Playing In Pan's Game

Chapter 6

Back at camp, everything was calm surprisingly. All the boys were just sitting around, eating or sleeping. Resting for the first time in a while was my guess, if everything was as severe as Peter said.

"Hey Ace!" Michael greeted as I walked back into camp. "What's up?"

I smiled slightly. "Nothing, what's up with you, Michael?"

"Just hanging around here waiting for Pan." I nodded. "Do you know where he is?"

"He went to handle whatever situation is going on the beach," I told him.

"Oh," Michael said, looking down. He knew he wasn't supposed to tell me what was going on.

"Hey, Mikey!" Luke called from across camp.

Michael looked up and smiled, waving at him. "What's up?"

"Wanna come play cards?" Luke asked.

"Sure!" Michael looked over at me. "Want to join us?"

I shook my head no and watched Michael join Luke. I took a seat on a nearby log and just stared at the fire pit.

"You look deep in thought," Runner said, taking a seat to my right.

"Because I am," I laughed.

"What about?" he asked.

"Everything."

Runner laughed and nodded. "Sounds about right." His red hair hung in his eyes and his freckles were really visible now due to the majority of days in Neverland being sunny.

"Want to talk about it? Or just think? I just, I don't want you to be like... yeah."

I chuckled. "It's fine, Runner. I'm just thinking of what's so important about the beach. I don't get what the big deal is and why all of a sudden Peter looks so... scared. He's never frightened, by anything. Ever."

Runner nodded. "I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what's going on down there either, but whatever it is it must be bad. I haven't seen Pan so scrambled since the Indians were here those few years ago."

"I'm glad I'm not the only one left in the dark during this," I mumbled.

Runner smiled. "Glad I could help. By the way, have you seen Thomas? He was supposed to keep watch with me a while ago but he never showed up."

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "No, I haven't seen him actually."

"I'm going to go find him, maybe he just got lost...?" he suggested.

"Let's hope that's what happened." Runner nodded slowly before standing up and jogging off into the woods. Well, at least what he called jogging, for the rest of us he was faster then our sprints when he wasn't even trying.

I got up and walked over to the circle of boys playing cards and sat down to watch, I didn't really feel like playing.

"Two kings," Zayn said, laying two cards face down on the pile. They must've been playing Bullshit, one of our favorite card games.

"One ace," Tobias said, looking at me and laughing as he said it.

"The one and only," I joked, cracking a smile.

"How's it going, Ace?" Luke asked, laying cards onto the pile. "Three twos."

"It's... going," I said. "How about you?"

"Not to shabby, besides all of this 'preparing for war' crap," Luke replied, laughing slightly.

"War?"