Chapter 3
"Here is your shot, Little Tiger."
His voice crawls over her skin like a living thing, sticking and sliding and catching. She watches him and slowly pushes herself to her feet.
She knows what this is, it's the same sort of "lesson" as it had been the previous times. By now, she knows she can't kill him, she seriously doubts she can even truly touch him.
But, she launches herself at him anyway. Anger still hot in her veins, clouding her judgment.
He laughs as he turns away from her, forcing her to skid to a stop and whirl around to face him. He raises his arms back up, his eyebrows lifting in a very clear challenge.
She launches herself towards him again and this time, he grabs her wrist and pulls her in close, pinned to him, one arm across her chest while he wraps his hand around her throat, squeezing just tightly enough for her oxygen to be cut off.
"You must learn to use your opponent's body against them." His voice is right by her ear. She can hear the tightness of his voice, she can feel the coolness of his breath brushing her cheek, and she fights hard against the shiver that threatens to run through her body, "Watch their patterns, learn their movements. They can become your greatest weapon. Again."
He flicks his wrist and spins her away from him, almost like they are just partners and this is just simply a dance.
She glowers at him. She can fight and hold her own against any of the other lost boys. She knows she can. She's been forced to fight against them numerous times. But Pan isn't simply one of the Lost boys and she feels like a toddler; a stupid, clumsy toddler who has no hope of defeating Pan and getting off of this island.
"No," She says, her voice shaking.
Peter raises an eyebrow "You have no choice, my dear."
She glares at him, arms still crossed. He meets her glare, eyes cold as ice.
"Again."
X.X.X X.X.X X.X.X
She rushes through the trees, jumping over rocks and roots, knowing that if she so much as stumbles, he'd be on her within seconds. She launches herself deeper into the darkness beyond the camp without even risking a glance back. Everything is happening too fast. Too fast. Henry. While trying to navigate her way through a forest she hasn't seen in so long, she blinks her eyes wildly, to try and clear the images from what has just transpired.
Stupid apple. Henry. Crossbow. Felix with that stupid smirk. Peter holding her. Trying to help Henry. To get Pan away from him. Games. Stupid, dangerous Pan games.
Disney got it all wrong.
Peter is evil.
He's corrupting.
Everything he does now is filled with malice.
And yet, he hadn't always been like that. He was good, once upon a time. Sure, he was cold and calculating and pushed her to within an inch of her endurance. But he deep down, he had been good. Simply trying to survive in a world that had proved it was only out for itself.
The forest is old and and thick, only allowing the faintest of light through the dense canopy. It's not nearly enough to see, especially not in the haze she's in, only enough to turn the forest into a maze of frightening shadows and silhouettes. Tall twisted oaks stood like dark sentries, surrounded by dense bushes and recesses so black, they could have held almost anything.
She has a faint idea of where she's going, her urge to flee guiding her feet.
But something inside of him, has snapped. Gone was the goodness that he once allowed her to see. Gone was the boy who had trained her to be better. To survive. Gone was the boy she knew and loved. He got replaced by a real life monster. Once, she thought he was the monster that parents warned their children about, now she knows it. His cruelness isn't just something he hides behind now, it's something that's truly in his heart.
A heart she's supposed to save.
But how?
Calleigh's balance is ripped from her and she stumbles out of the blinding forest, onto a rock jutting out of the cliff side.
Her rock.
Where she would come to get some peace from all the boys. Where she could just think. Where the sound of the waves crashing down below has always been loud enough to drown out her thoughts. Where she had tried, so many times before, to end it all. But Pan had always been there to save her. She had once despised him for it.
X.X.X X.X.X X.X.X
He didn't let her stop, even when the sun began to rise. Every bone in her body aches and new bruises are beginning to blossom all over her body, mainly on her arms and stomach. Her attacks grow more and more feeble as she grows more and more tired but he is inhuman; he mocks her and deflects every potential blow like it is a gust of wind.
It might as well be.
He doesn't seem to grow tired. He offers her no sympathy or pity. He mocks her; laughs at her, and goads her.
She hates him but she's too tired to feel it with any real sort of fire.
"Again." He says as the sky lightens.
