Chapter 29: Save Our Souls

ELLE'S POV

Elle sat cross-legged in a corner of the campsite, with Felix crouched next to her drawing letters in the dirt. He was writing a list of all the places on the island. And he was doing very well. While she waited and watched, she sketched her own list in Arabic letters.

She looked up when she saw shuffling feet ahead of her, but Felix was too engrossed in his work. Her lips quirked up when she saw Colin and Joshua standing a few steps away, looking down at the letters they were etching with expressions of curiosity.

"Sit," Felix grunted, earning gasps from the two and a smirk from Elle. So he had noticed. Nevertheless the boys sat in front of them and Elle grabbed two more sticks.

"Do you know anything about how to read or write?" she asked. Joshua grimaced and shook his head. But Colin perked up excitedly.

"I know how to read!" he gloated, then frowned. "Well, short words anyway. But I can't write."

"Well, this is the alphabet, it has all the letters you need," Elle began. "A, like the beginning of 'apple' or 'arrow'," she sketched out a capital 'A'. That was the next two hours: she gave Felix more complicated things to write, while teaching Joshua and Colin their letters.

"Boys," the loud burst of Pan's gleeful, sinister voice jerked all four of their faces to him. The boys immediately sprung up, or climbed out of the forest, and made a circle around him. Elle stood and stepped carefully over the drawn letters, standing next to Felix who was, as always, at Pan's side. "We have visitors, dress your best," Pan chuckled darkly. The boys matched his smirk and scattered around the campsite.

"What?" Elle turned to Pan, who stood watching the boys eagerly gather and load themselves with weapons.

He looked down at her, humorless smirk still in place. "Some people are here. I don't like or want them here," he explained simply. Elle raised here eyebrows.

"Who? The pirates left, you said."

"They did," Pan nodded simply. "It seems my dear friend Hook has decided he hasn't learnt his lesson yet. Pity he didn't come himself, but no matter," Pan's voice was low, he seemed to be talking to himself by now. Elle took a step back. She'd seen the boys fight pirates multiple times—especially during her exile, they'd been fighting almost daily—but Pan seemed different. More sinister, he didn't just want a good fight like the boys did.

"Why are you immediately acting now? Last time he came, you waited—" Elle started, but bit her lip when Pan winced. He didn't speak, so she finished. "Even when you sensed them arrive."

Felix had stepped up to them again. "She has a point," he started, voice low but dripping with eagerness to fight anyway. "Besides, if he himself isn't here with them, how bad could they really be? Wouldn't it be more fun to let them feel comfortable first?" The boys shared a smirk, and Elle just tilted her head curiously.

"Felix," Pan chided cockily, "where's your sense of adventure? Lead the boys down to the beach on the east side." Felix smirked and called out to the boys.

Elle tucked two daggers in the sash around her waist and grabbed a bow and quiver, making to follow them into the trees when Pan wrapped his fingers around her arm, pulling her back. She turned and inhaled sharply at how close he was. Their faces were inches apart, she could feel his breath across her cheeks and tiny shadows his eyelashes cast over his eyes.

Keeping his burning brown eyes locked onto hers, Pan called out, "Daniel, wait there a moment." Elle heard slight shuffling at the edge of the camp, and guessed Daniel had ushered Harry off and was waiting. She wondered if he was as confused as she was.

"Now, princess, do you remember what those pirates did to you?" Pan's voice was low, dripping with so much menace she felt shivers up her spine. His eyes and tone, plus the memories he dragged up, made her try to back away but he stepped forward and tugged her back. "Do you?" he asked sharply, gripping bother her shoulders.

"Yes," she whispered. Then her eyes widened. "That's why you want them dealt with immediately." She started to smile, but his next words shot it down.

"I want more than that," he grinned, baring his teeth. "Let's make them suffer. Don't you want revenge? After the pain they put you through, how we all had to watch and wait and hope you would stay with us," his grin had slipped too, and his tone softened. Elle unconsciously leaned closer to him, wanting to…well she wasn't really sure.

