Belief Extraordinary

Freedom

The worst part about being tied to the tree was that it gave her time to think. She had failed in her mission to distract Pan, and so chances were good that by the end of the day, the Lost Boys would know she had kissed him. She could always disappear again, she supposed, but that felt way too much like losing, to Felix no less, for her to be ok with it. Maybe it won't be so bad, she told herself. Maybe they wouldn't lose all respect for her. Because they had so much of that to begin with, the less wholesome voice in her mind oozed. Dressing like a girl, kissing their leader – just what do you think they'll say about you? I wonder.

She shook her head with a growl, wincing as it knocked against the tree. Surely her friends among the Lost Boys wouldn't treat her differently, even if the rest of them did? It might take them some time to adjust but...they'd come around, probably. And if they didn't...she was half-way tempted to cheat, to port away from the hateful ropes until she found Pan and could tackle him to the ground, properly this time, to keep him from setting foot on Dead Man's peak until the rest of her team had made it. She knew in her heart however, that would never work – if she cheated, the team would be disqualified.

If she could just get away from the tree, even with her hands still tied, she might at least be able to try and distract him again. Maybe the shock of seeing her escape – if she could even catch up to him – would be enough to stall a few precious moments more. And if nothing else, at least she'd have a lot more room to breathe. She struggled to lift both legs off of the ground. If there were any room at all, she'd – there! Slowly but surely, Sarah felt herself inch down along the trunk. She could feel the rope cut tight against her bodice, and was happy for the protection of the leather. Her arms were not so lucky, and as they passed under the ropes, they stung. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as it ran roughly over her bandage. It might have been her imagination, but she thought she felt it tear. In the end, she was rewarded when she sank at last in a heap on the jungle floor.

There was just one problem now. Her hands remained above her, as he'd tied her to the tree with the same rope that bound her hands. Gingerly she stood, examining the circle of knots around her hands. The tie-line to the tree, at least, she thought she could untie. It was fastened over the ropes on her hands, and after some frustrating work with her teeth, it came free. She had no such luck with her wrist bindings. Frustrated but determined, she finally threw the length of rope over her shoulders, and set off at a fumbling run through the jungle.

The absence of Lost Boys as she ran was disquieting, to say the least. Had the game already ended? She didn't think she'd been out of commission for that long, but it was hard to tell with the way time passed on the island. At last, over the sounds of her own huffing and puffing as the ground began to rise, she heard the sounds of combat. She slowed, gasping to try and catch her breath as quickly as she could. When she no longer sounded like a dying fish, she crept forward. There was no way she'd be able to fight anyone with her hands tied up, so staying out of sight until she found Pan was her best bet.

There he was! He was moving through a crush of Lost Boys, from Nibs' team as well as her own, as gracefully as if he were dancing. How many years of practice, she wondered, did it take to disarm your opponents with that tiny flick of the wrist, all while you were speeding towards a goal? It wasn't easy terrain, either. She knew now where she was, saw the boys picking fights along the ridge by the pond. None, she was pleased to see, were attempting to scale the boulders to reach their goal.

She had made that quite impossible, in the time she'd been away from camp. Long thick vines now covered the rocks, full to bursting with lengthy thorns that spiked in clusters along every bit of the plant. It wasn't all bad, for she'd imagined flowers too – velvety blue drops like ladies' skirts, dark as the night sky with yellow stamens hanging down like the clapper of a bell. She thought they were beautiful – but the thorns were the focal point. She'd been dwelling on her anger towards Felix that day.