Her head wouldn't stop throbbing. With each beat of her heart, a stabbing pain hit her in the temple. Wendy struggled to open her eyes and found Jax standing guard at the foot of her bed. He was tense, his focus aimed at her door, his arm outstretched, his brace armed and ready to fire.
“What’s happening?” Wendy cried, alarmed by his stance.
Jax gave her the briefest glance, and Wendy took note of the specs on his eyes that allowed him to see the shadows. Was he protecting her from Peter?
“I don’t know. You called his name and then collapsed. When I touched you, your body was ice cold. If Peter did this to you, I’ll kill him,” he growled out.
“Jax, he already is—”
“I know,” he snapped. “I’ll kill him again. He had no right to assault you like that.”
Wendy attempted to lean over the side of the bed to glance into the hall, but Jax’s body made a better wall than a window. She couldn’t see if Peter’s shadow was out there.
“Where is he?” she asked, hoping that he was still here, and that Jax hadn’t destroyed him.
“Down the hall on the left,” Jax mumbled and shifted his weight. Peter must have made another attempt to move closer because Jax raised the brace again. “Don’t even try it, Peter. You want to see how many times you can regenerate?”
Wendy slipped her feet off the bed and tried to stand. Her head weighing a million tons, she felt like a weighted blow-up clown balloon, and with each step, she wobbled back and forth.
“Stay back, Wendy,” Jax warned. “He attacked you. I’m not sure what is going on, but he can’t hurt you like that. I won’t allow it.”
She gently touched his right arm, pushing the brace down to aim at the floor. “He’s scared, Jax,” Wendy soothed. “He didn’t mean to harm me, but something scared him and he tried to tell me all at once, and it was too much for my system. Perhaps if we try it again.” She stepped past Jax.
Once Wendy was in view, Peter rushed forward and Jax moved like lightning. He raced and pushed Wendy behind him, his brace aimed at the shadow. “No man, I’m not going to let you hurt your girl. Move toward her again, and I will send you where the sun don’t shine.”
“Jax, we need to figure out what’s going on. We must communicate with him. See what he can tell us about Neverland and the boys. Unless this has been your plan all along,” she accused, her suspicions coming back to the surface. Suspicions she suppressed as she started to grow closer to him. “To weaken us. First you demand Ditto and the younger boys stay behind, and now you won’t let Peter help us.”
“No! I wouldn’t do that. I’m just trying to protect them . . . and you.” Jax dropped his head, and a deep sigh resonated from his lips. He very deliberately stepped aside and waved her toward Peter. Wendy slid past him into the hall, and Jax grabbed her elbow. “Listen, I so much as sense that you’re in danger, it’s over.”
She nodded and paused in front of Peter as his shadow floated in front of her. He was milky black; at the right angle she could see through him to the stairs. His form was always moving, shifting but discernable to her. She would recognize his shadow anywhere now. Her heart would always lead her to him.
She didn’t reach for him as eagerly as she had before. It took a minute of gathering her nerve, as if to extend a hand to a dog that had bitten her. Her fingers trembled as she reached her palm out.
Jax took another step forward, and she felt reassured by his presence. Peter’s hand froze inches above her palm, not moving down to connect or pass through hers. She could see him contemplating the exchange himself, could sense his hesitation. He was afraid to hurt her. Peter’s shadowy gaze turned to Jax in question and he withdrew his hand.
“No, Peter,” Wendy gasped. “I can take it. It will be fine. I’ve done this before, we’ve done this before. You won’t hurt me a second time. It was just a fluke. You were scared, that’s all.”
Peter’s shadow didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he beckoned with his chin toward Jax, and Jax crooked his head in thought.
A silent exchange passed between them, a bond born of brotherhood and battles, and Wendy would never be able to fathom what they were conspiring.
Jax’s shoulders stiffened. His wrist and brace lowered, and he looked at Peter through the goggles. “Do it.”
“Do what?” Wendy asked unnecessarily as Peter’s shadow rushed past Wendy and dove into Jax’s body.
Jax gasped as the momentum of Peter’s soul entered him and thrust him against the wall, his head thudding loudly.
“Jax!” Wendy screamed, rushing to aid him as his legs folded under him and he crumpled to the ground.
Wendy grabbed Jax’s shoulders, steadying him, calling his name as she scanned the hall for Peter’s shadow. Unlike before, when the shadows would pass through a person and out the other side, Peter’s didn’t. He was gone.
“Jax, answer me,” Wendy pleaded.
Jax’s eyelashes fluttered open. His gray eyes met hers and he flashed a cocky grin at her. “Told you, Wendy girl, nothing would separate us,” he teased jovially.
Her hands dropped from Jax’s shoulders and she fell onto her backside in shock.
“Peter? Is that you?”
Jax regained his balance and helped Wendy off the floor before patting his chest and rubbing his hands along his jaw. “Yes, and no. It seems that Jax and I are cohabitating at the moment. But I don’t know for how long. He was never very good at sharing things.” He grinned at her.
Wendy’s heart danced at having Peter back, and she wrapped her arms around him. Peter’s hug was a lifeline in the stormy waters. His presence calmed her spirit, even if he was in the wrong packaging, and she couldn’t stop the sniffles and the tears of happiness that trailed down her face.
“Now, now, there’s nothing to cry over. I’m here. Well, I was here before, but now I can talk to you easier,” he soothed and headed down the stairs to the living room. Wendy followed in disbelief.
“What happened to you?” she sniffed.
She felt him shudder under her palms. “I died.”
“Oh, Peter,” she began, but he cut her off.
