Believer || Peter Pan

Chapter Three: Her First Kill

{Quick note from the authors before the chapter begins: This Just in! There's a trailer for Believer now out on Youtube. It's unlisted and just for the readers. Here's a link: youtube.com/watch?v=YhRMkENpD38    This trailer shows what's already been written and also hints at a coming chapter so keep an eye out ;)  And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.}

Elise didn't leave her bedroom in the coming days. In that time, she only stared at the spot on the concrete where her best friend had died so suddenly. He was young, healthy. She just didn't understand it.

She clutched his torn bracelet in her fist until her knuckles turned white and her fingernails made her palm bleed.

Dr. Hopper had tried to come by, but she wouldn't talk to him. She wouldn't even talk to her father. She wouldn't eat, or sleep. Just stare and wonder.

Come the day of the funeral, she made herself get up, take a shower, get dressed in her best black dress and go.

On her way and at the funeral, she spotted eyes watching her, whispers about her, but she ignored them. For all she cared, they could disappear off the face of the earth. This funeral was the only reason she was here.

She approached the coffin, There he lied, eyes closed, like he was sleeping . But this time, he'd never wake up. He'd never get ready for the day and meet her in the woods. He'd never again beat her in a Hunting Party.

The thought of the Hunting Party made her remember what he'd said to her in Grannies. She laughed out loud, causing more eyes to turn her way and more whispers to fill the room.

She leaned in and whispered, "You jerk. I beat you. You did call it. Maybe I should have had 911 on speed di--" Her voice cracked. "How could you do this to me!" She threw his broken bracelet into the coffin and ripped off her own. "We were supposed to be in this together! Forever!" She threw her own bracelet in the coffin with his and ran out of the building before anyone could stop her.

She ran through town and into the woods, her dress snagging and tearing on branches. She couldn't care less, she just had to get away from the whispers and the stares, to be alone, to not be pitied.

She found herself in their archery range. She looked at all the holes in the targets and painted animals. She opened the case and pulled out the bow he always let her use and a single arrow. She would shoot this for him, finish the Hunting Party he never did. Shoot that last deer. She walked through the forest to the log on which the sleeping deer was painted and took aim.

She was startled and lowered her weapon when a rabbit hopped up on the log and stared into her soul with those beady black eyes.

She took aim once more and for the first time in her life, she killed something. Now she was a Huntress. His Huntress.

She felt no remorse for the rabbit. She would never feel the pain of someone's death again. That she vowed.

This Huntress had no more tears left.

Elise sat completely bored out of her mind in the cage. All she could to pass the time until Pan let her out again, was to think.

Despite all this, It's worth it that I'm here. If it wasn't me, it's be Grae.

She thought about her little brother, just a year younger than her and already her height the last she saw him. It had been just them after their parents were killed by Rumplestiltskin. Now it was just him. But alone was better than this fate. She'd fought the Shadow away from him for a full week, but she knew it would only be a matter of time. So, she chopped her hair to her shoulders and wore his clothes one night. The Shadow took her instead. It was only a few hours before she was discovered by Felix. That was many years ago. She wondered if Grae had found a wife yet, had a family.