The blade pierces Holt’s stomach and he lets out a disgusting sob.
Darling jams the blade forward, then drags it across his stomach.
His guts spill out and he coughs up blood, sinks to his knees. He’s in so much pain, he can’t speak.
“Goodbye, Holt,” Vane says and then kicks him over the cliff’s edge, guts and all.
When they turn to us, shoulder to shoulder, it’s obvious what has happened.
The Neverland Death Shadow is pulsing in their eyes.
Vane is healed and Darling is no longer suffering under the full weight of the shadow.
I am so fucking relieved I could scream.
Instead, I grab Darling by the wrist, yank her into me and kiss her.
I kiss her like I mean it because I fucking do.
Somehow, the myth of Peter Pan has fallen in love with a Darling girl and his three asshole friends.
A different kind of love for each of them, but love just the same.
I never want to return to the darkness alone ever again.
“Ewww get a room,” Bash says with a laugh.
Darling breathes out around our kiss and then pulls back to gaze up at me, the twilight reflecting in her black eyes.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I tell her. “Our vicious Darling girl.”
36
HOOK
When the Crocodile has devoured every last one of my men, he turns to me last.
I should have known.
He cannot be trusted. He already took my hand.
Will he take the rest?
His steps are slow and deliberate, but it’s still hard to make out his features.
I pull one of my pistols. It’s my last resort, even though I’m absolutely sure it will make no difference at all.
He keeps stalking me, eyes glowing yellow in the dim night.
I pull the trigger and a musket ball shoots through the air.
It sails clean through him and plops into the lagoon.
How the fuck am I to fight a man who has no substance?
Of all the ways I thought I would leave this plane…
The Crocodile comes within two feet of me and stops. His edges blur, but his eyes are steady.
“Well go on,” I tell him and raise my hook in his face. “You took my hand, you might as well have the rest of me too.”
He blinks at me.
“What are you waiting for?”
“Captain,” he says, his voice strangled and raw.
And then suddenly he’s solid again and collapsing in my arms.
I catch him at the last second, but he’s all dead weight and I sink to the sand with him.
“Christ,” I mutter and roll him over. “Wake up.” A slap to the face doesn’t rouse him. “Crocodile, I’ll leave you here if I have to.”
I hold my hand up to his nose to test his breathing, then check his pulse point. He’s still alive judging by breath and heart.
But the rest of him is lifeless.
From the bottom of Marooner’s Rock, Peter Pan and his merry gang of Lost Boys—and girl—make their way to me.
“Bloody hell,” I mutter.
All of them are covered in blood.
Out of one frying pan and into another.
That used to be my mother’s favorite saying when I was a boy.
“Looks like you’ve got your hands full,” Bash says.
Vane comes over and crouches beside his brother. “He’ll be out like this for approximately four to five days. Make sure you give him water and blood. Mix them together and pour it down his throat. He won’t need food. He’s clearly had his fill.”
“This is normal?” I ask.
Vane nods. “We never shift if we can help it. The cost is too high.”
So Vane is like his brother. I always wondered. Probably the shadow kept it at bay.
“Lucky for you, Hook,” Peter Pan says, “I’m feeling generous today.”
He gestures to the twins and Bash takes the Crocodile while Kas helps me to my feet.
Peter Pan straightens my jacket, smooths down the tattered lapel. “You’ll leave my island. You have two days. You’ll take Cherry with you. If either of you sets foot on my island again, I will string you both up from my tower and watch you hang.”
I bristle beneath his commands. “This is my home. You can’t—”
“I can. I will. And you will do as I tell you.” He curls his hand around the curved tine of my hook and in an instant, it bends back into a snake and slithers up my arm.
“For fuck’s sake!”
The snake hisses at me and I knock it away.
“And take the Crocodile with you too,” Pan says.
Bash shoves Roc back at me and I catch him around the waist.