Shahrazád's Ghosts
Chapter 31: Darling (Bella) Part IX
Not so much as a sorry-to-lose-you between them! If she did not mind the parting, he was going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he.
But of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible…
…Panic-stricken at the thought of losing Wendy the lost boys had advanced upon her threateningly.
"It will be worse than before she came," they cried.
"We shan't let her go."
"Let's keep her prisoner."
"Ay, chain her up."
J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Oooo
Darling stopped in the hall outside of Tiger Lily's Court, her hand against the place her heart once drummed a steady beat, and she leaned against the wall with her eyes closed. She felt so heavy with the weight of what she had just done that she nearly felt it as a physical weight, pressing her to the floor, inviting her to throw herself down and weep and recant it all.
She would never forget the look of betrayal in Peter's eyes or the desperation in his voice when he realized what she was about to do.
Oh, Peter! How had that beautiful heart ever been so cursed as to be given to her? He deserved so much better; a thousand times better.
When Darling gazed into the depths of her mate's eyes, so overflowing with warmth, she felt her soul fill with molten gold, and she knew she wanted nothing more than to run away with him. To start over. To leave everything behind her. John could have Neverland and Aro could have John and her army.
He loved her. Through and through. Finally, the one prize she had sought most her entire life was hers and she knew better than to take it for granted. He would never, not in an infinite number of lifetimes, stand by and let harm come to her. He would not even have to think about it. He would sacrifice his own life to save hers, even though she did not deserve it. He would gladly pay the price for all her multitude of transgressions, without ever asking anything in return.
She knew if anyone threatened to harm him, she would do everything in her power to stop them. She would burn all Neverland to the ground to save him. She would abandon her aim to destroy the Volturi and willingly aid Aro in all his most nefarious of plots, if only to keep Peter safe. She would even be tempted to share the location of her beloved Margaret… in order to save him.
No, Darling knew, only too well, her own weakness… and how far Aro would go to exploit it. She had to ensure that none could find him. None could use him, torture him, twist him and bend his great heart in order to make Darling theirs.
Why couldn't he have stayed safe, stayed away, far away from here?
In a movement that seemed to take more strength than moving the boulder over the entrance to Neverland, Darling stood. She threw her shoulders back, ran her hand over her hair, and straightened out the rose silk of her dress. She was still queen of Neverland and it was time she act like it.
It was the job of the queen to protect the king. If the king still lived, the game would be hers, even if she did not survive till the end.
Let all the covens of the world descend upon Neverland, its queen would be ready to protect its king, until the very end of the game.
Oooo
Tiger Lily's Camp had been remade multiple times after it was no longer in use by the princesses themselves. A wall had been opened up and a set of thick, wooden doors placed over the new entrance. These were opened with great pomp and fanfare, whenever it was Darling who sat upon the dais and held court for her vampire sycophants. When she was not in the room, the doors remained closed and a security door, farther down the hall, was locked.
She was not surprised to find that the digital lock on the security doors had been damaged – and not repaired. She easily pushed the metal doors aside and quietly made her way to the set of wooden doors, which were closed but not locked. The sound of their hinges echoed against every wall of that vaulted room. The carpets and tapestries muffled the sound of her footsteps, but they did not hide them entirely.
There, on the dais and in her own gilded chair, John sat. His long legs were bent over the arm rests of the throne like a spider. A golden crown, a gift from the Hungarian coven, sat crookedly on his head. When he saw her, a venomous grin covered his face and he held out a black bottle in his hand in greeting.
"There she is! Ladies and gentlemen, I present her royal majesty, the Queen of Neverland!" he announced to the empty room, projecting his slurred voice like a herald.
"Traitorous snake," she hissed. His grin only widened at her insult and it did not waver when she continued, "what is it that you want? Who set you up to this?"
She did not move from the threshold of the door, but she turned the full fire of her glare upon him. With the press of a button beneath one of the arms of the throne, the doors behind her swung shut with a bang that reverberated through the cavernous room.
