Leo -

I stare blankly at the creature in front of me. Lori turns and holds out her hand, but I step in front of her. “No,” I say quietly. Lori cocks her head and stares at me. “Kid, sorry to break it to you, but this thing is about to kill us. I can beat it.”

“No.”

The monster bared its teeth and hissed. I turned to it. “It’s okay, I won’t let her hurt you.” I gently stroked its head. It backed down and turned around. “Guys, he’s talking to me,” I say.

“Why is it he, but also what’s it saying?” Alex asks.

“He says it’s dangerous here. He will lead us.”

Lori scoffed. “Uh, no. I’m going to kill this deadly thing.”

I look over to the monster in front of us. He cocks his head. “No, Fred, she won’t hurt you. She’s just saying how grateful she is that you’re offering to lead us,” I say, shooting a glare at Lori.

She rolls her eyes, “So now it has a name?”

I hiss at her. “HE does have a name, in fact. And HIS name is Fred. We would greatly appreciate it if you called him that.”

Lori scoffs, but Alex takes a step forward. “Come on guys!” he screams.

I shrug and laugh at Lori, “Yeah, come on, hurry up!”

Lori pushes me to the side angrily, speeding up. She’s lost in thought and I wonder what’s going on with her.

Lori-

Leo could talk to an animal. I thought hard. The weeds, the force against my power, they talked to that… thing. Fred, he’d called it. Who on Earth can talk to animals?! I knew something was up with them. They MUST have a power! Why else would they be able to do all this stuff? My thoughts were interrupted by Leo chatting with… Fred about how safe the shortcut was. I quickly realized I’d forgotten why we were here in the first place. All I knew was that something was wrong, and it wasn’t just Neverland being sinister. Leo had magic, but they don't seem to know.