Pan's Revenge (15 page)

“Oh, now he’s your brother? Well, if this
isn’t getting more enthralling by the minute.”

“Please, let me explain.”

“
Go ahead.
I’m dying to hear this.” Saccharin sweet sarcasm drips from my
voice.

All of a
sudden, Jamie takes my hand in his, preventing me from stabbing him
with my finger once more. His grip is rough but gentle all the
same. This time he doesn’t release me when I try to tug myself
free. Instead, he pulls me closer. Mere inches separate us now. The
wild scent of tangerines and seawater clings to him like a tropical
cologne. It calls to me. My knees go weak and I realize to my
horror, I enjoy being near him.

No, no, no! Serial killer! Serial killer!
The only reasonable thing is to back off and
scream, but I just can’t. There’s something absolutely
non-frightening about him hidden under this obvious aura of danger
that surrounds him. Something untouchable, yet unmistakably
there.

“A few months ago, you dropped from this very
balcony and landed in Neverland where Peter Pan caught you as you
fell from the sky,” Jamie starts to explain. And that’s the exact
moment when I opt out of this conversation and suck in a breath to
scream for help.

I don’t know what gave me away to him, maybe
the horrified expression that must be on my face, but he claps his
hand over my mouth before so much as a tiny squeak comes out.
“Please, listen to me,” he urges.

In my current position—pressed flush against
his front with one of his arms wrapped tightly around me and the
other hand still placed over my mouth—I don’t have much of a choice
here. Wide-eyed, I stare at his face. He tries to soothe me with a
reassuring smile, pretending everything is alright. I’m tempted to
fall for it.

“Promise not to scream when I take my hand
off?”

It’s easy for
him to ask that, he’s not the one being trapped
, so I neither nod nor shake my head.

“Fine.” His shoulders sink. “Maybe if I trust
you first and just let you go, you will you give me the chance to
explain?” With a hopeful tilt of his eyebrows, he waits for my
reaction, but I still don’t move. In the end, his hand slowly lifts
from my mouth.

To scream, or not to scream?

Our gazes
stay locked, even after he lets me go with only the tips of his
fingers still touching my arm. It’s like he tries to but just
doesn’t want to fully let go. Until now, I haven’t screamed. I’m
still considering
, though. Maybe I should
make it dependent on what he says next. But Jamie doesn’t say
anything for a really long moment.

At one point,
his eyes lower to my collar and then quickly move up again. A
streak of red crosses his face, but he seems sad. His look makes me
feel a little warm…edgy. I can't understand why he affects me this
way. And for some reason his dejection troubles me.

“Why aren’t you wearing the ruby heart
necklace anymore?” he asks me then.

Now that definitely holds my interest. “How
do you know of that necklace? And it’s not a ruby, it’s a glass
heart from my sister,” I add in a reprimanding tone.

“You think so?”

“Of course. What else could it be?”

“As far as I know, I put it around your neck,
so yeah…I’m pretty sure it’s a piece from my treasure. Back in
Neverland.”

“
Stop!” I cry
out under my breath and lift my hands to keep him at a distance. “I
don’t know how you found out about that necklace, but I’m not
listening to this crap. And don’t give me rubbish about Neverland.
I know the story of Peter Pan. Every kid does. You and Peter next
door are certainly not figures from it. So either you are serious
with me or better yet go down the way you came up.” I point a
straight finger at the tree. Should I mention that I’ll call the
police too?

The silence
that follows gives my heart time to calm, and I get lost in his
gorgeous eyes. They are the color of the wild sea, and no matter
what expression he wears, confused, determined, or if he smiles,
there’s always this devilish spark in them.

He heaves a
resigned sigh as if deliberating my last words. “When your sisters
were born, you sneaked into their room after everyone else went to
sleep.” He takes the tiniest step closer and his voice lowers a
little more. “You slept on the floor between their beds, because
you couldn’t stand to be away from them for even just one
night.”

My chin hits my chest. Where in the world did
he get that information from? I told this to nobody. But he’s not
done yet. “If your mother had found out, she’d given you the
shittiest lecture of all times about how well-behaved girls don’t
sleep on the floor.” He lifts his hands, palms up, and smirks.
“Your words not mine.”

