“It was a working theory, Jas.” Smee steps back into the hall and calls for one of the pirates. It’s Daniel who comes shuffling down the hall. He’s half drunk and half asleep.
Smee points to the Crocodile. “Give him your wrist.”
“I prefer them sober,” the Crocodile says.
“This isn’t a dinner menu,” I tell him.
Because Daniel knows better than to argue with orders, he goes to the Crocodile and holds out his arm.
The Crocodile’s eyes flash bright yellow.
The shiver that comes over me this time is not one I can contain.
He rises to his feet and towers over Daniel by a handful of inches. When he curls his hands around the pirate’s offered forearm, a flame ignites in my gut.
“What is he?” I ask Smee.
“He is a member of the Bone Society, isn’t that right?”
The Crocodile drags his tongue over his sharp incisors. “Maybe.”
I’ve heard of the Bone Society and because I hate ticking clocks, I automatically avoid every mention and occurrence of them.
Every clock in the Isles is created by the Society. Every single one.
“Tell him why you have to keep time,” Smee coaxes.
The Crocodile gives me a devilish grin, all sharp teeth and shining eyes. “Because when time runs out, if I have yet to have my meal, then I will turn into a beast and devour everything in my path.”
“Christ.” I lean against the dresser.
“My god is time, Captain. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. That is my prayer. Every second. Of every day.”
And then he sinks his sharp incisors into Daniel’s wrist and drinks his fill.
I can’t watch. There is a building in my chest and a heat sinking to my groin that I cannot shake.
Poor form.
Poor form.
I can hear my father’s voice echoing in my head. I can no longer conjure an image of his face, but I can still remember the way it felt to be on the other end of his disappointment.
Like I was less than.
Sometimes I wonder if my mother gave birth to me and my father looked down at me swaddled in her arms and said, “Poor form, Elizabeth. Poor form indeed.”
I am my own man now. But when I think of my father, I am still a boy constantly failing him.
I go to the bar at the front of the house and pour myself a generous fill of rum.
It burns going down but does nothing for the chill in my veins.
I pour a second and light a cigar and keep it captured between my teeth as I go to the balcony that overlooks the bay.
The moonlight has painted the still water silver. My ship rocks on a wave.
I want to leave.
No, that’s not quite right.
I want to run.
Instead I sit in one of the hand-carved wooden chairs and balance my glass on the arm.
He finds me several minutes later and lights a cigarette and takes the chair beside me.
“Why keep it at bay?” I ask him. “Why not let it out and destroy Peter Pan on your own if that’s what you want? Take your brother home. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Maybe you were brought to Neverland by the fae queen and maybe the royals wanted the dark shadow, but you wanted your brother.”
“Is that your theory?” He regards me with a pinch of curiosity between his dark brows.
I say nothing and he says nothing and that says everything.
I realize he and I have more in common than I might have first guessed. He wants Vane back. I want Cherry. And both of them have chosen others instead of us. Perhaps because we did the same to them once upon a time.
After a stretch of silence, he says, “There is a cost.”
A cost to becoming the beast.
“What kind of cost?”
He lays his head back against the wooden chair and turns to me. But the moonlight is at his back so I’ve lost sight of his face in shadow and goosebumps lift on my arms.
“As if I would tell you my weakness, Captain.”
I blow out an exasperated breath. “Very well.”
I am acutely aware of the space between us, the space he takes up.
He is my arch nemesis, the reason I have a hook for a hand.
I want him dead.
Do I not?
“If I were you, Captain,” he says, “I would bring your sister home. Do not delay.”
I roll the cigar around my tongue, savoring the sweet tobacco.
“Did you see her?” I ask.
“I did.”
“And?”
“And something is wrong with her.”
I lurch forward. “What do you mean?”
“Beasts can sense fear and she is terrified of something.”