Rule #6: The mermaids are not to be trusted. They are bloodthirsty, psychotic creatures. The Lost Boys got it right for once.

Isn't it weird how your world can turn upside down in just a few seconds? Like, you could be perfectly content and happy and then you see something you thought you'd never see in a million years and suddenly you can never see your life through perfectly content eyes again.

That's what happened to me.

It was a regular patrol run. I was out fairy hunting with Wildcat and Bearkiller (AKA Michael. How did he get the name? It's a long story involving a burly pirate, a cannonball, and a teddy bear), when I smelled something... off.

"Boys," I said quietly, "Do you smell that?"

"Smell what?" Michael asked, but his brother knew what I meant. He led us to the beach and shielded Michael's eyes as we came upon something... horrific.

(IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO GORE, SKIP UNTIL I COME BACK TO TELL YOU IT'S OVER. IT'S A SHORT PIECE, BUT YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)

One of my brothers lay, ragdoll like, on the beach. His skin-- if you could call it that --was in bloody, ribbon-like pulp, making it look like someone had poured a beet smoothie over his body and left it out for a few days.

A few of his extremities were missing, as well as his eyes, ears, and lips, and were those... teeth marks... in his muscle tissue? It seemed that he had too many bones until I realized that most of them had been snapped into pieces.

The once-internal organs were now gone, leaving a cavity of bloody pulp in their place. And the smell. Like a pile of steak marinated in crap and left in a cave for a week or two.

A strange brown pile of string lay next to him. When I looked closer, I almost threw up. It was hair. Long, brown hair plucked painstakingly, piece by piece, in order to get to the skin of the scalp. I knew this hair. I'd washed this hair and pulled on it during sparring. This was Baelfire's hair.

"Bae," I whispered in horror.

Wildcat's hands never came off his brother's eyes as he stared grimly at the mess of flesh and bone before us.

(OKAY, THE GORE'S OVER, YOU CAN COME BACK NOW. (I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST WROTE THAT))

"We need to tell Felix," he said. "He needs to know."

"What about Pan?"

Wildcat stared at me blankly. "Pan knows."

*~*~*

That night, we all gathered around the fire again. This time there was no dancing, no laughter, no happiness. Pan stood before us with Felix at his side, looking grim.

When he spoke, it was with something he'd never shown before: true emotion. "Tonight," he said softly, "We have lost one of our own. This is not only a crime against myself, but a crime against us all, against Neverland, and against Baelfire himself. So tonight, we mourn our fallen brother. And tomorrow, we take our revenge!"

I barely heard the deafening roar that followed over my own shock. I hadn't said much of anything since finding Baelfire. I was no stranger to death, that was for sure; but having it be someone I actually gave a crap about was new, it seemed. Not for the first time, I asked myself what had done this... thing... to my family. What could have managed to do this to one of our best?

How could this have happened?

These questions and more ran through my head. While the others mourned quietly, I simmered in my own anger for hours and my taste for vengence grew.

"Hey, squirt."

"Pan." I didn't even bother trying to dispute the slur on my height, like I usually did. I wasn't coherent enough.

"You're angry." It wasn't a question. "May I ask at whom?"

"How could you have let this happen?"

"I didn't. I had no control over the ones that did." It was just a statement of fact, pure and simple. There was no snark, no sassy undercurrent to the words for a change. "They don't technically live here."

"Who are they?" I asked, face blank.

He raised an eyebrow. "Planning on going after them yourself, squirt? Without me, you'd have no chance. They're mermaids, capable of realm--"

"Realm-crossing. I know. Is that why this happened? Because they don't live on the island, so you couldn't tell that they were after one of your boys?" I kept my tone carefully neutral, trying to talk myself out of being angry with Pan for something he had no control over.

"Yes." He looked at me intensely. "I'm only here to ask you a question."

"Shoot." I stared into the embers of the long-dead fire, unable to look him directly in the eye.

"Look at me." I wouldn't. "Look at me." I couldn't. "Lily. Look at me."

