Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
WENDY
I don’t sleep that night.
Usually, when I can’t sleep, I can pinpoint the exact place and time that my body is reliving. I know the exact reason it refuses to let me bury myself in the solace of slumber.
This is different.
I’m restless, my limbs jittery. When I wander my way down to the bunker where they keep the faerie dust, I’m relieved to find the guard standing on duty. He waves at me with a toothy grin.
“Miss Darling,” he says cheerfully. “Little late for ya to be wandering down here, ain’t it?”
He’s right. I usually pad down here first thing in the morning, as well as in the afternoon, when my brain has a difficult time focusing on tasks. My timing used to be because that’s when the cravings were the strongest. Now, as the stretches between intense cravings grow longer, it’s more habit than anything. I’ve come to look forward to seeing the guard. There’s a certain comfort to knowing I’d never make it inside the bunker. That the guard is always here to stop me. Always here to offer me a friendly smile.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I say, to which his smile twitches. “I would have thought someone else would have relieved you tonight.”
He shrugs. “Rainer was supposed to have scrub duty tonight but has a case of the trots, so Charlie had to fill in for him, meaning Schruin had to fill in for her, meaning I had to fill in for Schruin.”
“Right,” I say.
He offers me a wink before I leave.
The deck isn’t quite empty. It still has to be manned at night. The waves don’t exactly stop just because the rest of us do. But it’s empty compared to this morning, and the crew working the night shift isn’t the type to snitch. So I slink toward the nearest mast, my fingers curling into fists.
It’s been ages since I climbed anything, so I hardly make it a few feet off the rungs before the weightless sensation makes me dizzy, sending shivers of needles throughout my body.
That’s fine. I actually prefer it this way.
Halfway up, I realize the mast isn’t quite so stable-feeling as my parents’ clock tower or the cliffs back in Neverland. It’s sturdy, but that doesn’t stop it from being rocked by the waves. On the way up, I often find myself moving with the rhythm of the sea.
Still, I cling tight, refusing to look down.
There’s a nest at the top of the mast, one that I have to maneuver my body to climb into. When I glance down at my feet to figure out where to place them, I end up getting a glimpse of the boat far below. I’m not exactly unaccustomed to heights, but usually the ground doesn’t move so much. Thankfully, there’s a gentle breeze tonight, so I’m able to gulp in several breaths of salt air to steady myself.
There’s little to see now that I’m situated in the wooden nest, not with how the moon is barely a sliver behind the clouds. But that’s no matter. I didn’t come up here to see anyway.
“I did give you a room, did I not?”
The familiar voice has me jolting, which is problematic given the way I’ve perched myself on the rim of the nest. Firm hands steady me before I can launch myself off the edge and end up nothing more than spatter on the deck beneath.
I look to my side to find Astor standing next to me, having removed his hands from my shoulders and back to his sides.
“I didn’t hear you climbing,” I say.
“Well, it is quite windy.”
“It’s not that windy.”
“Yes, Darling, but I thought it more polite to blame your lack of awareness on your surroundings rather than on you.”
I huff, pulling my coat taut and my scarf tight around my neck to protect me from the evening chill, but the corner of my lip twitches all the same.
The captain takes up the perch across from me. His legs are significantly longer, so they can’t help but tangle with mine. I try not to flinch at the feel of his legs wrapped around my ankles. Mostly because if the captain notices that we’re touching, he isn’t letting it show.
Astor keeps his hands in his pockets, staring at me like I’m a fleeting eclipse and not a girl he kidnapped then proceeded to befriend.
Befriend.
Friends.
Is that what we are?
“Vor says you visited him tonight?”
I shift uncomfortably. “He told?”
“He always tells.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, indeed.”
If the captain means to rebuke me, he must relent, because he quickly bounces to another topic. “Did you have trouble sleeping before?”
I raise a brow. “There are a few events that might demand the use of a before . You’re going to have to be a tad more specific.”
For a moment, he says nothing, and I can’t help but wonder which event is playing through his mind. If he’s imagining the bloody death of his wife, or perhaps the murder of my parents, or the night he kidnapped me from the beach in Neverland. Perhaps Peter assaulting me in the Carlisles’ home.
“No, you’re right,” he says, sighing. “I think I’d rather not.”
I can’t describe why, but my heart deflates a bit.
“Wendy,” he says.
“Captain.”
Something akin to hurt flashes in his eyes. “Are we not on a first-name basis?”
“Perhaps if I knew your first name.” The lie just slips out, but I watch his face and posture for tells. A twitch of the brow. A flick of his ears. A bulging in his jaw.
Anything to know I can affect him a fraction of how much he’s capable of hurting me.
I’d been on a high after he backed my plan to use my shadow soothing to our advantage. Over and over I’d replayed his reaction to my boldness in my mind—the subtle pride as he’d stared at me. I’d felt so connected to him, for once rowing in the same direction.
My recollections had been innocent in nature, starting with his look of pride tonight and progressing to mentally compiling every subtle compliment he’s ever paid me, but going no further. Innocent, I’d repeated to myself as I’d wrapped his praise around my heart like a child wrapping the twine of a kite around her finger.