Motionless and full of intrigue, I stare at
him. “You’re on to something here.”

“I certainly am. I’m trying to make you
believe me. You told me this when you were about to lose your
memory back in—” He coughs and rolls his eyes. “Well, you know
where.”

“Neverland,” I say flatly.

“
Yeah, you
see…” He hesitates. “ We never figured out how you landed in my
world.” Slowly, he lifts his hand and brushes the backs of his
fingers along my jaw. “And believe me, it was damn difficult to
find out how to send you back to London.”

I can’t believe that I’m listening to him and
letting him touch me. About to jerk my head to the side, push him
away and run, the haunted look on his face keeps me rooted to the
spot.

Suddenly something he mentioned before hits
me again. “You said I fell off this balcony and landed in
Neverland. And that’s when you gave me the necklace?”

He nods.

Boy, if this is a prank, they really did some
good research. I woke up with the glass heart around my neck the
morning after I fell. And the twins are the only ones who know
about this mishap. We decided not to tell it to my parents, so they
won’t start to worry for nothing and find a new nanny. It’s all so
weird. My confused gaze drops to my toes.

“
Not
convinced yet?” Jamie ask, as if aware of my jumbled
thoughts.

I look up into his eyes. “How can I possibly
be?”

After taking a deep breath through his nose,
he suggests, “Let me try something.”

“What do you have in mind?”

His
gaze turns intense. “Let me kiss
you.”

“
What?”

“Please. Just once. If I fail to recall your
memory with it and if you feel absolutely nothing for me afterward,
I’ll leave and not bother you again.”

“
You’re—
No
way!”

He gauges my reaction for a moment, then the
left side of his mouth slides up. “Why not? Are you afraid I could
be right and you’ll feel something?”

“Am not!”

His frown
becomes mocking. “Ah, I see. So you just don’t want me to leave you
alone…”

I don’t know why, but his taunting,
self-assured attitude makes me laugh. “You’re insane, you know
that, Jamie.”

The teasing expression disappears from his
eyes. Hands clasped behind his back, he leans closer and whispers
in my ear, “Say it again.”

“What?” I croak, suddenly all too aware of
how good he smells.

“My name.” His lips brush my skin. “You’re
the only one who ever called me Jamie.”

“I—um…” My breaths come twice as fast as
usual. No idea how he does it, but when he moves his lips across my
cheekbone, there are stars in my mind instead of any real thought.
I lick my lips.

His hands
gently lay down on my hips.
“Are you
ready to be kissed?” he breathes against the corner of my
mouth.

My knees start to tremble. There are
butterflies in my belly now. Way too many. “I don’t think this is a
good idea.”

“I think it’s the best idea I had in a long
time.” His forehead touches against mine. We’re eye to eye and,
once again, I’m lost in the fathomless blue of the sea.

As his palm
shapes against my cheek, my gaze lowers. His breath feathers
against my skin. With a will of their own, my hands move to his
chest. There’s a steady, faster-than-normal heartbeat underneath.
Heck, for all it’s worth, I’m ready to make out with a complete
stranger.

Eyes at half-mast, I part my lips for him.
But he never gets the chance to go through with the kiss. Something
huge flies in from the side and knocks Jamie out of my arms, right
over the balcony’s balustrade. Too appalled to scream, I lung
forward, gripping the edge of the rail, and gape down. Jamie lies
in the grass beneath. On top of him is the guy who rammed him. My
heart stops.

The attacker
gets to his feet and kicks Jamie hard in his side. He lies still on
the ground from the impact of the drop. Fear crashes through me
that he could be unconscious. Then a low, pained moan crawls out of
his mouth.

As fast as my wobbly legs carry me, I dash
back into my room and fumble with the lock at my door. My parents
have to call the police. “Mother, Father,” I croak, but I’m still
in too much shock to get a real sound out, and the door just
doesn’t want to come open. And then there’s this abysmal click
behind as someone closes the balcony door. From inside.

