Unhooked (20 page)

The battle is still raging below, and the sounds that carry up to me remind me of the look on Owen's face when Pan's dagger found its mark, and the amusement on Pan's face when the boy's body dropped to the floor.

But I've seen what the Captain can do as well. I've seen him kill just as ruthlessly. And I've seen him take an innocent life. Neither of the two is safe. Neither is innocent.

“I'm not going with him,” Olivia says from where she's been watching our conversation unspool.

“Then stay,” the Captain tells her without ever looking away from me. “Come, lass. Before it's too late.” He has offered me his hand but nothing else.

“But it's already too late, Captain,” Pan says from the open doorway.

The boy warmed his hands so no one would see how they trembled on his gun. His brother never shook before battle—just closed his eyes briefly and then faced whatever was to come. As though his brother had found a way to accept the pointlessness and the waste of the lie they found themselves trapped in. And the boy hated his brother for it, just a little, the way that only brothers can hate. . . .

E
VEN THOUGH HE SPEAKS TO the captain, Pan's pale blue eyes are fixed on me. “Gwendolyn, my dear, perhaps you'd be so kind as to step aside?”

The Captain's sword is drawn, and in a blink he's in front of me, blocking me from going to Pan.

“I'll not let you have her again,” the Captain growls.

Pan gives him a bored look. “Then again I shall have to remind you, the choice is not yours to make.”

The Captain steps forward, his blade at the ready. “I've heard you've been spinning your tales, Peter,” he says, snapping out the syllables of the name with a mocking cadence.

“Don't, boy,” Pan warns, his voice dangerous.

“Still playing at your fairy tales, I see,” the Captain taunts as he lunges with a swift step forward. Pan parries easily, though, avoiding his dagger without much effort at all.

“I don't play at anything. You know that well enough.”

“Aye,” the Captain says, pushing me back toward the bed, away from the fighting, as he circles left. “I know a great many things about you. I wonder, though, if you've bothered to tell Gwendolyn your secrets. Or if you've just tempted her with your many lies.”

Pan follows the Captain's movements easily. “I've no need of lies.” Pan swipes savagely, and again the Captain meets him, their blades crossed, face-to-face. “Gwendolyn chose
me
, Rowan. She'll choose me again.” He pushes the Captain back viciously. “And again.”

“And if she doesn't?” The Captain's face has gone murderous, but his voice remains calm as he rights himself, ready for Pan's next move. “Will you leave her to die like you leave the rest that cease to be of use to you?”

“Why wouldn't she choose me?” Pan drawls, circling farther to the right. “I saved her from the likes of you, didn't I? And I can give her anything she wants.”

“Not anything, apparently,” the Captain says, baring his teeth. “You haven't taken her back to her world, have you?” he asks, following Pan's movement and preparing for the next attack. “Does she know that you could?”

I'm moving before I can think better of it, before the Captain can stop me. “What's he talking about?” I ask Pan as I step in front of the Captain, between the two of them.

Pan shrugs. “They're the desperate words of a desperate man, Gwendolyn. You saw with your own eyes who the Dark Ones work for, did you not?”

When I turn back to the Captain for some explanation, I see his expression has gone stony. Before he can say anything, Pan grabs my arm and pulls me safely behind him. In a blink Pan has the Captain's back against the open doorway. Pan lunges and the Captain parries, but the heel of the Captain's polished boot catches on the edge of the floor and he bobbles, his arms flailing to catch himself.

Pan lunges again, his dagger lashing out viciously, knocking the Captain back again.

But there's nowhere to go. The Captain's foot finds air, and he stumbles backward, only barely catching himself on the edge of the floor before he can fall to the hall far below.

He's still clutching his blade in his hand and struggling to pull himself up from his precarious hold on the ledge when Pan approaches him. The Captain goes still when Pan crouches down, looming over him, but only for a moment. “Is this how you imagined you'd meet your fate, boy?” I can't see Pan's face, but I can hear the anticipation in his voice.

The Captain's jaw goes tight as he struggles again to pull himself up.

