Jax couldn’t believe he had lost all his money to Stevens. He never lost, which made him think that Stevens had to have cheated at poker. Now he was down twenty bucks and had to take over Steven’s watcher shifts because of a lost bet.

Jax sighed in resignation, leaning back in his chair in front of the row of monitors, and began the tedious job of watching. Watcher duty usually amounted to little more than staring at security screens and monitoring the radio communication. The job wasn’t boring, but it wasn’t suited to his skill set. He didn’t have the patience.

He’d rather be on the reaping team; at least then, he’d get to see some action. It was more thrilling to hunt live than to sit here, writing and filing reports. It was also more dangerous and required quick thinking and deep pockets to bribe the city official currently on their payroll.

After the fall of Neverland, Jax had made Neverwood his home, like all the lost boys, and he’d grown close to Peter, as close as a would-be killer like Jax could be to anyone. It pained him to betray Peter, or any of the lost boys, but he had no choice. Jax knew full well what Neverland was capable of, unlike Peter who acted as if he were invincible. But Jax understood that the lives of the lost boys were at stake. And if it took betrayal to save them, so be it. If he slowly fed Neverland all of the information about the Neverwood Academy, Captain Hook would let the boys live. Hook had made it clear that he just wanted to see how they were progressing over the years.

He rubbed his eyes and shook off his feelings on seeing Wendy again. It was all her fault that he had to leave Neverwood. He had a boyhood crush on her years ago when they were at Neverland, but he couldn’t tell her how he felt because she was always with Peter. He couldn’t help but feel like he was competing for her, even now. She was his first crush and would always have a special place in his heart. Even when he tried to forget. He always made dumb decisions because of Wendy.

Saving her had blown his cover—she would have told them of his betrayal. He couldn’t stay with Peter and the boys any longer.

He opened the desk drawer and dug around inside, looking for something to help bide his time. His fingers scraped along the bottom, knocking various items to the side and making lots of noise as he dug around. His hand snagged a tube of Steven’s forgotten Pringles, and he pulled them out and shook it, the sound of chips and victory ringing in his ears. He’d eat all of them and leave the empty container in Steven’s desk as thanks. Squeaky wheels of a chair moving across the floor toward him made him glance up at the other soldier assigned to watcher duty. Familiar angry cat-like eyes met his across the room.

Why did it have to be her? He inwardly groaned as Lily gave him a wry smile. She was good at her job—she had killer instincts—but she also had a crush on him, and the tension still hung silently in the air between them.

“You know he cheated, right?” Lily smirked, running her hand through her long black ponytail.

“Stevens?”

“Who else could I be talking about? He’s been bragging for days about how good he is at poker. He knows your weakness is cards.” She nodded to the drawer that Jax had left open. “See anything else of interest?” she purred.

He leaned forward and saw that there were quite a few packs of Bicycle playing cards. “Let me guess. They’re missing a few aces.”

“Bingo!” Lily laughed and then launched her chair back over to her desk across the room, disappearing behind her wall of monitors.

He was relieved that she didn’t want to say anything else, and as she was finally out of sight, maybe he could ignore the screens and get a few minutes of shut-eye. It was dangerous to sleep on the job, and he doubted Lily would hold their one failed date against him that much. He didn’t have any feelings for her. He tried to let her down easy, but he knew she still garnered hope.

He popped the top off the chips and began to crunch them loudly. They were sour cream and onion. His favorite. Maybe pulling watcher duty wasn’t the end of the world—if he could ignore the annoying gum-popping girl on the other side of the room.

He crunched on another chip loudly.

“Are you gonna share?” Lily asked from behind her screen.

Jax leaned to the left and saw the bottom half of her face in the gap between monitors and watched for her reaction.

“Nope,” Jax said, licking the last of the salt from his fingers before placing the empty tube back into the drawer.

A smile played at the corner of her mouth. “Figured.”

Jax didn’t reply but leaned back to stare at the black and white screens. Halfway through their shift, he started to nod off when he heard Lily speak up.

“How close are you to the target?” Lily said into her headset. She was directing a team for a pickup. “Address is 1314 S. Grand. Yeah, it’s the high school. You’re going to have to get her to come to you. But be careful. This one was seen with a lost boy; she may get a heads-up and bolt.”

Jax sat up and looked between the monitors. There was only one person that sounded like. He had just done everything he could to save Wendy, but yet they were going to capture her. He snatched up a pencil and quickly scribbled down her location, and pulled up a map of the school. Timber Valley High School.

He picked up a headset and turned it to the same channel that Lily was on. Keeping his head low, he listened to the ops team close in on Wendy’s location.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jax muttered when he heard that the shifter from their reaping team had intercepted her.

They got her. She was in their van.

The pencil he had picked up snapped into two. He very quietly brought up a map of the area on the computer and watched their tracked van as it headed to the black site. He knew once they got the van there, it would be almost impossible to break her free. She would be drugged and then transported to Neverland.

Where was Peter? Why hadn’t they done anything? He was sure that he wouldn’t have let her go back to school without assigning her a guard of some sort. Minutes dragged by and the van never slowed; they were only miles away from the point of no return. His mind went over every possible scenario that the van could take and had their course plotted in his mind.

Lily chuckled from the other side of the room. “He will be so pleased since the last team failed to retrieve her.”

Jax held his angry retort in and casually slid out from the desk, being careful to minimize and close his screen and history, before stepping out into the hall. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number he never thought he would call again.

“Pick up,” he muttered as the phone rang. “Pick up, pick up.”

“Hello?” The heavy wind nearly drowned out the voice, but Jax knew it was him.

“Package is in a white Chevy conversion van, headed east on Brookstone. You have a ten-minute window before delivered. Don’t let it get through the tunnel.”

“Jax?” Peter said in disbelief.

Jax clicked end, flipped the phone over, and pulled out the battery.

He had done all he could. Now, it was up to Peter.