Psychotic | OUAT

Chapter 16 - "She reveals secrets all the time!"

They had been walking for a while, and Atarah had been dragging her feet for at least twenty minutes by now, and Judas was stuck behind her. "Are trying to be annoying, or are you just that annoying?" Judas questioned her irritably. "Because I'm getting annoyed now!"

"Well, it's not my fault my feet are hurting!" Atarah told him. "We've been walking for hours." She was quiet for a while. "So, we're on the way to find your brother, how do you feel? Excited?" She asked him.

"Well , not really!" Judas shrugged. "He and I, we don't have the best relationship. But I guess that centuries apart and world's apart can do that to people. But I don't mind, not really. I have decent magic - that I don't really use, but I've had a decent life with my father. So, I'm not complaining. And besides, I've grown closer to you from it - so it can't be that bad, right?"

Atarah looked towards Judas over her shoulder and smiled softly. "That's cute, Jude!" She told him. "But, you've spent your entire life beside your father and making friends with all sorts of people! Didn't you want to travel the world when you were younger, Jude?"

Judas smiled at the memory, he had told her that he wanted to travel the world when they were children, just to relate with her. He wanted to have something similar between them both so that she'd like him - and he did want to travel, it was his dream to travel - but with her. At least when he was a child, he had had a small crush on her for about 6 months, but he soon found that they couldn't be what he wanted them to be - so he moved on.

Judas knew they suited each other as best friends, and nothing more. But he still had hope that they could travel together in the future. "My dream is gone!" He told her slowly. "But then there's hope. There's hope that we can travel in the near future - because my dream was to travel with people I cared about - and you're my best friend. Who better to take than you?"

Atarah faced him and smiled wider. "That sounds lovely, Jude!" She told him. "I'd love to travel with you in the future. I think it could be fun, and I could take you to places I've been already. I can take you to see Tortuga, it's a pirate island, but it's nice-ish. I promise!"

Judas nodded at her. "I'd like that!"

They soon arrived at a cave, and they all stopped and looked towards it. "The tracks lead directly into that cave!" Snow told them all. "This must be where Pan is keeping Neal."

"If the cave is some sort of prison, why aren't there any guards posted to stop us?" David questioned suspiciously.

"David, this is an island, Pan doesn't have any heavily armoured King's Guard standing around. He only has his Lost Boys!" Judas told him. "Or maybe they're waiting inside for us!" He suggested with a sort of sarcastic smile. He wasn't usually sarcastic like Atarah or Regina, but he was irritable.

"No, no!" Hook informed them all. "There's no guards posted because this prison doesn't require guards." He walked closer to it, and everyone but Atarah frowned at him, while Hook sighed. "This is Echo Cave."

"You know it?"

"All too well! And I'm betting Atarah knows this cave too." Hook replied, and Atarah did know this cave well, Peter had told her about it a few days after she had arrived on Neverland for the first time ever. "I lost half my crew inside these rock walls. The only way to rescue someone from inside is to reveal a secret!"

"Well, Snow should be alright!" Atarah mused sardonically. "She reveals secrets all the time!"

"A secret?" Snow asked, as she ignored Atarah's comment. "That's all?"

"Your darkest secret!" Hook told her. "Echo Cave derives it's name from an old saying. 'The deeper the lie, the more truth in its echo'. The cave demands that you reveal a truth about yourself. A secret you would never admit to anyone."