Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Vera
Ishriek and jump back, just in time to avoid being skewered. I swipe my tousled hair out of my face enough to see James wildly swing at the space I had been standing just a second ago.
“What are you doing?” I scream. He just said that he hadn’t been planning to kill me and now here he is, trying to finish the plot early.
James never struck me as a murderer or a liar for that matter.
So, why is he trying to take me out? It isn’t as if my death will even stop him from dying.
He kills me, but I don’t kill him on account that I’m already dead by that point.
He gets taken out by Peter Pan and that crocodile.
“I don’t know!” he says. His tone sounds frantic enough that I can’t help but believe him. He stumbles back, putting his hook around the wrist of his right arm and appearing to try to push it down. “I can’t control myself!”
I feel my mouth drop open. “It’s the plot,” I gasp out.
In the original story, Hook lures Moira into an alleyway and they fight as he tries to kill her.
It’s a pivotal scene in the romance between Hook and Moira.
First, because for some reason I thought sword fighting would build their chemistry, and secondly, because it leads to them finally forming an unlikely alliance which leads to their whirlwind romance and eventual deaths.
And apparently the plot won’t allow this scene to pass. “Fight it James,” I cry, rushing forward and grabbing his arm to try to steady it.
“I’m trying, but my right arm is way stronger than my left arm,” he gets out past clenched teeth. Just before his arm lifts and throws me off of him. I stumble back with a gasp.
James doesn’t look that strong, but he just nearly threw me across the alleyway.
His eyes also widen with surprise. “I’m so sorry, I’d say I don’t know my own strength, but I’m currently fighting against it so I’m all too aware.”
I stumble back, gasping for breath. My eyes dart down to the open cloth lying across the alleyway. James had been carrying it earlier, but now that it’s open I can see that it’s filled with glinting blades.
James follows my gaze. “Vera, I think you should run.”
Instead of running, I race over to the cloth and grab the nearest blade. It’s a cutlass. I hold it up and James’s eyes widen.
“Who exactly are you expecting to use that against?”
I test the weight of the blade, trying it out when James lunges at me again. I throw my arm up and my sword clashes against his. James and I both lock wide eyes on each other.
“I’ll try not to maim you if you promise to return the favor?” I ask, smirking slightly at his terrified expression. If my hunch is correct, we won’t actually wind up hurting each other. Because in the original plot neither Hook nor Moira landed a blow.
This scene was meant to be more flirty than anything.
There was a lot of back and forth bantering.
Moira offered to give Hook another scar, and they wound up both explaining how they got their scars.
Hook said that no one ever laid a hand on him, and his scar was self-inflicted.
Moira admitted that it was a shark attack that she was powerless against because she had no song to control the sea creatures.
My eyes widen. James and I really are living the plot without even trying. We already discussed our scars.
It was during that conversation that Hook found out that Moira had no siren’s song, defeating his assumption that she had somehow put a spell on him.
It’s such a key part of the story because once he learns that she has no siren’s song he starts to genuinely fall in love with her.
Although obsession is probably the better word for it.
Until he discovers that she has been using her stolen cousin’s song all along.
He feels betrayed by Moira, believing that she had him under a spell all along and in a fit of rage stabs her through.
He kills her because of this scene, and it leaves the viewers wondering if he had loved her all along or if perhaps, he had been under the effects of the song the whole time and fell for Moira who unintentionally used a magic she did not understand in her desperation to be loved.
It’s the tragedy of Hook and Moira.
I’ll be darned if I let it be the tragedy of James and Vera too. Neither of us are driven by vengeance or blind obsession, so I don’t see why we can’t both get out of here alive. That is so long as James doesn’t lose control and get us killed after all.
How come this is affecting him and only him? I still have full control of my body and I’ve been trying to defy the plot.
Just as I think that, I start to make out a faint humming sound reaching my ears.
And not a mechanical humming, like a person humming.
Except James and I are alone here. My eyes dart down, following the sound to find the small satchel tied to my belt.
It’s where I put Naia’s siren song until I needed it.
I feel my eyes widen just as I duck away from his sword.
Is the plot using the siren’s song to make James move uncontrollably? It would explain why only he is affected since the song can’t control me, I’m a siren… well, Moira is anyway.
It would make sense. A siren’s song controls people, and James has no control of himself right now. The plot wants to continue like usual. Why would it have to come up with a way to control him when a magic that does just that is conveniently right here?
I rest a hand on my hip, tightening my fingers around the bag tied around it.
To test my theory, I need to get this bag far away from James.