I looked him in the eye reluctantly, knowing that it wasn't good that I'd inadvertently pushed him so far.

"Tomorrow," he said quietly, "If you want to be a part of the hunt, you'll have to do a few things for me."

"Like what?" Coming from Pan, that could mean just about anything, and not necessarily anything good.

"Well for starters, you'll need to follow orders."

"Done." That shouldn't be too hard.

"I mean it, squirt," he said dangerously. "This is going to be dangerous, and deviating from orders like you normally do could get you killed. Painfully."

"Oh. I understand," I said. It wouldn't be easy; I was stubborn, especially when people ordered me around, but I needed to be on that hunt. "What else?"

"You're not going to like it."

Uh oh. "What else do I need to do?" I insisted.

"We'll be fighting under water." He did the signature "Pan" eyebrow.

Oh. Oh. "Magic," I whispered. "You have to use magic."

"Smart girl. Usually, this wouldn't be a problem, but your... aversion to the mystical side of life could prove dangerous to the others," Pan said. "And I never put my boys in danger."

A danger to the boys? I hadn't thought of that, but now that I had, I could see the potential problem. If I had a freak-out halfway through the attack, someone-- probably Felix, honestly --would have to protect me and do double the work. That could get him killed.

"Just think on it," Pan said. "You're welcome to go if you're sure you can handle it. I'll be back for your answer in the morning."

With that, he was gone, and I was alone in front of the dead fire pit. All of my earlier anger and shock was gone, replaced by a steely determination not unlike when I'd gone through initiation.

"You know, the fact that he gave you an option proves that he knows you can do it," Felix said, coming up behind me. "But do you think so?"

I shrugged. I wanted to, sure, but when I imagined Felix fighting and dying because of me, my heart almost stopped.

"Pan won't hurt you," he assured me. "You're one of us now."

"I'm not afraid of him hurting me," I said. "I just don't want anyone getting hurt because of me, you know?"

Felix smiled at me, understanding. "That won't happen. This isn't just some half baked plan. Pan thought this through, and Peter Pan never fails."

So his name was actually Peter. I'd questioned the "Pan" thing, but never for too long. I filed that tidbit of information away for later.

"Everyone will come back safely, I promise."

"So you're saying I should go?" I clarified.

I couldn't help but feel like a little girl when he slung a gangly arm around my shoulders. "I'm saying that if you're up to it, I'd like you to."

*~*~*

The morning came surprisingly quickly. After a quick breakfast of dried fruit and raccoon meat (not drugged, thank you very much), we started loading up on weapons. It seemed like bows were the weapon of the day.

Felix handed me one distractedly. "Here. The shafts are aerodynamic enough to be effective underwater. They aren't dreamshade-tipped, so don't worry too much if you get nicked."

The weapon felt unfamiliar in my hands, unnatural. "I'm not great with a bow," I said. "Are there any more darts?"

Felix looked at me strangely. It was understandable; I had proven myself with most of the weapons in the arsenal, but somehow I knew that if I tried to use the bow, I would fail miserably. The darts, I could use.

"Yeah," he said finally. "There should be forty or fifty over there."

I loaded up on as many as I could reasonably carry. As I finished strapping the last case of darts on, Felix made the announcement that we would be leaving in a minute. All the way to the beach, I tried to prepare myself mentally for what was coming. Would it hurt? Probably. But I wad a Lost Girl. I could handle a spell or two, right? I didn't have to worry, and neither did Pan or Felix.

Psyching myself up could only do so much, though. When we reached the beach, I was fully ready to admit (to myself, of course) that I was scared out of my mind. Pan appeared before us and said nothing, just gave me a pointed look and released a thick green fog from his hands. It enveloped us and I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the pain that...

Never came.

Suddenly, I was somewhere else. An enormous, strangely shaped building stood before us. All around were colorful coral reefs and tiny fish. Obviously, this was a place built for beauty. I didn't care. This was a place of unseen horror. This was where Bae had died. Felix looked at me as the boys swam off to find hiding spots. He seemed to be asking if I was okay. I took a small, unnoticed breath, and when I didn't drown, I nodded.

