“The Crocodile” —I leverage him up and lean him against my hip— “isn’t my problem.”
“He is now,” Vane says. “Don’t forget to feed and water him.”
The twins laugh.
I grumble and readjust the Crocodile’s weight again. For his size, he feels like he weighs a fucking ton.
“Go on,” Pan says and gives me a shove. “Tick, tock, Captain.”
It takes me until mid-morning to drag the Crocodile back to my house. He doesn’t regain consciousness, just as Vane predicted.
I am drenched in sweat by the time I reach the front steps to my house and I’m far too pissed for bullshit.
Thankfully all of my pirates are dead and currently in the deep magical abyss of the Crocodile’s stomach.
I suffered no attachments to my men, but it still infuriates me.
Smee meets me at the front door and takes half of the Crocodile’s weight from me.
“You’re alive,” she says.
My back is aching, my thighs numb. “Barely.”
We return Roc to his room and lay him on the bed.
Arms crossed, Smee says, “Déjà vu.”
I collapse into the chair. Smee pours me a drink and I gladly down it in one long gulp.
When I come up for air, I find Smee watching me.
“What?”
“You lost,” she guesses.
I sit forward, my elbows on my knees, the empty glass still clutched in hand. It’s cool in my sweaty grip.
“I’ve come to realize, Smee,” I say, “that I am endlessly searching for something that I don’t think I will ever find.”
She grabs a nearby chair and brings it over. She sits on it backwards, arms braced on the curved back. “I have to tell you something.”
“Okay.” I gesture to my glass. “Do I need another drink?”
“Maybe so.”
I nod and get up, fill the glass halfway and return to my chair. “I’m listening.”
Every word Smee utters makes me number despite the heat of the alcohol burning through my veins.
I’ve never been so angry that the anger vibrates in my ear drums. And yet I can barely hear Smee over the ringing in my ears.
“Say something, Jas.” I only know the words because I can read the movement of her lips.
What the fuck am I supposed to say?
“You betrayed me.”
Those are the only three words I can get out past my rage.
“I did what I needed to do.”
I stand. “That’s the difference between me and you.”
She stands next to me. “Is that right?”
“Yes. You don’t think in loyalty. You think in strategy. I traded my sister for you!”
I may be drunk now. I’m shouting, my voice filling the room.
“I never asked you to do that,” she says.
“But I did it anyway. I risked my own flesh and blood for you. And for what? Secrets and lies? Wendy Darling is in the Isles and she was pregnant with—”
I can’t finish the sentence. I don’t know if it’s true.
But if it is… Christ.
The room sways.
“Did he know?” I ask and jab my finger in the Crocodile’s direction.
“He did.”
I down the last dregs of my drink and slam the glass on the bedside table.
Five days he’ll be out? Plenty of time for me to get a head start.
That fucker planned to keep Wendy from me. I know he did.
He used me, gorged himself on my men, and kept Wendy Darling from me.
In fact, maybe his plan to kill Peter Pan was all a ruse considering he failed.
I look down at him still sprawled in the bed. There is blood smeared all over his face and down his clothes in splatters and stains.
When I look at him, when I follow the curve of his lips and the cut of his jaw and the complex lines of all of his tattoos, I am rendered shapeless. A puzzle with no solution.
I can hear the heavy drum of my heart in my ears.
I turn and leave the room.
“Jas,” Smee says and follows me out.
“I’m leaving,” I tell her.
“Slow down. Think about what you’re doing…”
“I don’t need to think about it, Smee.” I go up the staircase and to my private quarters. “How many men do I have left?”
I start packing a bag.
Smee says nothing.
“However many are left, tell them to be ready to leave within the hour. Tell Cherry too.”
She and I both know that I am leaving out her name purposefully.
There is nothing as important to me as loyalty.