Page 30 of The Last Lost Girl

“I can’t quite remember,” he says, but I wonder if he’s lying.

I get the sinking feeling it might be Belle. That somehow, he might see her mannerisms echoed in mine the way one might look at the face of a child and see her parents’ features. I shift uncomfortably as he studies the strands of my wet hair, the fit of the borrowed gown, and the smudge of shimmer on my skin peeking out of the top of the cloths with which Smee wrapped my foot.

“I’ll find out what you’re hiding, Precious. Soon.”

He might as well have told me he would strip me bare. Sometimes he looks like he wants to in more ways than one. And not for the first time, I find myself wondering what his darkness would feel like, how it would taste.

My ribs loosen as he lowers his arms and strides outside into the briny air.

For a long time, I replay our conversation in my mind, searching for other truths he might have hidden within it, until my eyes begin to drift shut. Afraid of the vulnerability sleep brings with it, I fight to stay awake, listening to murmurings below deck, the creaking of the ship, and the smash of the sea against its hull.

twelve

I startle awake when I hear movement in the room and panic strikes my chest like a bolt of lightning. Nothing looks familiar. I try to remember where I am.

“Sorry to have woken you,” a deep voice apologizes.

Across the room, a guy around my age fills a bucket from a copper, claw-foot tub. He strides out the door and tosses the contents into the sea before returning for another. And then another.

I’m in Hook’s quarters. On his ship. In Neverland.

Belle… Belle dragged me here.

I must have fallen asleep – in Hook’s bed. I wince.

The man notices, so I clear my throat. “Thanks for emptying that water. I know it’s disgusting.”

His brow furrows. “You’re welcome.”

He says it slowly, as if it’s a question. As if he’s concerned. Maybe he’s not used to people with manners.

I rub my chest with the heel of my hand to ease the frantic beat underneath.

The guy is shirtless, lean, and muscled. A fine network of scars shine across the sienna skin on his stomach, sides, and back. His head is clean-shaven, the hem of his shorts frayed and worn thin.

“Your clothes are dry whenever you want them,” he announces as he scoops out as much of the remaining bath water as he can. He’s reached the bottom of the tub where chasing the scant water into the bucket is becoming more of a chore than it’s worth.

“That was fast.” I couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few hours. I clear my dry throat and remember the name of the person they said was the best at getting blood out of clothes. “Are you Cairo?”

“The one and only,” he says with a friendly grin over his shoulder.

“Thanks for washing them.” And for returning them.

“It was no trouble.”

“I highly doubt that,” I tell him. I’m not even sure how he managed it without peroxide, bleach, and holy water.

“They weren’t the worst I’ve scrubbed,” he answers breezily before striding back outside. When he comes back in, he grabs a towel and tosses it into the tub’s bottom to absorb what’s left – which I imagine is disgusting.

I sit up and swing my legs over the bed’s edge.

He notices and juts a chin toward the floor. “How’s your foot?”

I’m about to tell him that Smee wrapped it well, when I realize I don’t feel any pain. Didn’t even feel a twinge when I moved it just now. Gently, I flex it and… it feels normal. My lips part and I let out a confused laugh.

I roll it and the bandages that were tight when Smee finished are so loose, they’re falling off. Drawing my knee in, I untie the knot Smee made and unravel the cloth until it unspools onto the floor. My skin stills shimmers brilliant gold. “How is it healed?” I choke out.

I don’t feel any soreness or bruising anywhere now. Could the salve have healed all that was wrong?

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