He stuck close by me anyway-- probably Pan's orders --hiding in the reef closest to me as we surveyed every entrance and exit visible from the outside. When I had all of them memorized a few minutes later, I swam toward the most inconspicuous one with Felix in tow.

As long as I didn't think about the amount of magic that was probably being used on me at any given time, I was able to stop myself from panicking and keep my focus. I was prepared for the inevitable nightmares that would come from this day, but for now, I was content to have my revenge. The mermaids would pay. That was all that mattered.

I kept a hand close to my darts at all times. They weren't the average "dartboard" darts. These were lethal tubes of lead with stabilizers on one end and barbed tips on the other. These were deadly if they hit the right spot, and excruciating torture instruments everywhere else.

I saw the first one at the door. She didn't see me, so I had a chance to look her over. She had long black hair tied up in a knot at the top of her skull and the prettiest face I'd ever seen. Rosebud lips set into an eternal pout, skin so white it glowed in the faintly sunlit water, and a tiny elflike nose that balanced out her face nicely. Her tail shimmered in a thousand different shades of amber and ended in an elegant split fin. It was hard to believe something this beautiful was capable of the carnage I'd seen just a day earlier.

Suddenly, I understood why the mermaids were so dangerous. Even I was lulled in by their beauty, and I was a straight tomboy. I hoped the boys were alright.

With that thought in mind, I pulled out a dart swiftly and silently. Good aim, a quick flick of the wrist, repeat once, and the guard was down for the count with vocal chords severed and tail pinned to the wall behind her. We were in, a mermaid was down, and we were still mostly undetected. The girl glared at me with impossibly beautiful blue eyes. I didn't waste energy retaliating with anything other than a quick (but excruciating, I was sure) twist of the dart lodged in her tail.

That was how it went with every mermaid we came across. Felix pretty much stood back and didn't do much while I tortured the creatures that had tortured Baelfire. When I walked away, I didn't look back so I didn't know if he killed them or not. It probably should have mattered to me. I probably should have cared.

I didn't.

I wanted to inflict as much pain on them as I could, so I did. If Felix chose to end it for them, well, he was my superior. I didn't pay him much attention until he grabbed my shoulder in a deserted room and gave me a warning look. We were here for revenge, not massacre.

I looked around for the first time. The walls were coated in abalone shell and mother of pearl. A tiny bed-- crib, really --made of coral stood in the corner. A mobile made of sea glass hung above it from a kelp wire. It was a nursery.

Felix's face tightened in discomfort and he pointed up, toward the surface. Looked like the spell wad worn off. The invasion was over, and Pan wanted us back on the island.

A/N : SO I'M WRITING THIS ON MY PHONE BC IM ON A ROAD TRIP RIGHT NOW. FML. SO, THE MERMAIDS ARE IMPORTANT WAAAAAAYYY IN THE FUTURE (like, in the sequel, which I already have planned out) SO THIS CHAPTER WAS RATHER FUN TO DO. MOST OF LILY'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUES WERE THIRD PERSON THIS CHAPTER BC THERE'S NO HTML FORMATTING ON WATTPAD'S MOBILE SITE. I'LL COME BACK AND FIX SPELLING AN THE LIKE LATER ON.

SO. HOW'D YOU LIKE THE FIRST NOT-BITCHY INTERACTION BETWEEN LILY AND PAN? IT'S A SOMEWHAT SLOW BUILD OVER TIME, BUT IM WORKING MY WAY FROM HATRED TO FRIENDSHIP TO ROMANCE. SPOILER ALERT, ROMANCE DOESN'T HAPPEN UNTIL NEAR THE END.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA SUFFER, PEASANTS!!!!!

SORRY, NINE HOURS IN A MINIVAN WITH YOUR GRANDPARENTS DOES THINGS TO A PERSON. HAVE FUN WITH YOUR LIVES PEOPLE!!!