Neverwood seemed to be fraying at the edges, and nothing was as she might have hoped. She thought that once behind the walls of the school, she would be safe, but nothing could protect her from her own guilt-ridden mind. In her dreams, Wendy continued to relive her parents’ death and her escape from the hospital over and over. Her nightmares having grown worse, she had become too scared to sleep, and sitting in the chair by her window became her new routine.

John was oblivious to the issues at Neverwood. He couldn’t see that it was becoming filled with disorder; mutiny was in the air. There were too many rebels and doubts inside their walls. Michael and Jax’s imprisonment had caused the boys to question Peter’s leadership. There were too many secrets and not enough trust.

Wendy had learned that Ditto had forced Jax into a secured room below Neverwood. They had scanned him and destroyed the tracer on his belt. He was kept partially drugged to hinder any of his powers. He had become a prisoner in his old home, and Wendy struggled to come to terms with the realization. How could the boy who had risked his neck for her come back and try to kidnap her?

It didn’t make sense. There was no rhyme or reason, and it was hard to trust something inconstant, and Jax was very unpredictable.

Her brother had also become a mystery to her. She had tried to visit him on her first day back at Neverwood and received mixed results. He wouldn’t look at her, just turn his back to her and rock back and forth, facing the wall.

“Michael, I’m sorry,” Wendy had said, sitting on the edge of his bed. “I didn’t know that I had forgotten you.”

His shoulders shrugged.

“I know that it’s hard to hear this from me when I was the one who was supposed to protect you. To take care of you. And I . . . I . . .” The words became lodged in her throat. “I forgot you. There’s no excuse. I was—no, am a horrible sister.”

Michael didn’t respond. She didn’t know what else to expect. Miracles? A happy family reunion, when they had been estranged for seven years and an evil corporation had worked who-knows-what evil on the innocent mind of a young boy? If she struggled with nightmares, she couldn’t imagine what his dreams were.

“Tick,” Michael said with a small voice from behind his knees as he sat huddled on the bed facing the corner.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Tick.” He began rocking back and forth. “Tick . . . tick . . . tick.” A giggle followed, and Wendy reached out to place her hand on his shoulder. Michael screamed as if her hand had burned him, and he cowered from her.

“Okay. Okay.” She backed off and slowly closed the door as he continued to chant the word over and over again, picking up the rhythm of a metronome or a clock.

She pulled away, the coded door arming itself and locking him inside. That wasn’t right. She needed to speak to someone about changing his room. Anything would be better than being locked inside.

To leave, Wendy had to walk past Jax’s glass cell. Her pace slowed as she peeked in on him. Jax lay on his small bed, staring at the ceiling—his arms behind his head, creating a pillow. Wendy stood staring at him, unsure if she should say something, or even what she would say.

“It’s not polite to stare,” Jax said, his eyes never leaving the ceiling.

“I think my manners are the least of your concerns,” Wendy answered loudly, since the glass muffled their voices.

“They need to let me go,” Jax said.

“I doubt they’re going to do that anytime soon.”

Jax sat up on the bed, turning such that his feet touched the floor. He looked at her through the glass wall. “It’s not safe for you that I’m here.”

“Are you saying that you’re going to hurt me?”

Jax clenched his jaw. “I wouldn’t hurt you on purpose, but I will if you get in my way.”

“What do you want?” Wendy asked, searching Jax’s eyes, knowing there was something deep that he was hiding. A problem . . . a secret. “What are you searching for? I’m not going to tell anyone,” she pressed.

“You wouldn’t get the chance because by not telling you, I’m protecting you.”

Wendy pressed her lips into a firm line of frustration, and Jax shook his head. “Why?” she asked. “Why did you do it? Betray Neverwood.”

He sighed. “You and your questions. I didn’t answer Peter or the others. Why would I tell you?”

