Wendy found Tootles crouched there, covering his ears, his eyes squeezed shut. “Hey, you,” Wendy whispered and touched the back of his head.
“It’s not a drill, is it, Wendy?” His eyes opened, and she could see his panic.
“No, not this time, but I’ll protect you. I promise.” She held out her hand and urged him to come to her. “We need to get Michael.”
“This way,” Tootles answered. Wendy followed, worry gnawing at her. They passed through the secret panel and headed down the stairs to the prison in pitch black darkness. She used her phone light to guide them down the stairs to Michael’s cell. Her phone light reflected back at her, and she struggled to see Michael inside.
Wendy went to the keypad and typed in the code and received a red light. It was wrong. She keyed in the code, slower this time. Another red light.
“The code changed after the reset. It’s not working.” Wendy began to panic, but Tootles dropped her hand and disappeared through the glass. A few seconds later, he reappeared, holding onto the hand of a very dazed-looking Michael.
“Michael!” Wendy cried out, as her brother collapsed onto the floor, his eyes were rolled back into his head; his nose was bloody. She cradled his head to her shoulder, but he struggled and pulled away.
“No, no,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I—I did it.” His eyes slowly tried to focus on hers; he was intent on getting his message across.
“You did what?” she asked, confused.
Another alarm began to blare, and then, even the backup generators in their wing went out. Tink must have cut the power there.
“I did it,” Michael answered.
“Don’t be silly.” She grabbed his hand and pulled both boys after her toward the stairs, but she turned to see Jax staring at her from inside his prison. He banged on the window to get her attention, his eyes burning with resentment, but who was it directed toward, her or . . . ?
Wendy paused in front of Jax’s cell and made eye contact with one of the most destructive weapons created by Neverland.
“Wait, Tootles, I need you to do something for me.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Watch out!” Peter yelled just as an enormous morphling slunk out of the trees. The moon cast very little light, and it was hard to keep track of the morphlings and their numbers. They had set up the first line of defense outside and were trying to keep them from entering the school. Inside, the dark halls created too many shadows for the morphlings to hide in, and it was better to keep them outside, where the spotlights could hit them.
Peter spun toward the threat, putting himself between the school and the morphling. “Lost boys!” he called. “Attack!”
The Dittos launched themselves at the morphling, and rapid-fire light blasts ricocheted off the ground. Slightly shifted into his bulky form, swinging his axe made of light at the morphling’s head. The morphling dodged both attacks, lifting itself into the sky. They had lost it.
“Spots!” Peter yelled, and lights beamed down from Neverwood’s roof. They could see the creature slinking along the treetops like a mountain cat. The Red Skull choppers were hanging back in the distance, an ever-present threat at the back of his mind. But the spotlights kept losing power, and if they failed entirely, leaving them in total darkness, Neverwood would be left vulnerable to the morphlings.
One of the spotlights began to flicker and dim. They would only have power for a few more minutes. The generators couldn’t power both the spotlights.
Ditto flipped a switch on his brace, and it began to hum as he swung it in the morphling’s direction. “Dodge this!”
He pulled the trigger, and the gun sent a piercing light into the trees, cutting the tops off as the laser followed the beast’s escape.
“On your six, on your six,” Peter yelled, rushing and knocking one of the boys out of the way as a second morphling came up out of the field behind him. Peter rolled along the ground and leaped back up to his feet with ease.
“Flank him, Onyx,” Peter called. He continued to shout orders, directing the boys toward a coordinated attack.
Onyx took half the lost boy army after the morphling in the tree while Peter slipped back into his leadership role, commanding the operation with the rest of the boys.
“Let’s get to the safe room, Tootles,” Wendy called as she tried to drag Tootles and Michael down the dark hallways, but she kept getting turned around and lost in the maze. “Is it this way?”
“I can get us there faster,” Tootles said, grabbing both of their hands. In a flash of light, he teleported them outside the school building, not to the safe room. They were a stone’s throw from being amidst the battle. Boys were yelling out commands to each other as roars of fury from the two morphlings echoed across the night air.
“No, Tootles, not here,” Wendy cried as Michael collapsed onto the grass. She grabbed her brother and pulled him onto her lap.
Meanwhile, Tootles cheered on the boys as they fought, punching his fists in the air as each hit after hit came. He kept teleporting closer and closer to the battle, fascinated by the fighting.
“Get back here,” Wendy called, but he ignored her. She tried to lift Michael so she could go after Tootles, but he was heavy and struggled against her. His panic and terror overtook him, and he swung out a fist and clocked her in the nose. “Hey!”
One of the shadows tugged at Wendy’s shirt, drawing her attention to a third morphling, not fully formed, slithering along the grass toward Tootles.
“Tootles,” Wendy yelled through the mayhem, but he couldn’t hear her warning. She shoved Michael off her lap and took off running, her shoes sliding in the wet grass, her heart thumping and legs pumping like mad. But she could see that she’d never make it in time. The snake morphling rose up behind him, its mouth opening wide. She could feel the shadow mark on her arm glow, and she called a shadow to her.