"Who? No one set me up. And I should think it was quite obvious what I want… The only prize in Neverland that has ever been beyond my grasp."
"You have all the medicine you could want for in that vault. You have immobilized my army and now I am a sitting duck for Aro. What more do you want?"
"Ah, your illustrious army! Why should they be deprived of the one joy they have ever known, simply out of my own stinginess? I am nothing if not generous, my Lady, and I wanted the Braves to have one memory worth having, before they, too, go the way of all the Pirates."
"Then why do you wait here for me, instead of joining them in their revels?"
"I am nothing if not an opportunist, my Lady. I wish I could take all the credit for your soused army, but I am afraid the true instigator is Curly. When the generators came back on this afternoon, and we could access the medicine storage rooms again, it was Curly who realized the locks on the vaults had shorted out in the flood. He did not wish to let such an opportunity pass him by. Thomas didn't require a second invitation and was only too happy to join in."
John swung his legs around so they bent against the floor of the dais and he gave her a wide, crooked grin. With one hand he attempted to straighten his crown, but it only made the clumsy adornment lean to the other side of his head. He took another drink from his bottle before he went back to using both his hands to illustrate his words.
"I will be honest. As I watched Curly and Thomas drink themselves into oblivion, I was sorely tempted to join them. In fact, it was nothing short of a miracle that I didn't. But, you see, I've gone down that road enough times to know that it only leads to the same place. Inevitably, I will wake again, and my thirst will only be more ravenous than it was before. There is no novelty, no pleasure that is as yet untried to be found there… but, then, I remembered something. You, my illustrious mistress, would be returning to me, here, tonight and it was then I knew that fortune had truly smiled upon me this day."
"You know the Volturi are coming," Darling said. "Any day."
He gave a mirthless chuckle and opened up his arms, as if in welcome. Then he stood and began to descend the steps of the dais. "Oh, the Volturi! That's all I've ever heard, since the moment I became a Lost Boy. This," and here he motioned to the gilded throne and her portrait beyond it, "and everything else has been about nothing but the Volturi coming.
"I am no fool, my Lady. Do you know what happens when they come? We all die. If I am nothing but kindling for a fire, then I would like to grab what fleeting pleasures I can, while my hands can still grasp them. Whether the Volturi come tomorrow, or a hundred years from now, I intend to live my life to the fullest before I must lose it."
"Don't you understand? Don't you care what will happen if the Volturi come or how much worse your end would be in their hands?"
"What are they to me?" he answered with a shrug. "How are they any different from you, from here? One tyrant is the same as any other. Whether we be consumed by a tiger or crocodile, we still will be consumed. Whether I am beholden to the Queen of Neverland or the Kings of Volterra, I am still but cannon fodder. For today, for now, I intend to be King, even if it lasts for only an hour, and I must pay in flesh for a thousand years afterwards."
As he spoke, he crept ever closer to where she stood until she found herself having to crane her neck to look into his eyes and she could feel the tickle of his words against her hair. Still, he came closer.
Her first instinct was to push him away, but she had to stop to really think through how to proceed. Darling could fight him, but he was stronger and open confrontation would do little to improve her circumstances. She could flee, but John was faster. If she managed to escape, she would be leaving Neverland… and Peter… defenseless. Or she could give the appearance of surrender, and fight him with the defenses only she possessed, and buy time while she enacted another plan.
He continued his approach until she was pressed against the wooden door. He ran his fingers through a lock of her hair then he closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of her. She stiffened, but he did not pull away.
"Ambrosia," he whispered. He trailed his nose back and forth across the crown of her head and brought his hands up to rest on her shoulders.
"There are some wines I have yet to taste," he told her as he opened up his eyes and rested his head against hers. "And there are thirsts not even all the wine in Neverland can quench. I have tried to drown you out of my mind, to flood you from my heart, and still, you hold me captive. You have haunted me since the day I first saw your face. I cannot exorcise you, no matter how I try.
