Page 45 of Freeing Hook

Maddox glances at Charlie. “She might have left out some details about how Astor went about questioning the traffickers.”

That’s fine with me. I don’t really want to know. “Did you see any other girls there?”

Charlie strokes my hair. “Evans came with us. Astor had him stay behind and get them to safety. He’ll meet us back on the ship.”

The muscles in my shoulders relax a bit. “And Teeth?”

“Once Teeth led us to the traffickers,” Charlie says, “well, let’s just say he’d outlived his usefulness.”

Once we’re backon theIaso, Charlie helps me bathe and change. I barely register the boards that someone has nailed into the wall to repair the hole where the cannonball went careening through the cabin before I crawl into bed and doze off.

I sleep the day away, though my rest is punctuated by dreams of men either stealing me from my bed or crawling into it. Maybe that’s why, when I wake and discover it’s nighttime again, I find myself searching for the captain.

“You won’t find him out here,” says Maddox when he finds me on deck. His tone is sly, though it’s doing a poor job of concealing the concern in his gray eyes. “Try the map room.”

The map room. The room where I first spied on the captain and learned of his plan to fool the Carlisles.

When the door creaks open, Astor is leaning over his spread of maps, palms splayed atop them. He opens his mouth to say, “I’m not to be disturbed at the m—” but stops himself mid-sentence, ears flickering.

“Darling,” he says before even looking up. When he finally does, his gaze is curious rather than cold. He doesn’t ask me why I’m here. Just waits expectantly.

With Peter, everything is a game. With Astor, everything is a challenge.

I shuffle over to him, knitting my fingers together in a loose fist in front of me. “I need to ask you something.”

“Then you should ask it rather than waste your words and both of our time,” he says, though not as cruelly as his words might otherwise suggest. It’s more like he’s nudging me in a more assertive direction.

I reach for where I’ve rehearsed the request in my mind, but where there should be a script, I find emptiness. I don’t know why I’m like this—why I can assemble a sound argument when I’m alone, then find myself flummoxed once it comes time to spout the actual words. Feeling stupid, I flush.

It’s a simple request, one I’m fairly sure he won’t deny, yet still, I feel like I’ve hit an impenetrable wall in trying to ask it.

Astor cocks his brow, and it’s enough to set me off.

I punch him in the face.

Well, that’s a bit too generous. I attempt to punch him in the face. He catches my fist in his much larger palm before I get anywhere near him, his jaw ticking with an emotion I can’t read. It’s not anger though. I’ve seen the captain angry, and this isn’t it.

“And here I was,” he drawls, “thinking I’ve been behaving myself as of late. What have I done this time? I must admit, usually I know.”

Reasons rattle between the edges of painful memories, but I can’t form them into coherent words. It’s the tenor of my mother’s voice telling me what kind of things men might want from me that won’t leave evidence behind. It’s the touch of velvet against my splayed hands, underneath my painted fingernails. It’s the wishing to be stolen away so that I’ll no longer have to fear my fate, only know it. It’s Vulcan’s fingers tracing my jawline, the temptation to heed his words, just stop fighting. It’s all of that, and it’s too much to put into words.

So I punch at Astor again, this time with my weak hand, hoping he’ll understand.

He catches it—it would be a shock if he hadn’t—then cranes his neck to the side. “Is this it?” he asks. “Is this what you want?”

There’s a knot forming in my throat. Because this isn’t at all what I want, not really. What I want is for nothing bad to have ever happened to me. What I want is to have never known a man’s greedy touch. What I want is not to be terrified all the time. What I want is for my parents to be alive—but not be them. To be alive, and to be versions of themselves that would have protected me. To have been thrown into an impossible situation and gotten it right.

I can’t have any of that.

“This is the best I can do,” I say. “This is the best I can settle for.”

I expect a reprimand, but I don’t get it. A wave of understanding washes over the captain. In a flash, it’s gone, replaced by a tactical practicality. The fierce facade of someone who knows the hairline difference between succumbing to the blade and conquering it.

I brace myself to be thrown to the floor, already willing my bones to get back up, but the captain has other plans. Instead of shoving me down, he pulls me into him, so that my chin rests against his heaving chest. His grip slides on both sides so that it’s firm around my wrists. The feeling of being constrained like this makes me want to gag. Makes me think of Teeth’s hand on me, my inability to escape. Shadows speckle my vision, but the captain just whispers, “Look at me.”

I do.

I do, and it hurts.

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