Page 79 of Freeing Hook

WENDY

Istart leaving my ring in my room.

I figure it’s safer tucked in a box underneath my bed than it is on my finger, too loose to stay put. I don’t want it going overboard because I stumble on the slick deck or because the waves rattle my balance.

If Astor notices, he says nothing, though I get the sense that he peers at my hand when I’m not looking. I can’t tell if that’s an eerie intuition or if there’s a wretched part of me that simply hopes it’s the case and is misinterpreting the direction of his attention.

He keeps showing up—the captain. Places I’m not expecting him. Places Charlie isn’t expecting him either. In the mess hall, on nights we have after-dinner cleaning duty. On deck at night when I’m questioning Evans about how he reads the stars.

Charlie likes to make vague comments about Astor’s tendency to find himself in the same room as me, though none of them are too terribly indicting.

At night, I can’t sleep. Not without waking to Peter’s phantom hands on my chest, my back, the hem of my undergarments. I keep thinking someone’s crawled into bedwith me, but when I wake, Charlie’s snoring dutifully across the room.

There’s a worry tingling in the back of my mind. That I’ll wake up, fingers digging into Charlie’s throat like they once dug into Michael’s. But that was partially due to the shadows that creep all over Neverland, and I haven’t encountered a wraith since the night I threw myself overboard. Perhaps they don’t like boats. Perhaps there’s something about being in the middle of the sea that frightens them. Like they’ll get caught on deck in the sun and have nowhere to hide. Exposure like that used to frighten me, too.

Still, I’m not sure how inextricably linked Peter’s inability to feel pain is to his shadow self. If I free him from the former, it’s quite possible he’ll still suffer from the latter. As much as Astor seems to think Peter has a choice in shifting into his shadow form, I know the Sister has a chokehold on him that Astor doesn’t quite understand.

I love Peter. Adore him. Desire nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with him.

But if he ever shifts into his shadow form around me again, I intend to be prepared.

Maybe that’s why I start throwing myself wholly into my training with Maddox.

The next time we dock,Astor purchases a dozen pig carcasses.

By the time the afternoon rolls around and it’s time for my and Maddox’s session on deck, I realize exactly what the carcasses are for.

I curl my nose at them. They stink of salt, somehow more concentrated and gritty than the familiar scent of the sea. But that’s not the worst part.

“I can’t,” I say, my short sword that Maddox gifted me from their leftover stock in the weapons galley trembling in my hand. We’ve been training with it for the past several weeks, and practicing with a real sword has yet to bother me. It’s longer, heavier in my hand than the dagger I drove into the back of Victor’s father. And besides, I’ve been sparring with the wind. The densest thing I’ve cut into has been the spongy fog that descended the day before we docked.

Maddox usually grins at me no matter what we’re doing, but today his expression is grim. The crew has gotten used to us training on deck, so they pay us no mind as he strides over to me and places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Astor warned me this wouldn’t be the first time you’ve cut through flesh.”

My knuckles go white on the hilt of my short sword. “Warned you? I’m surprised he didn’t make the fact that I’m a murderer sound like a triumph.”

Maddox examines me carefully before saying, “Most everything Astor says about you is praise.”

When I furrow my brow in disbelief, Maddox laughs. “Well, as close as Nolan gets to offering praise.”

“That sounds more believable,” I half-grumble, ignoring the way my chest almost swells at the idea of Captain Astor almost-complimenting me.

“Yeah, I don’t know if I’ve heard him pay someone a true compliment since Iaso—” Maddox stops himself, and I pray it’s because he misses her too and not because he catches the brief twinge of envy that flickers across my face. “But, then again, Iaso would have never picked up a sword, much less been willing to slice through someone’s—”

He stops as I level him with a bland stare. Color tinges his ruddy cheeks and he shifts awkwardly toward the carcasses. He looks like he’d boil his own foot and eat it if it meant keeping any more words from spouting out of his mouth.

The good news is, when it’s finally time to hack into the first pig carcass, I find it’s not so bad. Turns out, the feel of slicing flesh humming through a blade is more cathartic than I would have thought.

“Well,I wouldn’t call you an artist,” says Maddox, looking grimly at the hanging carcass I’ve hacked into rather obtuse bits. Chunks of pig flesh litter the deck, and most of the crew gives us an even wider berth than normal.

“Funny,” I say. “I would have thought they’d be used to messes.”

Maddox’s smile stretches outward instead of upward. “Messes? Yes. Unassuming women who look like they’re getting high off of hacking flesh to bits piece by piece? Even Charlie doesn’t do that.”

I offer Maddox a bashful grimace. He just pats me on the back and hides that he doesn’t know what else to say with a nervous cough.

I’m examining my not-so-handiwork, readying to clean the mess up so no one will get the wrong impression about me, when footsteps approach from behind. I swing around to find the captain peering at the butchered pig with equal parts amusement and disgust. “Kill a man like that,” he says, picking the carcass apart even more than it already is with his sharp eyes, “and the authorities will hang you.”

“Even if the other person hurt me first,” I say.

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