She's bent double, a hand on her burning rib cage. She tries to summon the energy to glower at him but as she's barely able to stand, it probably isn't a very powerful look
"Please."
"Again."
"I don't want to."
He bends forward, his hands on his knees, his eyes a mocking parody of sympathy "Did I ask what you wanted?"
"Please." Her voice is barely a whisper
Peter's is cold
"Again."
She slowly straightens herself up, glancing at the sun raising far over the ocean and she can't help but wish, for probably the hundredth time, that she can simply fly as far away from here as possible.
She puts no effort into the punches she swings at him and they have the effect she's expecting; none.
She doesn't have the energy to care.
After fifteen more minutes, Peter gives her an appraising look. She stands still, slouched over, her ribs burning, too tired to be afraid, and let him look at her.
She meets his gaze evenly
"Get some rest. You will be coming with us tonight."
He walks past her and she closes her eyes
"Fine."
X.X.X X.X.X X.X.X
She inhales once, deeply, before exhaling through her nose.
She had been so tired then, physically and mentally drained that it was the first time she had taken the step over the edge.
She hadn't cared that it would be painful. That she might have survived it.
She hadn't cared.
But Peter had, he didn't leave her like she thought he had. He saved her before taking her back to camp. And after that, he hadn't let her go too far out of his sight. But, he had also eased up on the mocking and the goading, just enough to still push her, but not enough to push her fragile state too far again.
He'd been good... to some extent.
The air suddenly shifts behind her.
It's him, she knows without looking.
Calleigh turns around to find him materializing out of the darkness a few feet away from her.
She takes another deep breath and simply lets herself look at Peter. Slowly, he makes his way towards her, shadows coalescing over the trees behind him, as if following him. Her whole being tightens and throbs with an awareness of him. All her senses seem heightened now.
He rules them all.
"Lily." Careful not to startle her away from him, he sits down across from her and gently takes hold of her hands. Cool fingers gently stroke them as Peter gazes at her, eyes unreadable.
He isn't sorry for what he did. She can see it in his face. She just wishes that he would let her in again, so that she can know what he's planning with Henry.
She won't allow him to hurt her brother.
Even if it means she has to kill him.
Peter's eyes flicker back and forth between hers, the night wind blows through their hair and clothes. The weight of his stare is almost unbearably penetrating. Edginess radiates off him, the way she's certain that unease must be bristling off of her.
"You've lost all your trust in me." It isn't a question, and her heart squeezes at the rawness of the emotion in his expression and roughing up his voice
"Yes." Her voice is barely audible over the sound of the crashing waves below.
Peter's eyes flash, "You weren't supposed to be taken away from me. Everything changed. Everything was confusing. I lost you and I couldn't find you. My heart... my soul was tangled and webbed with hurt and lies and pain." His voice is low and gritty, like rusty nails, "I didn't understand it. I looked for you everywhere I could think. I felt you, constantly, tugging at the edge of my conscience... but I couldn't reach you. It was... maddening. Remember what I always told you? Harm to you, means death to another. I couldn't find anyone to blame... to harm for you disappearing like that. Now I know. Rumple. He will pay, Lily, he will pay for all those years we lost. For taking you away. For everything."
Her gaze jerks up to his, the dark promise she finds there unsettles her nerves. She knows he is protective of her, but this is... this is something more than that. Darker than that. Rumpelstiltskin may have done a lot of things in the past... but he still adopted her. Took care of her. Protected her in a world where she didn't even know her real name.
She has to stop him.
One way or another.
Or else, her family will pay dearly.
He pulls her towards him, holding her tightly against his chest "You're home now, Lily. With me. Where you belong."
Her heart aches. This path they're on... it's full of jagged edges and unknown peril. She feels like she's navigating dark and stormy waters, and that she's either going to pull them both out or drown with him.
She doesn't know which.
All she knows is, if she doesn't find a way to save Peter, then more people than just the two of them are going to suffer.
Horribly.
A/N: You guys seriously rock! Your reviews make my day. :)
I won't be able to update as often as I want for the next month or so, seeing as I am currently busy prepping for final math and physics, so yeah, I want to spend all my energy on that. But after the 15th of Nov, you can expect a lot more frequent updates.