The Monster Under My Bed • Peter Pan, Once Upon A Time •

Chapter 9

I took her in my own hands. She looked the same as Willow did when I lost her, but there was only one way I could be sure.

Slowly, and with slightly shaking hands, I turned her over and found the little tail.

There they were. Mine and Corey's initials. We had sewn them into her tail when we got home after the carnival. Well, with our mothers help.

I moved my focus to the boy who was staring up at me hopefully.

"Y-you kept it all these years?" I asked.

He nodded slowly, placing his hand gently on it.

"Of course I did," he said as if he was offended at the slightest insinuation of him not doing so.

"For 12 years darling. For 12 years I've been waiting," he whispered.

My eyes started to water and I started shaking my head. His eyes softened even more, if possible, as well as widened.

"No no no, don't cry," he stated, pulling himself up closer to me on the bed and placed a hand on my cheek. I looked down at my old toy and continued to shake my head, the tears softly rolling down my cheeks, and then landing on the bear.

His thumb wiped away a stray tear and he kept glancing between both my eyes.

"Tell me what's wrong Adelaide," he soothed.

I whispered my answer under my breath, not wanting him to hear.

"Say again?"

"Go away," I said, looking up at him sadly.

"What?" He started. "But I thought-"

"You thought what? That this was helping you win some sort of 'brownie points'?" I argued. He furrowed both his eyebrows together and shook his head at me, taken aback by my sudden hostile exterior.

"Bu-" he started again.

"No," I said firmly. "All this tells me is that you stole my brother from me!" I yelled.

Then it hit me.

"Speaking of which where is he!?" I questioned.

"What do you-" he was cut off by me whacking his hand away from my cheek.

"You took him 12 years ago. He must be here somewhere! What did he have to say about you taking me here?"

"Adelaide he's not your brother anymore," I stared at him like he was an idiot. Which, with that statement, he was. At this point I was clutching onto Willow like I had all those years ago.

"What?" I started laughing at his pathetic reply.

"Adelaide it's not funny, I'm being serious. He was no brother to you. Did he help you find your family? No! Did he abandon you in the woods? Yes! He did! My shadow and me would've at least let him bring you back! But he didn't think of mentioning it! I didn't even know he had a 5 year old sister because whenever he told me about home, about wanting to leave home, he never brought you up!"

I stared at him as he rambled on, yelling and sneering, standing up and pacing around: his arms waving around the space around him in anger. He was pissed off and I could tell. Anyone could.

"I took care of you and I brought you home! I watched over you always! I made sure no harm ever came to you and if anyone ever tried then they had to deal with me and my shadow!" He spat.

My tears had dried up and now they started flowing. His face softened again as he realized what he said.

"Adelaide, even if I wanted to let you see him, I couldn't,"

He let out a sigh and looked down, taking one of my hands in both of his, and sitting on the bed next to me again. When he looked up at me again, he spoke.

"He's trapped, Adelaide," he paused and glanced down, "Corey is trapped,"

A/N: OH SNAP! Took me an hour to post this chapter but that's cause TV and live streams from my favourite music group are very, very distracting.

Not much to say except each time I write a chapter, an idea pops into my head and yeah.

That's it.

For this.

Authors note.

Yeah.

Love y'all whomever you may be!! Xx :D

-R