8. Hook
CHAPTER EIGHT
HOOK
On the dock, Peter Pan cuts me off.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
For most of my life here on Neverland, I was consumed with the constant desire to destroy Peter Pan. Now, here he is within arm’s length, close enough to gut with the sharp tine of my hook.
But now, none of that matters.
There is one driving need pounding in my chest: I have to get to Roc.
“He’s going to devour your entire city if I don’t get to him.”
Vane grabs Pan by the bicep and pulls him back. “He’s right. We don’t have time for this shit.” To me, he says, “Why did he let time run out? Was there no one for him to feed off of?”
Wendy and Asha and I share a look.
“What?” Vane says, catching our hesitancy.
“It’s why we’re here,” Asha says.
“Roc can’t control the turn,” Wendy adds.
I don’t know much about what Roc and Vane are—he’s been less than forthcoming about the particulars—but I can tell by the look on Vane’s face now that he immediately knows what this means.
“What did he devour?” he asks.
“A witch,” Wendy tells him.
“A Myth Maker witch,” I clarify.
“Fuck.” Vane turns a circle, his hand over his eyes, his jaw flexing with a grind of his teeth. “Fuck!”
Winnie tucks a lock of hair behind her ear as the wind picks up on the dock. “Share with the class. Why is this bad?”
“I know why he’s come here.” Vane drops his hand and starts off down the dock forcing us all to catch up to him.
“I second Darling,” Bash says. “Care to share more?”
Vane follows the path that Roc took, his pace quick. “We rarely have control when we devour and sometimes we devour something we shouldn’t. There is one rule we must abide by: do not devour power.”
At the end of the harbor road, a row of shops leads inward to the heart of the city and further beyond, screams rent the air.
“Devouring power has…” Vane pauses and turns to Pan. “It has its consequences. A device was crafted to offset the mistake.”
“What kind of device?” Kas asks as he ties his hair back.
“A hat.”
Kas stills, his knot of hair only half done up. “Hold on…did you say a hat ?”
“Yes, I said a fucking hat. The particulars don’t matter.”
“I think they do,” Bash counters. “What kind of hat is it? A baseball hat? A cowboy hat? A bucket hat?”
Kas frowns at his brother. “What the fuck is a bucket hat?”
“I don’t know, honestly. I just heard a mortal talking about them. I imagine it’s a bucket you wear on your head.”
Pan turns to the twins. “Will you two shut up?”
More screams fill the air. Impatience is beating at my temples. “Do you have this hat?” I ask.
Vane shakes his head. “It’s not on Neverland.”
“Then where?” Wendy asks.
Vane looks away. “It’s on Darkland.”
Bloody hell. We’ve come here for nothing. How much time does Roc have left before he can no longer turn back?
A gun is fired around the next street corner and a crowd goes running past the intersection.
“I can help him.” I come to stand in front of Vane and Pan. “I’ve been able to talk him back into his form. Let me help.”
“He’s right.” Wendy stands beside me. “He’s been shifting rapidly for days. We know how to bring him down.”
Pan scowls at us but quickly relents when another bullet is fired. “Fine. Kas and Bash, fly to the north. Vane?”
Vane is already following the sound of the commotion.
“Never mind,” Pan mutters. To Winnie he says, “Fly back to the Treehouse and don’t leave.”
“Nice try.” She snorts. “I’m not going.”
“Darling,” Pan growls.
“Don’t Darling me,” she says. “You need me and the shadow.”
Wendy glances at her descendant with a new air of admiration. “Asha, Winnie and I will go around to the next street to try to hedge him in.”
Pan doesn’t argue, so apparently the Darlings hold the power now. I can’t say I’m surprised. I am impressed, however. Good form, ladies. Good form indeed.
“And Hook—” Pan says.
“I’m not leaving him to you,” I tell him, risking my neck and my head. “I’m going after him. He’s my monster now.”
Something changes in Pan’s expression. It’s almost imperceptible. A flicker of surprise.
“Do what you will then, Hook.” Pan holds his arm out, gesturing me forward. “Don’t let me hold you back.”
Up until now, Roc hasn’t hurt me. Every time he’s come close, he’s shifted back.
I hope now isn’t the first where he proves me wrong.
We all disperse through the city streets. I turn down the nearest alley, following the sound of destruction two blocks up. A woman comes barreling out of a tavern carrying a chicken and a bag. She nearly slams right into me. “Get out of the way!” she yells and the chicken shrieks in her arms.
Up the next block, behind a row of trade shops, a door bursts open and three young men scramble out shouting at one another in a language of sharp constants and rolling Rs.
I continue forward, cautious.
Glass breaks somewhere inside the next building and in front of me, a man leaps out an open window. His knee gives out and he hits the cobblestone on his side before scrambling onto all fours and charging past me.
I peer in the open window. It’s a woodworking shop with several pieces of large machinery where spindles are turned and boards sanded. A shadow darts past the window. A table is knocked over.
