Never (Never, #1) (131)

He gives Hook a grin. “How was it?”

“Shite.” Jamison laughs.

Oh my days, I feel like I might faint.

He keeps going. “She d?dnae stop blethering the whole fucking time.”

The man laughs again, and Hook shakes his head.

“You wud hae fucking hated it.”

“I would have.” The man nods.

“Sure, but I did get her kiss though,” Hook tells him, tapping the corner of his mouth in the place where my kiss used to live.

The man looks up at him, interested all of a sudden.

Me? Oh, I just feel like I’m fading away.

“No?” The man stares at him. “Jam, those are a rare find.”

“I ken.”

“Had I known”—the man tucks his hair behind his ears—“I’d have come sooner.”

“Had I known,” Jamison counters, “I’d nae be the one t’ take it. Would hae left it fer ye.”

“Could I take it from you now?” the man asks, eyes looking greedy. “I’d love it for my collection.”

My face balls up, confused.

“I’d say yes.” Hook shrugs. “But I lost it the second she gave it to me.”

I press my hand into my mouth, swallow heavily. Convince myself not to vomit.

The man rolls his eyes. “Highly valued, I see.”

“She’s nothing to me.” Jem sniffs. “And I d?nnae think that kiss meant anything to her.” Jamison scratches his neck. “The girl practically flung it me.”

“Is she heartbroken?” the man inquires.

“No.” Jamison shakes his head. “Maybe she will be, but she’s no’ just yet.”

“Why don’t you go now and break her heart, and then I’ll—”

“Cannae.” Hook shakes his head. “Gave her my word I’d take her back t’ Blighty.”

The man rolls his eyes. “You and your fucking word.”

“It’s about honour,” Hook tells him.

The man rolls his eyes again. “Bit inconsistent there, son.”

Hook shrugs. “A’m a pirate.”

The man runs his tongue over his top lip. “Anything left for me?”

Hook gives him a dry laugh. “Not wi’ what I’ve done t’ her.”

The man’s eyes pinch. “I thought she was a virgin when you met her.”

“Sure, well.” Jamison shrugs. “Consider her defiled.”

Piano.

I walk away from them, back the way I came.

There’s this funny feeling of rushing water in my ears, and all my blood feels like it pools to the top of my skin, and I go hot and prickly.

My arms and legs feel like logs, and I find myself moving through the town without a conscious thought.

I don’t know where I’m going.

Leave.

That’s all I can hear inside my mind.

Leave and go home.

Leave this terrible, wonderful place and get back to London.

Marry Jasper England. Marry no one! Marry your work like your mother. Never speak to another man again. Just leave.

But how?

Without Hook, without Peter, without Rune—where is she even?—I don’t know how to get home.

My heart’s racing. I place my hand over my chest, tell myself to calm down, but then I feel the necklace Jamison gave me in the process.

I pull it off my neck, the string breaks, and I throw it on the ground.

“You right there, miss?” says a youngish-looking man, leaning up against the wall.

I’ve not seen him in town before.

He’s got funny glasses on too. A different shape but coloured lenses as well.

Neverland is odd at the best of times though, so I don’t think much of it.

“I need to get to England,” I tell him. I don’t know why. Because what could it hurt, I suppose?

“England, do you?” The man walks over to me, looking up and down. “Are you in some trouble?”

I shake my head and swallow. “No, no trouble.” I might just be dying inside, that’s all. “I just need to get home. My previous transportation has failed me.”

“The gall. Anything failing you?” He eyes me, horrified. “The absolute gall.”

I flash him a smile, pretend to be flattered by his pandering. It’s a man’s world.

“Do you know anyone with passage out of the realm?”

The man nods. “I do, yes.”

“Really?” I look up at him, hopeful.

There is something awful about it, I think. How eager it is—how when we’re hopeless, the smallest hope offered to us feels like a lifeline even if really it’s a life sentence.

Hope clouds things like intuition, I think. If you’re ever having to hope for something, it means you’re having to ignore the flagrantly obvious to cling to something else.

Yesterday, this man in front of me would have been a man in whose presence I’d have reached for Hook’s hand.

Now? He’s an observant stranger willing to help a girl in distress.

“Really.” The man nods. “Come.”

He nods his head and I follow him through the town.

That makes me feel better too. We’re walking through the town. No suspicious backstreets, nothing shady. We’re in broad daylight.