“Tootles,” she screamed, jumping into the air as a shadow passed through her, pulling her into the shadow realm.
Once there, noise ceased, and she was able to stay conscious as they moved through the shadow realm. The cold permeated her body, making it difficult for her to catch her breath.
Jax’s warning came back to her. This was the morphlings’ world. This is where they resided. A trickle of fear began to bubble up, but she pushed it away as a snarling growl echoed in the darkness behind her.
Hurry. The shadow led her through the darkness to stop in front of a vertical pool of water. Though faded and blurry because of the moving pool, she could see the lost boys, but more importantly, Tootles. She let go of the shadow’s hand and jumped through the wall of water.
And appeared in front of Tootles, pushing him out of the way as the morphling struck. The same shadow that had led her through the shadow realm threw itself in front of the morphling as bait. A second later, it was gone, swallowed by the morphling.
“Holy buckets, it ate it,” Tootles exclaimed, fascinated by the morphling eating the shadow, oblivious to the morphling rising back up for another strike.
“Tootles, run.” Wendy snagged him and dragged him across the field back toward the school.
He grabbed her hand, his small one nestling in hers, squeezing tight. “How’d you do that?”
“Now’s not the time to discuss this.” She hadn’t been scared until she saw Tootles almost being devoured. The severity of the situation came crashing down around her. She ran up the hill and kneeled by Tootles, grabbing his hands. “Please, you have to go inside to the safe room.”
He wasn’t looking at her. His head turned, rooted to the battle below. “There’s four of them.”
Wendy craned to look. Each time they were down to one morphling, another would rise and take its place. All the boys were fighting; a few even looked injured or knocked out. She hoped they were just passed out and not dead.
“There’s never been this many before,” he said, sounding worried. Wendy looked down and
saw the group of shadows congregating out of sight, but still congregating, drawing the morphlings.
“I did this, Tootles,” Wendy exclaimed. “Neverland may have sent them, but my gift is attracting the shadows and more morphlings.”
A second shadow didn’t move, and another morphling snuck up behind it, and in a flash of darkness, it disappeared.
“They’re going to keep coming unless we can get the shadows to leave,” she said.
“Then, send them away like before,” Tootles exclaimed.
“It’s not that easy,” she said frantically, standing on the hill, overlooking the fight, holding Tootles’ hand. “I don’t think the morphlings will leave if the shadows leave. Not with Neverland behind them.”
She bit her lip, her heart dropping into her stomach. Wendy kneeled on the ground and closed her eyes. She concentrated as hard as she could. “Please go away.”
In her head, she heard the still-small voice of her inner child. Go away.
You’re not real. Make the monsters go away.
Although the shadows weren’t monsters, they had never been the bad things that went “bump!” in the night. They were more like guardian angels, leading her away from danger. Even that night all those years ago, it was leading Peter to the roof at the Neverland facility, leading her there as well. The shadow had wanted her to escape. It had protected her then, just like they’d protected her from Jax’s attack, and even now.
Dr. Mee’s words came flooding back to her. “Think happy thoughts.”
“Think happy thoughts,” she said, echoing Dr. Mee. “If I can think happy thoughts, then I won’t be scared anymore.”
Wendy heard a blood-curling scream from below, but she couldn’t look. She grabbed Tootles by the front of his shirt and looked into his frightened eyes, and all she could think about was how the young boy didn’t have a family because of Neverland. He should never have been there alone, growing up without parents, left to face this uncertain world without a loved one to read him stories. Oh, the injustice. Of course, she thought of her brother then—one of her own great losses, Michael. The brother that Neverland stole and made her forget, made her abandon.
The thought exercise wasn’t making her happy at all. It was making her very, very angry.
“Wendy?” Tootles said, his voice wary. “What’s wrong with your eyes?” Fox made his way to her and was standing guard over the both of them.
“Nothing’s wrong, I have to do something, but I need you to stay with Fox. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he mumbled.
Wendy patted Tootles’ head, making eye contact with Fox, and he nodded in understanding. She then turned her attention back to the hideous morphlings sent to attack them . . . to drag them back to the nightmare that was Neverland . . . to serve the rest of their lives as meaningless, hopeless lab rats. It was time for the monsters to die.
Wendy’s hair whipped around her shoulders as she began the long march down the hill to the middle of the fray. A morphling screamed as a light brace sent a blast into its chest. It started to dissolve but then reformed, intent on staying as long as it could to feed on the shadows. Wendy had a feeling the morphlings grew stronger the more shadows they consumed. She was going to stop it from ever touching a shadow again.
“Wendy, what are you doing?” Peter yelled.
“What I should have done long ago.” Wendy picked up an abandoned light brace and concentrated all her attention on the morphling as the Dittos surrounded the beast on both sides, slicing it with long blades of light. It squealed, and Wendy began to walk toward the morphling, unafraid, never losing a step. She squared off as it rose high into the air, about to devour her like a rushing wave. Wendy charged the gun, feeding it more energy and light, as the morphling charged at her. She released the blast from point-blank range, and the morphling exploded outward into a million pieces, unable to reform.
