Page 122 of Never Never

I feel the scrape of the gun against my back.

“Just let me go first.”

Tink considers.

“Fine.”

I nod. “Fox. Boost.”

He nods back and makes a stirrup out of his hands, eyes still up on that window, and with the added lift I’m six feet off the ground and past Tink in two seconds. The lattice creaks under us, but holds. Hand over hand, finding my footholds like I’m fucking Spider-Man until I get a boot on the sill. Fingers hooked under the sash, I glance down.

Tink’s right behind me.

“I said stay down, Tink.” I barely remember to whisper.

“No you didn’t,” she retorts, eyes hard and fingers tense on the wood. “You said me first.”

Same difference, I think. “If I fall, I’m taking you with me,” I warn her.

Tink’s mouth twitches. “What else is new?” She glances down at the ground, at the three guys standing in a ring. “Watch the gate?” she calls to them. They nod. “But don’t move,” she adds, and glances back up, the light of the room cutting across her features. “If she comes out this window, she’s coming out fast.”

“What if you come out that window fast?” one of them asks. Kit.

Now I glare down at him. “Then catch her, idiot.”

The window’s cracked about four inches now. I get it up the rest of the way one-handed. The curtain brushes against me, and then I’m in.

It’s pink. Real fucking pink. That’s the first thing I notice, because it’s almost the only thing to notice: pink walls and a pink bedspread and a pink lamp with the plastic still on the shade. It’s a room for a Barbie, or a four-year-old. A room that I don’t think anyone’s ever slept in.

And in the middle of all of it, on the floor with her back against the bed, is Wendy.

She’s got her arms around Nana’s neck, and her face is a mess, blotchy and streaked. But when my boots hit the carpet—pink—and she sees me, she just goes stiff and hard-eyed.

Then Tink swings a leg over the sill behind me and the kid unfreezes.

“Tink.” Suddenly Wendy’s up and across the room and Tink has her in her arms like I’m not even there.

Which is fine. Correct, actually. The way it should be.

Meanwhile, Nana butts her skull into the back of my knee, and I put a hand down on her.

“You’re fine,” I murmur. God, she’s shaking like a fucking leaf. “It’s just me.”

“Okay,” Tink’s saying, low, into Wendy’s hair. “Okay. Okay. We found you. We’re here.”

Wendy pulls away, hiccups, and nods. Then she’s all business.

“I’m leaving,” she says. “I don’t want to be here.”

Tink nods too, glancing at the window. “Can you climb?”

Wendy thinks about it. “Yeah, I think so⁠—”

“Out the window, onto the trellis thing there?” Tink gestures. “Fox is right underneath you, okay? Just take your time, don’t look down⁠—”

“But Nana can’t.”

Tink stops.