VILLAIN

Chapter 28

With trembling hands, I carefully lifted the thimble necklace over my head and placed in on Peter's still chest. My jaw shook and my eyes burned, but I had to be strong. I had to be strong because this was all my fault and now I couldn't fix it. But I would. I had promised Peter I would, and I was going to. I had to be strong. I had to be – but I wasn't.

A forbidden sob escaped my lips, and I placed my hand on Peter's cold forehead.

"I'm so sorry," I told him, tears trailing down my cheeks. "Peter, I'm so sorry I couldn't save you."

I swallowed back the emotions that were rising, my throat thick and my heart wrenching painfully in my chest. In the past couple weeks I'd been cut with swords, almost fallen to my doom, choked nearly to death, and knocked out against a brick wall. But none of that hurt like this. It was as if someone had taken my heart and was squeezing it so tightly that I couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything expect look down at the perfect, deadly still boy who I'd spent so much of my life with. I had promised myself earlier that I'd be strong, promised that I'd be brave, promised that I'd just get up and keep on trying until I succeeded.

But right then I wasn't strong. I wasn't brave. And my heart constricted so fiercely that I doubted I could've gotten up if I'd wanted to. I wanted so much to be the strong, brave girl Peter needed me to be. I wanted it so bad. But I wasn't. I was tired and worn out and horribly afraid. My tearful eyes fell dejectedly on the friend I felt like I'd lost forever, heart squeezing and throbbing in all sorts of ways I hadn't thought possible. It was strange how I'd sustained no physical injury, yet it hurt so bad.

I laid my head on Peter's still chest, crying into my fists. My chest ached like nothing I'd ever felt before, and I hated it all the more. How could I be so weak? I was supposed to be strong. I owed it to Peter to be strong. But the fact of the matter was that I wasn't strong – I was weak, and I was hurting. My heart hurt for a thousand reasons. But the thing that hurt most of all was that mine was beating and Peter's wasn't.

Except that...it was. Another quiet sob escaped, and I brushed the thought away. I must've been imagining it. Peter's heart couldn't possibly have been beating. If it had been, then he would've been alive. No, I had just imagined it, wanting so much for it to be true that I'd conjured it up in my own mind.

But the longer I lay there, the more I began to realize that I wasn't imagining it. There was a small, steady pulse beneath my head, and then it rose and fell once. Twice. Three times.

I bolted upright, snapping my attention to Peter's eyes and hardly believing it. I didn't know how it was possible, but Peter was breathing. His eyes were fluttering open. He was alive! A fresh round of tears exploded onto my cheeks, but these were the happy sort. They fell down my cheeks in a mess, tasting salty in my mouth. I grabbed Peter up in my arms, hugging him to me as tightly as I could. I could barely wrap my head around it. I was in shock. Peter, my best friend Peter, was alive again! He was living and breathing and his great big heart was beating.

"Oh, Peter!" I exclaimed through my tears. "Peter, you're back!"

I was in too great a shock to apologize, or to ask how in the kingdoms I'd managed to wake him up. All I could do was hug him as tight as I could and cry into his wonderful, warm shoulder. I could've stayed there forever, and I would've been perfectly content. But instead of hugging me back, Peter shoved me off of himself. Shocked, I stumbled backward, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Peter, Peter it's me," I told him. "It's me, Moira!"

He only scowled at me. "I know all too well who you are," he replied icily.

This served only to further my confusion. "But Peter, don't you, don't you remember?"

"Oh, I remember alright," he snapped. "I remember how you betrayed me. How you killed me to save your own neck. Yes, Moira, I remember very, very well."