Peter's Lily (Sequel to Pan's Tiger)

Chapter 34: Mercy and torture

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'I do hope your hungry because I've brought you some food, and I won't be doing that again if you don't eat it,' He persuaded me with a raised eyebrow, subtly threatening me with the prospect of starvation. I sincerely hoped he wasn't implying that I would die, but neither did I want that alternative, that he would send a Lost Boy to my rescue.

My eyebrows furrowed with doubt and curiosity. Peter Pan was not kind. If he was acting kind, he was expecting something in return and if it wasn't obvious, then he would ask for it. He reached out and unwrapped a red cloth to reveal a chunk of bread underneath.

Like a baby bird to a hawk, I cautiously reached out and took it. His eyes didn't leave me the entire time, his smile wide and excited, I turned the bread over in my palm. I brought it up to my nose and smelt it.

My eyes rose from the bread to find him, patiently waiting, watching me with an unreadable expression, that still seemed curious and in awe of my actions. I pushed the bread through the cage and offered it back to him.

'Well that's awfully kind of you, beautiful, but I just ate thank you,' He teased, realising my true intentions but not wanting to give me the satisfaction of proving my suspicions right or false.

'Is it poison?' I prompted, reaching out even further towards him, my cheek pressing against the bamboo cage. He watched me with a kind of satisfaction, like he adored the fact that no matter how suspicious I was of him, no matter how much I hated him,I as completely reliant on his generosity.

'What makes you think I want to kill you? What would be the sense in killing my most useful possession?'

Possession. It made my stomach churn.

'You tell me,' I shrugged and he rolled his eyes, reached out and took the bread from me. Smirking, he tore a pice of the bread and threw it back into his mouth. Grinning and chewing with his mouth rudely open, he ate the bread.

'Completely harmless. If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead already.' He winked flirtatiously and I frowned in disgust, shuffling back to the shadows and depths of my tiny cage, trying to increase the distance between us as much as possible.

'And yet you want me to trust you.' I retorted spitefully, taking the bread and grasping it between my nimble fingers, chewing it with surprising difficulty, trying to avoid his gaze.

'I didn't poison the bread, did I?' He reminded me.

'So you do want me to trust you?' I inferred, my eyebrows knitted together, trying to puzzle out why I was so valuable to him.

'No.' He smirked, 'You want you to trust me, because the trusting of me results in you finding, in that trusting, a way to save your great-grandson, Henry, from me and retuning him safely to your family, Tiger.'

'You'll save Henry?' I gasped excitedly, my eyes wide with enthusiasm as I watched him, feeling elated in my knew information.

'No, Tig, you'll save Henry.'

I didn't want to flatter Peter Pan by asking him how. He had that information and was the kind of person that revelled in keeping it from me. Any kind of leverage, however big or small, was dreadfully important to him. So, instead of asking by what method I could achieve this, and still save Peter (because he would never offer a solution to a problem that didn't give him an advantage), I asked, 'Why won't you let me out yet?'