Unhooked(83)

She looks so different. Her once soft green eyes look hard and uncertain. They almost seem to glow from within, and her hair hangs in ragged disarray, an unruly halo. She looks as wild and untamed as the island itself, and if I didn’t know she was human, I would never have believed I’m the one with the Fey blood.

I take a couple more steps into the clearing. “You need to come with me now. We need to get away from here.” I hold out my hand like I would to a skittish animal.

But she doesn’t show any sign of moving. She just tugs at one of her long ragged locks as she studies me with wary eyes—and even with the wildness, I know my Olivia—the real Olivia—is still in there, somewhere beneath the surface.

“Gwen,” she says slowly, cautiously.

“That’s right.” I take another slow, cautious step. “I’m Gwen. And you’re Olivia, and we need to get out of here.”

But her eyes are narrowed. “No.” She stands, circling away from me, and there’s a wariness to the way she moves.

“It’s not safe, Liv,” I say, trying another appeal. “You don’t understand how dangerous it is here.”

“Pan will protect me.” Her voice is steady, entreating, like she wants or needs me to believe.

I follow her progress, circling closer so I keep the water to her back, to block her escape. “If we don’t get out of here, we are both going to die.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not leaving.”

But she isn’t the only one who can be stubborn. I step closer, determined to reach her. I hope that maybe my touch might bring her back to herself, but a rustling from the brush to my left has me pulling up short.

“You heard her, Gwendolyn. Olivia doesn’t want to leave.” Pan’s voice is a low, dangerous song, every bit as tempting as it always was. Every bit as deadly. As he steps into the clearing, those crystalline eyes of his are as turbulent as the sea. “Olivia wishes to stay here with me.” A deadly smile curves his lips.

“You can’t have her.” I try to put myself between Pan and Olivia, but Olivia is faster. She easily sidesteps around me and runs to Pan’s side.

“I’m staying with him. You have no idea what danger we’re in—the danger you put us in—Pan is the only one who can stop it.”

I stop short at her words. “The danger I put you in?”

“Yes, Gwendolyn,” Pan says darkly. “You released the Queen, did you not?”

My stomach sinks. He knows what I’ve done, and he understands just how dangerous things have become for all of us. “I wanted to get us home,” I say. “You weren’t going to take me.”

“Yet here you remain,” he says darkly. “Did you truly believe the Queen would take you back? Fiona used you, and you were too stupid to see it, ” he practically spits.

For a heartbeat, I feel the truth in his words. He’s right. I freed the Queen and put us all in terrible danger. . . . But then the absurdity of that thought startles me, and I shake away my own cloying sense of guilt and focus.

I look at Olivia, who is clinging to Pan. “You can’t listen to him, Liv. He’s the reason we were brought here. You think he wants you?” I ask when her mouth turns down defiantly. “You’re nothing to him. He wanted me all along. You were just an innocent bystander.”

“You’re wrong.” Her voice is as stubborn and unyielding as it has ever been. It is the voice that convinced my mom to let her come to London, the voice that convinced me we really were friends. Even though the words are all wrong, that stubbornness gives me hope—Olivia is still there somewhere, below the madness of Neverland.

“I’m afraid she’s not, pet.” With a quick motion, Pan locks an arm around Olivia and holds his dagger to her throat. “You see, Olivia, I’ve been searching for one like Gwendolyn for some time now. I’m sorry, my dear, but lovely as you might be, you’re nothing compared to what she can offer me.”

Confusion and hurt rocket through Olivia’s expression. “Let her go,” I growl through clenched teeth.

His blue eyes appraise me with a nauseating combination of excitement and anticipation. “No, I don’t think I will. Your dear friend provided the incentive for you to leave Rowan’s ship, and I think she’ll provide just the incentive I require for you to see things my way.” He smiles then, a carefree boyish grin that makes my blood run cold. “I won’t allow the Queen to win, Gwendolyn. Not after all I’ve done to make this world my own.

“Have you any idea what it is to discover the only mother you’ve ever known hates you for what you are?” He smiles then. “The Queen thought I was weak and insignificant. She believed man to be less than Fey, but it was I who defeated her. I, a mere human, who remade this world for my own pleasure. . . . Do you truly believe I’ve come so close to finally being able to destroy her only to let you stand in my way?

“I will not allow all I’ve done to be undone, and I won’t allow you to get away from me again, Gwendolyn.” He presses the knife until it dents the tender skin at the base of Olivia’s throat. “It would be such a waste if I had to kill this girl just to make you understand reason.”

“Please.” I close my eyes, trying to think. Trying to find a way out of this. “Please, just let her go.”