Aaron and I collapse in front of the ferry. We have to be dragged inside by the people who came for us.

Unlike the other two times I had ridden it, the ferry is packed to full capacity. There are children everywhere and adults trying to ensure they are all safely seated or not having a meltdown. I'm pretty sure everyone is having a meltdown in one form or another.

We are plopped down in seats up front next to Luka who helps a ginger haired woman clean us up as best as they can with the supplies they've got.

"Are you two going to be okay?" Luka asks, hesitating to relax into his own seat.

I press the ice pack into the side of my head. I wince. It makes the pain worse before it makes it better.

"Yes but what about Willow? Is she alright? And where's Charlie and the others?'

Luka holds out his hands. "Easy. Willow is fine. They all made it - the thing is . . ."

"What's the thing?" Aaron's hair sticks up in a circle, forming a makeshift crown with the strands. King of Neverland - it's the title he deserves. He won the war.

"Someone else has developed some abilities . . ." Luka blows out a puff of air with his hands on his hips. "You know, I'm beginning to feel left out. There are enough of you to start your own avengers team but here I am - all normal and useless."

Willow. Nakpuna must have given her powers while she was in the ship. Poor Willow. She almost killed herself trying to use them.

"Also, isn't this the billionth time Aaron has saved you?" Luka adds. I blush. I can vividly see José making me out to be some damsel in distress. Not that I minded being saved. It was better than the alternative.

"I was thinking about making her some kind of bat-signal to use."

"Ha- ha."

"But in all seriousness," Aaron says, "Dovie deserves more credit than all of us. If she didn't stop me from going back, everything would have been ruined beyond fixing."

I can't bring myself to bask in the glory of what he is saying. Everything that happened here tonight was much bigger than me. It was bigger than our gang on Neverland and bigger than our outside help.

I watch as the waves ripple behind us as the ferry glides across the water. The night sky reflected in the ocean is actually visible as the captain has the lights on. With each ripple, the Jolly Roger grows farther and farther in our past. I hope the memory of it won't be too haunting.

"You can try telling your sister that," I say. "She hates me."

Aaron gets a dreamy look on his face. "She might not get it but deciding to save that one kid's life is one of the many reasons I love you."

My lips tug into a smile. "You're still sure that's how you feel?"

"Not just the feeling. The action."

Luka groans and backs away from us.

"Gross. I'm gonna go."

"Wait!" I latch onto his arm. "What about Charlie? You'd think he'd come to see if I was okay."

"Oh, he's on the top deck. Shawn's keeping an eye on him but I'd give him some space."

"Why? Did something happen?"

He blinks at me. ". . . His uncle exploded."

Shame floods my cheeks, causing me to turn a deep shade of red.

"Oh. Right."

I'm embarrassed enough as is - I'm glad I didn't go to see Charlie myself for fear that I might have said something insensitive - but Luka feels the need to drive it home for me.

"And that was on top of the baggage of seeing first hand how evil he was by spending days on the Jolly Roger. Imagine being related to someone like that - living with them for years!"

Aaron clears his throat. "Luka, you've made your point."

"Sorry." He scratches the back of his neck. "On another note, I'm really happy you made it out alright. Both of you."

I watch as Luka finds a seat next to Logan who is half asleep. I don't know how he does it. Adrenaline is still pumping through my veins despite the exhaustion.

"Dovie?" A woman with dreads and a bandanna over her head walks up the aisle to me. Her eyelashes are long and remind me of butterfly wings. She reminds me of Lizzie. She has the grace of a Disney princess.

Jimmy is holding her hand. "The little guy won't stop asking for you."

"Thanks," I say, helping Jimmy wedge himself between Aaron and I. Though he swings his legs, he has a permanent frown with tear stains on his cheeks.

Aaron nudges his arm. "How you feeling, pal?"

"Sad." He wipes his nose, getting boogers all over his hand. "I didn't mean to hurt Willow."

I'm taken back to the night I first saw Jimmy cry - during the rain storm. He had missed a family he never had and now here he was, headed towards a new life where he could have one. My chest aches at the very thought of never seeing him again. I'll save that hurt for later.

"What happened to Willow wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was."

"Why would you say that?" Aaron asks.

