She can just see him between their legs, flashes of hair and skin. Rufus’ spine arches terribly as one of the boys grabs his head, wrenching it back, and for a moment her heart refuses to beat. She is certain this is where it will happen, a blade driven home, a knife slit across his throat. She cannot see for crying now, can scarcely catch her breath between choking, hiccupping sobs. This time, there is no mistaking the tortured sound that comes from Rufus over the chaos of the boys. It’s all animal. A scream. It is all fear.
She cannot run toward him, but she can run away, and she does, hating herself as she flees. She fully believes that Peter could compel Rufus, or any of them, to do anything. He could make Rufus believe he is a boar, completely and utterly, make him believe it so strongly that he would become one.
A root catches her foot and sends her sprawling. She skids on the path, her breath cutting out, pain shocking through her as she tries and fails to catch herself. For a moment, all she wants to do is lie there, curl in on herself and sob. Let Peter find her. What does she care anymore?
In the next breath though, the thought fills her with dread. She cannot stay. She cannot let Peter take her away from herself. She doesn’t belong in Neverland. She isn’t a lost girl. She has a home. She has parents. She has a name, and it isn’t Wendy… She’s—Jane!
The name is suddenly there, wrested from behind the curtain in her mind. Jane slaps a bruised and dirt-smudged hand over her mouth, muffling a sound between a shout and a sob. Everything comes rushing back to her—the stricken look on her mother’s face as she was pulled through the window and all the stars went plummeting by, the cold as they flew, Peter’s hand wrapped around her wrist and how the whole time she was afraid of falling.
She remembers the moment they passed through. There’s no better word she can think of for it. The sky around her changed in ways that shouldn’t even be possible, and yet it happened. It was like passing through water, surfacing through a puddle and suddenly being on the other side of everything she’d ever known. After that, the stars whirling past weren’t the same ones visible from her window at home. She isn’t even certain how she could tell, only that she knew, felt it deep inside, the sense of being somewhere else, somewhere wrong.
She remembers shouting for her mother. Then shouting for Peter to let her go, even though she didn’t know his name then. As soon as she’d made the demand, she’d become terrified that he would comply and she’d plummet out of the sky. She’d swallowed her voice, squeezing her eyes tight shut so it had been a surprise when they finally landed, thumping down hard on the sand.
When she’d opened her eyes, she’d been dazed by bright sunlight, another impossibility, for a moment ago they’d been flying through the dark. She’d felt bruised from striking the ground, but she’d scrambled up as fast as she could, kicking at Peter, scratching, trying to bite him, trying to throw sand in his eyes. She’d called him names, screaming at him, unladylike things that would horrify her grandfather if he could see her, but which might, just might, make her mother proud though she would never admit it.
All the while Peter had only laughed at her, as if it were all part of a game. Every time Jane had lunged at him, he’d dodged neatly, or leapt into the air, flying a circle around her, swooping and cawing. She remembers being humiliated, tears of frustration burning in her eyes, feeling powerless and small. When at last she’d exhausted herself, sitting down to catch her breath, Peter had landed and crouched beside her. Even though they were the same height when she’d been trying to fight him, he’d seemed so much bigger then, looming over her in a way she couldn’t understand.
“There now, Wendy. Why are you so upset? You should be pleased. You’re back home in Neverland where you belong.”
“I’m not Wendy. I’m Jane!” She’d shoved him then, as hard as she could, bursting upward and trying to kick him again even though she was tired, hurt, and frightened.
The grin he’d worn as he looked down at her vanished, his face closing up like storm clouds rolling over the sun. He’d gripped her chin with one hand, his face inches from hers, holding her so there was no way to look anywhere but at him. She couldn’t even close her eyes, though she tried; it was as though they had been stitched open.
“No more fighting. It isn’t fun anymore. You’re Wendy and you’re here to have fun, but only so long as you follow my rules.”
He’d been angry, but at the same time, his voice had been strangely soothing. Jane remembers that, the contradiction. Even shouting, he’d been whispering, and he sounded reasonable, even nice. Despite everything, she wanted to keep listening to him. She wanted to do as he said, and at the same time, her heart kicked against her ribs.
She tried to squirm in his grip, spit in his face, scream at him, but every part of her felt heavy. For all the thrashing in her mind, she hadn’t been able to move at all. Peter’s eyes, fixed on hers, turned a color she’d never seen eyes go before. It was like staring into a fire, or looking directly at the sun. Light had flowed across his irises, like a ring
