Page 13 of Stalking Wendy Darling

“You’re injured,” I realised, hooking my arm around the rail when another gust of wind hammered the Banshee. “Someone break your arm?”

“Fuck you,” Wendell hissed, pure rage contorting his face.

“That’s a fine way to speak to the man who just saved your life.” I kicked his boot. “Get below decks. You’re a liability up here.”

Wendell bared his teeth—dull, ordinary teeth, but with the way he snarled, you’d think he was a faerie of old with canines designed for shredding flesh. “I’ll show you a fucking liability,” he hissed like a threat, even if it made zero sense.

I held onto the rail, watching in amusement as he struggled to his feet. He was like a newborn foal, all leg and clumsiness. With a sigh, I held out my hand, and wondered if he’d be much of a challenge to break at all as he slipped his hand in mine—smaller, soft but roughened at the tips with callouses. It fit disconcertingly well in mine.

I didn’t miss the fact Wendell gave me his other arm, the injured one cradled carefully to his side, pain in his flared nostrils, his clenched jaw and gritted teeth.

“I should have let the storm take you,” I muttered, heaving him to his feet.

“Why didn’t you?”

Tick, tick, tick.

The noise hit me like a lance through the stomach, the noise a crack through every sense until I dropped Wendell so suddenly that he wobbled. It snapped at my ears, sliced through my brain, until I felt everytick, tick, ticklike pain sawing my nerve endings.

“Maybe I’ll throw you back over,” I snarled, grabbing Wendell’s coat, wrenching him close, my heart rapid and faint. “Maybe I’ll rid myself of an annoying gnat. The sea would killyou on impact. Even if yousomehowmanaged to survive, the dark creatures circling the ship would rip you to pieces.”

Wendell’s storm eyes widened. “Jesus, what crawled up your ass and died?”

I surged forward, bending the smart-mouthed asshole backwards over the railing, letting the choppy sea serve as its own threat as waves crashed against the hull, splashing his head, ripping off the hat he perpetually wore.

And there it was. There it always was.Tick, tick, tick.

“Don’t,” I snarled. “Fucking test me. Give me your watch.”

My breathing came faster, a sickly cold sweeping up my spine that had nothing to do with the storm. I could barely hear myself think over the rush of blood in my ears.

“Piss off,” Wendell laughed, shoving me away, righting himself against the railing.

My nostrils flared. Noise roared through my head, the ceaseless ticking, the torment. “Give it to me.”

Wendell let out a sound between a scoff and a laugh, his nose wrinkled in a sneer. That was my breaking point, that damn sneer.

The monster that lurked in my blood—circling, always circling for a weakness—came over me. It happened so fast that by the time I was shouting, my voice was resonant and deafening, my eyesight sharp enough that I could see everything around me, in all directions.

“Give it to me!”

I saw the drop of sweat or rain dripping down Wendell’s throat. Saw the knot of pale gold hair he’d tied on the back of his head. Saw the widening of his eyes in true, honest fear. His breath hitched when I exploded into tentacles and suckers and rage, my legs replaced with that of a monster, my arms fighting to rip the seams of my coat. I’d had it reinforced for this reason. It didn’t give.

“God,” Wendell gasped, stumbling away, fumbling shakily at the clasp of his watch and throwing it across the deck. I grabbed it with a sucker and hauled it over the side of the Banshee and into the water, where its infernal ticking wouldnevertorment me again.

I didn’t have to remind Wendell to get belowdecks. He stared at me for another minute, cataloguing every part of my cursed form, and rushed away.

Some of the crew were staring, the ones who’d never seen me lose control before. The ones who’d been warned to never bring a single timepiece aboard my ship. The others kept their heads down, keeping the sails shut, the masts in one piece. At the stern, wood banged against wood in an erratic pattern of noise that drove me to madness.

Not quite ticking but rhythmic, repetitive. Too close, too fucking similar.

“Batten down the fucking hatches!” I yelled, my voice still monstrous, and tore myself away from the rail, the deck, the crew.

Chapter Eight

WENDY

It’s not every day you see a man explode into writhing tentacles and octopus arms, complete with rippling suckers where he once had legs. How the whole crew hadn’t run around screaming at the top of their lungs I didn’t know. Maybe this happened all the time. Maybe tentacles bursting from the captain was normal.

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