"Because I'm like Dovie. I told you."

I lean forward in my seat and scan his tiny face. "What do you mean?"

"Sometimes when I get scared or too happy, it does it by itself."

Aaron mirrors my posture. "Does what?"

"Makes things fly."

My eyebrows shoot up.

"That was you? You're sure it wasn't Willow?"

"Yes, I told you before. I made the doors open when it rained."

I do remember that. It had been before I had even developed my own abilities. Nakpuna did say he activated multiple kids injections while I was away. Theoretically speaking, Jimmy could have been one of them. Yet, it could have also been a sudden wind and a coincidence caused by the imagination of a kid.

Aaron and I glance at each other from over Jimmy's head. I shrug.

Aaron reaches into his pocket and pulls out the thimble I had given him before I left Neverland. While I still have his acorn in my pocket, I thought I was the only one keeping the silly thing tucked away like a lucky gold coin.

"Try making this fly."

Jimmy squints at the thimble in the palm of Aaron's hand. The thimble shakes a bit, moved by a mini earthquake. Then it lifts into the sky for a split second.

The kid has powers.

Powers just like mine.

If I didn't already feel an enormous responsibility for him, I do now.

I place my hand on his shoulder. "What happened to Willow was an accident. It wasn't your fault."

"Yeah and Dovie can help you learn to control your powers better so there aren't any big accidents."

Jimmy nods, his frown turning into a straight line. It's not a smile but it's enough.

Aaron, Tina, Jimmy and I all have been modified by Nakpuna. He's not a problem anymore but what he did will have lasting effects on our lives. When Hansen gives the hard drive with all the research facilities files on it, he'll be giving in information on how the four of us have been changed. They'll have the information on how to replicate what they did to make more people fly or give the power of flight or to move things with their minds. Giving anyone access to this information is a hazard. It's the kind of discovery that can corrupt.

There's no telling what will happen. I don't want to be someone else's test subject. I don't want all my information leaked out to the whole world. I don't want to be a spectacle and I know that isn't what any of these kids want either.

The whole point of getting the hard drive was to get the FBI to shut the operation down but in getting the hard drive and freeing the children, we made Nakpna shut it down himself. Is there any purpose for the hard drive now?

"Aaron, I think we should speak with Hansen."

He lifts himself from against the window. "About what?"

"About what happens next."

+++

I had expected chaos the second we all filed out of the ferry but I am pleasantly surprised.

The captain directs us into three different family vans which the kids pile into like they are clown cars.

Willow is up and walking. On her way into a van with Shawn, she assures me she did not hit the ground but had passed out prior to even making it halfway to the forest floor. She thanks me for catching her, giving me a sloppy kiss on the cheek though she is still upset I told Luka about my powers instead of her.

Before Aaron and I climb into any of the vans, we watch as Hansen slams the hard drive into the concrete and stomps the rest of it out with his foot.

He picks up the big chunks, slightly out of breath from destroying the plastic. "I am very against pollution and littering but to be extra safe -" He tosses the pieces into the water. "No one is going through any of those files."

"Thank you." It still mentally strains me to place Hansen in the 'good guy' category in my mind but I can't deny all the good he has done. He was the one who told Charlie about Neverland afterall.

Hansen takes the passenger seat as Aaron and I slide into the remaining seats in the last van. Charlie sits behind my seat. I crane my neck to speak to him.

"Hey, I haven't seen you all night. You okay?"

His countenance is as stoic as I have ever seen it. I already know that the neutral expression is going to be impenetrable.

"Yeah. Are you alright?"

"Yeah," I say with dried blood and ashes caked onto my clothes.

We fall into silence and I let it be. I'll follow Luka's advice and give him space. The whole drive there are loops going on in my mind. The majority of them belong to the final seconds of Nakpuna's life - what I thought would be the final seconds of mine. There really is nothing I could say to him right now.

I press my lips together as the stars blur in my vision. Putting my hood up, I pretend I am sleeping as tears cascade down my face. All the horrors of the last few weeks of my life as well as the relief of finally escaping from it all is too much to bear. I think I might burst at the seams. I think I might spend the rest of my life reliving it everytime I shut my eyes.

Hours pass as we drive through the night. It is only a few minutes before arriving at our destined location that I manage to stop crying.

