The Shadow's Keeper ~OUAT Peter Panfiction (Book 2)

"It's all your doing."

Smoothly turning around, she saw him. "Pan," she commented nonchalantly, expecting him.
            "My dearest Anna," he smiled, walking towards her. "You have always been a marvelous actress," he began, caressing her cheek softly. Anne pulled his hand away.
            "They were going to protect me!" She yelled at him, angry now.
            "Are you really sure about that?" Pan then challenged.
            "I saw it in their faces!" Anne protested. Suddenly feeling her wrist becoming snatched, Pan then pulled her close.
            "Let me show you what you really saw," he spoke to her quickly, panic in his eyes. 
~
"Regina!" Emma called angrily as she walked quickly. Hook and Tink following her hurriedly, she abruptly stopped. "Wait," she spoke, turning around. "Regina taught me how to teleport," she remembered.
            "Can you do it?" Hook asked her.
            "I-I don't know," Emma thought to herself a moment.
            "To Regina?" Tink suddenly asked.
            "I don't know," Emma repeated, looking back up.
            "There's only one way to find out," Hook mentioned.
            "If I can teleport to Regina, I can teleport to Henry," Emma suggested. Tink's eyes widened, she went over.
            "Try it!" she said, eagerly. Listening, Emma stepped away from the pirate and the fairy and closed her eyes tight. Concentrating, she set her mind on Henry. After moments of hard focusing, she finally vanished.
~
"Hunger," Pan whispered in Anne's ear as she looked upon a clearing behind a tree. Her two wolves crept inside.
            "Are those bodies?" Anne whispered back, sick to her stomach, spotting the two rotting corpses.
            "Jonah, and Carlos," Pan told her their names. Dragging in another body came Hemlock in his wolf form, making Anne gasp. "Christopher," he whispered. Chills slithered down Anne's back. "All friends and they are dead now." Hemlock then began eating away at Christopher's body. A hand clamped over her mouth from shock, Anne remembered Hemlock mentioning Christopher. She then looked back at Pan, tears glistening in her eyes. "They were going to eat you, darling," Pan then told her.
            "But they rescued me," Anne mentioned, shocked.
            "To lure you in. They were going to gain your trust only to lead you to your demise. Wolves are intelligent creatures, especially werewolves..."
            "W-werewolves?" Anne could only get a small portion of herself to believe there were actually werewolves before, but it made sense now. Perhaps all that Pan told her was truthful...Anne then thought. But there was still doubt inside of her. She planned to keep Hemlock a secret from Pan, merely for her to explore on her own and find out a possible realtruth behind everything. 
 
Whether or not Pan was manipulating Anne in that moment, telling her those wolves she had so heavily fell close to in her heart, she still felt that trust in them. The only thing unexplainable was her two wolves eating corpses. Maybe it was a set up? An illusion?
 
Pan then slid his hands around Anne's hips, gripping them almost possessively. "It'll be alright," he told her as though he were trying to lure her in himself, into coming back to the cave before sunrise. Anne caught this manipulation and pushed Pan's hands off.
            "You think I'm finished? Who were those wolves before the curse?" She questioned him intensely.
            "Friends," he told her.
            "No, friends don't eat friends, tell me the truth," she demanded.
            "That is the truth, love," he continued telling her.
            "You said it was just you and me that came to this island, you never mentioned friends."
            "I kept that part of your past from you, but it was to protect you, so the curse would hurt less," Pan admitted.
            "Then you'd let me find out this way? A little barbaric don't you think, Pan--or whoever you are?" Anne then asked.
            "Remember, you wanted to see things yourself, that's why you escaped--"
            "Then you let me go once you caught me the first time."
            "I realized it was best you saw things for yourself," Pan then explained.
            "Are there any left?" Anne then questioned. "From the curse, are there any of our friends left?"
Anne waited for a response, wondering about that boy she saw calling for Christopher.
            "No," Pan lied.
            "How can you be too sure?"
            "The rest are just decoys, Anna, don't you see?" Pan grabbed her shoulders. "I told you there were ghosts didn't I? They're killers, demons, people we once knew."
Anne thought about Hemlock and Pan's words clicked. Maybe he was telling the truth. The boy that was calling for Christopher could've been a decoy for Hemlock to attack her. It was crazy how right Pan seemed in that moment, and without her even telling him. It's like he knew already. For a split second, Anne felt obligated to fully trust Pan but then she remembered how off Pan's looks seemed compared to her dream.
 
Walking around him just then, Anne prepared to take out her knife. "The curse has you too," she started, growing scared. It made sense to her. Pan had that vibe to him that he wasn't sane, that he was just as dangerous as the things she experienced.
            "What do you mean?" Pan asked her.
            "Your hair, your eyes, your clothes, no wonder it doesn't sit right. You're just as dangerous." She stumbled back. "You're the cause of it all, aren't you? This supposed 'curse', it's all your doing," she guessed, terrified.
 
Oh how smart Anne was...one of her most intriguing traits to Pan. He held back a grin. "You are the only thing keeping me from completely losing myself," he told her, passion in his eyes with a partial and deep truth. He slowly crept towards her. Remembering how much Anne trusted Pan in the beginning of her waking, and how he made her feel those first nights weren't lost to Anne. She took these few things into consideration. How he told her he loved her, he meant all of that.
 
And he did love her--Anne knew--so perhaps his love for her was, after all, keeping him from completely drifting from his inner well being. Pan's explanations just kept clicking just begging Anne to trust him one-hundred percent. A part of her wanted to go back with him to the cave and give up on her search, but she couldn't let go of the simple fact that some things felt more right. That shadow that helped her...that really did feel like a family member, and the way her two wolves looked at her...it hit her in the heart.
 
Something just was not right about Pan's explanations, something was keeping Anne from completely giving in to Pan's possible lies. The possibility of his words being lies would not leave Anne. She just had to discover something else, something else that was greater in truth then Pan's stories. Whatever game he was playing on her, he was playing it excellently. But still, Anne would not give in.
"So the curse does have you?" Anne then played along.
            "Unfortunately so, but you...are saving me," he smiled as though he spoke of hope for himself. He didn't actually believe anything he was telling her, he was just covering up the truth, of course.
            "You know something Pan?" Anne lightly smiled. Pan urged her to continue, expecting something that would continue helping him conceal the truth. "You're a marvelous actor yourself."
 
The smile fell from Pan's face because he just discovered that Anne still didn't believe him.
            "How clever," he told her, narrowing his eyes and slightly angry. Without waiting any longer, Anne bolted off. Quickly flying after her, he continued conversing. "You're just dying to prove yourself, little Anna! No surprise, you have always tried to play a hero in your wars," he commented, wanting her to stay and listen. It was his trick but Anne wouldn't fall for it.
 
She ignored him and kept running.
 
"Sunrise!!" he reminded her, threatening to explode with frustration that he couldn't win with her, and he finally left her be.