Peter waited, taking deep breaths to calm himself. He turned the card over in his hand, twisting it as he backed slowly to the door.

It took twice tries to get the door open. The first swipe didn't do anything, but turning the card around and swiping again caused the lock to click open.

He walked quickly, but kept his head down. Making noise had brought him nothing but trouble over the last few days. Protesting, arguing, begging – all had escalated his problems. Now he would try being quiet.

Someone came out of a door, but Peter just kept walking and stared down at the ground. The person, a plain woman in a dark suit, walked right by him, her eyes on the same flat block that Ms. Branet had carried with her. Ms. Brante had shown him pictures on her block, instructing him to "Look at my phone."

He had seen phones before, but they had been large clunky things in homes. Except for the one the girl waiting for her dad had been using.

He found a door with one of those thick pushy bars in the middle. He slowly leaned against it until he heard the metal click. It was heavy, but he kept leaning until the door crept open and he stepped out into an alley where dull light shown through a mass of clouds that covered the sky.

Peter stepped around a green metal dumpster and headed for the street. People were milling around, but Peter kept his head down and walked down the street, matching his pace to a random person heading the same direction and switching to another person if the first stopped or went into a building.

Across the street, younger people were sitting on the grass, watching two boys tossing a round disk back and forth to each other. The younger people looked closer to his age than the adults he was walking with, but Peter didn't venture over. They looked a little like the young people who had laughed at him before he had been captured. And one of the girls looked like the last child Peter had ever tried to convince to go to Neverland, the girl waiting for her dad.

It had been a summer evening, and Tinkerbell had looked exhausted after the trip back to earth, but Peter had been desperate to find a young person. The last Lost Boy had disappeared and the fairies were fewer and fewer. Even flying had become difficult.

As he had approached the girl, he had told himself over and over again that he needed a mother girl and she would do fine, but the idea had stayed in the back of his mind that he was having trouble believing that girls could be his mother, especially now that he was as tall as most of them. But he had approached her, deliberately making his voice higher pitched to sound younger (or how he thought he had always sounded – a small boy who would never grow up).

"Hello?" he had smiled at her.

She had looked up from her phone, and he had blinked at the fact that her ears were pierced. He had thought she was ten but she was probably a little older. She had worn denim jeans that were too tight and a shirt that showed her stomach so he couldn't guess her age precisely.

"Get lost," she had replied. "I don't talk to strangers."

"I'm Peter, Peter Pan," he had grinned.

"Funny," she had tossed her hair in a dismissive way that had made him pause. "Look, my dad is going to be here any second to get me, and I'm going with him to his crappy apartment and have a crappy weekend with Janice, his airhead girlfriend. And I pretend to like her so he'll keep paying my credit card for Starbucks. So get lost before I scream and everyone comes running."

Peter had glanced around uneasily, but no one had been close enough to hear them. "I'm Peter Pan and I want you to come to Neverland."

She had finally put the phone down. "You know, you look the part of Peter Pan . . . if you were in a lame-ass play. But Dad told me about tricks people play. You work for some creep and you, like, lure me to a back alley and then it's all Law and Order and they find my body tomorrow. So beat it."

"But don't you want to come meet the fairies?"

"We're not supposed to call gay men that, dummy. Everyone at school knows that – we've had those stupid diversity rally meets where we learn to treat each other fairly," she had rolled her eyes pronouncedly.

"No, fairies that fly in Neverland."

"I'm thirteen. I don't believe in fairies, even the Tooth Fairy."

Peter had stepped back in terror, but the girl had jabbed at her phone and lifted it up to her ear.

"OMG, Brittany, I'm still waiting for Dad and a creep has started talking to me. I told Dad to get me pepper spray, but he's too stupid to think about anything rationally. It's, like, so effing lame."

Peter had watched her get up and swing her bag over her shoulder as she had sauntered away, still gabbing over the phone about stupid the world was.

That had been the last girl he tried to persuade to go to Neverland. But he hadn't expected much success, not after Megan.

A horn blared, starling Peter out of his thoughts. He had walked out of sight of the park and now he was surrounded by buildings.

Doubt crept up on him that he was making the right decision. He had never been scared of big cities before. With Tink by his side, he had flown over the peaks of the buildings, dodging the glare of lights and hiding on rooftops. It had been fun then, a joke that he giggled about while clueless adults scanned the sky, declaring, "I thought I saw something moving up there."

But now, stuck on the ground, he felt small and helpless. Adults were taller on the ground – they walked right past him in suits with serious, determined faces. Some of them were talking into phones. He listened to a little of the various conversations:

A man with gray hair in gray suit, "I made him miserable. He sat there like a chump while I negotiated his company away from him."

A woman with brown hair in a blue dress, "I can't make lunch today. I'm going to stay with Mom. She's been throwing up again, another brutal round of chemo. She's lost all her hair. It breaks my heart every time."