"My Lady, you tell us that it is only your medicine we crave. As if that could satisfy. As if that could ever be enough. Why, then, do I have the strength to abandon an unlimited draught of medicine in exchange for your presence, the embodiment of Dionysus herself?"
The way he towered over her, caging her in against the door, stirred up uncomfortable memories of her human beginnings, and yet she felt even more powerless than she had then. There were no other Bellas to take her place and he had already had a plentiful supply of her blood. Now, there was John and there was Darling.
She looked up into John's fervent, scarlet eyes and she recognized him. The lust of his gaze, the fire of his thirst, the callousness of his hands as clung to her shoulders - in him, she saw her sire, resurrected from the grave. In her efforts to punish her sire, she had succeeded to recreating him herself and now he lived again, to bring punishment upon her for all her innumerable misdeeds. For each Bella she sacrificed to take her place, she now must give an account, in her own flesh for theirs.
This had always been her fate. Whether over two hundred years ago at the hands of a vampire already lost to madness, or now at the hands of a vampire actively in pursuit of madness, she had only succeeded in postponing the inevitable.
If she could not fight fate, she could still twist it, make it amenable to her favor. Afterall, if she could survive Edward, then she could manage John.
John's motivations were easy enough to comprehend and even easier to fill. John longed for blood, for her blood, more than anything else. He also was bound by his mating instinct. He longed for her - for her adoration, her fixed attention on him and only him. He wanted to drown in her blood and he wanted to lose himself in her worship, as her sire had done, so many years before.
He wanted more. More would never be enough and he would drive himself into madness and burst with his own lascivious appetite before the end. And this was a dance she had only managed to perfect. What she had learned to do as a weak, fragile human woman, she had mastered as an immortal creature. The question was which of his desires was the key to directing his steps according to her whims. She could wield her medicine or her person, as she had done for her sire, but those were the primary weapons at her disposal.
Except now, she also possessed a shield.
And she was no longer so fragile.
Or defenseless.
She was impenetrable. Unconquerable. Immortal.
And, most importantly, irreplaceable.
In this game of tug-o-war, it was John who had the most to lose. It was John who possessed the greatest share of fragility, of weakness. He needed her, like the sun and moon, wind and sky, and he could not end her, no matter what she did, because that would end half of himself.
So, she gave John a small half-smile, tentatively placed her fingers on his chin to bring his face closer to hers. Then, she crashed her lips into his. For a moment, John was dumbstruck and motionless beneath her before he was all too ready to comply. The chaste kiss deepened until he was desperately drinking all he could from her, like a man who had first tasted water after sunstroke.
When she could feel him seeking more, searching more, she dropped her shield. Within her mind, she kept an arsenal of memories which she could wield as weapons. She let a volley of images fly through her mind like machine gun bullets and pierce John through and through. Her mind was saturated with the scent of her own blood, of her sire's desperate, gluttonous feeds, of the ecstasy on his face after a Bella had breathed her last.
He released her with a startled gasp and took a step back, his eyes growing dark and feral. She could see the venom begin to pool in his mouth and so she continued her assault. She let her own memories of Tiger Lily's beginning… and end… bombard him. She remembered John's own part in her end, the look on his face, the scent in the air, the blood on his hands…
John, like Edward, could only hold out so long before his "love" for the woman succumbed to his love for her wine. He turned, then, and sprinted at full speed back to the dais. He made a desperate grab at the abandoned black bottle and drank it in one uninterrupted go. When emptied, he cast it onto the floor and let it shatter before he withdrew a second bottle from beneath the gilded throne. He cradled this bottle to himself, like it was his beloved's own flesh and not a glass container. He closed his eyes while he imbibed this in a series of greedy, delighted gulps. Then he lay his head back against the throne in quiet rapture and he sighed.
She expected him to continue, to drink and drink until he lost consciousness. It was what her sire would have done. It was what the other Lost Boys would have done. It was what she needed him to do. Then she could easily behead him, and focus her attention on resurrecting what she could of her plans to prepare for Aro. She had much she needed to do.
