Never

Chapter Five

It had been another ten days of torture for Lily, curled in her cage until her body cramped, cords of muscle tight and tense. Her eyes were heavily lidded, blurring her surroundings, eventually lulling her into a sense of being in a dream. After the seventh day, everything had turned gray, fuzzy and painful. She'd gone three days without moving except to take an occasional sip of water when Pan decided to pay her a visit.

"Look at the little wilted Lily," murmured Pan, smirking as he hovered over her cage.

It was true, she was physically weaker than she'd ever been. Her usually golden, glowing skin, was pale and wan, her eyes slowly losing their life. At the sound of Peter's voice, her brain flew into high alert. She flicked her eyes open, glaring at him.

"Leave me the fuck alone," she grumbled.

"Curses like a pirate, even on her deathbed," he grinned, but there was something else in his eyes, a darker emotion glowing behind his eyes.

"Deathbed?" Lily looked around, feigning surprise. "Finally, we're getting somewhere."

"What are you..." comprehension dawned in his frustratingly alert green eyes. "You're killing yourself."
"Going quite well, don't you think?" Lily grinned into his no longer jovial face.

"Don't do that," he growled angrily, voice a deep, throaty rasp, almost painful to hear. "You're not getting off this island, even in..."

"Death?" she smirked, using the last of her strength to force herself to flip him off. "Yeah, not much you can do about it."

Then she collapsed, limbs turning to jelly, eyes flitting closed, head slamming against the bars, sending red sparks flicking into her mind before everything went black in the beginning of her second blackout in the past three weeks...

...and then her body was filling with some kind of strange, unearthly warmth, a golden glow starting in her fingertips, buzzing its way through her veins, as if she was slowly slipping into a glittery pool of lava, practically lighting herself on fire. Slowly, energy began to course through her, waking her up. Then everything was coming into precise focus, burning her, and edges were too sharp and colors were too bright and what was that pressure on her wrists?

Pan's strong hands unclasped from around her forearms, his breath catching in his throat. As the pressure of his fingers lifted, everything went back to normal, simple and clear, no longer the painful images, but not the dehydrated grey phantoms she'd come to know either. As she looked around in wonder, her eyes caught the last fading green sparks that were a tell-tale sign of Pan's magic.

"What did you do?" she shrieked, dawning realization in her eyes. "Why are you so determined to keep me here and keep me alive, you-" she struck out at him, smacking him in the nose with the heel of her hand, anger flowing through her.

He grabbed her, practically throwing her back into her cage. "What's it to you?"

"It's my life!" she screamed. "Or lack of a life, if I so choose!"

The door to her cage slammed shut as Peter hissed, "I get to choose now, you belong to me! You can't hurt yourself anymore!"

"I'll-" Lily clawed at herself, long fingernails digging into her skin "-I'll kill myself any way I can, I have to get away from you and this island and this torture!"

Pan pressed his body against the bars of her cage, glaring at her, eyes narrowed. He still somehow had that glint of fear in his eyes, and as she watched it grow, still carving her nails into her wrist.

"Tiger Lily!" he shouted. "You stop that, now, I swear to god, I'll do anything I can to keep you here-"

"To torture me!" Lily shrieked, in hysterics, the blood flowing freely down her arm. "You can do whatever magic you want! I'll resist it! I will kill myself!"

"It's impossible to resist against magic, particularly mine. It's impossible to even try."

Lily paused, eyes locking with his. "What would happen if I tried to resist, even for a second?"

"You'd die."

Lily kneeled, pulling herself closer to him, never breaking eye contact, until their faces were inches apart. She fought the urge to recoil, to pull away from him, but she came closer still, until all that separated them was a slim, wooden bar. Her full lips curved up into a snarl, half smirk, half glare. She enunciated each of her words, speaking slowly, savoring each angry word.

"Sounds. Good. To. Me."

His hands flew up instantly, angrily shaking the bars, strong arms slamming against the cage, shocking Lily. She fell back, hatred mixing with fear and pain. Her wrist throbbed and she vaguely wondered why she was always getting injured in the same fucking place.

"Why?!" Pan yelled. "Why are you so against staying on Neverland? You belong here, Tiger. I don't know how, or why, but you do."

"Maybe I do," growled Lily. "But not in this cage!"

Pan looked resigned. "If I let you out of the cage, will you stop trying to kill yourself?" Even in his state of anger and confusion, he still had that sarcastic, annoyed tone in his voice, like he knew something she didn't.

"Maybe."

Pan looked satisfied, like he'd just won. With a wave of his pale hand, Lily's cage vanished in a puff of shining green smoke. She toppled to the ground, landing flat on her back, the breath knocked out of her. Pan finally spoke.

"Of course, there will still be rules." He grinned like a shark. "You won't leave the campground. You won't go anywhere alone. You're still mine, love."

Lily glared. "Teach me how to swordfight."

Pan looked taken aback. "What?"

"I want to be able to fight."

He laughed, tilting his head back. "Why? You think you'll be able to overpower me?" He leaned in close. "Good luck with that one."

"Just teach me. Or I'll..." She lifted up her bloody wrist in demonstration.

Pan smirked. "Fine,"

"Fine."

Peter knelt next to her, taking his spare sword out of the sheath at his hip, tossing it at her feet. "We start tomorrow."

Lily stumbled to her feet for the first time in days, raising the sword, testing out its weight in her hands. Without warning, she brought it down towards Peter, who was still squatting on the ground, grinning at her. In the milliseconds as the blade got closer to him, he laughed, lifting his own sword to meet hers. The strength of the clash was so much that it threw vibrations up her arms, tossing Lily to the ground. Pan stood over her, that infuriating smirk still on his face.

"Just like I told you. You haven't got a chance against me."

Lily glared up at him. "I still want you to teach me."

"Of course you do."