A younger woman in colorful clothes with drawings all over her bare arms, "I got another parking ticket! Another one! I'm telling you, Marcy, someone should take a gun and pop a cap into every meter maid they see. This city sucks, these tickets suck, and I'm not paying one damn cent to the city . . . well, they can come boot my ass then!"

A woman in a tight skirt, "Oh, he's going to suffer alright. I have the best lawyer and I'm going to take every bit of his money, his house, his pride. Oh, and I'm getting the kids, too, so he'll be paying me child support and alimony. Is this a great country, or what?"

He felt tired, but he trudged on. He glanced up at the buildings towering above him. One had small balconies that jutted out from the side of the building, and he spotted various items on the balconies: a blanket, plants, chairs, even a bird feeder. He had met Megan in apartment off such a balcony many nights before.

Over the years he had lost track of Wendy's children and grandchildren, but he had found a girl that looked like her with long blond hair and wide blue eyes. He had snuck into her room one night when the spring weather had cause someone in the apartment to leave the fifth-story window open.

The girl had been slow to wake but when she did, she had stared at him in confusion. He had gone through the same introduction with her – an exchange of names and an invitation to come to Neverland.

"Oh, okay," the girl, named Megan, had gotten out of bed. She had worn pajamas with boys' faces surrounded by golden stars. She had a poster by her bed of the same boys, but she had worn a look of interest on her face as she waited for him to act.

Peter had blown a spray of pixie-dust on her and instructed, "Think happy thoughts."

She had closed her eyes and scrunched her face up tight. For a slight second, she had risen off the ground a half inch but then she went back down.

Peter had tossed more dust on her, but she hadn't moved.

"Are you thinking happy thoughts?"

Her eyes had snapped open. "Of course, I am!"

"What happy thoughts? Thoughts about how the stars look on summer nights? Of adventures you can go on? The moment in a story when you realize they are going to live happily ever after?"

"No, I was thinking about my Christmas gifts. I got a new phone. I wanted a silver one but they got me a white one. Mom said I could choose a cover case thingy, but I told her I wanted a silver one." Megan's face had been sad, and Peter hadn't known what to say, mainly because he had thought she would be more upset about the fact she couldn't go to Neverland since she couldn't fly.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" he had ventured. Sometimes siblings were easier because they helped each have fun.

She had rolled her eyes. "I have a brother. He's two years younger than me, but I'm so much smarter than he is. He's always in trouble at school and he hates me because I get all high grades. Dad said if I got all As and Jerry got all Bs we would go and have a fun trip this summer, but we just went to the beach and Mom and Dad yelled at us the whole way because Jerry was annoying. I wish I was an only child. Then my life would be perfect. Can that be a happy thought?"

"Wishing your brother didn't exist?" Peter had responded. At that moment, he had remembered Wendy, standing by the window, arguing, "I can't go to Neverland. Not with John and Michael." They had all been so happy when they discovered they could fly, and their shrieks of joy had sent their nursemaid dog into bouts of frenzied barking outside.

Megan had sat on the edge of her bed. "So what's in Neverland? What's cool about Neverland?"

"It's Neverland," Peter had sputtered. "It's the most amazing place ever and I'm the leader there and you will have the greatest adventures ever."

"Who are you to decide what I'm going to do? And I already had the greatest adventure ever. I met Justin Bieber backstage at a concert and got his autograph."

The way she had looked at him, with scorn and challenge, made something flare up in Peter. He had never thought about the emotion of hate before. There had been justice and revenge and determination as negative thoughts, but not hate. At that time, he hadn't even hated Captain Hook; Hook was his sworn enemy and a black-hearted villain and they would be fighting until the end time. But hate had not occurred to him until that moment standing in Megan's bedroom where she wore her contempt and disgust so clearly.

"You're never going to Neverland," he had declared as he headed for the window.

She had used a word he hadn't heard before, followed by the word off, but he had already reached the window and jumped off into the night sky.

He had done his best to forget about Megan, to forget about all of them, but it hurt that no one wanted to go to Neverland anymore.

On the sidewalk, Peter started walking again, but then he caught his reflection in a store window. He was taller than he had been the last time he looked in the window of a store shop, but the last time he had really looked, the store had sold candy for pennies. Now the signs in candy stores advertised candy for $8 or £6 or some other high currency.

Peter faced the window. His face was straighter now, not so round, and his hair had darkened slightly. He used to look like a small boy, but now –

Peter took a breath and did the bravest thing he could do at the moment – he straightened up. He had been crouching and ducking, pulling his head down for the longest time so he would still look young and small, the Boy who Never Grew up. On the ship with Hook, he had constantly shrunk down so he never quite reached Hook's shoulders and he deliberately made his words as babyish as possible.

