Chapter 33 #2
“He is. He just had some food and has us en route to Neverland.” I pursed my lips and stepped back. “I’m going to go check on the others. Get some rest and I’ll be back soon.”
I was nearly to the door when his voice stopped me in my tracks.
“The ear is like a sonic boom. The crossed daggers make the user unerringly accurate at throwing knives.”
“The three wavy lines?” I asked, making my way back toward the bed.
He rolled gingerly to his back, his expression grim.
“Water. I can call it…control it.”
I thought back to the whirlpool caused by the wormhole and nodded. Wind and water. That’s how he’d saved the Jolly Roger.
“And you can do,” I waved my hand in the direction of his torso, “ all of these things at will?”
“I can.”
“Xander said that it’s possible but rare to have multiple Tideblessings, but this is…a lot. How?”
He pulled himself up to rest his back against the wall and jerked his chin toward the edge of the bed. “Sit.”
My fingers tingled with the need to reach out, to squeeze his arm reassuringly, because I could feel the tension and pain pouring off him. Instead, I sat and folded my hands in my lap.
"I grew up in an orphanage just like Pan,” he began, his words halting at first, like they were being torn from his lips.
“The Safehaven Academy for Unwanted Boys and Girls. I never met my parents. But from what I learned later in life, that was probably for the best. They weren’t good people.
The orphanage was…alright. For most of my childhood, at least. It wasn’t until one particular teacher came aboard that things went bad.
Hutchins wasn’t just violent. He enjoyed causing pain.
My time there once he arrived was almost more than I could take.
I tried to run away once with a couple of friends.
One of those friends was Tommy. The man you knew as Trick-Eyed Tom. ”
I stared at him. “Trick-Eyed Tom was Tommy? The kid you were in Neverland with?”
He nodded. “Pan and Tink took us from the orphanage at the same time. We met Miguel on the island, and he was already getting sick.”
No wonder he’d been so loyal. They’d gone through so much together…
“And who was the other friend? Was it Xander?”
“No. After Tom and I escaped, he was able to heal my wound, and we headed to the nearest island. That’s where we met Garth and Xander.
Garth was a fishmonger. He’d already let Xander work for room and board and tried to pretend that he needed the extra hands, but truth is, he’s as soft on the inside as he is crusty on the outside.
He was good to us. We stayed a couple years, until we felt strong enough to make a plan.
Then, we took to the seas in search of Noru.
” His expression darkened. “When Tom and I ran away from the orphanage, it was with a little girl named Sally," he said.
"She was younger. Nine, maybe ten. She worshiped me, but I was too old to bother with her most days.
Still…something about the way Hutchins had started looking at her…
I knew things were about to go from bad to worse.
Gods, I was so fucking arrogant. I thought I was strong enough to protect them both. " His voice dropped. "I was wrong."
He lifted his head and looked me square in the face and I found myself wishing—not for the first time—that I’d been a true healer instead of a tinker or a fucking bird whisperer. I would have done anything to take away his pain.
"We managed to get as far as the outskirts of the camp," he continued.
"But it was slow going. Sally’s legs were tired, so I carried her on my back.
After a few kilometers, my legs started cramping.
I tried to push through, but they caught us.
" He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. His voice was void of emotion when he continued. "When Tom and I finally got out of the hospital a week or so later, Sally was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t until years later, after I ran away from Neverland and went back to take care of some…business that I found out what happened from a maid who still worked there. While we were in the hospital, they’d found Sally stuffed in a closet in a dress covered in blood.
" He exhaled, long and slow. "The maids…they’d pitched in a coin each for a proper burial. "
A lump rose in my throat. "I’m so, so sorry.” This time, I didn’t resist. I laid my hand on his shoulder, pressing my body close to his, offering what little comfort I could. My heart felt like ice in my chest, and I realized with a start that my shirt was wet with tears.
"That’s… that’s just—" I sniffled, swiping my sleeve across my face. "I don’t know why the world has to be so cruel. Especially to children."
The Hollow had been an ugly place, and I’d seen suffering. But when I looked into Hook’s eyes at that moment, I knew whatever I’d seen paled in comparison. Part of me wished this conversation was over, but knew that it was about to get worse...
“All that to explain about the tattoos. I’ve 48 in my lifetime. 24 of them are still with me today. Each of them represents a life I’ve taken.”
So many lives…
My mind reeled as pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “When you kill someone, you absorb their magic,” I whispered.
“Almost like Tink, right?” he said with a grim smile. “Disgusting.”
“Not at all like Tink,” I shot back, shaking my head furiously. “Are you kidding me? No. She chooses to steal from those kids. You didn’t ask for this blessing-”
“Not a blessing,” he cut in. “It’s a curse, I promise you that.”
“And that’s why Tom wanted you to deal the final blow.” The realization shook me to my core. “He wanted you to be able to take his power so you could become a Mend in case you or any of the crew needed healing.”
“Exactly.”
I let out a low gasp. “When you shot me out of the air, during The Devil’s Gauntlet…that was Davy’s magic.”
“Fresh out of the box, if you will,” he said with a nod.
“Why are some of the marks so dark and others so light?”
He tugged the blanket down, bearing his muscled chest. There, over his heart, was a symbol as black and saturated as the tornado on his back, only this one was a pair of bones in the shape of a cross.
“Tom. His magic is brand new. If I use it, it’ll get lighter and lighter until, eventually, it disappears. ”
“You don’t get to keep the blessing forever?”
“It gets weaker with use.”
“And the tornado?”
“Miguel. I’ve never used it, and I never will.”
So he would always carry a piece of his friend with him.
“But there’s another part to this curse,” he continued. “The part that haunts me more than any other. I don’t just get their magic. I also get their memories.”
I thought back to his words days before, when he explained how Miguel had died when Pan used him as a human shield. I’d told him it wasn’t his fault.
“That’s not the way the universe looks at it.”
I couldn’t fathom how he possibly knew that, but now it all made sense. He felt responsible for Miguel’s death, because, to his mind, if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have gained his power or absorbed the boy’s memories.
“None of that makes you to blame. Not for Miguel’s death, or Tom’s.”
He reached for the mug of ale and drained it before setting it down on the table beside the bed.
"I’m not going to argue with you, Harmony.
I tell you all of this for one reason and one reason only.
I have sympathy for what Pan suffered at the hands of the adults sworn to protect him because I saw it through his eyes.
You’d think that suffering would create empathy, but instead, it turned him into something just as bad.
Which is why I would go through all of this and more to see him dead and buried. But once that’s done? So am I.”
My tongue felt thick and dry as I stared at him, dread closing over my chest like a fist. “What does that mean, James? Done how?”
“Done with this world.” He held my gaze, his expression solemn. “And when I go, the curse goes with me.”
I’d sensed it early on…the disregard for his own life. The relentless darkness inside him. But somehow, I thought that once he was able to complete his mission and stop Pan and Tink, he’d change his mind.
As I stared at his savagely beautiful face, I realized he wouldn’t. And worse? I couldn’t even blame him. The only world he knew was one of suffering. His own and that of 48 other souls that had been etched on his body.
“Curse” was too soft a word.
It must’ve been a lifetime of torture.
I wouldn’t try to change his mind, but maybe, tonight, I could offer him some small comfort.
I held my breath and slid my hand slowly across the sheet until I reached his fingertips, and I laced mine with his.
He tightened his grip, his onyx eyes snapping with hidden fire.
I could barely find my voice as I whispered, “Can I…lay with you?”