What if...? Book One, Part 2: The Game Begins...(A Peter Pan rewrite, by Jae)

19- Dare...

T/W- sexual content/abuse

The ride back to camp was cold, even though adrenaline wouldn't leave my blood. My exposed skin grew goosebumps from the icy wind touching it but I didn't care. The rush of the treasure hunt still warm in my veins like a high I want to ride forever. The bright moon casted the treetops of the forest an ominous gray and blue, pitch black where the beams could not reach. The mountains behind the forest sit so quietly out there between the whispers of the night's wind. I could see, way, way out there, passed the mountain ranges closest to us, a storm is brewing. In the taller and further mountains clouds are pulling together, wrapping around the highest point, blossoming in a black and gray flower. The winds around us drag towards the storm, leaving cold night air to drown deep inside my ears and throat. Numbing my finger tips and nose, yet the adventure fresh in my mind would never let me care.

Back at the tree house, Pan orders everyone to stay at camp until dawn before he disappeared, taking off into the dark sky coated in stars. Not a word of where he was headed or when he'd back, in fact not a word at all really. I'm not sure how they do it, but I know Pan and K communicate right in front of me somehow. I think they all might. They seem to obey to commands without Pan even saying anything. I think it might be how they all knew what to say to me when I was first introduced, how no matter which way I fished for information they all knew what Pan already told me and it was all they would reply with. It's an irritation I've never known. A type of lonely and spiteful frustration.

I hadn't known K would remain at my side when I hopped off his back after we arrived. I anticipated the jump too soon and I suppose my body language wasn't readable because he didn't let go of me for my jump. So I hit the dirt again and made him stumble on his landing. My cheeks reddened when the others landing around us snickered just under the night's wind. I keep my eyes to the dirt when I get up and dust it from my pants.

"Hungry?" K asks me after his own recovery.

The hunger hits me like it did before. Like I hadn't noticed until mention of it and now that I'm aware, it's unbearable. I nod at K, swallowing the sickening famish now taking over my body. He cocks his head to follow him and from there he didn't leave my side. Another reason to consider that they somehow speak without speaking. I know K's sticking so closely is Pan's doing, because though K has a tolerance of me, the heavy bags under his eyes and the drag in his step can't hide his want to turn in for the night.

I follow him through the camp. Most boys are inside the tree house, the only ones left out are at the fires around the outskirts and at the cages in the west of camp. My attention is drawn to the commotion at the cages as K and I make our way to the tree house door. The boys over there are herding wolves. Big wolves, thick and beautiful. there's four of them. Two gray ones, a black one, and white one. The boys are leading the wolves with just a gentle hand on their necks. No leashes or harness, nothing stopping those powerful beasts from bolting at me if they wanted to and tearing apart my limbs. The wolves are calm, their heads low like their sleepy and the boys take each one to their own kennel.

The black wolf raises his eyes to the sky then his big head, sniffing out something in the night. His big breathes intake and his nose shuffles left, right, round and round until his eyes find what he's smelling, what he's sniffing out. It's me.

My whole heart stops beating and I stop walking. I freeze at the sight of those big black eyes on mine and K stops with me. The beast has a calm look in his eye, that big snout still sniffing at me. The boy leading him looks in my direction when he realizes the wolf is distracted. He click his tongue at the wolf, a calm wording of 'don't bother' being spoken to the animal. It obey at the words and follow the boy leading him into his designated cage and K tugs at me.