Unhooked (27 page)

Rowan's expression is clouded with regret. “And for that, I'm sorry. Had I known then what I know now—had I known you—I would have allowed this whole bloody world crumble to dust before I uttered a word.”

“That wouldn't have stopped Pan,” I told him. “It wasn't Fiona who finally got to me. One way or the other, I think I was always going to end up here. But I'm not sure if I can do what Fiona thinks I can,” I tell him honestly. “That thing that happened in the dungeon—it was the first time I've ever managed to do anything remotely Fey-like.”

“You'll do what you can, and we'll take our chances, because we've no other choice. I don't have a ship. I don't have a crew. . . .” he says, his voice faltering, his eyes closing against the pain of his loss.

“You loved them,” I say, seeing it so clearly in the pain written across his features.

“Aye, but I've killed them too. Just as he does.” He meets my eyes. With his jaw shadowed by more than a day's growth of beard and his hair mussed and hanging idly over his forehead and his chest bare in the flickering firelight, he looks very much the pirate he claims to be.

But he also looks tired and worn from trials I can't begin to imagine.

“If I were braver, I'd have chosen death long ago,” he tells me, a confession and explanation all at once. “In that way, Will was far stronger than I've ever been.” His eyes bore into me, daring me to condemn him. Or maybe asking me to forgive.

I'm not sure that I can do either.

“Weak as I may have been, I've tried to use my life as best I can. As long as my life can serve to protect even one lad, I can't regret the path I've chosen,” he says, his words tumbling before me, like he's trying to get everything out before he loses his nerve.

He holds himself stiff and his face purposely free of emotion as he waits for my judgment. I can sense it in the air between us—his expectation that I will turn away from him now.

But I find I can't. I've only been in this world a short time, and how many of my own choices have I come to regret?

I stand slowly, careful to keep his coat pulled around me, and make my way to his side of the fire. He doesn't so much as move or blink. He simply stands and waits. The pain and regret and dread in his eyes are so clear, it brings tears to my own.

Gently, I twine my fingers through his, feeling both the warmth of his true hand and the soft leather of the glove covering the metal one brush against my skin. Surprise lights his eyes, but he still doesn't move. He doesn't tighten his fingers around mine or even breathe.

I tilt my head up to him and quickly, before I can think better of it or lose my nerve, I rise up on my toes and press my lips against his. His mouth is warm and firm beneath mine but it is also immoveable.

That doesn't matter.

This isn't a seduction. This isn't me throwing myself at him or trying to stoke some passion deep inside his stoic reserve. This kiss is simply a choice.

For days I have been tossed from one danger to the next. Misled, tempted, tricked. Used. For days I have not known which way to turn, what the truth was, or who to trust. But the ragged emotion in Rowan's voice, the calm resolve and unadorned words he used to tell me his story, felt more honest and more real than anything has felt yet in this world. So I give him a single kiss, lips pressed simply against lips, with no expectation and no purpose other than to show him my choice.

I let go of his hands and look up at him. His arms are still at his sides, but I see his fists are clenched, as though in an effort not to touch me, and I can't help but smile.

The boy was stuck in that vast landscape of wire and bone. He could not go on without his brother. But he also could not go back. Then his brother was there—just off to the left, running with his arms out. And for a moment, relief washed over the boy, because he could see the field ahead, dark and clear, and the safety of the land just beyond. . . .

L
ATER, I SLEEP CURLED INTO Rowan for warmth, my head propped against him as he keeps watch. At some point, though, the exhaustion of the day must have overtaken him. At some point he must have fallen asleep and let the fire die, because the sound of rustling and the smell of damp leaves wake me.

When I open my eyes, Rowan's arms are still around me, and the bulk of his body is slumped over mine as he sleeps. But the fire has gone out, and the inky darkness already surrounds us.

The damp, aged odor of the Dark Ones intensifies as they gather. I feel the wet brush of their still-ghostly bodies closing in, and I start to shake Rowan, to try to wake him, but before I can, I'm swallowed by the darkness, and I can't hold off the images that assault me, tipping my world dangerously on its axis until I tumble again into memory.

I am back in the same forest, the cool air of the night whipping through my hair, stinging at my cheeks, and a voice whispers words I cannot understand.
The forest reaching for me, urging me on.
That grating rasp is everywhere, echoing around me, reminding me.
The path was so clear before. The craggy fingers of the dark trees reaching for me. Pulling at me. Encouraging me. Beckoning me.

But now that I have been to the untamed wildness of Neverland, I realize the trees in those memories have always been simply trees. They are not what I truly fear, nor what I was running from—or perhaps to—that night.

Cold and dark and the forest reaching for me as I run, but I am brushing aside its spindly branches as the voices whisper.

And then the image shifts, and my mom is there, her blue-gray eyes wild as the sky before a storm. Her face this close to mine, her breath sour and hot. “You have to forget this. You cannot speak of it ever again. Not to anyone, Gwendolyn. Do you understand?”

And suddenly the dark woods surround me and I'm there again, remembering other things I'd so long ago shoved down deep, pushed back into the unexamined corners of my mind. Things that make my heart race, my breath come fast and excited with wanting something I can't explain. Things that make me want to run into the night, my arms open wide.

Outside the safety of Rowan's arms, the Dark Ones are still gathering, their bodies like the wind rustling through dry leaves, but I can't seem to stop myself from plunging down into the dangerous waters of my own memories. I can't seem to stop myself from drowning in the images of the forest that night.

The warm fall night going cold, and I am lost.

The image shifts again, and I'm no longer in the woods.
The spinning brightness of police lights throwing jagged shards of color across the dark trees. Heavily jowled men with serious faces looming over me. Their mouths moving, but I can't make out their words, because instead of human voices, a rustling buzz echoes from their lips.

