Unhooked(85)

He’s right. With Fiona and the Queen coming for us, no one will survive. Still . . . “You have to swear they’ll be safe. You have to promise to take them back to our world.”

“Do I, now?” Pan laughs, his eyes shining with amusement. “I don’t think you are in any position to negotiate, my dear.”

From my waistband, I draw the dagger Rowan gave me. Before Pan understands what I’m doing, I have it at my own throat. “I think I am,” I say, pressing the tip of the blade against my skin. A sharp jerk upward, and it will be over. “Promise me their safety—swear it—or I’ll spill my own blood here and now, and you will never have my power. Without me, you will be left to the mercy of the Queen—whatever mercy she has in her.”

The corner of Pan’s mouth curves up in amusement. “She is remarkable, Captain,” Pan murmurs. “Fey or not, she would have been a treat, but with her fire, her own spark—what power her spirit will give me.”

“Don’t, Gwendolyn.” Rowan’s voice comes to me, the pain in it cutting through my fear. “You can’t just give him your power. Not without giving him your life as well.”

The look of anticipation on Pan’s face tells me Rowan isn’t lying. But I can’t listen to Rowan’s pleas. I saw the bodies in the Great Hall, and I know what the Fey are capable of—what Fiona and her Queen will do to all of them. What she may still do to the world I was taken from if she succeeds. I’m not strong enough on my own to defeat her, but my power combined with Pan’s . . . It might be enough.

“Promise you will see them safe,” I say, knowing even as I demand it, it is a fool’s bargain. It doesn’t matter what Pan promises. He is the prince of lies, the king of a thousand deceptions. And he is the only chance my friends have. “Let them go—a show of good faith—and I’ll come to you willingly.”

“Will you, then?” He laughs as he releases Olivia, and I nearly collapse from the relief of seeing her safe from his knife.

“Olivia?” She’s not running from Pan as I expected. She stays by him, her hand on his arm.

Pan laughs at my confusion, an amused chuckle that runs along my skin as it echoes through the cavern. “Brilliant little actress, isn’t she?” He pulls her into his arms and gives her an uncomfortably intense kiss.

“Olivia?” I don’t understand at first, but then a terrible truth settles upon me. She was never in any danger from Pan.

“I told you I wouldn’t leave him.” She pins me with an empty, emotionless look, her eyes glassy and faraway.

Pan’s beautiful, cold eyes are laughing at me. This whole scene has been nothing but a game for him, and he’s enjoyed every moment of toying with me. In a blink, he’s bounded across the space that separates us and has me restrained in his arms.

I fight to keep from struggling against his hold, to keep my voice level. “We had a deal, Pan. Let him go too.”

“So we did,” he whispers into my ear. His breath is warm on my neck as he buries his nose in my hair. “Run, Rowan,” he says, his face still close to my neck. At the snap of his fingers, the boys release Rowan, who falls to the ground with a ragged groan. “Leave while you can, boy. You haven’t much time before I’m done here.”

But Rowan can barely move. He’s lost so much blood and is too weak. “I’m not leaving without her,” he pants as he struggles to his knees.

I want to scream for him to run, but the strangest feeling has come over me. I can’t move. I can barely think.

Pan’s shadow peels itself up from the floor and stands before me, its dark hand extending toward me. When it brushes my face with the tip of its finger, every molecule of my body wants to rush toward it.

“It’s too late, Rowan,” I hear Pan say, but even though he’s still close to my ear, his voice sounds very faraway. I feel everything that was once Gwendolyn Allister pulling away from my body, flooding toward the call of the dark shadow, rushing toward Pan’s outstretched hands.

No! I scream inwardly. It is too fast, too soon. Without a good-bye, without any sort of warning. I can’t fight it, though. I can’t struggle against the pull. Let it be enough, I think as the darkness begins to cloud my vision.





After, the boy never thought of those he killed. He did not recall their nameless faces and never dwelled on the capriciousness of chance. For when he fell—and fall, one day he would—he did not expect that world to remember him. Until one day he stood over a small body that dripped death from its head like a cracked egg and saw another face instead. One he should have never forgotten. . . .





Chapter 38


AS PAN DRINKS IN MY life, I can still feel the pull of my flesh. But I’m not completely in my body, not really. I don’t think I’m dead, but I don’t feel quite alive, either. I simply feel apart, like I’m still floating just above my flesh. Above everything, watching it all with a strange detachment through blurred vision.

Across the clearing, I can just make out Rowan. His body is broken and battered, but he’s still struggling to get to me.

Above Pan and me, a shadow suddenly appears. Already, my vision is beginning to cloud and go dark, which is why I think at first I’m seeing things. Because it can’t be Fiona who is standing there. It can’t be that treacherous Fey who is taking Pan by the scruff of his neck.