The thoughts themselves were pure, wholesome.
It was the frequency of them, the saturation of them that had soon soiled my daydreaming with guilt. And now that he’s in front of me, all beautiful arrogance, I can’t help but let him needle his way underneath my skin.
Astor narrows his eyes, his gaze unfocused. Like he’s sifting through a box of memories, sure he’ll find the evidence he needs. “I introduced myself the night of the masquerade. And Maddox is known to call me by my given name on occasion.”
I shrug, hiding my hands inside my pockets lest their twitching give away my deceit. I’m not sure why I’m lying. Captain Nolan Astor was how he’d introduced himself at the ball to Lord Credence. I’d remember his voice anywhere, the way it fit his name perfectly.
And yet.
“Well, what is it then?”
Astor stares me down, like he’s trying to find some evidence of a lie. A joke. He must not find what he’s looking for in my face because he says, “You’re right. Captain’s my preferred, anyway.”
I let out a quiet huff. It’s more scorn than I meant. “You are so stubborn.”
He quirks a brow. “Am I?”
I place my hands on my hips, trying to keep my balance on the side. “You’re not going to tell me your name, all because I hurt your feelings by not hanging on your every word.”
“I assure you that you have no such ability, Darling.”
I flit my hand in the air. “Yes, yes.” I don’t know what’s gotten into me tonight, but I do my best impression of the captain, dipping my voice as low as I can get it until it sounds gravelly enough to leave a scratch. “Hurting my feelings is a right reserved for one person alone.” The captain tenses, but I’m sleep-deprived and annoyed and tasting the bitter lack of faerie dust on my tongue. “Oh, and I almost forgot, ‘And you, Darling, will never be that person.’” I offer him a smile that feels unfamiliar and cruel on my lips. “Did I get it right, Captain?”
I wait for Astor to burst. To send me careening off the side of this mast. My fists ball at the ready. It’s not as if Maddox’s training would be of much use against Astor, but there’s a tension crawling underneath my skin that’s begging for him to take a step toward me.
I think I could land a punch before he sent me overboard. Part of me thinks it would be worth it.
Instead, he just offers me an amused smirk. “Can it be? Has the pup finally learned to bite?”
I don’t know how I went from feeling so calm, so peaceful up here, to my skin itching with the need to dig my fingernails into his flesh until I draw blood, but the craving for violence is swelling up within me. It’s like I’m a child taken to the fair on a hot day, dehydrated and worn out and lashing out to go home.
Except I never got to be that child—not after I fell ill.
I want the captain to come at me, but he doesn’t. He just leans back against the rim of the nest. “What’s got you so riled?”
From his tone, I’d think he was being sincere. If the words were coming from anyone else’s mouth.
I open my mouth to explain, but there are too many things, too many thoughts swarming together, competing for my attention. And I can’t pinpoint any one of them. They flit around me, evading my grasp as I lose focus and try to curl my fingers around another at the last minute.
“It’s…it’s nothing,” I say.
“Oh, I doubt that.”
“I’m fine,” I say, taking a breath that’s supposed to be steeling and instead feels more like an accident as I turn to climb down the mast.
“You’re angry,” he says.
“I’m not an angry person.”
“And do you actually believe yourself when you say that?”
I whirl around to face him, keeping my palms behind me, pressed to the mast. “I’m not an angry person,” I repeat. “I don’t have outbursts. I don’t scream or yell or hurt people. That’s you, in case you’ve forgotten. I assure you I haven’t.”
He cocks his head at me. “I’m not the one you’re angry with, Darling.”
My heart races. “I already told you; I don’t get angry.”
He shakes his head, looking pensive. “No. No, you don’t. You don’t get angry. You are angry. It’s so much a part of you, you can no longer recognize it in yourself.”
I stare at him, not bothering to hide the mockery on my face. “You think you know everything. But really, you’re just a bitter man who thinks himself unaccountable because of something that happened over a decade ago. Do you think you’re the only one who hurts? Do you have any idea what it’s like to wake devastated because it’s morning again, and you have to spend another day trapped in your own body? Shackled in your own mind, prisoner to your own thoughts? Do you know what it’s like for your own mind to hate you, spend every moment of the day torturing you—and for no apparent reason? At least you had a reason.”
The captain’s eyes have gone wide, his breathing ragged, but he stays plastered to the rim of the nest, unmoving.
“You don’t have a monopoly on missing a piece of yourself, you know. I’m sorry, alright?” I say, and I realize I’m screaming now. Hopefully my voice gets lost in the howl of the wind before it can reach the ears of any on the deck. “I’m sorry that she was supposed to be here, and I wasn’t. I’m sorry that instead of Iaso, the world got stuck with me. You think I haven’t felt it?” I say, grasping the fabric of my shirt above my heart. “You think I haven’t known all this time that I wasn’t supposed to be here? That I’ve outlived my welcome in this world? Sure, maybe I didn’t know exactly why I’m not worthy, but that didn’t close up the hole in my chest. So go ahead,” I say, holding my arms wide in front of me, a mockery of invitation. “Tell me you hate me. Tell me you can’t stand to look at me. It’s nothing I don’t hear every day of my life, ringing in the back of my skull. Say it, and then you can join the chorus in my head. Just know your voice isn’t nearly as original as you believe it to be.”
