“And…” Peter stammered. “And then… I can go?”

                “Yes, what did I just say? Go.” Mandy scowled.

                “Right!” Peter took off, keeping to a modest jog, aware that Mandy might very well change her mind if she chose to be insulted by the pace he moved.

                The trees appeared to stay the same size, even after he’d run toward them for a full minute. This was going to take a while. The grass bands folded with soft crunches beneath his tiny shoes. When passing by overgrown dandelions, Peter threw up his fist, careful not to slow. He hadn’t bothered to look back yet, for fear of inciting Mandy to reconsider yet again.

                Toward the trees. Toward the trees. He could do that, right? It was a long way, but with his miraculously unbroken legs, he had options. He could find shelter. He could wait until daylight and get someone’s attention. Put an end to this nightmare once and for all.

                Oddly, it was only now that Peter allowed himself to really think of Lisa. To fully form her face in his mind’s eye. He’d avoided thinking too much of her earlier, anxious of becoming distracted or demoralized at the idea of never seeing her again. But now, she was a goal. An angelic face to strive toward. When he really concentrated, Peter could almost picture her appearing before him.

                God, what he’d give to see her coming from between those dark trees now: perfect emerald eyes glued to him, hands outstretched to receive her best friend in the whole world. She could wrap him in her coat pockets and hands, generating heat for the both of them, promising to never let him alone again when she didn’t have to. What that would feel like, Peter almost couldn’t imagine now, as he forced himself to ignore the stinging pain of his bruised hips and sides and lungs burning from the wind chill.

                On he ran, for at least ten minutes now. The trees might well have gotten larger and closer, but for all the good his perspective did him, down in the grass, amongst the healthy weeds and flitting moths, Peter felt he was in a dream, running in place. If he sprinted forever, he might still never reach his destination.

                The earth below him rumbled. The screeching of tire spokes, growing louder in his ears.

                Peter dove to the side as Mandy’s bike rocketed toward him, feeling the blast of November air and a fresh dust storm of dry soil kicked up into his atmosphere. He only just made it, at least as far as he could tell. Barely maintaining his stance, the boy was bowled over onto his back. He lay still in the grass, eyes to the sky, half-hoping beyond the bounds of human rationality it was just a mistake and Mandy was simply headed this way too, on her bike, right in his same direction.

                The bike was dropped loudly back in the grass and his mighty tormentor, like a golem in the darkness, stood above again, planting each of her shoes hard into the earth such that they flanked Peter on either side. There was no running anymore.

                “Oh, don’t look at me like that. All stupid. If you can lie about everything, I should get to do it once,” she scowled. “Didn’t you hear what I said before we left?”

                I was trying not to snap in half, Peter thought bitterly.

                “Yes,” he said.

                “I said if you’re not going to be my friend, then you’re going to be the next-best thing. Which is a thing,” Mandy declared proudly. In an almost needless show of power, she dug her shoe into the earth and kicked up a bundle of grass and soil, allowing it to shower overhead and into the middle distance. The wind of her swinging leg whipped against the boy’s neck. Peter spat a few more cloudy mouthfuls of silt from his lips and covered his head, just in case she reared up for another punt in his direction.

                “And I guess if you wanna be specific, then you’re gonna be my pet, little Peter-Rabbit,” Mandy continued. Hands on her hips again, she loomed above: a mighty titan against the drearily starless sky. “My naughty, stupid, ungrateful little pet. And do you want to know something about pets?”
                “What.”

                “They look awfully weird in people-clothes. Even little people clothes. Don’t you think?”
                Peter’s spine shivered, more from cold at this point than straight fear, after all he’d endured this evening. It was as if the cold had only truly occurred to him in all its frigid attention now, in this moment, when he realized he was about to lose what little protection from the chill that he had: this ridiculous, spice-and-spit stained, tightly-stitched fairy tale tunic.

                “Mandy… I… it’s just that it’s so…”

                “What?”

                “It’s so cold,” Peter whimpered, and as soon as he’d said it, he realized what a pitiful little cliché he sounded like and, more than likely, looked like. His quaking shoulders made him a mewling rodent. He almost made himself sick with the pathetic tone in his voice. It was the voice of a begger. A pleader. He wanted to vomit.

                Of course, Mandy was entertained as he’d expected. She threw her head back, hair whipped over her shoulders, and clutched her chest, cackling in the silent darkness.

                “Ha! HA! That was… actually super funny and cute, Peter-Rabbit. I think it might work on me if you try another couple times. Seriously. Go on. Tell me it’s cold.”

                “It’s… cold.”

                “Mmmm… nope. Not quite. The first one was much better.”

                “It’s cold, Mandy. I don’t know if I can-”

                “Still not it. C’mon, little boy. I know it’s in there somewhere. Impress me,” Mandy giggled.

