Everland (34 page)

My breath catches; my heart stills. As the pieces connect, my heart is conflicted with anger, sorrow, and empathy for this Lost Boy. My saturated clothes anchor me as everything moves in slow motion.

Shock crosses Hook’s face for a fraction of a moment before he regains his composure. “That is none of my concern. I came here to win England, not weep for your dead father.”

“It appears no one got what they wanted. Not England, not her people, not even your mother. No one! No one except you, brother,” Jack says. He steps back and gives an exaggerated bow. “The cure is all yours. Long live the Captain.”

“I intend to,” Hook says. He turns back to me, aiming the gun. “I’ve held up to my end of the bargain. Hand it over.”

Wavering, I watch Pete, hoping he will tell me to stop, to run for our lives. Instead, he frowns. “There’s no way out of this,” he says. “He’s won.”

“No,” I protest, counting four other soldiers including Hook nearby. Five against four—that is, if Jack is on our side. Blades against guns. Fear wells in me. Someone is going to die tonight, all because of me, because of what flows within my veins.

Doc’s eyes flick between Hook and me. “Gwen, do as he says.” His voice is stern, commanding.

Emotions collide inside me like a raging storm at sea. Tears burn my eyes, but I swallow back the lump in my throat, forbidding them to fall. I shake my head in protest. Doc gives me a slight nod and I see the glint of silver in his hand: Pete’s second dagger. I place one hand on his cheek and kiss the other. My heart shatters as I pull away.

Please, please don’t let anyone die. Not on my account.

Turning, I melt into Pete’s arms. He buries his face in my hair, and I can barely hear his whisper in the rain. “The first opportunity you have, I want you to run as fast as you can. Don’t look back no matter what. Don’t come back for me or Doc. Just run.”

His fingers comb through my hair, his heartbeat thrumming against my own. I place my hands on his face, my palms running along his stubbled cheeks. Finally, he leans his forehead against mine. He whispers again, “Run, Gwen. Run away, and don’t you ever forget that you are always a Lost Girl.”

Burning tears streak my cheeks. “
Your
Lost Girl,” I say, my grief drowning in his stare.

“Well, isn’t that sweet?” Hook says. He lifts the barrel of his gun toward Pete. “Young love. Now bring me the vial, Immune, or it’ll come to an unfortunate end.”

Reluctantly, I pull away from Pete’s arms. Wet, angry, and battling the ache of defeat, I step toward Hook, his palm held out, waiting for me to give him his prize.

He grins wickedly. “Hand it over,” he says.

He’s won, and that simple fact chokes me like his fat fingers wrapped around my neck, stealing my breath. I fix my gaze on Hook’s single dark eye and shove the vial into his outstretched hand.

“That’s a good little girl.”

“I am not a
little
girl
,” I say, tightening my jaw.

“Oh, aren’t you cute? It’s absolutely …,” Hook says, scratching his head, “darling.”

As soon as Hook wraps his fingers around the glass tube, he turns to his soldiers. “Cuff the girl and the young doctor. We’re taking the cure, the boy, and the Immune. As for Pete,” Hook says, looking Pete up and down, “kill him!”

“No!” I shout as the soldiers move on Doc and Pete. A third guard moves toward me, but Jack steps in between us. He turns his sword on the soldiers. “No, that’s not what you agreed on.”

“Plans have changed,” Hook says. “It’s time you two get an up-close tour of the
Jolly
—”

Another explosion erupts outside the palace, followed by a dozen more. The ground shakes, sending lanterns smashing to the ground.

“Captain!” a Marauder says, running into the courtyard, breathless. “The soldiers! They’ve abandoned their posts. The ships … they’re spooked! Phantoms, I tell you. Firing on our own men!”

“What?” Hook says.

I turn toward Jack, and he meets my stare. I nod toward the katana in his hand.

Hook regards the vial in his grip, like the wheels of a clock turning in his mind, trying to find a solution to his predicament. “No worries. We still have the cure and the little girl,” he says. “As long as we have them both, I’ll be the most powerful man in the world.”

Rage erupts within me. I must end this. I
will
end this … for good!

I signal to Jack. He tosses the katana, and I catch it as Hook turns his attention to me.

Thoughts of my family flood my mind. Mikey’s panicked face as he dangled over the crocodile pit. My mother’s surprised expression after being held hostage, waiting for her children to be brought to the palace to save them. The night Joanna was taken from me, and the hurt in her eyes about broken pinkie promises to never grow up. And a final thought for my father, the clinking of his tags reminding me I will never see him again.

“I am not a little girl!” I scream. Lifting the sword over my head, I slam the blade down.

H
ook’s guttural scream is drowned out by the crack of thunder and the pouring of rain. I watch as his right arm, the antidote still clenched in his severed hand, one finger adorned with the skull-and-crossbones ring, falls into the crocodile pit. The coppery smell of fresh blood hangs in the air as Captain Hook falls to his knees. He tries to stop the blood with his gloved hand, but to no avail. With his teeth he rips his glove off his remaining hand and holds his bleeding stump to his chest. He stares into the dark chasm as the crunch of bones and broken glass echoes from the pit. In the distance, Big Ben chimes for the first time in a year, its clang announcing midnight in Everland.

The world around me slows. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as the Lost Boys fight off the Marauders beneath a lightning-streaked sky. As the storm rages around me, I drop the sword, sending it clattering to the wet stone. When I lift my eyes, the leader of the Marauders is staring straight at me.

Hook turns his gaze to the sky, his square jaw clenching with a grimace. Pain etches the lines on his face, but I am certain it is from more than just his arm. Trembling in the heavy rain, he turns his dark, glassy gaze toward my sword and then locks eyes with me.