Slightly must be warned. He had his instructions.
"Slightly, if anything ever happens to me or to Neverland, you are to run to Augustine. Do not bother rescuing me or defending Neverland. You are to defend the secrets you hold and make sure they never fall into Aro's head. Make sure Augustine knows so he does not come looking for me. Even if it means you have to take off your own head, do not let Aro into your mind."
She needed to send him an addendum to their contingency plan: Once Volterra falls (and not a moment before), rescue Peter.
Darling kept her eyes on John, waiting for him to fall into a stupor or make a frenzied search for another bottle. By the crates lined against the wall, he was prepared to hole himself in here for quite some time. However, he stopped his draught from his bottle as quickly as he had started. His eyes fell down to the bottle in his hands and he turned it back and forth, as if reading an invisible label in the dim cavern's light. Then, his eyes flew up to meet hers.
The next thing she knew, the bottle flew through the air and crashed into shards against her shoulder, leaving trails of blood streaming down her chest and onto the floor. She stood in stunned silence, her mouth agape, and the only sound between them was that of the dripping blood.
Then he stood, his eyes burned with all the unhindered anger of a stampeding bull, and charged her. Then it was his tongue that accosted her, greedily lapping up the splattered blood, lingering on her skin, and searching the exposed contours for more.
"It won't work," he whispered between mouthfuls. "I know what you are trying to do, and I am not the fool you take me to be. You think I would let you around me unguarded? My head will join your other admirers on that row of pikes before I hit the floor."
Darling's heart fell as she counted at least six empty bottles scattered around the room. For the other Lost Boys, only two bottles would be enough to send them into a sleep for nearly a week. To grow such a tolerance, John had to have been pilfering extra rations, without her knowledge, for an extended period of time. Slightly had to have known. Darling cursed him under her breath and, if she ever saw Slightly again, she was going to reprimand him extensively for misplaced compassion. She had developed a zero-tolerance policy for just this reason. Once a Lost Boy was willing to over exceed rations on a regular basis, he was no longer fit to serve. He would gladly sabotage everything and everyone in order to serve his new mistress. John had been allowed to desensitize himself more than should have been possible.
Yet, why then, was John intentionally holding back? For one as far advanced as himself, his first reaction should have been to consume as much as possible - until he either lost consciousness or burst, whichever occurred first. She had never, not once, seen her sire or a Lost Boy stop halfway through such a frenzy in order to pursue other aims.
Unless stronger desires were at play, her mind whispered. Desires which she also had wielded as purposely as she had their medicine.
From the moment she first saw that wide-eyed, awestruck look on John's newborn face, she had known. She had made the mistake of raising him from human to newborn, and he fixated on her like a duckling with its mother and started off following her around Neverland like a shadow. Back then, she had loathed him for it. More than that, she had been repulsed by him. It was with relief and a borderline vindictive glee that she watched his lovestruck devotion morph into cynical bitterness.
John was what was supposed to happen. He was supposed to hate her, hate the bond, and hate himself for being bonded to her.
Yet, when the last of the blood had been groomed off the bodice of her dress, he did not turn back to the dais for more wine. Instead, he continued to roughly trail his tongue along the exposed, and untainted, skin on her other arm, as if lapping up invisible blood. When she tried to pull away, his arms held her fast and would not let her retreat even an inch.
She began to plot in her mind what next she should do, what other images she could bombard his mind with, when his ministrations halted abruptly. He threw her from his arms as if she were made of flame rather than flesh and she crashed into the door before tumbling inelegantly onto the floor.
"Where is he?" He roared over her, then, his entire face twisting into pure and unadulterated rage. "I can smell him… taste him… All over you. Where is he? I am going to kill him. First, I am going to tear him limb from limb, then I am going to put him back together, then I will let the Braves tear him into pieces so small, not even a newborn could scent him out. Then I will burn him to ashes. Where is that filthy, devious Pirate? How dare he lay claim to what is mine!"
