Page 126 of Freeing Hook

I only wish I could speak with Tink one last time.

In the end, the best I can do is leave her a series of tiles in the cave where we used to meet. Then I head to the reaping tree.

CHAPTER 48

WENDY

Inever make it to the cave. Even if I had it left in me to betray Astor, by the time I leave the orphanage, my hands are trembling too badly to make the climb.

What the wraiths showed me back in the orphanage—it might have happened decades ago, but I know from experience that these sorts of things don’t die in the past. Hadn’t I seen the evidence of how it still affects Astor the night he’d asked me not to watch as he tortured the man in the alley? He’d been trembling after, and I’d made the foolish assumption that it was because he’d never tortured anyone before.

He’d informed me that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

How many times had he been forced to torture Peter? The other boys at the orphanage?

As I make my way across the sleeping town of Endor and back to the murky waters, there’s something else about the vision that bothers me.

You belong to me now, the warden had said.

I already knew from Nettle what the warden used to do to the boys at night. He’d abused Thomas to the point of sending him over the edge. When Peter and the Sister had rescued theLost Boys from that filthy place, Thomas’s mind had turned to plotting murder, not just of the warden, but of any family member complicit in sending the boys to the orphanage.

There’s a part of me that can’t bring myself to believe that the same fate had awaited Astor at night. It’s a stupid thought, but I almost feel as if Astor walks with his chin too high, his shoulders too set, to be carrying that around with him.

Memories like that—they cling to dusty surfaces and hide behind the facial structure of strangers who happen to resemble an abuser. It’s the kind of touch that sticks to your soul like tar and only makes your fingers unusable and sore the more you try to rip it off.

It breaks you.

And it’s difficult to imagine that underneath all of Astor’s confidence and poise…

It doesn’t seem possible.

He doesn’t like being controlled. Wasn’t that what Charlie had said when she’d tried to explain why he detests being Mated to me?

Somehow, I find myself back at theIaso. I have to wait an hour for my hands to stop trembling, but once they do, I scale the ladder and drop myself onto the ship’s deck.

When I sneak back into my and Charlie’s room, she’s still fast asleep. Crawling into bed, I lie awake, unable to erase what occurred from my mind. Though I didn’t really see it happen, the images have branded themselves into my soul. Nothing can scrub them away. I want to scream into my pillow, to tear something to shreds. I want to hack at a pig carcass, but I’d ruined the last one.

More than anything else, I fixate on the brand that remains across Astor’s chest. The brand that marks him as the warden’s. The words that passed from the warden’s lips to his ears.You’re mine now. I’ll always be with you.

And then I see it, for the first time. In my mind’s eye, I see Astor fall in love with Iaso. I see him have hope in the future through her. Hope to leave the warden behind.

And then I was born, and the Mark appeared on his hand.

You’re mine now. I’ll always be with you.

And I understand.

When Astor spent his and Iaso’s entire life savings to rid himself of his Mark, it wasn’t simply that he didn’t want to fall in love with another woman. It’s that, consciously or not, I had claimed him. I had Marked his skin and reminded him that never again could he truly be free of me. That he belonged to someone else.

He doesn’t seem like he’s afraid of anything.

Everyone’s afraid of something. Astor…he doesn’t like being controlled.

It hits me then, why I’d ventured out to the cave tonight. I’d told myself it was about freeing Peter from his curse. Told myself it was more important than Astor’s wishes, because it would ensure I could keep John and Michael safe.

But deep down, I know it hadn’t been about that at all.

I hadn’t wanted to let Astor go. I’d wanted him to be mine, whether he wanted to be mine or not.

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