Chapter 56
Chapter Fifty-Six
HOOK
I push back from where I’m sitting, trying to put as much distance between me and the field as I can. Something in my head aches, a deep, crushing band around my temples. It’s hard at first to figure out where I am.
Oh, I know where I am. I’m in Wonderland.
But to feel it, to actually understand it, is different.
I feel like I’m not actually part of myself, like I lost something back in that field. Like something important has been ripped away from me, and now I don’t know how to connect to what’s left.
I take a breath, drag a hand through my hair, and—Alice.
She’s watching me, her blue eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that makes my skin itch.
“You good?” she asks.
I try to answer, actually try to force the words out, but nothing comes. I clear my throat and nod. “I’m fine.”
I push myself up, but my arms feel weak, like they’re made of something soft, and it takes me longer than it should. Then I’m on my feet, and the world tilts.
No. That’s me.
Alice moves with me, her hand reaching out to grab my arm, steady me, but I shake my head.
“I’m fine.”
Fine.
But I can’t pull my attention away from the field.
I take a step toward it.
“Don’t.” Alice’s voice is sharp, firm.
So I stop.
The usual noise in my head—the sarcasm, the sharp edges—is gone. I don’t even have a reply for her, nothing quick, nothing smart. Instead, I say, “Did you see him?”
I don’t know why I ask, because I know she didn’t. But the words come out anyway.
Alice frowns at me. “See who?”
“Sam,” I say, and the name cracks something in my throat, in my chest.
I don’t know when Alice took my hand. Maybe it was to stop me from walking straight into the field. Maybe it was something else. But her fingers tighten around mine, like she’s trying to hold me there, to anchor me. Like that small gesture can say something neither of us have words for.
“I didn’t see anyone else,” she says. “Just you. And the mist.”
My jaw clenches.
I turn back to the field, waiting, listening.
As if I might see him.
As if I might hear him.
As if every accusation might spill from that cursed place and slam into me all over again.
And maybe I deserve that.
Because I looked for this. I searched for it. All those years, all that time spent. I even dragged myself into that godforsaken place full of pixie dust and whining lost kids. I looked for him.
I pull my hand free from Alice’s, but I don’t step toward the field.
What’s the point?
He isn’t there. He wasn’t there.
The mist only gives you what your heart desires most.
How fucking cruel that it didn’t spit out the amulet instead.
I square my shoulders, force in a breath. There’s no time for this. No time for the sentimental bullshit my brain is trying to drag me into. Captain Hook does not get lost in self-pity.
No.
Captain Hook moves.
Captain Hook does things.
“Right,” I say, as if saying it aloud might snap me out of whatever this is. “Figures.”
I’m not really talking to Alice. I’m not talking to anyone.
Maybe just to the disconnected version of myself that’s still stuck in that damn mist.
“Hook.”
Her voice is quieter now, softer, laced with something close to concern.
I turn, meet her eyes, and there’s a war in my head, a hundred different things pulling at me, and I don’t know which one to grab onto.
“We need to go,” I say. “We’re wasting time.”
“I…” She frowns at me. “Hook, this is—”
But before she can finish whatever soft thing she wants to say, a guttural snarl rips through the air.
We both freeze.
The sound is deep, vibrating through the ground beneath us.
Not like the heavy stomp of boots.
No. This is something else. Something worse.
It grows louder.
Does this place ever fucking stop?
I stop mid-step, my hand already at the hilt of my blade. Why the hell didn’t I bring my sword to this sodding place?
I glance at Alice.
She looks at me.
Then we both turn to the woods.
“What the hell is that?” she whispers.
“A fan of yours, perhaps.”
The mist stirs at my words.
It doesn’t move toward us.
It curls into the forest, shifting, spreading like something unseen is pushing it aside.
And then—there it is.
Two glowing red eyes. Watching us from the dark.
Shit.
“Stay behind me,” I say, stepping between it and Alice.
“Now.”