Shaking like a leaf, my fingers keep working
the key. Just when the bolt springs back, strong arms reach around
me and firm hands wrap around mine. I’m being pulled away from the
door, and I still can’t scream.

“Shh,” the person behind me whispers in my
ear. He turns me around.

It takes a moment for the information to sink
in who is holding me. Then I fling my arms around Peter and cling
to his body, sobbing against his chest.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s all good. He can’t hurt
you now. I won’t let him.”

He?
The guy who wanted to kiss
me? Or the one who knocked him off my balcony? Suddenly a
realization hits me hard and I jump back, struggling to swallow
through a throat that closed up in horror. “How did you get in
here?”

He ignores my question. “We need to
talk.”

These words
and the way he looks scare me even more. I take a wary step back.
“Did you just push the guy off the balcony?”

Peter waits a second before he nods. His
entire composure radiates doom. “I had to. He’s here to kidnap you,
Angel.”

Both my palms
press against my temples. I rake my hands over my skull.
“What?”

Peter walks closer, disentangling my fingers
from my hair. He leads me to my bed and has me sitting down. Good
thing because my knees would have given out any second.

“Listen, and listen well, because this is
important.” He lowers and rests on his heels in front of me so
we’re on eyelevel. “I tried to tell you when we first met, but you
didn’t remember me or Hook or Neverland. You thought it was a joke.
But it’s not. Neverland is not a made-up story from a book. It’s
real.” He pauses then speaks with more insistence. “I live
there.”

I blink a few times. “You live in Neverland?”
My voice is flat. Detached.

“I do, indeed. And you were there a while
ago.”

“When I fell off my balcony.”

Peter’s eyes take on a hopeful shine. “You
remember?”

A crazy laugh
escapes me. “That’s what Jamie told me before you knocked him
over.”
Oh my God.
My spine goes stiff. “Did you kill him?” As I
jump to my feet, Peter pushes me back down, his hands on my
shoulders.

“I wish I had.” He rolls his eyes. “But
no.”

“We must go down and help him!”

His fingers dig into my bones. “Did you hear
what I said? He wants to kidnap you.”

Yes, and he said weird things about
Neverland, but I don’t believe him. “He wanted to kiss me is
all.”

“He wanted to seduce you onto his ship. So he
could steal you back to Neverland. He’s a pirate, Angel. One of the
worst sort. Believe me, there’s nothing romantic about his
intentions.”

“
His ship?”
Things take a spiral tonight, from weird to worse. “Where in the
world would he park a ship anywhere close? This is
London.”

“Right above your house.”

Oh god, I'm surrounded by crazy people. I
stare at Peter for an immeasurable time. He seemed like such a nice
guy in the park. Now I’m scared that I’m with the wrong man in my
room. He’s a lunatic.

Slowly, I stand up, ignoring his restraining
grip, and walk to the French doors. There’s not much to see through
the pane. Glancing over my shoulder, I cast Peter a scrutinizing
look. His chest heaves in a resigned sigh. I open the door and step
out.

Down below, the garden is quiet. There’s no
sign of Jamie, or evidence of a fight. Lifting my head—and I’m not
saying that I believe Peter about the ship—I scan the sky for
anything unusual. Nothing. Not the tiniest boat hovering above the
roof. Not even a raft. The sky is clear, black, with a milky way to
die for.

“His men came down to take their captain
away.”

At Peter’s voice so near me, I jerk around.
“You want me to believe that Jamie is the captain of the invisible
ship above my house?”

“
His name is
Captain James Hook, and his ship has gone. It’s not
invisible
.”
His brows furrow to a line. “Not to me, anyway.”

“James Hook. From the story of Peter Pan,” I
say, casting him a wry look. Deliberately, I rub my temples. “I’m
coming down with a headache.”

“You make it really hard for me to convince
you, Angel.” Peter pinches the bridge of his nose, then he throws
me a determined look. “Now just don’t freak out, okay?” All of a
sudden, he bends down and scoops me up in his arms. A surprised
gasp escapes me, but no one can hear it because we’re shooting
upward into the sky.