Escaping Neverland (9 page)

The thought of being the Captain’s prisoner made
me shudder. I wondered if I could bring Jake’s drawings to life, or if my magic
only worked with living things. I resolved to try it before leaving on the
mission, knowing that if the Captain could use me as he could use Jake, that
any “rescue” from William would likely result in my death if Jake were not
there to stop him. If Jake was even able to think right after being brainwashed
by the Captain.

I stood up and looked at William. “Tell me when
you leave. If you leave without me, I’ll just follow along and make everything
harder.”

He rolled his eyes and went back to the group of
children, while I went to draw a small mechanical horse. To my relief, when I’d
drawn it, and put in its eyes, nothing at all happened. If it didn’t have real,
seeing eyes, apparently I couldn’t bring it to life. Not that handing over the
ability to bring any living creature I could imagine in my head to life would
be a good ability to hand over to the Captain, but at least he couldn’t use me
to make more iron weapons if he caught me.

Without anything else to do or anyone to talk to,
I laid down and thought of how I might convince the Queen to send me and Jake
back home once we’d rescued him, even if he was still loyal to the Captain. I
had a feeling she might not be so helpful if it meant losing the one person
that could heal their disfiguring and deadly iron wounds.

“Ugh,” I said softly. “Nothing’s ever easy.”

Lavender gave a little chirp of acknowledgement
but didn’t move, so I lay as quietly as I could and pretended to be asleep.

I was working on another one of the steel horses
when the Captain came into the workroom. I hadn’t seen the Captain since before
he’d left for the battle with the fae and didn’t know if he knew that I’d tried
to abort the mission.

Not knowing if the Captain knew made me nervous.
After dropping a screwdriver twice, I finally put it down on my work bench and
sat down.

The Captain sat across from me, flipping through
the new book of drawings I had completed the night before. After finishing up
the ground transport, I was moving on to helicopters. They were easy to draw,
since I already knew what made up a helicopter, and I’d been able to make a
number of improvements, my magic showing me the easiest way. After seeing the
slaughter of the fae the day before, the designs no longer felt like magic on
the page. I no longer grinned when one of my creations took its first step.
Instead, I shuddered, imagining what it would be used for and how many people
it would kill.

I’d tried to excuse my guilt by pointing out to
myself that the fae weren’t human, but I’d seen how the little fairies cried
when one of their own died. I’d seen how angry they were. They might not be
human, but they could think, and feel, and love, and my creations had taken
that all away. The thought made me want to throw myself off the ship, but the
Captain had ordered me to stay in the workroom, and I’d found I couldn’t even
put one foot outside the door without breaking down into a sweating, shivering
mess.

“So, Jake. You’ve handed me a decisive victory,”
the Captain said.

I didn’t answer, braving the Captain’s displeasure
to keep my eyes down.

“If you’re worried I’ll be mad about your attempt
to shut the machines down, you needn’t be. I didn’t bring you here to kill
things, Jake. I brought you here to build me things that kill things. That’s
why I had Terence double-check your work. But, from now on,
you will not
interfere with my plans in any way
. Is that understood?”

I felt the magic working on me, sinking into my
brain and settling there, like a snake ready to strike. I nodded. “Yes, sir,” I
said.

“Good.” The Captain stood up to leave, but then
stopped. “Your friend, the girl that came here with you. What was her skill
again?”

I felt my heart thump once, hard in my chest, and
was disgusted at the jealousy that came flooding in after it. Paige had always
been a better artist than me. The thought of the Captain taking interest in her
made me angry, even if what the Captain was making me do was wrong. For once, I
was better at something than she was.

“She can draw, sir,” I said, no more able to avoid
answering a direct question than I was able to stop breathing.

“Hmm…It seems that I may have been mistaken about
sending her back to Earth. She’s still here and has the ability to heal the fae
of their iron wounds, simply by drawing them back to health. Remarkable, isn’t
it? They say she created a winged horse from a drawing before a group of them
left with my brother.”

I didn’t answer, eyes blinking fast and furious at
the tabletop. If she could draw things and bring them to life, the Captain
would have no use for me. I didn’t pay any attention to the Captain’s talk of
his brother. I had no idea who that was and didn’t care. My life was this
workroom.

I thought back to the last time Paige and I had
competed against each other. It’d been in seventh grade and we’d decided to go
our science projects alone instead of working on them together as we’d done in
the past. I’d modified one of those pet electronic dogs to do a ton of new
tricks. I thought for sure I’d win.