“Let’s see you come back from that.” She smiled.
Peter had flown to her aid and was hovering just above the ground, his face a mask of disbelief before turning into a frown.
Peter shouted to Wendy. “We can handle this from here.”
His words sent her over the edge.
“I’m a lost boy too, I’m just as capable of fighting these monsters as anyone here. I’ve got a score to settle with Neverland, and I won’t let anything or anyone get in my way. Especially you, Peter!” She said his name through gritted teeth.
Peter’s concerned look shifted into a proud grin, and he crowed in excitement. “That’s my lost girl! You can more than handle yourself.” But his joy only lasted for a moment before he looked at the morphlings. “The morphlings just keep on coming. Can you do your supercharge again?”
“No, I don’t think I can do that again. We need to lure them away.” Wendy looked around at the shadows. She closed her eyes and imagined a giant net pulling the shadows toward her; she had no idea if it would even work, but Wendy continued to pull. Then, they figured it out, and one by one they came. A shadow dove for her, rocking her as it sought shelter inside her body, but then another one followed suit, and another. Darkness surrounded her as she opened her arms and welcomed them. The morphlings growled in protest and turned their attention to Wendy, the girl stealing their meal. Wendy ran to Peter.
He didn’t need an explanation; he pulled her into an embrace and shot off into the sky, taking care to fly low, and led the morphlings on a hunt through the trees. Branches scraped their arms and faces, but they hardly noticed, focusing intensely on keeping the morphlings on their tail. If they lost one, they circled back around until the morphlings followed.
Wendy couldn’t look. She just wrapped her arms around Peter’s neck and pressed herself as close to him as she could, burying her face into his collarbone. The exhilaration hit her with each dip and bend he took. She tried to keep the squeals of fright inside, but it was a roller coaster. Peter laughed and squeezed her tighter.
“How did you know they would follow?” he asked, flying higher. A morphling lunged from a tree and missed.
“I didn’t. I just had a feeling . . .” she trailed off as she struggled to remember to breathe.
“Any idea what to do now?” He laughed.
“Nope, I just wanted to get them away from Neverwood.”
“Well, I guess I can take it from here, Wendy.”
As much as she loved being that close to Peter, she was beginning to feel the effects of having over a dozen shadows inside her. Her body was going numb, but she needed to keep it together.
She was a carrot on a stick as Peter dipped back down to the ground and flew between two trees. She could hear the morphlings, their strange guttural sounds. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that they appeared to be shrinking in size.
“Peter, look,” Wendy whispered, her hand weak as she pointed.
“It looks like they can’t hold their form very long in our world, and we’re draining them with this chase. Interesting.”
After another quarter mile, he slowed and came to a rushing river. Then, Peter set her down on a large outcropping of rock in the middle of the water. Her feet collapsed underneath her, but she managed to stay on the island.
“Stay here,” he said softly and flew back to the water’s edge to meet the first morphling. It had diminished in size and had become the size of a small dog. She couldn’t look away as Peter activated his light brace and fought the first morphling. With a couple of blasts of his brace, the morphling dematerialized. One after another, he took out the morphlings. Their cries echoed their pain.
Wendy was exhausted as she continued to shield her mind from the onslaught of the shadows inside her, all attempting to communicate with her at once, sharing images and warnings.
“I can’t,” Wendy said to the shadows, too far away for Peter to hear her. “I can’t help you.” They responded with a wail of sorrow. It wasn’t the answer they wanted to hear.
The pounding continued in her head as they tried to talk to
each other through images that they projected into her mind; sterile room, water, a laughing face . . . no, a snarling face. She couldn’t feel anything. Her limbs were as heavy as cinder blocks.
“Please go!” she demanded and felt the shadows buck against her command. But she could feel their fear, and it paralyzed her. The night flashed with bursts of light as Peter continued to fight off the last morphling.
Another shadow, ringed with bright white, appeared—that one much larger than the ones inside her and floated down to land on her island. The ethereal light reached its glowing hand inside her and began to dig around.
Wendy wailed in agony.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Wendy’s cry of pain distracted Peter, and he missed an oncoming blow from the morphling. The impact sent him spiraling into the river, where the bitter cold of the water shocked him into momentary paralysis. Pain radiated from his chest, but he ignored it, focusing instead on regaining control of his limbs. Then, he kicked the surface, breaking through with a splash, and gasped for air.
Wendy. He needed to get to Wendy. With long strokes, he swam toward her, but he was fighting the river’s current. A large object brushed against his foot, and he jerked away. The morphling? Where was the morphling?
Peter searched the empty river bank, and a feeling of dread washed over him. A dark-scaled beast was pushing through the water, circling back toward him.
“No!” He never thought that they could swim—well, he’d never seen one attempt it, but they can morph forms, so why not? Peter squinted in the darkness, trying to keep an eye on the beast, but then, the beast dove underwater. Taking a deep breath, Peter plunged below the surface as well and opened his eyes to search for movement.
He charged the light brace and gathered a ball of light energy in his hand. It lit the murky water around him, and he could see the rocky bottom of the river, but nothing else.