Hook's Pan Read Online Free PDF Page B

“We told you truth.”
     
    Betty patted his arm. “Please, please, Trisha…this isn’t scary and I promise you’re gonna love it. Him. You’re gonna love him.”
     
    Her smile was broad and Trisha’s eyes grew wider.
     
    “What the hell is going on here?”
     
    Where was the fire? Shouldn’t they all be drowning in flame by now? Hacking their lungs out as the black smoke filled it up? The air smelled like paint and flowers, wildflowers, the kind of smell that came from standing in a verdant meadow after a good, long rain.
     
    What was going on here? She’d seen fire, she knew she had. But the woman in front of her was smiling at Trisha like she was the crazy person locked up in an insane asylum because she’d completely lost touch with reality. Except in this case, she was pretty sure she wasn’t the one who’d lost touch.
     
    “She needs more time.” Betty clutched her hands together, looking at Danika. “She doesn’t believe us.”
     
    Trisha blinked. And then blinked again, all the while she kept backing up, stopping only because she’d run into a stage prop.
     
    “I’m still asleep. That’s what this is. I’m asleep and that’s why Julie bailed and why Betty’s acting like such a weirdo, and I’m seeing a woman with real wings attached to her back.” She giggled and then slapped herself, frowning when it actually stung.
     
    “No more to give, Hook’s gone and gotten himself tangled up with Tinker. I know that man, he’s setting up his next plan of attack. We’ll bring him Trishelle and he’ll have no choice but to obsess over something else. Though…” she tsked, taking in Trisha’s appearance, “you do understand that meeting him with that get up on will be ironic, to say the least.”
     
    It dawned on her then, she didn’t need to stand here and listen to this. Turning on her heels, Trisha bounded down the steps, thigh muscles flexing and bunching, running as fast as she could toward the door.
     
    Something hard and heavy slammed into her back, but instead of it making her drop like a stone to the floor, she was stunned and frozen. Literally frozen with her foot mid-step.
     
    Eyes going wide she gazed down at her body and saw the rolling undulations of something that twinkled and glowed a faint luminescent pink, completely encasing her.
     
    “Dani!” Betty did something very much like a growl. “No magic.”
     
    Trisha couldn’t turn to see her, but she felt the heat of Betty’s anger roil off her back a second before she planted a hand onto her still frozen shoulder.
     
    “You promised to give us time,” Betty pleaded with someone; Trisha could only guess it to be Danika.
     
    A long sigh was punctuated by a loud pop and then Trisha fell to the ground, scraping her hands and knees on the rough carpet and gasping for breath as Betty enveloped her in a tight hug.
     
    “What just happened?” Trisha stuttered around a swollen and dry tongue.
     
    Rubbing her back, Betty’s lips were grim. “Magic is real, Trisha. Everything I’ve told you, all real. Do you believe me now?”
     
    Her big brown eyes were earnest and sincere and Trisha had no words. Like they had literally crawled out of her head, leaving her with a vast, blank canvas of nothing.
     
    “She’s in shock,” Betty hissed.
     
    Trisha couldn’t follow half of what was going on. What was going on exactly? A friend she’d known her entire life was telling her a place of fairytales existed, a smallish woman with freaking enormous dragonfly wings had just zapped her with some sort of super powered wand, and a man with a hook awaited her at the other side of the rainbow.
     
    It was just too much.
     
    She laughed. Grabbed her stomach, held on for dear life, and let it all out. She’d lost her mind.
     
    Clearly.
     
    “Oh dear,” the woman/bug/Danika thing tsked, tapping her chin with a star tipped wand.
     
    “I told you to give me more time,” Betty grumbled, still rubbing Trisha’s