Paige had raised a whole bunch of Monarch
butterflies, videotaped the whole process, and released them. She’d gotten all
sorts of emails from people on the east coast who’d recaptured them and
contacted her based on the info she’d stuck to their wings with little
stickers. She’d won the fair. I’d gotten a pat on the shoulder and a “Good job.
Nice trick.”

The memory made me angry all over again. The
Captain’s hook digging into my shoulder brought me back to the present.

“I’d like you to program your creations to
recognize her. Could you draw a picture of her?” the Captain asked.

I shrugged and then yelped as the Captain hit me
across the shoulders, knocking me from my stool and knocking the breath out of
me.

“Can you or not?” the Captain asked.

“Yes,” I gasped, trying to get my breath back.

“Good. Have the creatures retrieve her for me if
they spot her. I don’t want her harmed.” The Captain left, leaving yet another
lurking snake in my mind. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop myself from
beginning the drawing of her.

As I was typing the commands into the computer
console that monitored my iron creatures, I fought down the irrational jealousy
and felt a moment of true despair.

Paige was still here. And now, it was my own
creations that were going to hunt her down and enslave her to the Captain.

I awoke to a hard kick in my ribs. I glared up
through the fuzzy darkness to find William standing over me, his hands on his
hips and lips turned up into a smile.

“Wake up. We’re leaving,” he said.

I resisted the urge to kick him in the balls and
went to Stormy. After securing my bag around my shoulders, I led her over to a
fallen log and hopped onto her back, tucking my knees in front of her wing
joints. I’d ridden a lot as a little kid and was grateful that the memory of
how to sit and hold myself came flooding back. Whether those lessons would help
when she was flying was something I’d just have to wait and find out.

I reached for Lavender on my shoulder, holding her
in my open palm.

“Lavender, I’m sorry, but you can’t come with me.”

She chirped and cocked her head before pointing at
the ship and stomping her little foot.

I shook my head. “No, you can’t. The ship’s made
of iron. If you come with me, you might get hurt.”

Lavender hissed and then hung her head. She patted
my hand and then flew off into the trees.

With Lavender gone, I couldn’t help but start
worrying about the trip. The idea of falling a couple hundred of feet into the
ocean made me feel nauseous, so I focused instead on how soft the mare’s fur
was under my hands and how silky her mane felt as it brushed my fingers.

William led us to the edge of the jungle, and
without a single glance at the fae gathered there, leapt into the air and was
gone in the darkness. Wondering if Stormy was able to fly without a running
start, I pulled back on her mane and lifted my butt off her back, just as I
would if I were sending her over a jump.

The first powerful down stroke of her wings nearly
unseated me, but with the second and third, I managed to straighten myself up
in time to see the ground falling away underneath us. She’d burst into the air
like a bird, using her hind legs to propel her several feet before catching
herself with her wings.

I immediately began to feel sick. Although her
body was solid and comforting beneath me, the way her wing beats rocked my
stomach had me clenching my teeth against the bile rising in my throat. When
she swooped into a long glide, wings flexing and twitching to catch and keep
the wind currents, I had to swallow down the mess of food that came up.
Great.
You get airsick and so you made a flying horse. Brilliant
, I thought to
myself.

I was so wrapped up in trying not to throw up on
myself, I didn’t realize that we’d come even with William, and was grateful
Stormy had had the sense to chase after him on her own.

“You going to throw up again?” he asked.

I shook my head, too scared to open my mouth, and
glared at him. He laughed, not worrying about anyone hearing him way up here,
and pointed down at the ship where it rested in the harbor.

“You stay up here. When I find him, I’ll send you
a signal.”

I shook my head, still worried that William might
just change his mind and kill Jake instead of trying to rescue him.

“I’m going in with you,” I said.

William looked at Stormy. “How are you going to
land without making a ton of noise? You’ll give us away for sure,” he said.

“I’ll ask her to be as quiet as she can and she
will. Don’t worry about it,” I said.

William was quiet for a moment. “If you get
caught, I’ll try to come for you.”

I looked at him, thinking back to his comments
about missing me if I died.

“I’m sorry I left you in the power station and
didn’t help very much at your trial. I was very angry.”

I didn’t really know how to answer that, but
figured I ought to try. “Well, I was pretty angry too, I guess. I’m sorry too.”
I paused for a moment, then managed a smile. “Friends?”