Pan simply shakes his head. “I must admit, this isn't nearly as amusing as I thought your demise would be,” Pan says, feigning disappointment. “And not nearly as satisfying as I hoped.” He raises a booted foot and brings it down, crushing the Captain's hand—his real hand.

The Captain howls, his face contorting as his hand lets go of his blade, and his whole body slips farther. Pan picks up the Captain's sword, examines it for a moment, and then brings the point to the Captain's throat. “Ah, that's better,” he drawls, amusement tinting his voice. “Done in by your own blade. Quite poetic, isn't it, Rowan?”

The Captain's dark eyes meet mine, and I see real panic there. And fear. The expression is so foreign, so strange-looking on the sharp lines of his face, I'm moving before I can think better of it. And before I can think through the implications of what I'm about to do, I grab Pan's arm and pull him back. “No!”

Pan turns to me, his eyes narrowed and his mouth curled up into a snarl. Gone is the beautiful boy, and in his place is something cold and dangerous. His blue eyes are empty of any feeling but rage. Still I don't let go of his arm.

“Why ever not, Gwendolyn? He brought his rabble into my home, to kill my boys—why should I spare him?”

“If you do this, you'd be no better than he is,” I say, careful not to look at the Captain. I keep my eyes on Pan, begging him without words to relent.

Pan's eyes narrow as he considers me. For a moment that feels like an eternity, the Captain hangs from the doorway, sweat beading on his forehead with the effort of trying to pull himself back up.

Whatever he's done, whatever he might be, I can't stand by and do nothing. I saw the Sea Hags, and I know the risk he took to pull me from the water. I owe him this much. “Please,” I plead. “You don't need to kill him to win. You can be better than he is.”

At first Pan doesn't show any sign of having heard me. His jaw remains tense, his whole body ready to attack as he glares at the Captain. But then his shoulders relax, just a little, and he glances at me, his expression hiding more that it reveals.”

“Quite right, my dear,” Pan says after another long moment. Then a dark smile flickers across his face. “But then again, I've always been better than he is.”

With a flick of Pan's hand, the vining garlands that Olivia made begin to snake their way along the floor and wrap themselves around the Captain's wrists. Blood wells where their thorns dig into his right arm, but he barely flinches. And he doesn't scream or plead his case. His dark eyes are steady on me as the ropes of green begin to drag him off the ledge, lowering him down to the Great Hall.

I run to the doorway to see Pan's boys gathering below. When the Captain, still struggling against the vines, finally makes it to the floor, the boys set upon him.

“You said you wouldn't kill him,” I say to Pan, who is watching the events unfold with a gleam in his eyes.

Pan glances at me. “Worry not, my dear. My boys know well enough that I'd be very displeased if the Captain's death came at any hands but my own.”

I'm not as sure of the boys as Pan is though. With his hands and arms wrapped tightly in the vines, the Captain doesn't have a chance to defend himself against the blows he's being dealt by the feral pack of children below. After a moment, one raises the Captain's metal arm aloft like a trophy.

But some of the glowing orbs have started to gather around the group of boys. With a flash, one of them explodes in a burst of light that has me blinking away, and when I look back, I see a person is standing where the orb once floated.

Or not a person, exactly, but a creature that looks so much like Fiona, I don't have any doubt he's Fey. His naked torso is covered in the same strangely iridescent scales that covered Fiona's body, and his head is topped with the same white-blond hair.

The boys in the hall below go completely silent, and the one who was about to deliver a kick to the Captain's face lowers his foot as, one by one, the glowing orbs flash with blinding brightness and transform into more of the blond Fey. The sixth and final orb explodes in light and reveals Fiona, standing stone-faced over the Captain's body.

I let out a shaking breath in relief as she bends down to examine him. With a quick jerk of her head, two of the other Fey come forward and hoist the Captain up by his arms. I wait for the boys to attack, but they never do. They just watch with uneasy expressions on their young faces.

“Show our guest to the hold,” Pan calls down.