He paced the room, his steps animated by his uncontrolled fury. Darling tried to hide any reaction with a mask of impassivity, and she remained as still as possible.
"YOU ARE MINE!" John roared again. He picked up one of the empty bottles and propelled it against the wall of the cavern so that black shards of glass littered the floor around him. Then he sought out another, which met a similar fate. In the cacophony of breaking glass, he shouted out "You. Are. Mine!" over and over with each destroyed bottle.
Darling refused to cower or let him see a hint of fear, so she forced herself to stand and meet the angry scarlet of his eyes.
"Where is he? Where did you hide him?" John demanded, grabbing her and roughly shaking her shoulders.
"Who?" she asked.
"Peter."
Darling appeared to think this over, her lips pursed, and one delicate finger tapping at the edge of her heart-shaped face. "I have known many Peters in my lifetime. Which Peter would you like to know the whereabouts of?"
"Don't play coy with me. You know the one. The only one you let speak your name aloud and enter your sanctuary. The only one you let read to you. The one who has marked you like a dog. I should have killed him the first time you let him kiss you without removing a limb. I should have known then. Where is he?"
"I have no idea who you are talking about."
"He must be close. You were only just with him this afternoon. I will find him and then I will place his head on one of these pikes and then you will forget all about him. I'll make sure of it."
At the icy promise of his oaths, Darling knew he was telling the truth. She paused, then, to check on Peter, her need to ensure his safety nearly overwhelming. She could still feel him - that pinprick of glowing, precious life - and he was still safely tucked away within her shield. While her mate was her most permeable place, the location her armor did not quite cover, and the one place where a well-placed weapon could end her life, she realized he was also a source of strength. As long as that pinprick of life, and the hope of its preservation, remained then she would fight tooth-and-nail to make sure she protected him, even if it cost her Peter's love and her own life.
Edward spent his entire life thrusting death upon his mate. He combed through all of Chad to make sure that the one version of his mate who escaped, came back to meet her death at his hands. Darling would make sure her mate received life. Even if he never forgave her. Even if he hated her from now on until eternity. He would live.
She could not have John searching for Peter. If his thirst for medicine could not be relied upon to incapacitate him, then she would need to make sure his mind was fixed entirely on her, and only on her. She needed to buy time. Either the Volturi would arrive first or the Braves would wake. Depending on which scenario occurred, Darling would have to be ready. If the Braves woke, while not entirely reliable, enough of them were bonded to her that if she lowered her shield and called for aid, they would obey, especially if she promised them medicine in return. If the Volturi arrived before the Braves woke, she could potentially make John useful, if she played him right.
"What is this about, John?" she asked. "Is it that you wish to end Peter or that you wish to become Peter? Do you wish to be the one to speak my name? Let me hear it from your lips." With each word she spoke, she drew nearer to him and let her words flow with poisoned honey until she nearly purred them against his cheek.
"You are trying to distract me," John hissed back. "It won't work. I will find him."
"Oh, John, why don't you forget about your desire for revenge, or whatever this is, and let… other… desires take precedence? You can be Peter, if you want to," she continued. "You've been Peter for me before, haven't you? Why spend so much time worrying about some other Peter and let yourself become what you have always wanted to be? It's only you and me here, now. Forget about everyone and everything else"
John gritted his teeth and she watched his mind fight against her manipulation, all the while his heart and his body too-willingly surrendered. Already, his tirade had stilled and his entire posture bent towards her and his eyes followed her every movement.
She lunged then, a predator with her prey. She could see the doubt and skepticism war with his long-repressed fantasies. She felt the moment he gave way beneath her. He knew it was false. He knew he would pay with his life later, but he had long ago chosen to sell his soul to Dionysus. He would sacrifice all to drink at her table and feed from her veins once himself, even if she would consume him after, like a black widow claiming her mate. It was his own hunger which would devour him and drive him over the edge into destruction.
