myself up a little too quickly, feeling the nausea rise.

"Lie back down," came Pan's bored voice from somewhere in the tent. "Or I'll make you." I felt his magic brush over me and instantly dropped onto a soft pillow.

"My pillow isn't this soft," I muttered, wiggling my head slightly deeper into the soft cloud. "Trade you?" I tested with my eyes closed and a small smile on my face, my magic scanning the room. Pan stayed silent as he paced nearer, a bad sign. I opened one eye to watch his approach through my eyelashes.

"Trying to appeal to my better nature won't work." Pan's face appeared in my view. "I don't have one. You can't manipulate me to get your own way. I'm not weak, like you."

Quickly, I shot up, grabbed his collar and pulled him down with me onto the floor. I reached for one of my knives, but they were gone. After a second allowing me to pat myself down, Pan sniggered and held up one of my back pocketknives. It was misshapen and melted in some spots. Damaged didn't cover what Pan had inflicted upon the weapon.

"Looking for these?" I reached for the mangled thing, but Pan made it vanish, nowhere to be seen. I sighed and sat straddling the boy, weapon less and tired, unable to defeat him or even in that moment fight him.

I thought of every time I had fought him, lost a weapon, or been weakened almost to the point of death. I thought of how I had barely earned my place with the lost boys, the pirates. I thought back further to my school years and the way my mother raised me. I didn't fit in; I didn't belong anywhere. Even with Felix, we could never fit together with Pan always trying to punish and bully me at every step. I knew them to be tests of strength, knowledge, leadership, trust, loyalty. But everything had become a test, and whenever it seemed I was about to win, Pan stepped in and destroyed me by taking over. Mother was wrong. I could fail, I already had.

I had no plan, no weapons, and no time. I was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of losing, tired of faking. "All I wanted to do was stand out." I took a deep, shuddering breath and relaxed my shoulders. My hands dropped to rest on the demon's chest unceremoniously.

"Annie?"

I felt Pan lift himself using his elbows to look at me, but I was too exhausted. "You win."

He scoffed, obviously expecting me to be joking. I felt his eyes and his magic scan me, expecting some form of resistance, but my mood and the tears in my eyes must have been obvious enough. After a few seconds of silence, he shifted until we were nose to nose. He cradled my face, his eyebrows furrowed as he assessed my eyes. "You really going to give up now?"

I sighed again. "What choice do I have?" I avoided his gaze and blinked away tears. "I have nothing left to give, even if I could think of a new deal."

"Oh, little princess," cooed Pan, his thumbs wiping away my tears. "You have so much more."

He peppered my face and my neck with kisses as I relaxed into his embrace. My brain was screaming to run from the demon, my heart screaming for both him and Felix, but my body craving his touch. My tears still fell in intervals, but Pan always caught them before they could fall. "So much more," he repeated in a whisper. "That fire is inside you somewhere."

I shook my head against his touch as I felt the tendrils of his magic hitting key points of my body. It was an obvious attempt to find the find the spark that I was sure had gone out. Still with his hands on my face, his eyes searched mine, the seriousness of his gaze making me gulp.