Page 139 of Freeing Hook

Even with Peter’s warm arms wrapped around me, I can’t seem to fight off the chilled spray of the ocean surface below. Or maybe it’s just my heart turning to stone, refusing to beat blood to warm my limbs any longer.

I keep waiting for the agony of Astor’s betrayal to melt away. Keep waiting for my body to remember that there’s no Mark binding my soul to his anymore. No reason for his claws to cut so deeply into me.

I wait and wait, silence washing over me, but never relief. Just the rain, cold and cruel and pelting.

I wait for my feelings for Peter to return in full force. For the thrill I used to feel when he flew me through the air to billow underneath my skin, cascading me in light and joy and adventure.

But I’m not flying. Peter is. I just happen to be attached.

And what about you, Darling? Do you soar?

At some point in the journey, it dawns on me that despite everything, I still love him. Love Astor.

In an attempt to detach myself from that love, that pain, all I accomplished was severing the last of the threads binding his heart to mine. The only reason he felt anything for me in the first place.

I should have known better. Hadn’t I told Astor the day I confessed my love for him that it might not have been real for him, but it was real for me? The real seems like it plans on staying around longer, an unwanted house guest chipping my favorite pieces of dinnerware.

“Wendy Darling,” Peter whispers when my tears have finally dried up. When I peer up at him, his blue eyes stare down at me. I guess it’s been long enough for the effect of his shadows to wear off. That’s why he hasn’t touched me in the way his shadow self so desires. “You’re safe now. I’m taking you home.”

I repeat those words over and over to myself. I don’t have a home, not really. But John and Michael are the closest thing to it. Charlie was almost a home. Maddox too.

But their loyalties are to their captain, not to me. I wonder then if they knew his plan. If they wanted Iaso back, too.

No, Charlie wouldn’t have betrayed me like that. Besides, she didn’t even know Iaso. And the conversation I overheard between Maddox and Astor would indicate that Maddox knew nothing about Astor’s betrayal. It’s cruel of me, but it makes me feel better to know that Maddox will feel a twinge of the betrayal I do when he discovers what Astor hid from him.

It occurs to me that when I’d asked Astor to go alone with him into the cave, that’s what the three of them had been arguing about. Astor had already planned on leaving them behind, not wishing them to be around to stop him once they realized his intentions.

Lost in my thoughts, it takes me a while to realize it’s no longer raining. Yet moisture still drips into my hair.

Tears.

Peter is crying.

Finally, that at least seems to stir my heart. Makes it move from where it’s slumped, frozen up. Like a sore muscle refusing to extend after being overworked, finally giving in to a stretch.

“Wendy,” Peter says, his voice soft, broken. “I…” The words seem stuck there, in his throat as it bobs. His blue eyes are so beautiful, shimmering as he cries. “I don’t know why I…” His gaze flits back and forth, like saying it aloud will make it real.

I wonder now if it’s just the regret over Iaso’s second death that’s hit him, or if it’s all of it. Every bit of pain he couldn’t feel before now, all cascading down on him in angry waves, greedy to get what was due long ago.

He keeps gripping me with one hand, the wind whistling through my tangled hair as he grasps his chest with the other. “It hurts,” he gasps. “In here.”

I nod, brushing my forehead against his chest as I do. “I know.”

“She was my friend,” he says, like he can’t believe his own words. “When we were children. I don’t know why…why did I…? It wasn’t me,” he says, breathy now, almost shaking me, like he has to get me to understand.

I imagine that’s what I’ll tell myself when I look back on slicing Astor’s hand from his wrist. It’s such a pleasant lie.

But for now, I entertain it for Peter. I’ll have more pain to divvy out to him once we reach Neverland. Once I tell him I’mtaking my brothers and leaving for home, though I don’t know where home is.

“The night in the Carlisles’ library…it wasn’t me,” he breathes again.

“I know,” I say, numb.

He nods, relieved that he thinks I understand. He thinks that because I forgive him, I won’t leave him. But I can’t go back. I can’t return to Peter’s arms, knowing what I confessed to Astor on the ship. Knowing that I love another man.

Knowing that had it been my choice, I would have never left Nolan Astor’s side.

When we landon the beach, my feet hitting the familiar sand, I can’t help but feel that I’m sinking into it. That the ground is unsteady, about to crumble underneath me.

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