I go to the back door and try the latch, but it’s locked from the inside.
At the weathered windowsill, I prop my good hand on it and pop my head into the dim. “Roc,” I call evenly, quietly so as not to alarm him.
The shadow again. A chair teeters on its back legs before slamming back to the floor.
“Roc. It’s me. It’s… James .”
His dark, shadowy form flies past me through the window, jumps off the next building before flying to the next intersection.
“Roc!”
I race after him.
He darts to the left, back toward the sea.
“Roc. Stop!”
More screams. I reach the intersection, and several fleeing citizens slam into me, spinning me around. My hook catches in a woman’s blouse, and she comes to a yanking stop. She looks at my hook, then at me, and screams bloody fucking murder in my face.
“If you’ll hold still…”
She keeps screaming, her round cheeks flush with adrenaline.
“Miss, please—” She slaps me. Continues screaming.
I manage to disentangle myself and once free, she darts off like a scared doe.
“Christ,” I mutter, my cheek stinging, and hurry after Roc.
The street flows downhill, bordered on one side by a warehouse and the other by stone and timber apartments. At the bottom of the hill, now free of the harbor, the sea laps against the sandy shore. Several large rocky outcroppings border the alcove, creating a private beach for the row of apartments above.
I spot Roc across the beach in human form.
I exhale a breath of indescribable relief.
He’s got his back propped against a boulder, and there’s something moving on his lap.
Is that a kitten?
“Bloody hell.” I race across the beach. The sand grabs at me, making it harder to find purchase with the soles of my boots.
Roc looks up, seeing me careening toward him. “Captain,” he calls and smiles. He’s bloodied, his shirt torn.
“Give me the kitten!” I screech, heart pounding in my ears.
Roc pulls the little ball of fluff to his chest and scratches at its ears. “Why? Is it a beast I’ve not met?”
“No. You’re… you …give me the kitten before you eat it!” I come to a halt in front of him, kicking up sand.
Roc scowls at me, dusts the sand from his trousers. “Do you truly think so little of me?”
The cat nuzzles his chin, purring loudly. It’s barely the size of Roc’s hand, its eyes big and round and bright amber. It can’t be much older than a month and two.
“Do you blame me for being wary? How many people did you just eat?”
There’s a smear of blood on his face and a splatter of it across his torn shirt.
“Don’t make me count my sins, Captain.”
“I rest my case.”
He cradles the kitten in his left hand and hoists it up in front of him, gazing into its eyes. “Don’t listen to him. I would never eat you.”
I sigh. “We have enough problems. Let the kitten go.”
“Very well.” Roc sets the kitten in the sand and slowly climbs to his feet. “Don’t look so sullen, Captain. That was a quick shift. And now we’re on Neverland and Vane will give me?—”
“He doesn’t have it.”
Roc comes to a stop. “The hat?”
“It’s not here.”
There is no emotion on Roc’s face, but the glint in his bright green eyes tells me enough. He’s afraid.
“Where is it?”
“He said Darkland.”
Roc turns away, his hands on his hips, his head bowed. His shoulders rise with a deep breath and I unconsciously step back, unsure of his state of mind.
This contraption, this hat, was his saving grace, and now we’re even farther away from it. It’ll take us at least six days to reach Darkland. I don’t think I have crew enough to make the trip.
“I can’t go to Darkland,” he says, his back still to me.
“I know it’s a long trip, but?—”
He turns back to me. “The witch wants me to go.”
This is the first time he’s spoken of her directly. When he first shifted on my ship, after we escaped Everland, I thought I saw her face within his dark shadowy form. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. After all, the witch was a specter from my past, a nightmare reminder of what my father had done to me. I thought perhaps her visage was still haunting me.
But no, if she’s speaking to Roc, if she has some semblance of form within his monster, then she is not dead. It’s not just her power harming Roc, she is as well.
“Why does she want you to return?”
“I don’t know.” He starts across the beach. The kitten meows at him and falls in line at his heel. “She showed me my childhood home and told me to return. I refused her. With the Remaldi line mostly gone, Darkland succession is likely in chaos and I…” He trails off and stops where the beach meets the road.
“You what?”
“It wouldn’t be a good time for me to return.”
“Why?”
The kitten sits back on its hind legs and paws at his trousers. He bends down to scoop it up and sets it on his shoulder like a parrot. “I guess we’re keeping the kitten.”
I scowl. “We are not keeping the kitten.”
“How could you possibly turn away such an adorable creature?”
“Cats are beasts.”
He flashes his teeth at me. “And? We both know you love beasts.”
“They have claws. Claws ruin things.”
Roc turns to it, its face just inches from his. “He’ll come around,” he tells the cat and starts up the hill.
“Roc.”
He keeps walking.
“There are no cats allowed on my ship!”
But the cat remains a fixture on his shoulder as he continues up the street, and I’m not sure I have the energy to fight him.
“Bloody hell,” I mutter. I guess we have a fucking cat.