Pan's Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page B

tampered with his mind. “Why should I do
that?”
    James heaves a long sigh and drags his hands
over his face. “Because it’s the only way to open the gates of
Neverland.”
    “And that you know from the fairy,
right?”
    “Right. So would you please just do it?”
    “ No!” It
belonged to my father. I’m not going to toss it into the liquid
core of the island. “Are you crazy?”
    “One would think so for even giving you an
option,” he mumbles.
    I don’t
understand, but the eerie way his second and third mate come to
flank me all of a sudden gives me the creeps and I decide it’s time
to leave Hook alone in his fight for a rainbow. There’s a boar that
needs to be slain and skinned before it gets dark
anyway.
    Turning away,
I lift into the air, but after only a couple feet, something winds
around my ankles and pulls me hard back to the ground. I land on my
knees. Smee, that rat’s ass must have slung a rope around my legs
when I didn’t pay attention. The other end is tightly wrapped
around his fists.
    An instant later, the pirate with mermaid
tattoos on both his forearms, who’s called Fin Flannigan by the
other filthy pirates, grabs my shoulders and holds me in place.
    “Peter. Please,” Hook says with insistence.
“It’s essential that you throw the watch into the volcano.”
    “So? And what if I refuse?” I wrest myself
free from Fin and shove him away. As I turn around, I hear the
click of a trigger and look into the mouth of James Hook’s pistol.
My throat goes dry.
    “ I don’t want
to hurt you, Peter,” he pleads behind his outstretched arm. Then
his gaze turns cold under his black hat and he growls, “But I will.
You hold the key to Neverland’s doors. I want to leave and find
Angel, but I can’t until you’re destroying the watch. Now throw
that piece of shit into the volcano or I swear I’m going to toss
your dead body over the edge with it.”
    There’s no chance he’s joking about this, and
I wonder how much more time he will give me. Five seconds before he
shoots? Maybe ten? Reluctantly I lift my hand with the pocket watch
and stare at it for a tight moment. My teeth clenched and my
muscles taught, I then toss it to the side, into the hole in the
earth that is Neverland’s middle.
    Golden sparks shoot out of the volcano, just
enough to assure the watch is forever lost.
    When I look up, Hook has lowered the gun.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” he whispers. It sounds like he doesn’t only
mean threatening me with the pistol. There’s more. But I’d be
damned to stay and question him about it. I’m done with my brother.
And after the strangely good time we had together recently, I want
to slap myself, because deep inside his betrayal hurts.
    Pulling my knife from under my belt, I bend
low and slice through the rope around my ankles. No one stops me.
As I straighten again, James takes a step toward me.
    “Go to hell, Hook,” I tell him in a low
voice.
    I never thought to see the hurt look on his
face again that he had when Angel was leaving Neverland, but how he
looks at me now comes close. I don’t care. Spitting at the ground
before his feet, I glide up and fly away.
    Zooming over
the lowlands and afterward over the jungle, I break out in a sweat
of rage and wrath. My molars crunch as they grind against each
other. The sweating is getting harder, my vision blurs. What the
heck, this has nothing to do with the angry storm brewing inside
me. I slow down, rub my thumb and forefinger across my eyes and
kneed the spot between them. When I try to focus again, there are
black dots in my vision grow wider.
    My throat is tight and dry. It starts to
hurt. The pain spreads deeper. My limbs feel numb all of a sudden,
my back hurts and breathing troubles me like I’m gasping for air
under water.
    Everything feels wrong and rubbery. Twisting
in the sky, I try to make out where the tree house is. I need to go
home. And fast.
    My chest stings as I cough on a careful
descent. I have no idea