Wendy did not get any sleep. For the first few days, she could hardly close her eyes. This wasn't happening. This really wasn't happening. She needed to get back to her mother. She needed to get back to Marcus and Jonathan. She needed to get back to Donnie and Smee.
Oh, Smee. What kind of trouble was the poor boy in? He had broken down a door to save her. Her last image of him was his bruised and bloody face laying next to hers on the floor.
"Mother surely would believe what Philip has been doing to us now," she whispered to herself.
One morning, five days after Wendy first got to this place, Peter seemed to notice her bloodshot eyes.
"You not getting a lot of sleep?" He asked her as they walked to the dinner circle. Wendy shrugged, eyes drooping slightly. He chuckled.
"I don't usually get a lot of sleep either, needing to take care of The Lost Boys and all," he said. She smiled softly.
She sat down at the dinner circle. Peter sat next to her, and Tink sat next to Peter. Michael sat on Wendy's lap and John sat next to her, the brother's dressed in their deer and eagle outfits.
"Wendy?" Jeremiah asked, sitting on Peter's lap. Wendy turned to the little boy.
"Why are you not wearing your outfit?" He asked. Wendy sighed.
"I miss my home," she said. John and Michael sighed.
"Jonathan, Marcus, please. I need to go home." Her voice was barely louder than a whisper. Her voice cracked.
"You are home," Michael said, holding onto her arm. She pushed the little boy off her and stood up.
"No, I'm not," she said. Tinkerbelle rolled her eyes.
"Wendy, please, sit down," John pleaded as Michael crawled into his lap. Tears stung her eyes. She slowly sat down. Everyone was silent. Their eyes all bore into Wendy's. She lowered her head.
"My mother gave birth to me when she was sixteen. The man who impregnated her was sent to jail for murder a few months afterwards. My mother, Cassandra Darling, got married to a man named George Conver. He was in the military. After my brothers, Jonathan and Michael were born, he died in war. My mother was so distraught, so broken, so hurt. She sat in her room for months. I was forced to take care of my siblings, without the help of any parent. I was only seven-years-old.
"The only other man that could possibly help me was Philip Captain. When I was younger he was kind to me, offering to help me with my brothers. But it was really his younger brother, Simone, or Smee, who helped me. He protected me from almost everything. George was like a father to me, and Smee was like my older brother I never had.
"It was difficult for me to make friends. I couldn't tell anyone about what happened to me, because they wouldn't understand.
"As I got older, Philip turned all his anger on me. He hit me when I said something wrong. He'd lock me in my room if I didn't do what he wanted. He'd threaten to hurt my brothers when I couldn't read his mind. Smee got beaten too, so I wasn't alone in the feelings. As my brothers aged, he started hitting them too. I protected them to the best of my ability, shoving them out of the way, taking the punches, begging for his forgiveness.
"There are certain things you can't tell someone. There are certain things you don't want random people knowing. This made making friends very hard for me. I couldn't tell them of the abuse I dealt with when I went over to Philip's house. I couldn't tell them that my mother refused to see the signs and continued to send me to his house. I couldn't tell them why I always wore long sleeves and it always looked like splotches of my face were covered in make-up. I couldn't tell them that my mother was planning on marrying the very same man that I hated so much.
"Middle school was hard. With taking care of my brothers, doing homework, and getting my daily beating, it was hard to keep my grades up. Teachers tried to talk to me about what was going on. I simply told them that I was dealing with some things at the house, but my mum was taking care of it. I could only hope they believed me. The kids at school steered clear of me.
"High School was worse. The teachers were more suspicious. The kids didn't stay away, they picked on me. I got bullied everyday when I went to school. It was like everywhere I turned I was being screamed at or beaten." Tears leaked from Wendy's eyes and everyone gave her sympathetic looks. I don't want sympathy. I just want them to understand.'
"But," she looked down at her hands refusing to meet Peters eyes, "Then there was Donnie. He was a sophmore and I was a freshman. He was the only true friend I had. We had just seemed to...click." Wendy fiddled with a loose thread in Peters jeans, "We went everywhere together. If there was a Donnie there always was a Wendy. Everyone thought we were either siblings or dating." She could feel Peter tense beside her. Is he jealous?
Wendy almost squealed at the thought. What the heck is wrong with me?
"One night...we got into a big fight. I...I told him about all the abuse, and he got so...mad. He wanted me to tell someone about the abuse...about everything." She turned her gaze towards her brothers, looking at them right in the eyes. "I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. It was my life and I wanted to fix it up myself."