“I stayed as long as I could. But I can’t be away from my body too long or I may not be able to come back, and that would be a tragedy.”
“Please always come back to me,” she whispered and closed her eyes. It was easier to believe that it was Peter with her eyes closed.
“I will, Wendy. I promise.” He nuzzled her head with his chin.
They stayed locked in that embrace, taking comfort from each other, but then a loud cough came from behind them. Jax and Wendy looked up into the very shocked face of Tink at the top of the stairs.
Her pinched mouth and red-tinged cheeks were enough of an indicator that volcano Tink was about to erupt with her opinion. Her mouth opened and Wendy prepared herself for the onslaught of bells, since she knew how much Tink distrusted Jax.
“Hey, Tinker Bell,” Peter-Jax quipped, and Tink’s mouth went slack in confusion at the nickname that only Peter knew.
Her mouth opened and closed multiple times, and no bells or horns sounded. Finally, after a few false tries, she managed, “Jax. No, he wouldn’t. How . . . Peter?”
Peter-Jax grinned and nodded, then stepped away from Wendy, opening his arms wide.
“It’s me, Tink, back from the dead.”
Tink squealed and ran to Peter, jumping into the air and wrapping her arms around his neck. Peter-Jax swung her around, her legs flying in a circle and taking out the lamp off an end table. Wendy felt a little hurt by the overly friendly greeting between them. When her feet finally found purchase on the wood floor, Tink bopped him on the back of the head.
“What took you so long? And do you get to keep the Jax meat suit?”
Peter-Jax chuckled. “Ah, Tink, you don’t mean that.”
She huffed. “Maybe I do. Although, he’s not necessarily an upgrade.”
“Upgrade. You still don’t trust him after he fought with us at Neverwood?”
Tink shook her head.
Peter-Jax frowned and shook his head. “Tink, we need him. Something bad is happening at Neverland.”
“What’s going on, Peter?”
“The boys, I’ve seen them. They’re being harvested. Their DNA is being used to upgrade Hook’s crop of new recruits, his Dusters.”
“Well, then show us where they are and we’ll bust them out,” Tink declared palming her fist.
“I can’t. I don’t know where they’re going. They were shutting down their operation and moving. Loading everyone into shipping containers. I get the impression this happens a lot. By the time we got there, they’d be gone. I tried to escape with your friend.” Peter-Jax turned to Wendy.
“My friend?”
“Yeah, the cheerleader . . . um, Brittney. It was during my escape attempt that Hook—” Peter drew his finger across his throat and Wendy winced.
She didn’t need it spelled out how Hook killed him. “What about Brittney?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get to see what happened or where we were going when he . . .” He trailed off.
“How do we find them?” Tink asked. “If they keep moving their base, how are we ever going to find them?”
“The shadows could take us?” Wendy said. “I’m sure if we asked, they could.”
“I’m sure with all the morphlings, the shadows have all been taken care of within twenty miles of Neverland,” Tink said.
“True, I hadn’t thought of that.” She forgot that Neverland was also the home of the morphlings, which hunted down the shadows and devoured them eagerly. It seemed that the shadows also gravitated toward anyone with a hint of supernatural gifts, anyone who had the PX gene, hoping that someone could see them. It was the shadows that had led the morphlings and Red Skulls to the victims that would be forced into becoming recruits in their horrible program.
“Don’t worry, Tink. We’ll find our boys and bring them home,” he said confidently.
Tink’s blonde head lowered, and she nodded, surreptitiously wiping a tear away. “Okay, Peter. Just tell us what to do.”
He scanned the living room and made a beeline for the stairs to the rooms, popping into each one until he saw Ditto slumped over his bed in despair.
It was odd to see Peter’s confident swagger in Jax’s body—Jax, who was always so stiff and formal. “You ready, Tweedledum?”
Ditto lifted his head from the pillow and gave Jax the most confused expression. If his eyebrows rose any higher, they’d turn into a butterfly and fly away.
“What? Jax, you said I couldn’t go?”
“Nonsense, I need my left lieutenant, and my right. I said you’re going and it’s final.” Peter-Jax put his hands on his hips and grinned.
Ditto put his hand to his mouth in shock. “It can’t be—can it?” He looked to Wendy and Tink who nodded in affirmation. Ditto rushed to hug Peter. “I’m sorry I failed you, Peter.”
“Never, Ditto. You’re alive. That’s all that matters. If you died, then I am the one who failed you, by not protecting you. But I’m not going to keep you from your destiny. It’s time we go back. All of us that are left. We will go and take back Neverland.”
“It really is you, Peter,” Ditto breathed out and leaned back, giving his leader the grandest salute and cheekiest grin he could muster.
Peter’s answering smile on Jax’s face made Ditto grimace in fear. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” Peter asked, confusion filling his voice.
“Jax never smiles like that. You look like a serial killer.”
A deep, gut-busting laugh filled the air, and he turned to look at Tink and Wendy whose faces held a similar look of revulsion.
“Really? It can’t look that creepy when Jax smiles.”
They both nodded their head. “It is.”
Peter-Jax sighed, his brows furrowed, and they both lit up.
“Aw, there’s Jax.” Tink chuckled.
“Yes, much better,” Wendy agreed.
“Yep, it’s better if you just stay surly until you get your own body back,” Ditto said.
“Well, now we know why Jax is always angry. When he’s actually happy, you accuse him of being a psychopath,” Peter-Jax said.
“Sociopath,” Tink corrected. “But he’s our sociopath.”
Peter-Jax sighed and patted his heart, or Jax’s heart, in an attempt to be nearer to his friend. “Yes, he is ours.”