Chapter 48
CHAPTER 48
WENDY
I never make it to the cave. Even if I had it left in me to betray Astor, by the time I leave the orphanage, my hands are trembling too badly to make the climb.
What the wraiths showed me back in the orphanage—it might have happened decades ago, but I know from experience that these sorts of things don’t die in the past. Hadn’t I seen the evidence of how it still affects Astor the night he’d asked me not to watch as he tortured the man in the alley? He’d been trembling after, and I’d made the foolish assumption that it was because he’d never tortured anyone before.
He’d informed me that I didn’t know what I was talking about.
How many times had he been forced to torture Peter? The other boys at the orphanage?
As I make my way across the sleeping town of Endor and back to the murky waters, there’s something else about the vision that bothers me.
You belong to me now , the warden had said.
I already knew from Nettle what the warden used to do to the boys at night. He’d abused Thomas to the point of sending him over the edge. When Peter and the Sister had rescued the Lost Boys from that filthy place, Thomas’s mind had turned to plotting murder, not just of the warden, but of any family member complicit in sending the boys to the orphanage.
There’s a part of me that can’t bring myself to believe that the same fate had awaited Astor at night. It’s a stupid thought, but I almost feel as if Astor walks with his chin too high, his shoulders too set, to be carrying that around with him.
Memories like that—they cling to dusty surfaces and hide behind the facial structure of strangers who happen to resemble an abuser. It’s the kind of touch that sticks to your soul like tar and only makes your fingers unusable and sore the more you try to rip it off.
It breaks you.
And it’s difficult to imagine that underneath all of Astor’s confidence and poise…
It doesn’t seem possible.
He doesn’t like being controlled . Wasn’t that what Charlie had said when she’d tried to explain why he detests being Mated to me?
Somehow, I find myself back at the Iaso . I have to wait an hour for my hands to stop trembling, but once they do, I scale the ladder and drop myself onto the ship’s deck.
When I sneak back into my and Charlie’s room, she’s still fast asleep. Crawling into bed, I lie awake, unable to erase what occurred from my mind. Though I didn’t really see it happen, the images have branded themselves into my soul. Nothing can scrub them away. I want to scream into my pillow, to tear something to shreds. I want to hack at a pig carcass, but I’d ruined the last one.
More than anything else, I fixate on the brand that remains across Astor’s chest. The brand that marks him as the warden’s. The words that passed from the warden’s lips to his ears. You’re mine now. I’ll always be with you.
And then I see it, for the first time. In my mind’s eye, I see Astor fall in love with Iaso. I see him have hope in the future through her. Hope to leave the warden behind.
And then I was born, and the Mark appeared on his hand.
You’re mine now. I’ll always be with you.
And I understand.
When Astor spent his and Iaso’s entire life savings to rid himself of his Mark, it wasn’t simply that he didn’t want to fall in love with another woman. It’s that, consciously or not, I had claimed him. I had Marked his skin and reminded him that never again could he truly be free of me. That he belonged to someone else.
He doesn’t seem like he’s afraid of anything.
Everyone’s afraid of something. Astor…he doesn’t like being controlled.
It hits me then, why I’d ventured out to the cave tonight. I’d told myself it was about freeing Peter from his curse. Told myself it was more important than Astor’s wishes, because it would ensure I could keep John and Michael safe.
But deep down, I know it hadn’t been about that at all.
I hadn’t wanted to let Astor go. I’d wanted him to be mine, whether he wanted to be mine or not.
Guilt punctures my lungs as the realization washes over me. As in my mind, it’s me branding him with a poker, my lips leaning into his ear, whispering that he’ll never be rid of me.
Astor, Maddox, and Charlie are arguing when I find them on deck the next morning. I can hear their bickering from down the stairs into the lower level, but the wind is howling with enough force that I can’t make out what they’re saying.
Or maybe it’s just the buzzing in my ears blocking it all out.
It’s not until I draw close that their voices come into focus.
“Just so we’re clear, I’m not at all on board with this decision,” says Maddox, crossing his hefty arms across his chest.
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not the one in charge,” says Astor, mirroring Maddox’s posture.
Charlie throws her hands up in the air. “Why you insist on doing everything on your own, I’ll never understand. If this is about W—” She clamps her mouth as soon as she sees me.
Slowly, Astor and Maddox both swivel toward me.
I can’t help myself. When I see Astor’s hardened face, I search, just for the span in between blinks, for the boy who was left at the orphanage in the hands of a monster.
“Yes, Darling?” he says, more patiently than I’m expecting.
Maddox grinds his teeth, tapping his foot against the deck.
“I was going to ask…” I glance in between the three pirates standing before me, sensing I’m interrupting something important. Heat flushes my cheeks, discomfort swarming in my belly at the realization that they’ve been discussing me. Even if it was nothing particularly negative about me, it feels as if I’ve poked my head in where I’m not wanted. Clearing my throat, I start again. “I was going to ask if it’s alright if the two of us went to visit the Seer alone.”