Wendy didn't know why she was spilling her guts to complete strangers, but she felt safe and secure. She tried not to notice their sympathetic gazes or Tink sitting in the corner picking at her nails. Suddenly Jeremiah spoke up in a small voice, "S'okay Mummy! We'll never hurt you!" Wendy couldn't help but smile at the little boy. Jeremiah crawled over Peter's lap and settled cross legged on Wendy's. She wrapped her arms around his torso and rested her chin on the top of his head.
Wendy looked up to see Peter's jaw set. His blue, narrowed eyes were locked on a small spot on the wall. Tink was glaring at Wendy from the corner, every once in a while sending look of self pity to Peter. It didn't take Wendy long to make the connection. Peter was upset about something Wendy had said, which made Tink upset because, naturally, Tink liked Peter.
The Boys noticed this too, but they kept their mouths shut, as not to make Peter any angrier. Vincent couldn't stand the awkwardness any more, so he coughed loudly. The sound echoed through the bare room. All heads swiveled towards him, even Peter's, even though his eyes were still glaring.
"Wendy, John, Michael. As you could probably tell, we're a 'gang'. We aren't the only ones. There are the Pirates, you've met them," Wendy grimaced at the thought of the dagger in her gut,"There are the Redskins, an Indian Gang, and the Mermaids, a gang of all beautiful, wonderful-"
"Vincent," Peter growled. Vincent shook his head.
"-girls. We each run some sort of bar on every side of town. Not one of her customers knows that we're gang members, so we're hoping you won't tell them. We run an honest business-" Wendy couldn't help the snort that came from her mouth.
"Excuse me?" Peter asked, his lips pursed. Wendy's face flushed. She hadn't meant for that to come out.
"Well...you can't really expect me to believe you run an 'honest' business, with you being a gang and all," Wendy said bashfully.
"Not all gangs run around shooting people and stealing. We're a gang of people, but the way we act, people put us into the category of 'Gang'. We are honest. We saved your life, and then we let you live in our home. Don't ever insult our respectability again, Wendalynn." Peter stormed off.
"Peter-"
"Save it Wendy," Tink snapped, running after Peter.
Wendy glanced down, almost forgetting about the small Jeremiah in her lap.
"Daddy's been a little mean lately. I think he needs a break, but he feels like he needs to protect us from everything," the little boy said. Wendy shuffled her lips around, trying to form the words of an apology or even a response. But nothing came out.
"Anyway, now that all the interruptions are over with, you have to earn your place around here. Everyone does something. The older kids, which is mostly me, Peter, Tink, Riley, and now you, work in the bar. The younger kids do other stuff, like cleaning up or sneaking around trying to find out what plans Hook is coming up with. Tink is in charge of decorating the place, but she does a horrid job, so I'm going to convince Peter to give the job to you, which means you choose basically everything and tell us what to get, then we find it. It's kinda like a game," Vincent said. Wendy hadn't noticed until now how much Vincent talked. He talked more than most of the other boys. They usually just nodded in agreement, as if he was speaking for the all of them. She hadn't really heard any of the others talking except for the first two days she'd met them.
All Wendy could do in response was nod. She forced a very fake smile onto her face.
"You know everything about me," Everything, "And I know nothing about you. Tell me something about yourselves."

"These kids need a mother, Peter," Wendy said, walking into the boy's room, without even knocking. She looked up, blushing furiously. Peter wasn't wearing a shirt. She tried to look at his face.
Peter, very amused, turned towards her.
¨That's what you're here for, isn't it?" He said. Wendy stumbled over her words, trying not to look at Peter's bare chest. She turned her head away, covering her eyes.
"Would...would you mind putting a shirt of some sort on?" She asked. She heard Peter chuckle. She assumed he had put on a shirt, so she looked up. He was leaning against his bedpost, legs crossed.
"What was I saying?" Wendy asked, still slightly distracted by Peter's charming smile.
'You were saying the boys needed a mother," Peter said.
"Yeah, right. They need a mother," she restated her opinion. Peter walked over to her.
"And I replied with, that's what you're here for," he walked out the door. Wendy huffed. She walked after him.
"They need a real mother. I'm sixteen. I don't know how to be a mother, Peter, incase you haven't noticed," she said, almost jogging to keep up with his fast walking pace. He spun on his heel.