I whip my head around, confused. On the ship, Fiona talked to the Captain as though they knew each other—more than knew each other. She talked to him as though they were allies. For a moment I thought she came to rescue him, but it's clear from the expressionless look on her face, she hasn't.

Pan smiles at my confusion. “Fiona's been loyal to me from the first, Gwendolyn.”

“But she was on the ship,” I protest.

“Yes, she was—at my behest. She brings me information and keeps me apprised of the Captain's plans. Rowan has no idea.” Pan smiles, a slippery curve of his mouth that lights his eyes with amusement. “Though I suppose he does now.”

When the order was given, they crept slowly, cautiously, out into the barren stretch of land between safety and death. His brother's eyes were alert, watching for danger to reveal itself. The boy should have been looking as well, but he could not take his eyes off the misshapen lump that had once been a soldier a few meters away. . . .

T
HE BODIES OF THE FALLEN boys are already waiting for us when Pan leads me and Olivia out of the fortress and to the edge of the trench. The dead boys are uncovered and unprepared for their final rest, and their skin is ashen and unwashed. And the blood of battle still marks their clothing and is already congealing at the edges of their wounds. Many of their eyes remain open, as though accusing the heavens for the cruel fate they've found themselves victim to.

Some are Pan's boys, but most belong to the Captain's crew. In death they seem even younger than in life. That patina of danger they'd carried on the ship like a badge of honor has rubbed away, leaving only the faces of children behind.

They are never going to know another day. They're never going to grow up to become the men they might have been. And in this world, no one will even remember them. No one will mourn their loss. In days, or maybe even hours, no one will even remember them.

I wonder about the people they left behind. I wonder if anyone from our own world still waits for them to come home. I wonder if anyone waits for me.

Two older boys lift the first body—Owen. Grabbing him by the shoulders and feet, they unceremoniously heave his familiar freckles and ruddy hair into the pit. Then they reach for the next boy. I feared Sam on the ship, but now as I look at his broken body, I can hardly remember why.

When they lift him roughly, Sam's arm flops like the dead weight that it is. Part of it is missing, but there is no bloodied gash like so many of the other bodies wear. Instead, like the boy who attacked me on the Captain's ship, the lower half of his arm is simply gone, as though it cracked off along the line of his jagged tattoo. No blood. No bone. Just empty blackness where his arm was once attached.

Is this what happened to the Captain's arm? Is this what drove him to accept the life the Dark One offered that night?

Pan is standing to my left, with Olivia tucked close to his other side. He's watching the proceedings without any visible emotion as one body after another is lifted and tossed unceremoniously into the gaping pit. When Olivia turns and buries her tears in Pan's shoulder, he comforts her without sparing me a glance. Ever since I plead for mercy on the Captain's behalf, Pan has looked at me with barely concealed disappointment.

I can't really be sorry for what I did, though. I couldn't have watched the Captain die like that. On his ship, he told me that he'd saved me and that I owed him a debt. I consider that debt forgiven now, because Pan gave me what I asked for—he's spared the Captain's life. For now, at least.

But I can't stop wondering why the Captain tried to make me believe Pan was the one who controlled the Dark Ones? After what I'd seen him do on that ship, I would have thought he'd have come up with a more believable story.

“Come, ladies.” Pan pulls Olivia closer and extends a hand to me. “Let us put this whole messy ordeal behind us, shall we?”

“I'm going to stay for a while longer,” I say, not taking his hand. My gaze is still steady on the last of the bodies.

I need time away from the chaos of the fortress. Time to mourn for the boys who died today—to witness the loss, even if no one else seems to understand the finality of it. Even though I understand that, in this world, time is probably the last thing I have.

And I need time away from Pan. One thing became painfully clear the moment Pan admitted Fiona was working for him—he
does
have a way to get us back. Fiona was in London, and if she's on Pan's side and not the Captain's, she could take us back there. If he wanted her to.

So why doesn't he want her to?

“Come in before dark,” he says after a beat of uneasy silence, not a request but a command. I give him a vague nod, and he takes Olivia in, leaving two of the fairy lights behind to guard me.