Peter by day, Pan by night

Chapter 21

        "I told you I'm busy." Peter drawls as he perches a few feet above me.

        "You!" I turn on him. None of this is fair. He makes up the rules and breaks them. "I won't let you take over my world!"

        Peter scoffs. "Do you really think you can stop me?"

        I stand as tall as I can, my chin lifted. I can try. The words are there, my answer waiting to be used. But Peter cannot see me as a threat if I am going to escape. I handled this evening all wrong.

        Slowly breathing in, I twist my hands in front of me. And say nothing.

        "I told you to go home while you could. You were the one who insisted on coming back." Peter glances around his room. The last time I was here, it was covered with broken glass. I had bandaged his hands and in return he had given me a warning. One I did not heed.

        "You could have told me what was going on. I didn't know. I didn't know that you were a monster."

        Peter crosses his legs and tilts his head back. "A monster? Do I look like one?" He raises his eyebrow, his green eyes glinting beneath his loose brown curls.

        "You act like one."

        "Well, sorry to disappoint you. But I really do have things to do now." Peter says, but he doesn't disappear. Not yet. He watches me.

        I sit down and finger the corner of his blanket. They are up all night long. It is unnatural. "Do you sleep at all?"

        "The curse changes us. We can sleep if we want to, but we don't need it."

        I look at his tired eyes, the dark circles hanging there, "You look like you need it." But I understand. Even though I felt tired all day, I am not tired now. Something in me wakes up during the night. I don't know if it is my energy or courage, but the night changes me too.

        Just not in the way it changes the rest of the island.

        "Always so honest and tactful." He replies sarcastically. "Just like a proper English girl should be."

        "I may be English, but I've never been proper. I was raised on the streets."

        "Actually you were raised in an orphanage."

        I tilt my head. Did I tell him that? I must have, if not, Kelvin could have filled him in. "Well, yes, but I have spent the last three years lost in the crowd."

        "Oh, how sad." He taunts me, "You may not believe it, but you aren't the only one who has had a rough life."

        "What would you know of life? You are hiding out here, too scared of Time to leave your island."

        "I am not scared of anything. Time should be scared of me. Besides, I did leave."

        I tighten my arms around my waist, but stay on the floor. "Yes, kidnapping me. What a noble cause." I hold up my hand when Peter starts to interrupt. "In the end, you are just a little boy spouting off empty threats."

        He looks down on me. "Little? Says the little girl who is too broken to fight back."

        "I am not broken. And I do fight back. But you've already proved you're stronger than me." I gesture at the cage of branches. "At least, your magic is stronger than me. If I try anything, you will hurt me."