"Recently, you've been speaking your mind a lot more openly, and, frankly, it annoys me," he said. Wendy glared at him.
"Well, frankly, I believe these boys need a mother who can love everyone of them equally, who can teach them things, who they can learn from, and look up to," Wendy said. Peter turned to walk away. Wendy grabbed his arm and turned him towards her, "They look up to you like their father. You need to find someone who doesn't 'frankly annoy' you to be their mother. And, if I'm so annoying, why keep me?"
Peter rolled his eyes.
"The boys love you already. If I take you away, they'll never forgive me. And if you think the boys need a better mother, than you should figure out how to be a better mother, because," Peter leaned in and whispered in her ear, "You're not going anywhere."
His voice made her shudder. He stalked off, a satisfied smirk on his face. Wendy glared back at him, unable to get his shirtless image still blaring in her mind.

Wendy found herself wanting to talk to someone. She felt as if she couldn't talk to anyone in the blasted warehouse. She rolled onto her side in her bed, reaching out to grab the phone that wasn't there She groaned and her face fell into her pillow. She felt like screaming. She wanted to talk to Donnie. She wanted to talk to Smee. Heck, she wanted to talk to her mother.
Oh gosh, her mother. What kind of torment was she going through, looking at her baby in a coma, not responding to anything she says. It made Wendy want to cry.
But aren't I the source of her pain? Wendy thought. I was the reason she had to go to college late. It's because of me that she would be feeling any sort of pain she should be feeling. But what if she wasn't feeling any pain? It would make sense. Why would a mother want to weep for the child that ruined her life?
"Wendy?" A small voice piped up from the doorway. Wendy lifted her head. Jeremiah bound over to her. He jumped onto her bed. She could hardly feel him land. He inspected her face carefully. He frowned, furrowing his eyebrows together.
"What?" Wendy asked, trying to smile. The small skunk touched her cheeks.
"Why you cry?" he asked. Wendy hadn't realized she had been crying. She touched her cheeks. They were damp. She attempted to change the subject.
"How was raiding the alley ways of...where ever we are?" Jeremiah frowned, not buying it. He opened his mouth.
"DADDY! MOMMY'S CRYING!" Jeremiah screamed. Wendy flipped herself onto her back and covered the boy's mouth.
"Shh," she whispered. Nobody answered or came towards her room. She let out a sigh of relief. Had she been at home, her brothers, her mother, Smee, and Donnie all would have came running over. But not here, which made her, strangely, thankful.
"I'm okay, Buddy, really," Wendy reassured him, "I was just thinking of home." He nodded. An idea struck Wendy's head.
"How high can you count?" she asked him. Jeremiah thought for a second, then shrugged.
"How can Vincent count to?" he shrugged again. A sly smile crept onto Wendy's face.
"What?"
"Well, your daddy said that if I want to be a good mother, I have to pull my own weight, and teach myself how to do so. I know exactly what I'm going to do."

Wendalynn bound over to Peter. Peter, who had just finished talking to Vincent, turned to the young girl, eyebrows furrowed.
"Wendy." He said, slightly suspicious of her actions. She grinned at him.
"Hi Peter." Peter looked at her with a sideways glance.
"Wendy." Peter said again. Wendy couldn't stop smiling and it unnerved him. "Wendy, do you need something?" Wendy shook her head.
"I was going to tell you something." Peter sighed and crossed his arms. Wendy tried not to notice how they flexed.
"Well get on with it."
"I want to teach the Boys," Wendy said. Peter frowned.
"Teach them what?"
"Math, Reading, Writing, some Science, things like that. I think to run a good, honest, business, our boys should know how to the basics of what a fourth grader knows," Wendy said, the smile coming back to her face. She felt proud of herself. She obviously hadn't caught herself saying 'our' boys, which made Peter chuckle.
The way she rocked back and forth on her heels, the way she smiled, the way she held her hands behind her back with pride made Peter smile.
He licked his lips, and looked down.
"You want to teach my boys?" Peter tried to suppress his grin. Wendy nodded enthusiastically. Peter brushed past her. Wendy's eyes fell, her heart sinking.
"You're going to have to buy your own books," Peter said. Wendy's face lit up.
As long as she was here, Wendy thought, she might as well make herself useful. And this was just how to do so.
Peter turned around quickly.
"Oh, and by the way, we're going to the Lagoon. You might want to wear something nice. Don't want the Mermaids to have another thing to mock you about."