We're at a boarding school.

The estate is large with it's own road to drive up that leads to the home along with various other facilities for the kids to use. The residential building looks a few hundred years old with its three stories of brick and country style exterior. It's similar to the castle except much less impressive. That isn't its fault. Even this mansion can't compare to a castle on an island of its own.

It's about four in the morning but the employees are ready for us. I gather that some of the help that came to our rescue also works here. We're all split by those who need medical attention and those who don't. Then further divided by gender and age.

The next thing I know I'm sharing a room with Willow and Tina.

The bunk bed is comfortable. The mattress is soft and the sheets smell like laundry detergent. The pillow is the most supportive one I've ever used. Despite all of this, I can't keep my eyes closed. There is no use in counting sheep or deep breathing, sleep is far from me.

Tina's voice invades the quietness of the room. "I saw a television in the common room on the walk over here. The news channel was talking about a ship that exploded out at sea."

I hear the bedsprings shift as Willow sits up in the bed underneath me. "Do you think they'll mind if we sneak over to watch it for a while?"

Tina snickers, throwing her legs over the side of her bed. "What are they going to do? Kick us out? We're orphans!"

Willow is about to tap my side to see if I'm awake but I'm already climbing down the ladder. We follow Tina out the room and through a hall that takes us to the common room. It's filled with couches, bean bag chairs, and tables with a screen hanging on the middle of the wall.

We're not the only ones who had this idea. A handful of the older boys have their eyes glued to the television, including Hansen.

"We have some breaking news regarding a cargo ship that seems to have exploded while approaching an island east of Maine. A medical and rescue team arrived on site but there have been no found survivors." The news reporters face cuts to overhead footage of the Jolly Roger burned to an exoskeleton. Firefighters in boats spray at the persistent flames. I can't even imagine how difficult it was to put it out.

It unsettles me that the remains of several researchers and security guards are on that ship. We didn't mean for it to happen as we did not expect Nakpuna to go the suicide bomber route but we did trap a bunch of people in a burning ship.

I watch the b-roll footage of the ship burning at several different angles. It should be twisting the knife of trauma further into my gut but it doesn't. The sound of the crackling of the flames and the water spraying at them is like a lullaby. Seeing with my own eyes that the ship that has haunted me while awake and while asleep has been reduced to blackened scraps of metal fills me with serenity.

It's the evidence that this chapter of my life is closing.

Willow pulls me aside later. There's a spring in her step and her cheeks are almost as rosy as her hair.

"A lady noticed the tattoo on my leg." She points to Micheal and John's name scribbled onto her thigh. "She was the one who organized Micheal and John' adoption in London. She said she was talking to their new parents a few days ago and they had specifically asked that if a girl named Willow was rescued that she'd call them."

I squeeze her shoulders in delight. "They remember you!"

"I spoke with them on the phone." Willow beams as her eyes get glassy. "They want me. They want to take me in."

"You have to go."

"I know." She hugs herself, gazing at the group in the common area. "Things are going to change so fast. All of us are going to be separated, adopted or put into foster care. It'll be better than the life we had before but . . ."

"It'll be different."

"What about you though? It seems wrong for you to go back to your parents."

The floor creaks behind us. "We won't let that happen. We'll find another way."

Charlie is wearing short sleeves for the first time I've ever seen. He can't seem to uncross his arms and suddenly I understand why he is persistent on keeping his skin hidden. Scars run in horizontal lines down his forearms. They're faded, dating themselves as years old but look like they were once carved deep.

"There's no air conditioning in the boys wing," he says when he catches me staring.

After a round of silence, he drops his arms to his sides leaving his scars fully exposed.

"I had an idea for another superhero poster we can make."

The life where we spent our lunch breaks making those in the computer lab feel like centuries ago. The very mention of them fills me with nostalgia that doesn't belong to something that had taken place only months ago. Still, that life is in my reach. It'll be different but better than before.

"You're not going to ask if I can draw that criminal vigilante again, right?"

"No," he says, a smirk on his lips. He steps closer and I know that at any second, he's going to kiss me. "I was thinking about a girl with a hideous smile."

Ah! Almost done but not quiet yet! Vote and comment!