“Wendy.”
“No. No.” I hiss through my teeth. “You might think you’re stuck with me, but you chose that. You stole me from Neverland. That was your choice. And before that, you came after my family. Your choice. And when all of this is said and done…” I clutch my stomach, unable to breathe. “When it’s done, and you get what you want from me—for me to talk to the shadows or the dead or whatever it is that you need from my shadow soothing, guess what?”
When he doesn’t answer, I scream. “ Guess! ”
The captain blinks, pushing himself up and stepping toward me slowly.
“You get to be rid of me. You get to…” I clutch my stomach, pain writhing in my belly as I search for the words to make him understand. “You don’t have to be in my head. I can’t get away from me. I can’t…” My fingers find my hair, knuckles bulging, but the words remain holed up inside me all the same, no matter how hard I try to pry them out.
“Darling,” the captain whispers, taking my fingers and unraveling them from my hair. Some of the sting at my scalp goes away, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. Instead, he slides it downward until my hand is a barrier between his and my cheek. “There is nowhere I could go, no corner of the world I could hide, where that would be the case. Where I could get away from you.”
I listen for the taunting, for the vile loathing, but it’s absent.
My breathing takes up the space between us. He’s so close now, with so little room in this nest. Close as the day I hit him and he determined not to train me anymore.
“You’re wrong, you know,” he says. “I don’t think I’m the only one who feels it.”
My heart gives a lurch, wondering if he can see the desire written all over my face. Wondering if he’s caught the glances I’ve stolen when I thought he wasn’t looking.
“If you’ll let me,” he says, staring me down, “I think I could help.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t…
“Stop me if I’m wrong,” he whispers, though the words are useless as I’m paralyzed under his touch. He brings his thumb to my temple, rubbing it in circles at a patch of my hair. “This is a cage, isn’t it?” He tucks my hair behind my ear, taking care to graze the bone behind my ear before slipping his touch to the base of my skull. “A prison you can’t escape. Do you think I don’t know what it is to wake every morning disappointed? Clinging to my nightmares, because the alternative is that I have to live yet another day chained to myself? Do you think I don’t know about the whispers?”
I open my mouth to retort, but he brushes a finger over my lips to stop me. My head spins at his touch as he shakes his head. “Just a few more moments, Darling, please. I want you to know. I know your whispers are different, that they come from the shadows. They lodge in the deepest corners of your mind, waiting to catch you alone. Waiting to ensnare you. Except that’s the worst part. Because even when you’re in a crowd of people, you’re always alone. They’re always standing between you and everyone else, drowning you silently while all the others see is a beautiful smile.”
He’s so close now, cupping my jawline in his sturdy, warm hands. His ragged breath warms my nose. Any closer and our lips would touch, and I would know what it feels like to let my enemy kiss away the pain.
Tears run down my cheeks, and he lets them. Doesn’t try to wipe them away. Doesn’t try to erase them.
I nod my head, letting out a nervous laugh in between choking sobs.
“You don’t have to do that,” he says, his thumb caressing my jaw as his gaze dips to my mouth.
“Do what?”
“Smile while you weep.”
Inside me, something cracks. And I can’t tell if it’s a bone in my chest, or my soul, or if my heart is just ripping in two—one part remaining loyal to my parents, the other taking sides with the captain. Either way, it’s a fracture I can’t ignore.
I can’t ignore that this is wrong.
He killed them. Killed my parents. Letting him touch me—it’s a betrayal. Not just to my parents, but to John, who idolized our father. To Michael, who doesn’t understand why his mother no longer sings him to sleep.
To…
I sense the absence of Peter’s ring on my shaking hand. A phantom weight bearing down on my soul. Peter, who is trapped by the Sister’s curse. Peter, who I forgot about.
When I pull away, Astor lets me go. I’m not sure if I imagine it, but I think I catch a glimpse of relief in his expression when I’m the one to stop things from escalating.
“I think I’m going to retire for the night,” I say, shrugging my coat up my neck where his touch still burns. Can he see it redden in the moonlight?
“Sleep easy,” he says, a softness tinging his voice. His hands fidget at his sides, like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
When I turn to go, his voice halts me at the mast, the wet wood slick under my fingertips. “Wendy,” he says, grabbing the crook of my elbow, though not roughly.
“Yes?” I say, my heart pounding, my mind praying he doesn’t ask me to turn around. Doesn’t ask me to stay. Because I don’t know that I have the strength to resist him a second time.
The captain squeezes me, just barely. Does he remember where he’s touching? That underneath the fabric of my shirt, his fingers rest just above the mark that signifies the bargain I made with Peter that night in the clock tower?
When he speaks again, I think I know the answer to that question. “The shadows can’t have you.”