Page 11 of Freeing Hook

“Avoiding him is going to be a tad difficult,” I say, glancing over at the shackle on my wrist.

“Ah, that,” says Charlie, tapping her hands against her thighs. “Well, the problem with that is that the captain has the only key.”

I swallow. “I don’t suppose you could ask him for it, could you?”

Charlie just laughs. “I’ll have to tell Cap that you have a sense of humor, after all.”

The faerie dustmight have left my system, but the memory of it remains. The ghost of its taste lingers at the back of my tongue, haunting in the way that though I can recall it, I can’t quite replicate it in my memory.

There’s nothing that I want more, and that’s what frightens me the most.

I berate myself with images of John discovering that I’m gone. The fear he must have experienced learning I’d been taken. I castigate myself with the guilt of leaving him to tend to Michael alone. The fact that my youngest brother won’t understand why I’m gone.

Part of me believes that if I remind myself what I’ve done to them, leaving them to fend for themselves in Neverland, I’ll crave reunion with them more than I’ll crave the taste of faerie dust on my tongue.

It doesn’t work.

There’s a hole in my chest that the dust lets me forget. A hole that should echo the emptiness of missing my brothers. Instead, my heart has been devoured by the agony of being rejected by my Mate. The scene replays in my mind, over and over, until I’ve memorized every rise and dip of Peter’s tone as he traded me away.

As he let the man who killed my parents borrow me for a while.

Because Peter is a boy who feels no pain, and I’m a toy that was prettier in the shadows of my dusty shelf.

The next time the door opens, I’m biting my lip, hoping it’s Charlie, back with the key.

It’s not.

Captain Astor strides in, dressed in black sailing clothes that are hemmed to accentuate his broad shoulders and chest. I’m unsure whether it’s his posture or the new attire that makes him appear more formidable than usual. Either way, I find myself shrinking from his presence, though I can’t tell if it’s from fear of his wrath or mortification at the rather crude comments I made when I was not myself.

I open my mouth to apologize, but Captain Astor holds up his palm. “I swear, Darling, if I catch you apologizing to your captor, I’m afraid you’ll tempt me to say something I’ll regret later.”

Affronted, I suddenly no longer feel quite as guilty. “Why do you assume I was going to apologize?” I say, pulling my blanket over my chest with one hand.

He gives me a casual smile that dimples at the edges and knocks the breath out of me. “Well, were you?”

I avert my gaze.

This time, he doesn’t sit on the edge of the bed with me. In fact, he grabs Charlie’s stool and sets it across the room before resting atop it. I can’t help but wonder who the distance is for.

“I’m going to ask you some questions, Darling,” he says, folding his hands between his sprawled knees as he twists a wedding band I’ve never seen around his finger. His crew must have held onto it while I had him trapped in a cave in Neverland. “It would be for the best if you answered honestly.”

The sheets bunch between the crevices between my fingers and palm as I grip them. “I’m not going to betray Peter, so don’t waste your breath.”

The captain sighs, his eyelids shifting downward ever so slightly, eyelashes serving as onyx window slats for his ivy green irises. “We’ll address that slight issue later. And you will tell me what I want to know, one way or another.” A shiver runs the course of my spine as I wonder how he intends to pry the information out of me. “But for now, I need to know how long you’ve been a slave to the faerie dust.”

I blink, taken aback. “I can’t see why you’d care.”

“I can’t see why you think I’d tell you.”

I sigh, leaning my head against the headboard and letting my elbow hang from the shackle. There’s not really any harm in telling him. Not when he already knows that my affinity for faerie dust has become…problematic.

“The first time was when I was almost attacked by a nightstalker. The shadows on the island were paralyzing me, so Peter gave me a small dose so they couldn’t get to me. I wasn’t as affected by it then. It wasn’t all that bad the second time either. I liked the way it made me feel, but Peter gave me just enough so that…” I trail off, realizing how ridiculous this sounds considering where I’ve ended up.

The captain taps his fingers together. “Just enough for what?”

“Just enough that I could dance with him in the sky.”

Astor’s eyes narrow to slits. “A justifiable reason to risk lifelong addiction.”

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