"I…" she started. Pan had never taught her curses, but she assumed that was what he meant. "Why do you need me to? Can't you do it yourself?"

He chuckled humorlessly. "No, princess, this curse is a bit more powerful than I should use right now." Elle frowned, confused.

"Why shouldn't you use magic?" she asked, but he brushed it off and everything went black for a second.

Elle's vision cleared to find herself, Pan, and Daniel on the edge of the forest, overlooking the beach on the east side. The Lost Boys were lined up along the waterline, weapons ready, shifting restlessly, attention trained on the dozen or so rowboats approaching quickly. Elle clenched her jaw, remembering her last encounter with grown-up sailors. Pan's revenge did sound sweet, the damned pirates had hurt her and tried to steal her magic and caused her to nearly lose faith in her family.

"What should I do, then?" she waited for Pan's instruction. Perhaps she could cast a curse, but it didn't need to be terrible. Just make the men weaker, or something.

"A special little curse," Pan bared his teeth, eyes a bit unfocused. "Each person has a timeline, and you can see it and touch it with as much power as you have, princess. You can stretch out their last few moments, so that instead of mere hours to die by Dreamshade, for example, it could take them days. Or years. Slow their individual timelines, that way it'll take them so much longer to die. They'll feel just as much pain as you did, if not more."

Elle shuddered, then went completely still. The idea of revenge sounded good, but she thought that had meant just the boys and her fighting and killing them. But that long, drawn-out pain and death…she'd felt that. She wouldn't wish it on anyone, not even her old mistress or the pirate captain himself.

"Pan, I don't think you understand—" she argued, shaking her head and taking a step towards him. He didn't step back, but loomed over her and his lips twisted into a sneer.

"Princess," he ground out. "Remember our deal?" Elle's mouth fell open and she stared at him.

"You're going to make me do that?" she half-yelled, both in anger and in fear.

"Magic comes with a price. I taught you magic, now hold up your end of our deal," Pan growled. She took a deep breath, and fought the urge to step back.

"Pan, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. You can't possibly know how painful—" she insisted, but he cut her off.

"Don't you think I know that?" he yelled. Elle glanced over at the beach, the sailors were just climbing out of their boats. She was about to notice something when Pan's terrifyingly determined voice yanked her attention. "That is why you will do this, so that Hook learns never to steal and hurt one of mine again." At the intensity of his voice, she looked away, back to the beach, trying to calm herself. Shivers trailed up and down her spine at his words while her stomach did flips.

"Pan…" she glanced at the beach again. The sailors were approaching so slowly, and they didn't have on dirty, ripped clothing like the pirates had. Elle was about to tell him this, but it died in her throat when she turned back to face him.

Pan was a few steps away, and he had Daniel pinned to a tree, his dagger against his throat. Daniel was still, eyes wide, knowing he couldn't even think of trying to get away. Both Elle and Daniel opened their mouths at the same time, probably to ask the same question, when Pan sneered an answer. "If you won't honor our deal of your own free will, I'll just have to persuade you. Now, if you don't even want filthy pirate blood on your hands," he chuckled humorlessly and pressed the dagger into Daniel's skin, "do you really want Lost Boy blood? Your brother's blood?"

"No, Pan stop," Elle pleaded, but a thin line of red appeared as Daniel flinched. Elle pressed her lips together and felt her eyes burn. Her blood was searing, her hair bright as the moon in her peripheral vision. Her body was rigid as she tried to not just fling magic everywhere, but, oh, did she want to fling some at Pan right then. "Fine," she bit out between clenched teeth. Pan smirked triumphantly, and nodded his head at the beach.

"Focus on them, see a golden line wrapping around each one," Pan instructed, voice low. Elle did, and saw the lines. Blinking back tears, channeling all her anger and sadness in this moment, at Pan's cruelty, she focused on the ends of the lines and unraveled them, like string.

"Very good," Pan sneered. Elle just stayed still, facing away from him and watching the fighting. She didn't respond, and he stalked past her with Daniel behind him. Pan jumped straight into the fighting, not even using weapons or magic because he knew she would keep up the curse. Daniel caught her eye and gave a tiny smile. He forgave her. Elle couldn't drag up a smile in return, just looked back at the beach with empty eyes.