Maddox looks down. Rubs the back of his neck with his palm. Charlie stares at me, her wide, beautiful eyes full of pity.
When Astor doesn’t answer, I feel the need to explain. Find myself hugging my waist with my arms as the wind swirls around the deck. “It’s just that you and I won’t be Mated after the Seer casts the spell. It just feels…I don’t know. Private?”
Maddox grimaces, but he doesn’t object. Neither does Charlie, who places a gentle hand on my shoulder and offers Astor a venomous look as she walks away.
“Yes, Darling,” the captain says. “I think we can grant that.”
The cave reminds me of black opal, shiny in spots where the condensation has coated the rock in a glistening layer of moisture. Down below, waves crash against the cliffs, and I’m taken back to the night I tried to escape Neverland with John and Michael. The night I’d discovered the truth behind the Lost Boys’ origins.
I’d thought I’d known everything then. I’d been wrong.
The climb to the cave had been demanding, but I’d refused Astor’s assistance. The hostility in my heart toward him is gone; I just can’t stand for him to help me. Not after what I tried to do to him last night.
Not after I tried to keep him.
We haven’t spoken much since we left the ship. Just a few words here and there. All logistical.
It’s killing me. He’s killing me. His silky black hair, wet from the spray of the ocean, the glisten of sweat across his brow where his hair falls across his forehead in jagged points. His eyes, like the foliage just after it rains. Cool and glowing and eerie.
The first time I met Captain Nolan Astor, I remember thinking that touching him would draw blood.
Now I know who made him sharp.
When we enter the cave, our footsteps echo across the hard ground.
“You didn’t tell me you were one of the children at the orphanage,” I say quietly, my voice rebounding off the walls, so that my statement repeats itself until it sounds more like an accusation.
Astor’s ears twitch. “How did you come across that information?”
I let the corner of my mouth drag upward, like I’m trying to be sly or playful, but I’m just so tired I’m not sure it has the same effect. “I didn’t, but you just confirmed it for me.”
Astor examines me. I’m not sure he believes me, but I’d rather him not question my activities last night.
“If you were enrolled at that orphanage… Nolan, Peter told me about what kind of man the warden was. How he treated the boys at the orphanage.”
Astor stops, his boots halting against the stone. Before I can continue, he says, “If that’s the case, you can understand why I omitted that part of the story.”
A lump swells in my throat. I search Astor for the boy I saw last night, but then again, I’d only glimpsed a shadow of him. Besides, while that boy is somewhere within Astor, he’s had years to thicken the armor surrounding him. “You could have told me,” I say, immediately frustrated with how that sounds. “Not because I deserve to know that about you. Just because—well—I would have understood. To some degree, at least.”
Astor shifts uncomfortably. With each moment that passes, I sense him slipping. It’s in his face, the way his cheeks empty of color and his brow tenses. And it kills me. Maybe because apathy is as familiar to me as my own reflection—at least, the reflection of the Wendy Darling who left her family’s manor. I’m not sure I’ve looked in a mirror since then. It’s as familiar to me as Peter’s expression when he’s confronted.
And I hate seeing it on Astor. Astor, who’s passionate. Astor who, instead of being ruled by a simmering rage, has learned to steer it.
Astor shakes his head slightly, his face softening. “I’m afraid it’s not the same, Darling—what happened to either of us.”
A lump swells in my throat, my heart hammering against my chest because I’m not sure where he’s going with this. My throat goes dry as I scramble for a way to understand. “I know I was older. That I at least understood what was happening…”
Astor swallows, then blinks. “No, Darling. I mean that you’ve never done anything to deserve what happened to you.”
Pain ripples through my ribs. “You were just a child.”
Agony warps his beautiful face. The way he stares at me is like I’m a child and there’s a concept I’m not yet capable of grasping. I still hate that he sees me that way. “Does the timing of my punishment make a difference? When evil was written into my story from the beginning?”
I frown, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing. “Surely not,” I say.
“What?”
I’d laugh, if it weren’t such a painful topic. “You’re the most obstinate man I’ve ever met. Surely you don’t believe someone else wrote your story.”
He actually lets out a quiet laugh at that.
It’s hard to believe that our story is coming to a close. In some ways, it feels as if it’s yet to begin. But even if Astor decided not to remove his Mating Mark, I’d still belong to Peter in twelve days. I have a calendar Charlie gifted me back in the cabin to prove it.
“Astor,” I say as we descend into the cave.
“Darling.”
“When this is over, we won’t be bound. But I’d like for you, when all of this is said and done and you’re sailing across the sea a free man… It would mean a lot to me if you remembered me fondly.”
Astor stares at me for a moment, sea spray still wetting his dark eyelashes. “I can keep that promise,” he says.
My heart aches, ripping from the inside out, but as I reach for his hand, a rumble rips through the cave.
And the cave ceiling falls in.