“I came to England to win her for my mother,” he shouts above the roar of the rain. “For once in my life, to prove to her I’m more than just a worthless child. And now …” He scans the smoky clouds and the flames licking toward the night sky.

Hook covers his grief-stricken face with his hand. It is then I see them, the oozing blisters covering his fingers and the blackened fingernails, and I feel as if I’ve been punched in the gut. Why didn’t I see it? Consider that he, too, could be vulnerable?

“You’ve contracted the virus,” I say, hearing the shock in my voice. “All this time … this whole time your soldiers wore the masks, but you … you didn’t.”

Hook grimaces, averting his gaze. “When I discovered what I had done, when I killed nearly everyone in London, it was too late. Even for me.”

Hesitantly, I kneel and place a hand on his shoulder. As if surprised by my touch, he flinches. He stares at me with the single frightened and wide eye of a boy, a Lost Boy. Acquiring the cure to rule the world may have been his goal, but it was never his primary agenda. He was after the cure because
he
needed it.

He hangs his head, anger twisting his features. “I couldn’t go back to Germany like this,” he says, holding up his infected hand. “I’ve destroyed England and possibly all of humankind. If I returned to my mother infected … she already sees me as a monster, but this …” He stares at his stump. “Now I can never go back.”

The rain washes away my disdain for this boy, sympathy replacing it in the hollows of my heart. My soul shattered when I lost my mother, but I found her, was reunited into her loving arms. Hook, on the other hand, has never known nor will ever know a mother’s love.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, the words catching in my throat as I hold back my tears.

He smiles weakly and crumbles to the ground. “What have I done?” he whispers.

Despite my reluctance and weak stomach, I force myself to look at his stump. I have never purposely hurt another, not until tonight. “What have
we
done?” I whisper.

An explosion in the distance rocks the ground beneath us, drawing my attention to the wall of fire surrounding us. My pulse races and I search for an escape. Pete’s face appears in my vision and he is shouting, but his voice is lost. He places a hand on each of my arms and shakes me. “Let’s go!” he yells.

“We can’t leave him here,” I shout, gesturing toward Hook, who has curled into a ball around his ruined arm.

Pete glances at the wounded soldier. Hook stares back, unblinking, unmoving. Defeated.

“Come on, Gwen,” Pete says, tugging my arm.

I shake my head, my wet hair clinging to my face. “He’ll die if we leave him.”

“We have to go. Your family is waiting,” he says, wrapping an arm around me. He leads me away, but I don’t take my eyes off the wounded boy.

Everything around me distorts in a fuzzy haze. I blink and I am running, Pete leading me by the hand. Ahead, Doc sprints, waving to us to follow him. I stop at a set of double doors and look back at Hook. He’s curled in a crimson puddle, and he holds his bloody arm to his chest. He gives me one last sad glance, and my heart sinks as he is swallowed by the rainstorm. The palace doorway blurs as I run through it. The ground is littered with the bodies of soldiers. I blink the rain from my lashes again and I am racing through the garden toward the zeppelin fleet. Many of the ships are ablaze and the Marauders are nowhere in sight.

The whir of a zeppelin in the distance calls to me. A girl stands on the deck of the zeppelin, a girl waving to us. As we draw closer, I can see her wet, dark hair sticking to her face. Her black-and-gold sari hangs limply with rainwater. It’s Lily. Behind her, Lost Boys run about, preparing the ship for its departure.

We sprint up the ramp. Lily extends a hand out to help me board. “You didn’t really think I was going to leave Everland without you, did you?” she says with a smug smile.

“How did you know?” I ask her, helping Pete onto the ship.

She shrugs. “Because you’re one of the most courageous girls I’ve ever met. A bit mad, but courageous nonetheless. To face Hook all on your own? Now that is brave.”

Pete slips his hand into mine. “Agreed,” he says.

“And there was no way Pete was going to leave Everland without you,” Doc says as Lily helps him aboard.

Lily spins and shouts orders. I am greeted by my mother, Joanna, and Mikey. They wrap their arms around me tightly. From their embrace, I scan the royal gardens. The palace is ablaze. In the dancing light of the flames, a figure sprints toward the palace. The lanky boy turns to us. It’s Jack. He takes one step toward the zeppelin and looks back over his shoulder at the palace.

“Take your places!” Lily shouts, her gloved hands gripping the steering wheel.

The whir of the zeppelin’s engine vibrates beneath my feet. Across the garden, Jack spins, sprinting to the unguarded double doors. With a last glance at the ship, he places a hand behind his ear, touching the mark of the Marauders branded on his skin. Finally, he dashes inside the burning palace.

Lily calls to me, “Everyone is in place. Are you ready to leave, Gwen?”

Taking one last look as Everland burns to the ground, I turn and say, “Let’s get out of Everland … for good.”

A
ll hands on deck!” Lily shouts.

Dozens of Lost Boys take their positions, cranking handles, feeding boilers, and pulling ropes, leaving the inferno of Everland in our wake. The zeppelin whirs with a subdued energy as we travel north toward what I’ve ached for over the last year, a place of promise for safety and peace.

Everland becomes just an orange flicker of light in the distance. Pete joins me by the rail.

“Will you miss it?” I ask as we fly away, leaving what’s left of Everland and the storm behind us.

“I don’t know. Absence makes the heart grow fonder … or forgetful,” Pete says, frowning.

I peer up at the star-adorned sky as we travel north. Pete slips his hand into mine. The warmth of his touch soothes the anxiety that lies beneath the surface of my optimism for safer lands.