His touch was desperate, starving, cruel. He approached her - not to shower her with affection but to satisfy the long-buried cravings of one-sided lust. He may have once worshipped her and desired her, but he did not love her. She felt the absence of that love with every ravenous kiss, every touch of his fingertips, every press of his body against hers.
She was grateful, all over again, for those stolen days, that sacred space, with Peter. If not for the radiant warmth she experienced from him, she would not have known how cold John truly was, how cold she had once been. Peter loved her. It was evident in every glance, every brush of his fingers against hers, every word he spoke. She felt the contrast, delighted in it, and felt herself fall in love with Peter all over again because of it. She felt the heat of that love burn in her heart and make John's advances as hollow and barren as a rotten tree.
The mating bond may have created an artificial intimacy, but it did not create love or affection. Such a powerful bond could be used as much to wound as to cherish, if in the wrong hands, and between Darling and John, the bond was a weapon more dangerous than flame on vampire flesh.
Darling knew that it was her hands which had been the ones to err. She had distorted and twisted what the bond was meant to do, unnaturally bending the most instinctive and primal of vampiric desires to suit her own aims. And she was now reaping her just reward for that violation. John was inextricably bonded to her and she had tortured him with that bond. Now, the tables were turned and he planned to extract his revenge. For decades, she had strung him along and tantalized him, like a chained dog unable to reach a bone. Now, his chain had snapped and he lunged.
She could not despise him for it, but she could despise herself. The angry, wrathful man before her was her own creation, forged in the fires of her own cruelty. She had used him as a tool, a decoy, a pawn, and now he rose up to decry his treatment and cry out for his just recompense. In John, she saw a mirror image of herself, and she hated him all the more for how ugly the truth of her reflection appeared.
Oooooo
For the following hours, which bled into days, but felt like years, John watched her as diligently as she watched him. It was entirely disconcerting - feeling those lingering, crawling eyes on her, where ever she went and whatever she did. For so many decades, he had been willing enough to pretend, to cover up how he felt, or to mask it with drink, but now, now he would not allow any pretenses to remain. They came crashing down and he openly drank her in, with as much dedication as the black bottle in his hand - unhurried, delicate, methodical imbibing.
When he paused to catch his breath between his pursuit of Darling, John hardly let a bottle out of his hand. (And Darling might have ensured his hand was never empty.) He nursed it gently, taking small sips at regular intervals, and letting himself remain somewhere between unconsciousness and an altered state. He remained somewhere between the living and the dead, as her sire had most often been, in that place where only the most primal, feral of vampiric instincts were allowed to reign. She recognized the traces of madness, the signs which told her that the being before her was ruled by something other than reason. This was how her sire had been most of the time, before the end.
She might have helped.
With her sire, Darling had gained her power through his dissatisfaction. If she only gave a taste, a touch, a glimmer, he would eat from her hands forever in hopes of more. With John, it was his satiation which gave her power. She drowned him in gluttonous ecstasy, in perpetual euphoria, to the point where he quite literally did not remember his own name or the line between fantasy and reality or that anything existed outside of Tiger Lily's Camp. He may not have entirely lost consciousness, but his mind was no longer his own.
It was her shielded mind which proved a greater asset than any other in this. When his other desires were sated, she needed to make sure his mind stayed occupied and did not wander from this room or return to his jealousy. Without any other voice to compete or interrupt, the novelty of this foray into her forbidden mind was enough to lure him in, every time.
Can I tell you a story, John? Her mind whispered to him, in those quiet in between times. When his eyes turned to her, she continued. It is the time that Peter Pan rescued Wendy from Captain Hook. Now, I want you to imagine that you are Peter, in this story, and I am Wendy. You can feel the movement of the ship beneath your feet, the salt of the sea air, the stench of the unwashed pirates… Do you see it?
