Unhooked(68)

And suddenly the dark woods surround me and I’m there again, remembering other things I’d so long ago shoved down deep, pushed back into the unexamined corners of my mind. Things that make my heart race, my breath come fast and excited with wanting something I can’t explain. Things that make me want to run into the night, my arms open wide.

Outside the safety of Rowan’s arms, the Dark Ones are still gathering, their bodies like the wind rustling through dry leaves, but I can’t seem to stop myself from plunging down into the dangerous waters of my own memories. I can’t seem to stop myself from drowning in the images of the forest that night.

The warm fall night going cold, and I am lost.

The image shifts again, and I’m no longer in the woods. The spinning brightness of police lights throwing jagged shards of color across the dark trees. Heavily jowled men with serious faces looming over me. Their mouths moving, but I can’t make out their words, because instead of human voices, a rustling buzz echoes from their lips.

And then my mom is there, taking me away. Her thin arms are strong around me. How could you? her voice whispers, her blue-gray eyes stormy and lined with worry. Don’t say anything more. Forget, she commands.

But how could I have forgotten?

I’m remembering now, and the memories feel like the sharp point of a knife stabbing through the tender skin of all that I thought I was. It’s impossible. It can’t be anything more than a bad dream. But there’s more waiting for me in those memories, some devastating truth that the darkness teases me with.

It isn’t your fault, my mother tells me, and even then I could hear the lie in her voice. I will keep you safe, she says. This will never happen again.

And again I feel the point of a knife, sharp and wicked. The burn of memory.

And I’m screaming, crying. The tears are hot on my face as my mom says hush, my girl. Hush. And as she shakes me, her grip is as painful as the freshly knifed wound in my arm.

But those are not my mother’s hands holding me. My cheeks are still cold with the wet slick of tears that coat them. My arm aches from the phantom cut, but it’s Rowan’s voice that comes to me urgently through the darkness.

“Come now, lass, wake up,” he whispers, his hands tight on my arms.

My eyes flutter open, but it takes them a moment to adjust to the glow of a small fire. “What?” My voice is hoarse as it scratches free from my throat, and his hands become more gentle on my arms.

“The Dark Ones,” he whispers. “They’d have taken us for sure if your screaming hadn’t woken me. You must have been dreaming.”

But that didn’t feel like a dream. It had felt like a truth—like I was there again, living it again. I’d gone into the forest, chasing a voice, and when I came out, everything had changed. That was the first night my mom had packed our bags without warning so we could disappear before dawn.

“I’m going to let go of you now,” he says, and I clutch his arm in response. “To add more to the fire,” he tells me gently, his hand in my hair. “Easy now. It’ll take but a moment.”

He releases me then, and for a moment I feel adrift. Lost once again. The dark Fey move, rustling their great wings near, but they are unable to get any closer because of the light of the fire. Still, I almost feel myself beginning to fall into the memories once more.

Memories I now crave.

Rowan’s face is tense in concentration as he feeds the flames, never taking his eyes from his work as the fire grows. And as it grows, crackling to life, it pushes back the darkness, until the bright halo of light is even larger.

Then Rowan takes me into his arms again, tucking me between his legs, my back against his chest. “All’s well, lass,” he whispers. But his body is tense, and I know his words are more comfort than truth.

Beyond the glow of the fire, I can still hear the Dark Ones circling. I can sense their frustration, their disappointment that they cannot reach us. Beyond the glow of the flames, Neverland is nothing but darkness. Even the stars seem to have turned away.

My muscles still quiver, my nerves jangle from the overload of fear and adrenaline, and my mind is thick with confusion about what just happened.

Rowan adjusts his body, bringing me closer to him. In the circle of his arms, I feel safe from the dangers of the night. But even the strength in his arms and the protection of his body aren’t enough to brush away the memories.

The Dark Ones forced me to face my own truth. They plunged me deep into a past I had let myself—forced myself—to forget, and they had revealed a truth I didn’t want to remember about what my mother had done to protect me.

All those years of my mom worrying, all those moves from one small nowhere town to the next that I never understood. I do now. I remember. That night in the woods. The monsters chasing me through the darkness—until I made it out, just in time, to where there was light. I knew the monsters were there, but no one believed me. Except for my mom.

You must’ve imagined it, the policeman said, his heavy jowls wobbling as he shook his head.

She’s just a kid, they whispered, looking at me with grown-up eyes that made my stomach ache. A scared and confused kid.

But my mom believed me. You have to forget, she told me, her words as sharp as a knife. You can’t talk about this ever again.

I can’t help but rub the scar on my arm.

It’s not a vaccination. Or maybe it is, but not in the way I always believed. Not in the way I let myself remember. I was so young, I barely understood what was happening when my mom iced my arm and took out her silver knife.