William looked at me, floating along with his arms
across his chest, and then shook his head. “I don’t want to be friends,” he
said.

Before I could pull Stormy away, William drifted
in, put his hands on either side of my face, and kissed me. It was a deep kiss
and startled me out of my nausea. He pulled back.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

I blinked, confused for a moment. “Ready?” I
asked. My lips were tingling from the kiss and new little butterflies unrelated
to my air sickness were jumping in my belly.

William pointed down at the ship and arched an
eyebrow.

I started to shake my head “no,” and then realized
that I really didn’t have a choice and nodded instead.

“Alright, here we go.” William cut away from us,
sinking through the air in free fall.

I held Stormy back and leaned forward. “I need you
to land on the deck of the ship as quietly as you can,” I said in her ear.
“Then you need to go and circle high up and watch for me to come out of the ship.
Can you do that?”

Her ears flicked back and she made a little horse
noise, so I figured that meant she understood.

I sat back and took a deep breath. “Alright then.
Let’s go.”

Stormy folded her wings behind her and fell
through the sky like a falling star. The feeling made my stomach lurch again,
but I clamped down on it. I didn’t dare close my eyes with the deck of the ship
rushing up at me. With a deep breath, Stormy snapped her wings out at the last
second, grunting with the effort, and landed on the deck of the ship right next
to where William stood waiting, eyes roving over the ship for any sentries. I
waited for someone to come running at the sound of Stormy’s wings, but when
everything stayed quiet, I let out the breath I’d been holding and waved her
off the ship.

When I looked back at William, he was holding a
white stone in his hands, pointing it in different directions. I couldn’t see
anything happening to it, so it must have been getting warm or something,
because he pointed towards the back of the ship and started walking.

As we went, we stayed as close to the walls or
structures on the deck as we could, but we didn’t see anyone at all and
eventually came to a door with a set of stairs leading upwards. In the
stairwell, I kept expecting someone to come running at the sound of our boots
on the metal steps, but the ship remained as quiet as a graveyard. It didn’t
feel right.

I grabbed on to William’s arm to stop him and
pulled my back pack off. With trembling fingers, I retrieved my sketch pad and
began to fill in one of the spider’s eyes. It was hard to focus so intently on
something when I was worried that we were about to get captured, but when the
spider appeared on the steps below us and didn’t move, I knew I’d done it
right.

“Follow us,” I said. “If anyone comes, bite them.
Don’t eat them!” I added, repulsed at the idea. The spider was even bigger than
the ones I’d seen on the river bank, nearly the size of a pony, and it made my
skin crawl. I must have misjudged their size in my head, my fear making them
seem bigger than they actually were in reality.

The spider didn’t do anything to indicate it
understood my orders, but as we continued up the stairs, it stayed behind us,
its legs making soft little clicks on the metal floor. When we came to the top
of the stairs, William opened the door and peeked out. Without any warning at
all, he darted out, letting it slam in my face. I nearly fell backwards down
the stairs, but a cold prickly touch on my back righted me. I darted a look at
the spider, equal parts grossed out and grateful, and then opened the door.

William was gone.

Damn it!
I shouted in my head. I bit my lip
and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath.
I can do this
, I told myself.
Before leaving the stairwell, I finished another drawing of a spider, giving it
the same orders as the first. With another deep breath, I opened the door and
stepped out, careful to hold the door for the spiders, and took a look around.

I was standing in a hallway with no doors in
sight. I could go right or left. I chose right without taking the time to think
about it. When I rounded a corner and came to a door, I tried it, but it didn’t
open. Resisting the urge to kick the door in frustration, I continued on. There
wasn’t anything else to do. I tried three more doors before I found one that
opened.

I stepped into a dark room lit only by a large
bank of computer monitors. Wires snaked every which way. When a voice spoke
from the darkness, I almost peed myself.

“Do you have a message for me?” the voice asked.

I peered through the gloom, finally spotting a
small boy behind one of the computer monitors. His hair was rough and uneven,
and he had a bruise spreading over one eye and cheek.

“Uh, no messages for you…” I trailed off, my brain
whirling. “I have a message for Jake and I can’t remember which of the
workshops the Captain keeps him in.”

The boy stared at me, obviously suspicious, and
then shrugged, as if he didn’t really care if he could trust me or not. “Three
more down. Tell him Terence said hi.””