In her mind, she conjured her own images and fantastical whimsies. When he closed his eyes and leaned back in repose, she knew she had transported him far, far from here. So, she continued telling stories. As soon as one ended, she began another. He lapped them from her, eagerly entering into her imaginings and letting her immerse his mind in hers, all the more so when she cast him as the hero and herself as the heroine.
Now, you are Captain Hook, and I am Tinkerbell…
I am Cinderella and you are the handsome prince…
In this story, you are Bran, the lord of this castle, and I am your devoted bride…
Today, you are King Shahryar and I am Shahrazád…
Now, you are Edward, the dangerous vampire who holds me, Badiyah, the weak human, captive to do your will…
On and on, she whispered her tales into his mind, painting such vivid imagery that, when combined with her scent, her touch, her taste, and the bottles of medicine she poured down his throat, she could hardly rouse him back to reality.
He forgot to search for Peter. He did not once think of Slightly or the Braves. He could not think of anything except Darling.
All the while, Darling could not think of anything except her mate, separated from her by only a wall, chained against his will by her own hand. She felt, with every atom of her body, her betrayal, her falseness. He would, rightly, be devastated to see her now, willingly embracing another man, proving herself every bit as false as he always believed her to be. She did not think she could forgive herself, either, but she would never forgive herself if harm came to him.
Sometimes, she considered sending him messages to let him know she was alive. She quickly decided against it. The shame that gripped her was too much, and she could not open her mind to him, not while she was held in the arms of another.
By her growing thirst, three or four days must have past before John remembered he existed still. When she finished another story, John did not give her the opportunity to continue. Instead, he rose to his feet and began to rifle through a crate. Then, he turned back. She did not like the crooked smile that grew there or the hungry, greedy look that filled his eyes after he considered her.
"I'll be right back," he said. "I won't be gone long."
Then, he opened up the wooden doors, and left her. Alone.
She felt such a relief that she could have laughed. She knew better than to let such an opportunity pass her by. She lunged for the nearest communication panel and desperately began to type onto the screen. If she could only send a message to Slightly, she could rest easy. She had not gotten farther than discovering that all communications to the outside world were blocked before she realized her mistake. An error message began flashing across the screen. She needed to override the entire program to hide the message, but she had not gotten halfway through the process when she heard footsteps in the hall and the door flew open.
John was there, a bag strapped around his shoulders which had not been there before. John's crooked smile fell faster than his footsteps behind her and he crossed the room to catch her hand in his before she could move away. He made a disappointed clicking sound with his tongue, like a parent chiding an erring child.
He brought her wrists together and yanked her arms so hard that she nearly toppled over. Instead, he pulled her across the room and up the dais.
"Tell me, my Lady, what is it that has you so upset that you would risk my ire to communicate with one of the others? What is it you need Slightly for? Is it that you permit him the same liberties you allow to Peter? Or do you use all the Lost Boys like you have Peter and I? If any of them are found within a mile of Neverland, I promise you that you will spend eternity staring at their decapitated heads."
She didn't bother trying to defend herself or even speaking. It had been a desperate, foolhardy attempt. If it had worked, she would have happily paid whatever price in recompense. Now that it had failed, she felt keenly its loss and the corresponding loss of future opportunities.
He forced her onto her knees and then he sat on the throne, her hands still clasped in his left hand and pressed against his thigh. Then, with his right, he opened up the bag and withdrew two milk bottles.
"Here, Darling, drink," he commanded, his use of her name not a term of endearment but one of accusation, of claiming his authority over her through the acquisition of the familial term.
He opened the first bottle and bent over her to thrust it into her mouth and began to pour. She turned away, spluttering and gagging on the taste, on the idea, on the violation.
It was Pirate's blood... John's blood... Peter's blood. It was Anthony's blood and it was Edward's blood.
It was delicious. It was abhorrent. It was the very best and worst of scents, inextricably tangled up in the nostalgia of all her best and worst memories. She would rather drink her own blood than his.
"I am not thirsty," she said.