“Because you knew all along. You prepared me, almost hinted at your betrayal to me. You wanted to get caught.” She pictured the training session in the gym, where Jax had single-handedly taught her how to get out of his holds and locks, techniques she had used on him at the hospital.

“Maybe, you were just an astute student.”

Wendy snorted. “You said I was a terrible student. You said—”

“Forget what I said then.” He jumped up off the bed and came to the glass, his face only inches from it and from her. He looked over his shoulder at the camera at the corner of his cell. Was he scared that someone was watching or listening? “You need to get rid of Michael too.”

“What? No. I’m not going to get rid of my brother. Not when I just got him back.”

“He’s not your brother anymore, Wendy. Not after what Neverland did to him.”

“I can help him.”

“He’s beyond help.”

“I don’t believe that. I don’t believe you. No one is beyond help, except you.”

“Tell me something, Wendy. What happened that night with the shadows?”

She sighed and rubbed her forehead in thought. “The shadows . . . I think they moved us through whatever plane they pass through and brought us here. It’s happened before with me. I wake up in strange places after seeing shadows, with no memory of how I got there.”

Jax’s face went white. “No, they shouldn’t be doing that. That’s their territory—the morphlings’. We should never pass into the shadow world. It’s not for the living.”

“Well, I don’t think the shadows were trying to harm us. I believe they were trying to help—well, me. I didn’t expect to go there, through that place.”

Jax took one look around and swallowed. “Uh-oh!”

“What do you mean uh-oh?”

“I just know that the more you travel into their plane, the more of your scent you leave behind . . . the more of you that you leave behind. Nothing good comes from that place.”

“So, the morphlings originate from a place?”

“We don’t know much about the morphlings or their origin. I’ve been trying to find out, on my own, and all I know for certain is that they’re not from here. That’s why they can’t maintain a shape in our world; they aren’t a part of it. But the morphlings . . . they aren’t even the worst of it. They are just what bleeds over from that other plane. What resides there is way scarier.”

“But how are they connected to Neverland?”

“They’re not. Neverland wants to create a superhuman army using the PX drugs. The morphlings are something else entirely, from another world. Neverland has no business trying to control those things, it’s like trying to control the ocean current. They’re unpredictably dangerous.”

“That doesn’t seem to bode well.”

“It never bodes well for anyone.”

“Now imagine if Hook is able to create a perfect superhuman army and control these shadow monsters.”

“We would be doomed.”

“We already are.”

Wendy slammed her fist against the glass, and Jax gave her a stern look. “You are giving us just enough, but not. You had the antidote to the morphling poison in that silver case. You could have given that to Peter a long time ago.”

“No, I didn’t know about the cure. I swear.”

“What about my friends and the other missing teens? What happened to them?”

He looked away. “They will be injected with the PX-3 and become super soldiers against their will and will eventually burn out and die.”

“But, where are they? You have to know!”

“I can’t take you there. It would be suicide. Wendy, please, you have to get me out of here. I have to get back.”

“No, not until I know where your loyalties lie. Are you one of them?” She pointed to his uniform shirt with its red skull patch draped on the end of his bed. “Or one of us?”

His jaw clenched, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“I see how it is.” She was angry, angry that he wouldn’t help.

“You need to get me out of here, Wendy. I’m your only chance of helping you get what you need.”

“I can’t do that, Jax. Don’t ask me to betray them for you. You’re not worth it.”

Her words lit the fire in his eyes, and he slammed his fist against the glass. The glass started to glow red beneath his fist and then began to steam. “This won’t hold me, Wendy. You can’t keep me drugged forever.”

“We don’t need to keep you drugged forever. Just long enough to stop Neverland.”

“It’s only a matter of time. Time that neither one of us has. If you want to help Peter, you need to break me out of here.” Jax pulled his hand away, leaving behind an outline of his hand in the glass from the intense heat. It had even begun to warp the cell.

Wendy backed away in fear and quickly ran from Jax, her feet pounding on the stairs.