How could he make her do that? She was forcing men through the same pain she had endured, that he had watched her endure. The sight made her sick. Not the boys and men fighting, she was used to that, but the men who were fatally wounded, who were dying. They lay, staining the white sand and light, clear ocean with their dark blood. They bled for longer than the wounds should have allowed, and they screamed even after their time of death should have come. One sailor had an arrow, coated in Dreamshade, deep in his chest. Straight into his heart. But he was still moving, crying out in pain and clawing at the sand. It was wrong, so wrong.

Elle couldn't take it anymore. She saw Pan raise his arm, fire igniting in his palm, grin on his face. It was one thing to prolong a natural death, but leave a man burning? This was too far. His back was suddenly a few steps in front of her, both unaware that she had sprinted to him, and without thinking, Elle reached out and yanked his shoulder with as much strength as she could find. Which was a lot, because Pan staggered as he turned, and the fire he'd meant to hurl at the sailors left his fingers too late. Elle felt more than saw the flames cover her shoulder. It burned, but it wasn't the worst burning she had ever experienced. Her scream wasn't from physical pain.

It was fire created by magic, solely with cruel intent. Her own magic absorbed the flames, and she saw into Pan with it. The intent purely to make the sailor suffer, even though Pan knew by now that he wasn't a pirate. Glee bubbled inside her but it wasn't hers. It was his. Their pain made him so happy, so triumphant. He was ruthless.

It stopped suddenly, the thoughts and emotions that weren't hers. Still, it had knocked her off-balance, and she fell away from Pan's outstretched hands. Right next to a fallen, but finally dead, sailor. Her palm slammed into his shoulder as she tried to break her fall, and time seemed to stop.

So much fear overwhelmed her, and her vision tunneled from pain. It wasn't hers, though. It was his, right before he was finally released to death. There was no violence in him, no bloodlust, just pure fear. And pain, so much pain from the knife in his chest, from the poison that spread so fast yet killed far too slowly.

Elle wrenched herself away, crying out both from emotion and from the wounded skin on her shoulder, now being pressed into the sand. Everything was black, and she felt fingers brush her temple and a voice from faraway call her name.

She snapped her eyes open to see Pan looming over her, brown eyes wide and glassy, face crumpled in confusion. His lips moved but she didn't care to listen. She was in pain, innocent people were in pain. All for foolish, inaccurate revenge, demanded by him.

Snarling at him, Elle reached out and, backing her arms with magic, shoved him off and away from her, ignoring how it burned to stretch the skin on her shoulder. She sat up and met his confused, incredulous gaze with a glare that could kill anyone else.

"These men aren't bloody pirates!" she shrieked. She didn't even notice if the Lost Boys, or few remaining sailors, looked around, all her focus was on the boy in front of her. "They could be lost, there was no bad intent, I saw!" she gestured to the shoulder of the body lying next to her, Pan's eyes flicked to it and he nodded slightly. Good, he understood how. "These were someone's husband, or father, or son or friend, or, or," she was choking on her anger, but she had to tell him just how wrong this was, "or brother!" That hit. She could see it. Pan tried to cover his wince, but didn't. Not quite. "You wanted revenge? On who?"

"Enough," Pan boomed, channeling all his authority into his voice. But Elle didn't care, this was too far. Her body was burning. "No grown-ups are allowed on Neverland, ever." He said it with such simple conviction. But Elle just shook her head, refusing to let that justify it.

"You could have kicked them back out without killing them! You could have fought them off without that damned curse! You have no idea what kind of pain that caused! I do, I went through it—twice!" she flung her hand again at the dead body. Pan opened his mouth, but Elle couldn't listen anymore. She was so angry, and in so much pain, and so scared. Her fingers reached across her chest tentatively to touch the burn, and she bit back another scream at the slightest contact. Pan's eyebrows furrowed and his mouth opened again. Elle didn't care and didn't hear what he had to say, everything went black.

She blinked her eyes open and saw the campsite in front of her.