I nodded and slid backwards out of the room,
nearly tripping over one of the spiders. It scurried back, black eyes gleaming
in the cold lights from the hallway, and I shivered again, glad they were on my
side. I counted the doors as I walked down the hallway, wondering what was
behind them, and stopped at the third door. I stood there for a moment, trying
to gather my courage, and then opened it and stepped through.

The workroom was crowded with big pieces of steel,
computer parts, and wires, all jumbled around a big open space in the middle. I
heard a clank and a quiet curse. It was Jake. I’d know his voice anywhere.
Before I could stop myself, I called out.

“Jake?”

The noises from the middle of the room stopped. I
could hear him breathing. And then one of the piles of metal moved, standing up
and forming into a huge metal wolf. Its eyes, small cameras, glowed for a
moment with an eerie blue light, and then it dashed towards me. With a girlish
shriek, I scrambled backwards. This time I did trip over one of the spiders.
The wolf sailed over the top of me, colliding with a huge crash of screeching
metal into the wall next to the door.

“Paige?” Jake yelled.

I could hear the panic in his voice. I scrambled
to my feet and threw myself towards the circle. My spiders scrambled behind.
I’d given them orders to attack any people who attacked me, not metal
monstrosities. They’d probably just get crushed anyway. I turned in time to see
Jake stumbling backwards away from a big metal horse.

I darted a glance back over my shoulder. The wolf
was coming back. “Jake, you have to turn it off. I’m here to rescue you!”

Jake didn’t answer. He’d fallen and was now
scooting away from me on his butt. His eyes were wide with terror. I looked
around in confusion. He couldn’t be afraid of his own creation. My eyes fell on
the spiders, still sitting patiently, and I smacked myself in the head.

“Jake, it’s alright. The spiders are—” The wolf
landed on me with a bone wrenching thud, smashing me into the floor and pushing
all the breath out of my lungs.

Jake seemed to wake up from his terror. “No. Get
the spiders!” he said.

The wolf didn’t move. It seemed to have shut down.
On top of me. I groaned.

“Jake,” I wheezed out. “Get this thing off of me.
The spiders are with me.”

He looked at me like I was crazy, but seeing that
the spiders weren’t moving, his lips quirked a little.

“Really? The spiders are with you? That’s your
explanation?”

I tried to shrug, but it cramped up my shoulder,
and I gasped instead. “Please, this thing is crushing me. Get it off.”

Jake looked at the wolf, his eyes sad, and then
nodded. “You can get off her. She’s not going anywhere.”

I stared at him, not sure what he meant, but the
wolf came back to life with a purring of engines and got up. It sat behind me with
a clank and stared at me.

Jake came forward, still giving the spiders the
evil eye, and knelt in front of me.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said.

I frowned. “I came to save you.”

Jake shook his head. “I can’t leave. I’ve been
ordered to stay here. I can’t even leave the workshop.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know. We were going to
just take you and keep you locked up until it wore off.”

Jake sighed. “I’ll fight you. I won’t be able to
stop myself. Besides, it doesn’t matter. I just got done programming all of my
creations to recognize your picture. They’ve all got orders to capture you on
sight. This one won’t let you go.”

I closed my eyes and sighed in frustration. “So
what? That’s it? You’re just giving up?”

Jake flushed. “You don’t know what it’s been like
here. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I shook my head. “You’re telling me you can’t
figure out some way to cancel the order? You built them!”

Jake sighed. “The Captain’s got someone watching
me. If I try to cancel any orders the other kid catches them and keeps me from
doing anything.”

I wondered what Jake had tried to stop and failed
at. “Well, you’re brilliant. You can get around it.”

Jake shook his head. “No, I can’t. The Captain
ordered me not to interfere with his plans. That pretty much keeps me from
doing anything but building more creatures and following orders.”

At his words, I felt the spell the Queen had
placed on me flare into life. It felt similar to the pain I felt when bringing
my creatures to life. I stifled a gasp and shook my head, trying to clear away
the pain. “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “There’s got to be some way to get
around it.”

Jake stood and threw his hands in the air. He
turned and stalked back to the horse he’d been working on, not meeting my eyes.
“No, Paige, there’s not. I told you that you shouldn’t have come! I don’t need
your help. I don’t want your help.”

The thought hit me like a punch in the stomach.
The whole time I’d been here, the only thing I’d cared about was rescuing Jake.
And now, he didn’t want my help. My disappointment transformed almost instantly
into anger. Fueled by the spell, it became something dark and ugly.