Unhooked(42)

Even with the orbs to guide us, I can’t see more than a foot in front of my own face once we’re within the cloud. Even Pan, holding my wrist as he is, looks blurry and indistinct. But the fog isn’t silent. Sounds echo in the gray mist, bouncing off one another and multiplying. All of us call for Olivia, and soon we’re surrounded by a hundred iterations of our own voices, all shouting the same name.

Pan pulls me along as one of the glowing orbs leads him into the murk. The ground is uneven, littered with stones and debris, and beneath the thick soles of my boots, I feel the crunch of brittle things I don’t want to identify. At one point I trip over something that looks to be shaped like a shoe. But I think of what the boys said about people not returning from the End, and I don’t look too closely.

Pan catches me when I stumble over something larger. “We need to move faster,” he tells me. “Olivia will be in a great deal of danger if we don’t find her before she finds the end of the island.”

“The end of the—” I think of the sharp drop-offs that form the coastline, and I shout more frantically. But only the sound of my own voice comes back to me, taunting me with her name over and over.

Finally, after what feels like minutes or hours—I can’t tell anymore—Pan turns to me. “I’m so sorry, Gwendolyn, but—”

“Pan!” Olivia’s voice echoes back from four directions at once.

Pan goes still, listening to his name repeat in the mist surrounding us.

“It’s Olivia,” I breathe, relief shuttling through me. “We found her!”

I can barely make out Pan’s expression as he continues to listen to his name echo around us.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer right away, and I think he might not have heard me. But then his eyes flicker, glancing at me, and after another moment, he gives me a terse nod. “Are you alone?” he shouts.

“Yes!” The echo of Olivia’s voice surrounds us. “Hurry!”

“Stay where you are and shout for me again,” Pan calls.

After a moment Pan’s name comes again from within the fog. And again.

Time loses all meaning as we inch along, trying to follow the sound of Olivia’s voice in a deadly game of Marco Polo. Sometimes we turn toward her call, only to realize we’re following an echo. Finally, though, I see the golden glow of Olivia’s hair ahead of us in the thick fog.

“Olivia!” My voice bounces off the fog and comes back to me, all excitement and relief.

With it comes another sound, though—a too-familiar metallic hum, a buzzing pulse that makes me reach for Pan. “The Dark Ones,” I whisper, but he’s heard. His dagger is already raised in warning.

Around us, the edges of the fog seem to be growing darker, and the echoing voices that have been chasing us for who knows how long begin to die away. Until the only sound is the rustling hum of the Dark Ones themselves.

Pan’s eyes track through the gloom for the source of the sound. “Quickly,” he commands, directing me toward Olivia’s silhouette. She turns when she hears our footfalls, her eyes wide with fear, but when she sees who it is, she leaps for Pan, who folds her into his arms.

“There, there,” he whispers as he strokes her hair. “All is well. I have you.”

She lets out a sob, which is muffled by the fabric of his vest. “The boys came out of nowhere,” she tells him, not loosening her hold. The volume of her voice grows with every word. “We weren’t even that far from the tunnels, and then . . . they just left me here. I didn’t know what to do or where to—”

“You’re safe now,” Pan tells her, running his hand over her hair. But his eyes meet mine through the hazy mist as the rustling buzz grows louder. The Dark Ones are getting closer.

“We need to go,” I whisper, looking down to see shadows creeping along the floor around us, circling us. “Now.”

But it’s too late to run. The shadows swirling around our feet are already surging and growing as they form themselves into a trio of the dark creatures. When they’re fully formed, they unfurl their wings, stirring the gray fog into whirling eddies.

Pan moves to shield us with his body as the glowing orbs that guided us through the mist attack the Dark Ones, darting at the creatures like angry bees. Where they hit, the Dark Ones’ flesh hisses, and the smell of burning leaves filters through the air. It’s not enough to stop the creatures, though. The fairy lights are no more than a nuisance, nothing like the Captain’s fireballs that brought them down from the sky.

Furious, the largest of the dark creatures strikes out at the fairy lights, swatting the glowing orbs away with an inhuman growl as it continues to stalk toward us. Pan doesn’t so much as flinch. The hand holding the dark blade of his dagger is steady as he thrusts in the direction of the Dark Ones, and when the creatures see what Pan is threatening, they go surprisingly still.

I can practically feel their anger lashing through the air around us. The buzzing hum pulses and grows to a deafening pitch, but they don’t come any closer.

“Go,” Pan says. “Touch the lights.”

“What?” I don’t understand until one of the orbs buzzes around my head.

“It will take you to safety. Touch it,” Pan orders. “Now!”