Page 64 of Freeing Hook

I’m still staring at the lifeless head. The brunette man.

I recognize him as the servant who offered me my soup. A guard in disguise or a servant trained in combat, it makes no difference.

He’s just as dead, either way.

By the time I regain my wits and realize it’s Carlisle shoving me into the hallway, Astor is out of sight, still grappling with the last two guards.

I dig my heels into the ground, but Carlisle is surprisingly strong for his lean frame. And I’m so tired. It’s not the same tired as when I struggled against Astor when he kidnapped me from Neverland, when I wilted in his arms, so fatigued of struggling and failing.

I’m tired of being pushed around. Taken places I don’t want to go. Tired of hands where I don’t want them. Tired of my feet moving without me telling them to.

I’ve no weapon to fight back with, but according to Charlie, I’m less in need of a weapon than I am a weakness.

“Wait!” I scream, rounding in Carlisle’s arms to face him, clinging to his coat in desperation. “You don’t know what he’s planning. Please. Please, you have to help me.”

Of course, Carlisle has no intention of the sort. But I’m a kidnapped girl—one Carlisle probably assumes has been forced under threat of knifepoint to go along with Astor’s plans. I’m convincing enough for his ears to perk at the idea of some master scheme.

Encouraged by Carlisle’s slowed pace, I grope at his coat like I’m grasping for purchase at the side of a cliff. Muttering incoherently helps, because although Carlisle growls at me, “Spit it out, girl,” he’s focused on my warbling lips, which he’sconvinced are the only obstacles between him and tradable information.

I’m clinging to him with such force it keeps him from noticing my fingers easing into his inner coat pocket. That is, until I attempt to hide the folded piece of parchment I lifted in the pocket of my torn gown. Carlisle glimpses it, his face flashing with anger as he plucks it from my hand, then grabs my wrists and squeezes.

The press of his fingers against my wrists aches, but for the first time, I know what to do.

I throw all my weight into bearing down on his thumbs and rolling my wrists out of his grasp. At the same time, I bring my knee to his groin.

The lord keels over, gasping for breath. His grip abandons both my wrists and the parchment, granting me sufficient time to pluck the parchment from the ground and race down the hallway. I shove it into my dress pocket, praying it’s what I think it is.

I barely make it halfway down the hall before Carlisle catches up to me. He digs his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck and yanks me to the ground. The back of my head slams against the floorboards, sending my vision swimming.

Carlisle steps over me, straddling me with his legs. There’s a sick longing in his gaze, a high he gets from anticipating violence. My stomach turns over as he speaks. “You shouldn’t have touched me there if you didn’t want me to show you what—”

Carlisle doesn’t get to finish his sentence.

This time, I close my eyes just in time to miss witnessing the carnage. Something wet and sticky spatters across my face. Coppery blood and gore twinge at my throat, and something heavy falls on my chest.

“Don’t look,” says a voice as familiar as the sunrise. “Unless you want to, of course.”

I don’t, so I keep my eyes sutured shut as Astor grabs the mass that’s toppled onto my chest and flings it off of me. Then he grasps me by the shoulder and lifts me with one hand to my feet, leading me away.

“You can open your eyes now.”

I do, and it’s to Astor’s face close to mine, his hands on either side of my jawline. I go to turn my head, but his grip won’t let me. “Don’t look that way,” he says. “Just look at me.”

I nod, swallowing back sobs as he turns, then takes my hand and leads me through the dark halls. Footsteps sound around the corner, and faster than I can react, Astor wraps one hand around my mouth, the other around my waist, and pulls me into an alcove.

The press of his hand against my mouth feels like having a cloth soaked in Carlisle’s blood shoved into my throat. I gag, which makes Astor draw me even closer. “You’re okay,” he whispers, “but you won’t be for much longer if you don’t stay quiet. Do you understand?”

When I don’t answer, he breathes into my ear, “Wendy, I need you to confirm that you understand.”

I nod frantically, and feel his reaction—the easing of his chest against my back.

Just then, a host of guards rush by, as well as men dressed in uniforms of crimson and black—the colors of Laraeth. Lady Carlisle must have sent a messenger to the authorities. I count thirty of them and suddenly understand the importance of remaining quiet. Astor might have been able to take six of them at once, but even he couldn’t fend off that many.

It hits me then, that I could make a noise. Call out to the authorities. Astor might snap my neck if I did that, but there’s a part of me that bets he wouldn’t. He needs me alive if he wantsa shadow soother to help him remove his Mark. Besides, he likes having me around so he can keep punishing himself for his wife’s death.

I could cry out, and the guards would save me.

But then what? It’s not as if I have a home, a family for the authorities to return me to. All I have are my brothers and Peter, and I’ll never be more equipped with resources to seek out a cure for Peter’s curse than I am with Astor.

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