                Peter opened his mouth, but quickly stopped himself. She’d almost fooled him. Of course she wasn’t going to let him off if he debased himself. No matter what he did, his clothes were coming off. That much was certain. If anything, a good enough performance would ensure she’d make him do it twice: once so she could just savor the victory, and twice to remind him of what he was now to her.

                “No,” Peter said.

                “Oh, look, the little pet boy is already learning,” Mandy said with what sounded like genuine respect, in the same way one might respect a dolphin who could sing on cue. She golf-clapped her palms together, then stuffed both arms into her hoodie pocket, clearly noting the descending temperature as well. “Isn’t it so much easier talking to each other like this? Honest and stuff?”

                “I guess that depends how you look at it,” Peter said. His molars threatened to chatter as he spoke his longest sentence for a while. Obviously, any further long speechifying was going to be undercut by his goofily clacking teeth. Not good.

                “Probably,” Mandy agreed with a nod. Her Chucks shifted from side to side in the grass, inching nearer until she had Peter wedged on either side of the scuffed rims. At least she didn’t have the gumption to squeeze. Even so, the rubber was cold on Peter’s exposed forearms. He huddled into his papery tunic, trying to dredge as much warmth from it as he could while the option still existed.

                “Definitely,” Peter spat sourly. He stared up the length of Mandy’s legs, up toward her face, which he could barely make out against the dark sky behind her auburn head. His eyes watered again, the liquid cool on his already half-senseless cheeks.

                “In that case,” Mandy said. “I’ll be honest with you, and I’ll just say that if you don’t take off all your stupid little clothes right this second, I will fucking stamp you so hard into the ground that they find you on the other side of the world.”

                Peter bit his lip. It didn’t get more honest than that. He had to admit that much.

                There was no more thinking around this. He could be cold, or he could probably-die right now. Those were the hard facts. All there was to do now was pick the more logical of those.

                He took his time, at least as much as he was allowed in the silence. Eventually after he’d fumbled with the arm holes of the tunic for more than a minute, Mandy lifted the instep of her shoe up from the earth so Peter could see the dirt-clogged treads beneath. Possibly so he could imagine all that muck intermixing with the mess inside his body she was threatening to open up if he didn’t get bare. He fumbled a little faster. First the shirt, then the shoes, then the pants, until he was down to his underwear. The last desperate bastion against the cold.

                “I said take off all your clothes, stupid, not just some,” Mandy said sternly. She thumped him on the head with the rim of her shoe. It was clearly intended as a helpful reminder. To Peter, it very nearly sent him back into the same dizzied lack of focus as when she nearly squeezed the bones out of his body in the basement. However, he righted himself, before he could topple over.

                “I know,” he said.

                “Just take off your dumb underpants so I don’t have to do it for you, and then stomp you anyway.”

                Gnawing past what niggling humility remained for him this night, Peter tore the underwear down his legs and cast it in the same pile as his other clothes. Finally, he was utterly, completely naked, in just about every possible way. At least in this moment, he was grateful for the darkness and grass, which made it harder for her to make out his details. And just as he suspected she would, Mandy’s hand descended, collecting his clothes into her fingertips, and greedily storing them in the massive expanse of her pocket, where she’d been comfortably keeping her hands warm.

                “Good,” Mandy purred, happier than she’d sounded all evening, despite the increasing chill of the air as it obviously affected her as well. Next she stooped over by her fallen bicycle, rummaged through the transport pouch she kept hooked to the front of the handlebars, and withdrew something from its lumpy form in each hand.

                Peter only huddled on the earth, closing into himself. Arms over his chest, hands on his shoulders and passing from his stomach to his biceps. Head bowed into his knees. He just had to keep warm until Mandy finished having her cruel laugh, and then he could be “safe” again. At this point, just about any change in the situation would be an improvement to his bodily security. Even her greedy, giant hand closing around his nude form. The freshman quivered.

                “Now stand up. Stand up now.”

                Nearly unwilling to budge a single muscle, the boy complied, staggering up to his feet, fully exposing himself for the first time to Mandy Delaney. She crouched down, kneeling in the cool grass. For a moment, she simply chewed over the sight of him, naked and sprawled between her shoes, at the mercy of her every whim. Her fingers twiddled the pair of objects gripped in each.

                “Put these on,” she said. Pinched in the fingers of one massive hand was an object too difficult for Peter to make out in the misty blackness until it was flicked into his face. Clumsily, he caught it, trembling at the additional weight as he stood against the cold. Blinking, the boy just managed to comprehend what he was holding, though he sorely wished, just for this minute, that he could be blind. A fresh tear traveled down his neck and, at last, it wasn’t from the cold. In his hands was a pair of tiny hand-stitched, sparkle-painted fairy wings equipped with arm loops, perfectly sized for someone of his exact size to wear.

                A digital camera dangled like a ticking pendulum by its strap from Mandy’s opposite thumb.