He opened one eye and tilted his head to look up at her. “Mm?” he hummed.

She wasn’t sure how to phrase her question. “Are you— Do you think the shadow is going to come for you again?” she asked. “Are you any safer here? With me?”

Peter frowned as if he hadn’t considered it. “I’m not sure,” he confessed with a shrug.

Wendy’s fingers brushed against the acorn where it hung at the center of her chest.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Peter added earnestly.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” she told him. She needed to keep Peter safe. If the shadow showed up, would she be able to protect him? The uncertainty did little to soothe her already frayed nerves. “Will you wake me up if anything happens?” she asked.

“You’ll be the first to know,” Peter told her with a nod.

Wendy reached out and clicked off her fairy lights, plunging the room into darkness. She never slept with them off, but she didn’t want Peter to think she was a child who couldn’t sleep without a nightlight. Wendy pulled the covers over her. The weight of them felt reassuring, but almost immediately she got too hot. Summer was no time to be hiding under a down comforter. She pushed it off. Wendy closed her eyes and tried to force herself to fall asleep, but her imagination wouldn’t let her. She rolled onto her other side. Every noise outside startled her and every shadow in her room seemed to shift.

Every nerve in her body was tense and screaming. She couldn’t relax. There was no way she could fall asleep.

Wendy’s hand shot out and clicked the fairy lights back on.

Peter was already watching.

“Sorry, I … can’t,” Wendy muttered. Shame sweltered on her skin. She felt like she needed to explain herself to him. “I—”

“It’s okay,” was all Peter said. His voice was gentle, which only made her feel more pathetic.

Wendy rolled onto her back and tried to will herself to sleep, but her mind wandered to the woods.

The gentle chirping of crickets drifted to her ears. She looked over at Peter. His eyes were closed, arms still tucked lazily behind his head, but his mouth was pressed into a small circle. Delicate cricket chirps flowed past his lips. Wendy blinked slowly, admiring the warm glow of the fairy lights on his skin. The slight dip in his throat. The trail of freckles down his bare arms. Wendy’s eyes slid shut. She drifted off with Peter’s cricket song and his smell enveloping her, lulling her to sleep with thoughts of Neverland.

CHAPTER 18

Pain