With one last look at Peter, Wendy stood and turned to face the shadow. “He doesn’t need to save me.” She planted her feet, placing herself between Peter and the trapped kids, and the shadow in its tree. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I won’t let you take any of them from me,” Wendy said, raising her voice.

Small, panicked voices rose behind her.

“Wendy!”

“Don’t!”

The shadow threw back its head and let out a screeching laugh. “You are terrified!” the shadow howled with cruel mirth. Its smile stretched, peeling back over sharp teeth, ear to ear. “I can smell it on you, Wendy Darling. It spills from your eyes and seeps from your skin.”

It was right. Her knees shook, her eyes burned and she was drenched in a cold sweat, but she refused to back down. “I won’t let you hurt them anymore!” she shouted at the shadow.

A low growl grew in the shadow’s throat. “You dare try to stand up to me?” its voice boomed. Shadows swirled and circled the base of the tree.

“You think you’re so powerful, but all you do is go around frightening little kids!” Wendy shouted.

“Wendy Darling,” the shadow growled. “You can’t save any of them, just like you couldn’t save your brothers!”

The words shook her to her core, but she remained standing.

“Because of you, they’re doomed to wander the in-between, unable to rest or find peace!”

Her brothers’ cries filled the air. Wendy tried to find them, but their cries for help swirled with the building shadows, circling her and pressing in.

“Your own mother and father can hardly even look at you!” the shadow shouted. “You are nothing but a reminder of what they lost!”

Dark thoughts invaded Wendy’s mind. The closed door to her old room. The muffled sound of her mother crying in the bathroom. The reek of alcohol coming off her father as he slumped over his desk. Wind whipped through her hair, which slapped against her cheeks.

“John and Michael were killed because of you, Wendy Darling.” The words struck her like a kick in the gut. Wendy staggered.

Under the haunting voices, Wendy could still hear Ashley’s and Benjamin’s voices calling to her. Through the swarm of shadows circling her, she could barely make them out. The cage was beginning to fade, the bars quivering and thinning as the shadows were sucked into the smoky vortex around her.

The shadows were converging, forgetting about the trapped kids in order to rain horrors—terrible memories and the cries of John and Michael—down on Wendy. She watched as the kids tugged on the bars. Matthew had nearly gotten himself through, closely followed by Joel.