Emerald

Chapter 21: Peter

"I'm not weak..." she mumbled.

"Oh but you are. Why do you not see any other girls here? Because you're just like them, you're not strong enough to be here. You were sent here by mistake. And in a half hour, you have a one way ticket out of here, back to where you came from, where you can be a useless waste of space in someone else's home. You may as well not waste your life forgotten and just end it now" I chuckled.

"Then why are you here?" she spat.

"Excuse me?"

"This is a home for those that are lost and unloved, so why are you here? If you're so much better than everyone?"

"Because I am the best thing that has ever happened to these boys. Without me, they'd be suffering somewhere horrible."

"...they still suffer" she muttered under her breath.

I tried to stay focused in order to not let was Lea said affect me. It was a rough topic to talk about, so I pretended I didn't hear her.

"Besides" I started again, "none of the Lost Boys would accept you anyway."

"Then why did you save me? Why not have let me die?" she interrogated.

I turned to face her for a split second.

"So I could have the pleasure of doing it myself" I snickered painfully.

The horn sounded and almost without delay Lea took her first step off when I threw my right forearm in front of her throat. She ran into it with a great deal of force and fell back to the ground where the wind was knocked out of her. She layed on the ground choking from a lack of oxygen. Stay in character... I laughed mischievously and stopped for a split second.

"See you at the finish line, weakling" I chuckled.

I ran forward and didn't look back; I couldn't. After a few minutes of running I had to stop. My hands and my forehead got clammy and sweaty, I couldn't breath. I was having an anxiety attack; the first one in a while. I used to have them often as a child, I thought I had grown out of it for a while until they started occurring again. Trying to steady my breathing, thoughts raced through my head. A nasty bruise had started to form on my forearm. Shivers ran down my spine as I thought:

"What if I just killed her?"

*End of flashback*

Lea's Perspective:

More small tears rushed down Pan's cheeks making them red. He sniffled again and got back under control.

"I didn't have a choice..." he stated.

I sat there listening, eager to understand what Pan was rambling on about.

"Neverland isn't a safe place anymore, it's a living hell...they're after us; all of us. I figured if I found a way to get you to leave you would, but I could tell it wasn't going to work, so..."

"You tried to get me to want to leave willingly..." I spoke aloud. I looked at Pan to see him turn his head toward me and nod without a single word.

"If what you're saying is true, then why the act? Why do you act like a dictator? The Lost Boys fear you. They're too afraid to come to you with their problems cause they think you'll cut their hand off." I interrogated.

Pan bit his lip and shook his head.

"Because-" he frowned.

"-if I don't, they won't be careful. I can't bare watching any of them get hurt..."

I can't believe it...Pan has a soul... At first, I thought there was no possibility of him being genuine like this, but the more and more I watched him, there's no way he could be this believable.