The bunny had helped. And it also helped that Hook babied him so much, treating him like a small boy. It had been so easy to fall into that role of helpless child, to let himself be pushed around, smacked, ordered to study, controlled so firmly. All of it allowed the illusion of his life to remain constant; Neverland had been decaying around him but the state of his childishness and innocence remained the same. His world had been crumbling, but he had been the same little boy, the best and bravest and smartest and fullest of life.

Peter stood straight and pushed his shoulders back, watching his reflection. He looked the age of the boys he hadn't liked, the same boys with whom he hesitated before offering them the chance to be Lost Boys. They were still boys, probably younger than thirteen, but they had other interests other than magical adventures. The few he did bring to Neverland were often too aggressive, too apt to pick on younger boys, too eager to fight pirates for real. Usually, he ended up returning those boys back to their homes (or orphanages more likely).

He was growing up.

Peter braced himself, waiting for the panic attack to follow, but nothing happened. He felt a sense of despair, of longing for his old life, but it was manageable, something able to be pushed down in his core. His goal now was to find Hook. Later could come hysterics and sadness.

He went back to walking, but he tried to feel for a sense of direction. He used to just feel his way around – feel his way home through the sky, narrowing on the section of the sky that sucked him into space and spit him out over Neverland, feel the direction of a child who needed the hope of another world, feel the possibility of magic. Now he felt nothing.

Well, he still felt. His legs hurt from standing and walking so long. His head hurt from all the stuff they had given him that made him feel so dizzy. He was hungry, too.

Usually, when felt this way, Tinkerbell would comfort him, Lost Boys would bring him food, the hideout would unfold its most luxurious leaves to let him sleep.

This world of cement and glass had none of those comforts, and Peter simply could not understand why anyone would choose to build this world, much less live in it. This world bred awful people like that girl waiting for her dad and Megan and those boys who had taunted him before he was locked up. He hated all of them.

He came to a corner of the sidewalk and looked across both streets, the walkways marked by white lines and signs that showed either red hands or white stickmen. He moved in the same direction he had been walking, but a twinge of something in the air around him made him pause. He turned to the right to cross the street he had been walking alongside and the twinge eased into a pleasant feeling.

That feeling disappeared as a car screeched to halt to avoid hitting him. The person inside looked furious, gesturing with his hands and shouting though Peter couldn't hear the words from inside the car. Scared, he broke into a run, trying to get to the other side.

Cars were flying by him and skidding to stop from hitting him. One car ran into another with a crash and Peter slowed to look it.

A black sedan pulled to a stop, bumping against his leg which hurt, but then he looked up to see the driver.

Ms. Brante stared at him from the driver's seat. Her face was intent, stern, her mouth in a straight line of judgment.

Peter choked back a gasp and broke into a run on the sidewalk. He stayed by the buildings, not venturing to cross the street, but he heard the car drive up beside him.

"No, no," he panted as he ran.

He didn't dare look back, but he could hear the car following. With pixie-dust, he could match the speed of a car in the city, trailing above it for a few minutes before darting out of the streetlights and into the eaves or crevices of the buildings. But with the ability to fly, he had to trust his running speed which after several days of confinement had slowly considerably.

The car was right beside him, and he could not run any faster.

He had bumped into several people and then he tripped, sprawling on the cement. It hurt, but he jumped back up and kept running.

Where could he go? What could he do to stop the car? Why did everything back happen to him?

But the twinge was there, guiding him down one street and then the next even though the car kept up pace.

Ahead were glass doors, and Peter put out his hands to open them, but the slid open and he kept running.

"Excuse me?" someone called to him. "Are you alright?"

He didn't answer. He followed the twinge to a closed door, opened it, and ran right up a flight of stairs.

The air was tight in his lungs as he pounded up each step. He managed to look down and see the gashes in his trousers at the knees. They hurt and that wettish feeling dripping down his shins must be blood.

He glanced at his hands; they were scraped and bleeding in a few places.

But he kept running.

He burst through another door and started running down the hall of doors as fast as he could.

The twinge was now a warm glow of light and it led up one closed door.

He tried to open it, but the handle wouldn't budge. In desperation, he beat his wounded hands on the door. He didn't realize until he tried to look at the numbers on the door that he was crying so hard he couldn't make out anything.

The door opened, and Hook said, "What in the world is all this –"

Peter flung himself at the man, grabbing him in a desperate hug. Hook stumbled back a pace, holding onto the door for balance, but Peter could not stop crying and choking and hurting as he hung on for dear life.

"Peter," Hook put his free hand on the boy's head, smoothing down his sweaty curls, "Peter, it's all right. You found me. Calm down, shh."

"No, no," Peter hiccupped frantically, "she's – she's –"

He stopped.

Down the hall, Ms. Brante was coming towards them. She walked deliberately, her eyes dark and foreboding. At about twenty paces away, she reached into her leather shoulder bag.

She pulled out a black gun and aimed it at Hook.