Rain starts to spit from the sky and by the time we get Vane down to the beach, thick, fat drops are falling from dark, swirling clouds.
It’s almost like the island is matching our somber mood.
When we reach the water’s edge, Bash and I move to drag him in, but Darling stops us.
“I’ll take him,” she says and when I glance at her over my shoulder, darkness is writhing around her eyes, just itching to take over.
“Darling,” Pan says, “I don’t think that’s such a—”
“I’ll take him, Pan. It has to be me.”
There is new determination in her voice. She’s not just our naughty, bold Darling. She’s something else now, something that does not back down even when standing against Peter Pan.
“All right.” Pan finally relents and steps back. “We’ll be right here if you need us.”
She comes in close to me and wiggles in under Vane’s arm, taking his weight.
Despite the fact he’s like twice her size, she barely droops beneath the new burden.
Bash unhooks Vane’s arm from around his shoulder and says, “You good, Darling?”
“I’m good.” She keeps her arm hooked around Vane’s waist and drags him into the water.
26
ROC
I don’t like underestimating people and I suspect I’ve underestimated far too many since landing on Neverland.
I underestimated Peter Pan and Vane and the new Darling.
James is still up in the air.
He’s pacing the barroom, his right hand clamped over his left wrist behind his back, his hook sticking out behind him.
In almost every room, there is a worn path on the hardwood floor where the varnish has worn off. The Captain likes to pace, it would seem.
I crack a peanut shell and pop the innards into my mouth. “Will you sit down?”
“I don’t think when I’m sitting.”
“I can’t think when you’re pacing.”
He stops in the middle of the room and furrows his brow over his green eyes. “What do you have to think about?”
“Strategy, Captain. Because we need one. Like now.”
On a breath, he spins and resumes his course. “You said the Remaldi royals were working with the fae queen? So we need to pick a side—”
“I am never on a side.” I pop another peanut into my mouth and crunch it between my molars. “There is only my side.”
He scoffs at me and waves his hook in the air. “You’re ridiculous and you’re not helping.”
“Mmm well, you’re wasting time. Any minute Holt will come knocking on your door, maybe even with the fae queen in tow, and so you’ll have to know what you plan to say to them. The fae queen will eventually want you dead. Or subservient and while I think you’d wear submission quite well” —the glare he shoots me could roast a chicken— “I suspect being the fae queen’s puppet will not. And Holt will just want to use you and your men as cannon fodder, since the Darling took out several of his.”
I drop the cracked shells of several peanuts into an empty glass on the bartop, then dust off my pants. “Tell me, Captain, what is your preferred outcome?”
He looks at me over his shoulder as he paces to the windows. “I want you dead, Peter Pan dead, and Smee and Cherry safely returned here.”
“Well, you’ll probably get two out of four, so your odds aren’t bad.”
“I will kill you,” he promises.
“I’m sure you will.” I flash him my innocent smile, but I keep my chin up so he can get a good look at the crocodile teeth tattooed on my flesh.
He snorts and comes back around. I head him off between two round tables.
We are not much different in height, but he’s wearing bulkier clothes than I am, all pomp and circumstance with this one. I like it. There’s something about James that reminds me of a crust of dirt on a beautiful vintage timepiece. I want to lick my thumb and smudge it off and see how he gleams beneath.
“If we drew a Venn diagram of your preferred outcome and my preferred outcome, we would have a nice overlapping center,” I tell him.
A wrinkle appears between his brows and his eyes search mine looking for the catch. “Which is what?”
“Peter Pan dead.
“Why do you want him dead?”
“I have my reasons.”
I could tell him about Wendy. It would motivate him even more. But I haven’t decided if I want to compete with him yet.
I am a greedy fuck, after all. And what’s mine is mine.