I stared at Peter in disbelief.
That wasn't how the punishment worked. The punishment was only for the Seekers and the Found. The Found took the punishment from the Seeker who found them. If they couldn't, the Found were fed to the croc.
He motioned for me to come to him, and my feet moved on their own accord.
He handed me the whip, and it felt heavy in my hands.
"Pick one," he said to me, waving his hand over the crowd of boys. "Anyone you want."
"But Peter, I…"
His finger slid under my chin and raised my eyes to his. His face was like stone, unreadable.
Dangerous.
"You what?" He asked, his voice low.
My mind reeled. Tread carefully, I thought to myself. If I said the wrong thing, I could very well be receiving the punishment myself.
"I didn't earn this," I said, motioning to the whip. "I didn't seek."
The coolness of this face melted, and he smiled at me. His eyes twinkled as he took me in. "Oh, Sweetheart, this is a gift. From me to you. It's about time you've taken part in a blood ceremony."
Ritual, I corrected him in my head. It's a ritual. Not a ceremony.
I did my best to smile at him, to act thankful, but my lips felt like they were twitching.
Judging by the way his face fell, he could sense my hesitation went beyond not finding myself worthy. He knew I didn't want to partake.
Scanning the crowd, Peter pointed at a young boy who was standing near the back of the crowd. "You."
The boy was about as brave as I felt. The moment Peter's finger landed on him, he turned to run, only to be blocked by Lester's club.
The boy crumpled to the ground, holding his bleeding head in his hands and garbling in pain while Lester dragged him by the collar of his shirt to where Peter and I stood. He deposited him at our feet.
And I almost retched.
The boy wasn't holding his bleeding head. He was attempting to push his bulging eye back into its socket.
I looked at him in disgust, but he just smiled as he wiped his bloody club on his trousers.
"You're welcome," he said before making his way back into the crowd. The captured boys parted for him, none of them wanting to touch the monster that had just clubbed a boy over the head.
Peter leaned in to whisper in my ear. "This punishment will be putting him out of his misery. Look at the way his head is caved in. He'll never recover from that."
My eyes were misted with tears, and I looked at Peter in disbelief.
"I don't want to do this," I said, and it felt good to finally say something to him that was true. "Please, Peter, I don't want to."
"I know, Sweetheart," he said, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear and kissing my forehead, "But it's time. You've been a Lost Girl long enough. This is part of staying a Lost Girl. You're already aging, already getting older. This helps you stay young." He cupped my face in his hands. "Stay young with me."
I took a shaky breath and sobbed. I nodded, and I felt Peter wrap his hand around mine on the whip.
"First one together," he said, "And then the rest is up to you."
And so Peter helped me raise the whip and bring it down on the boy. The cracking sound made my stomach lurch, but it was the garbled scream from the boy that made me gag. Blood fell from his mouth, his teeth stained red, and when he looked up at me, his head misshapen and his one bulging eye, something went numb in me.
I couldn't bear the thought of him looking at me like that anymore.
And I couldn't bear the thought of him suffering any more than I was already making him by being too weak to lift the whip.
So I did.
And I brought it down.
And back up.
And back down.
I did my best to drown out his cries, tried not to look at him as the whip ripped his clothes and skin to shreds, tried not to think about the croc's scales sliding against my leg as it inched forward.
I brought the whip up again, but this time, Peter grabbed my wrist.
"That's enough, Sweetheart," he said. "He's done."
I nodded numbly and let Peter take the whip from my shaking hands.
He wrapped an arm around my waist and kissed my temple tenderly. "You did great, Lost Girl."
The croc devoured the boy just as it had the first, but this boy didn't cry. Part of me wondered if he had passed before the croc had a chance to clinch him in its jaws.
But then the raw rush of power hit me like a horse pulling a carriage, and I realized that he had indeed still been alive.
I had never felt anything like it. I had only heard Peter talk of the power that came when the blood magic ritual was complete, how the life force of the boys filling your body was like the feeling you got when you jumped off the highest cliff into the lagoon, but only better.
It was as if my body had never known exhaustion or injury or pain.
It was how Peter and the Lost boys stayed young. It was how Hook stayed young, frozen in time. It was how they had gained their strength and their power.
And now, I was just like them.
When the initial rush wore off, I numbly walked back to the crowd, my knees threatening to buckle beneath me with each step I took. I pushed past each boy in the crowd, but they were already watching the next Lost Boy step forward to claim his reward, watching Peter as he handed over the whip.
My knees finally gave way when I was behind the crowd of boys and I could no longer see the beach or the croc or Peter. I sank into the sand and let myself cry, my head in my hands as I shook.
Not one boy survived.
They were all whipped until they were bloody and crying, begging for their lives, and then they were fed to the croc.
Each time the croc's jaws snapped closed around a helpless boy, I felt what little hope I had left begin to drain from my body. It soaked into the sand, never to be seen again.
I felt unstoppable after one boy. How could we beat Peter with all the lives he'd stolen?
Hook was right.
He had been right all along.
I was foolish to think otherwise.
Peter couldn't be beaten.
We would not win.