And then my mom is there, taking me away. Her thin arms are strong around me.
How could you?
her voice whispers, her blue-gray eyes stormy and lined with worry.
Don't say anything more. Forget,
she commands.

But how could I have forgotten?

I'm remembering now, and the memories feel like the sharp point of a knife stabbing through the tender skin of all that I thought I was. It's impossible. It can't be anything more than a bad dream. But there's more waiting for me in those memories, some devastating truth that the darkness teases me with.

It isn't your fault,
my mother tells me, and even then I could hear the lie in her voice
. I will keep you safe,
she says.
This will never happen again.

And again I feel the point of a knife, sharp and wicked.
The burn of memory.

And I'm screaming, crying. The tears are hot on my face as my mom says hush, my girl. Hush. And as she shakes me, her grip is as painful as the freshly knifed wound in my arm.

But those are not my mother's hands holding me. My cheeks are still cold with the wet slick of tears that coat them. My arm aches from the phantom cut, but it's Rowan's voice that comes to me urgently through the darkness.

“Come now, lass, wake up,” he whispers, his hands tight on my arms.

My eyes flutter open, but it takes them a moment to adjust to the glow of a small fire. “What?” My voice is hoarse as it scratches free from my throat, and his hands become more gentle on my arms.

“The Dark Ones,” he whispers. “They'd have taken us for sure if your screaming hadn't woken me. You must have been dreaming.”

But that didn't feel like a dream. It had felt like a truth—like I was there again, living it again. I'd gone into the forest, chasing a voice, and when I came out, everything had changed. That was the first night my mom had packed our bags without warning so we could disappear before dawn.

“I'm going to let go of you now,” he says, and I clutch his arm in response. “To add more to the fire,” he tells me gently, his hand in my hair. “Easy now. It'll take but a moment.”

He releases me then, and for a moment I feel adrift. Lost once again. The dark Fey move, rustling their great wings near, but they are unable to get any closer because of the light of the fire. Still, I almost feel myself beginning to fall into the memories once more.

Memories I now crave.

Rowan's face is tense in concentration as he feeds the flames, never taking his eyes from his work as the fire grows. And as it grows, crackling to life, it pushes back the darkness, until the bright halo of light is even larger.

Then Rowan takes me into his arms again, tucking me between his legs, my back against his chest. “All's well, lass,” he whispers. But his body is tense, and I know his words are more comfort than truth.

Beyond the glow of the fire, I can still hear the Dark Ones circling. I can sense their frustration, their disappointment that they cannot reach us. Beyond the glow of the flames, Neverland is nothing but darkness. Even the stars seem to have turned away.

My muscles still quiver, my nerves jangle from the overload of fear and adrenaline, and my mind is thick with confusion about what just happened.

Rowan adjusts his body, bringing me closer to him. In the circle of his arms, I feel safe from the dangers of the night. But even the strength in his arms and the protection of his body aren't enough to brush away the memories.

The Dark Ones forced me to face my own truth. They plunged me deep into a past I had let myself—forced myself—to forget, and they had revealed a truth I didn't want to remember about what my mother had done to protect me.

All those years of my mom worrying, all those moves from one small nowhere town to the next that I never understood. I do now. I
remember
. That night in the woods. The monsters chasing me through the darkness—until I made it out, just in time, to where there was light. I
knew
the monsters were there, but no one believed me. Except for my mom.

You must've imagined it,
the policeman said, his heavy jowls wobbling as he shook his head.

She's just a kid,
they whispered, looking at me with grown-up eyes that made my stomach ache.
A scared and confused kid.

But my mom believed me.
You have to forget,
she told me, her words as sharp as a knife.
You can't talk about this ever again.

I can't help but rub the scar on my arm.

It's not a vaccination. Or maybe it is, but not in the way I always believed. Not in the way I let myself remember. I was so young, I barely understood what was happening when my mom iced my arm and took out her silver knife.

I was so scared of what had happened in the forest—the way the darkness had tempted me away from the path and into the unknown. So I did what my mom commanded. I locked the memory of that night down deep, and I never let myself think about what happened after that.

But I can't say any of that aloud. Not yet. And he doesn't ask me for it. Instead, he sits in the silence with me, and after a long while, he speaks softly, close to my ear. “There's no shame in being afraid, lass. I know a bit about dreams, myself.”

I don't know how to tell him that what I'd experienced wasn't simply a dream, so I don't say anything at first. I just watch the fire flicker, listening to the scuttling stir of monsters in the darkness beyond the safety of its glow. I think of the way Rowan was when I found him in the tunnels. I remember the wailing screams I heard almost every night I spent on his ship, and I understand then, I am not alone in fearing the secrets the darkness can reveal.

“Will you tell me?” I whisper, hoping his words can push away the memory of my own horrors.

He's silent for a long moment, as though gathering his strength, and when he speaks, his voice comes out not as the steady cadence of a tale well told, but as the uneasy whisper of a man confessing. “It's not always the same,” he says. “Sometimes I dream of before, sometimes of after, but most often, I dream of the night it happened.” He stops then, silent and still, and I think for a moment that he will not—maybe he cannot—go on.

But the memories I've unearthed have made me selfish. I need to feel less alone. I need to know I am not the only one carrying the impossible weight of memory this night. “The night
what
happened?” I ask, pushing him more than I have any right to.

“The night I killed my brother.”

But then the sky went red with hellfire.

And his brother was there, screaming something the boy could not hear.

And then he was not.

T
HE WAY HIS VOICE BREAKS at the word
brother
makes my heart ache for him. I wait, watching the fire flicker before me, taking some comfort in the warmth of his body against me, trying to offer him some comfort in return. I'm not sure, though, if I want him to speak anymore or to stay silent.