As that thought crosses my mind, I hear a shout and look up just in time to see Frederick and Naia rush into the alleyway. Of course they’re here. Right on cue.
The prince draws his sword and points it at James. “You,” he snarls.
“Listen, this really isn’t how it looks,” James tries to begin but just then he is yanked forward by his arm holding the sword. “Ahh!”
Fortunately he isn’t heading for me anymore because Frederick is the new victim of James’s forced swordsmanship.
I feel my eyes widen as James lands a flurry of blow against the prince. He twirls, coat flaring around him. With a twist of his wrist, he sends the prince’s sword flying through the alleyway. It lands with a clatter near my feet.
My mouth drops open as James turns again and decisively elbows the prince twice in his face. Frederick drops to the ground without even a grunt, completely unconscious. Naia screams.
I can’t believe what I just saw. Not because I wasn’t expecting it, it’s exactly what happened in the script.
Captain Hook so effortlessly defeated the prince that Moira decides to use him in her plan for revenge.
Deciding that if he could defeat a prince he could easily kill a little mermaid.
She convinced him that Naia is more important to go after than her, a bigger target since she’s the princess of the sirens.
They form a temporary truce to get Naia killed and the plot develops.
No, what I can’t quite wrap my mind around is that it is James who did that.
Siren’s song controlling him or no, I don’t think he has ever moved so quickly and decisively in his life.
I’ve watched this man try to get into the conference room carrying one coffee cup and exactly two folders and it wasn’t a pretty picture.
His face also registers his surprise. He has probably never done anything near as violent as that in his life.
His face still shows his surprise as he turns back to me, swinging his sword.
Right… he still isn’t in control of himself.
I throw aside my sword since I’m not about to risk tripping and skewering myself and take off running.
I race through the town and market stalls, shoving past the NPCs milling around.
I doubt any of them will interfere even if they notice James has a sword.
This is how the plot is supposed to go. If I am correct in my hunch that we are existing in a script controlled by a plot then it’s very likely that only James and I even have free will.
And the plot it seems, is determined to take away even that.
I push myself to run, until my lungs are burning and I find the edge of the town.
All I had to do was follow the view of circling gulls and the sound of the roaring waves.
As soon as I reach the edge of the land, I yank the cloth off my waist, pull back my arm, and throw it as hard as I can into the water.
It lands, bobs twice, and then disappears beneath the waves.
I hear a clatter behind me and whirl to see James has kept up with me.
He throws the sword down with a disgusted sneer on his face.
I watch his face as his eyes move back and forth, likely while he tries to process what just happened.
He must decide that it’s too much to dwell on because he sinks to the ground.
“What just happened? I didn’t have any—Vera, I almost killed you!”
“It’s not your fault,” I murmur as I glance to the waves. I move over to his side and kneel next to him. I eye the sword for a long moment and then finally decide I don’t like it. It joins the siren’s song in the pier.
I reach out a hesitant hand and rest it on James’s shoulder. “Are you all right?” I ask, patting him awkwardly.
He is wheezing for breath and choking and now that I’m touching him I realize he is trembling.
“No, of course I’m not okay,” he gasps out. “I had no control over myself. I could have hurt you, Vera. I think I did hurt that guy.”
“Frederick will be fine,” I mutter bitterly. If the plot has its way, he’ll outlive both of us.
“Frederick, so that was his name.” James sighs as he rubs a hand down his face. “I feel more in control of myself again. I don’t know what that was though.”
“I think it was the plot,” I say as I glance toward the waves. The plot using a plot device to have its way and bully us. “Don’t worry, I got rid of it.”
“I promise, I didn’t mean any of that.”
I pat him absently on the shoulder as my mind whirls.
“We are working against the plot,” I say at last. “And the plot seems to have a mind of its own. It will try to force itself upon us. I think that only if we work together can we overcome it.”
This is the scene where Hook and Moira finally become allies. They make a bargain to kill a siren princess and wind up falling in love. But maybe that’s part of the reason why James is back in control of himself again. Because we are supposed to make a bargain.
Well, we can, but it won’t be the type of deal the plot will like.
Hook and Moira have their own twisted bargains that makes it so they work together and start to trust each other at least a little bit, so why can’t James and I?
“We’re going to get through this story as quickly as possible, but let’s be very clear.
We do it as a team. Together we can figure out a way to make it so that we don’t fall in love, and we don’t actually kill each other. Got it?”
James glances at me out of the corner of his eye like he can’t believe what I just said. However, he finally holds out his hand to clasp mine. He gives it a good hard shake. “Deal.”