"Oh, but I think you are," he hissed back. He brought her hands closer onto his lap so he could hold her in place like a vice. Then he forced the bottled between her teeth so hard that he chipped the edge of the bottle against her teeth. Her attempts to fight him only resulted in her baptism in Pirate blood and the scent clung to her clothes and her hair until she felt ill. He poured the liquid from the bottle down her throat, not pausing for her to sputter or choke or minding that trickles overflowed from her lips and down onto the floor. By the time both bottles were emptied, her eyes had transformed from onyx to ruby and she lay gasping and coughing on the floor.
"It suits you, my Lady," John whispered into her ear. He used one finger to clean away a smear of blood from her chin and then he licked his finger in a slow, intentional movement, his eyes never leaving hers. "How does it taste? Is it as delicious as our medicine?"
"It is foul," she spat back, expelling what remained in her mouth onto his shoes.
"Only because you have decided against it, in that stubborn mind of yours. Forget about its source and focus on the taste, the way it calls to you, the way it overcomes all your senses, the way it was made only for you."
He released her hands and sat back on the throne, his hands behind his head. She remained crouched on the floor before him and he watched her eagerly, as if waiting for something. In a stand off, the pair waited and watched. When nothing happened, except for the flurry of curses and oaths Darling expelled against his person, John frowned.
"No matter. There will be more for you. I will continue to meet all your needs, as I have always done and you will learn to love it. To need it. You will want it more than anything, when it is all you have."
She wondered, then, if they were still speaking of blood. She rather thought they might not be.
"Well, you are a messy eater," he said with a mirthless chuckle, when he looked down upon the spilled blood covering her dress. "It is good I thought to bring you a change of clothes. Here I am, thinking only to feed you and clothe you, while you are trying to replace me with another as soon as my back is turned. What a heartless, fickle wretch you are! I wonder, does your Peter know how easily you replace him? Before his scent even goes cold on your skin, you allow another to take his place. How I will delight in sharing my mind with him, once I find him."
He pulled one of her dresses from his satchel and lay it out before her, as if he were the very picture of thoughtful generosity. She glared at him and threw it back in his face.
"Oh, you prefer to bask in the scent of my blood? I cannot say I blame you. I have stayed many a day in your blood, just to remember how very sweet it is and dream of when I can taste it next. If it were just us two, I would let you remain as you are. Still, we cannot have you welcoming the Volturi like this, now, can we? What will Aro think?"
He bent over her and with a single motion, he tore her soiled dress in half, leaving her exposed to the room. She clung to what remained of the fabric and growled menacingly as he tried to approach her again.
"I see. You wish to welcome Aro as you are. Very well. I don't think he'll mind. Come, then. He approaches as we speak."
"He… he's here?" Darling asked, forgetting her anger long enough to let his words register.
"Didn't you hear me? Yes. He has come."
She relented then and dressed herself in the change of clothes John held out to her, ignoring the smug look of victory on his face as he did.
So, it would be the Volturi before the Braves… she thought, quickly shifting her potential plans in order to make this work in her favor. She hoped she could make this work in her favor.
John opened the main doors from one of the control consoles and he bade the visitors to enter. Then he settled himself back on the gilded throne, crown balanced on the center of his head. He opened up a new black bottle and drank half of it before he lazily balanced what remained on his outstretched palm while the row upon row of footsteps walked towards them, encroaching ever closer.
John opened the wooden doors and the Volturi shuffled in – the entire guard and their wives. When the entirety of the cavernous room was filled with grey cloaks, John took another swig from the bottle, swished it around his mouth, swallowed loudly, and opened up his arms wide.
"So, you've come at last, have you?" he drawled. "Welcome to Neverland."
From the center of the grey-cloaked figures, Aro stepped forward and gave a venomous, nearly gleeful grin. "At last. We meet. You cannot possibly imagine how I have looked forward to this day."
Oooo
"The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was make-believe, while to him make-believe and true were exactly the same thing."
J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
ooo
We still have a ways before dawn, but dawn will come, eventually.
