“So, this is Hook’s Hideaway?” I follow him up a wooden pier and onto the sandy shore.
He gives me a look over his shoulder. “I’ve never called it that. I don’t know who on my crew did, but if I discover him, he’ll be swabbing the deck by himself for a month.”
My money would be on Starkey, but I don’t mention that.
“This is my home on the island, yes.”
“But your real home is the Jolly Roger?”
“The sea. Has been for almost as long as I can remember.” He climbs a few steps, then turns and offers me his hand.
I take it, and he pulls me alongside him until we reach a wooden platform with ropes around the four corners that are attached to something in the cliff above. “What’s this?”
“Just a little something Smee and I built.” He points through the trees. “We got tired of the stairs.”
I peer through the greenery and barely pick out a staircase hewn into the cliffside. It’s a switchback that moves back and forth for several stories until it disappears into more greenery.
Shaking my head, I say, “I, too, am tired of the stairs, and we only just met.”
He gives me a wry smile, then begins to turn a large hand crank at the back of the wooden platform. It begins to move upwards, and I scoot back until I’m standing beside him in the center.
The ground moves away from us at a frightful pace, and I get a good view of the Jolly Roger and all the pirates disembarking from it. They carry chests and other goods from the ship and load it into the rowboats, all under Smee’s watchful eye.
“Smee hates me,” I blurt.
“No, lass. He doesn’t hate you. He’s just suspicious.” Hook keeps turning the crank, and I can tell it’s getting more difficult the higher we go, because the muscles in his arms begin to show through his shirt.
“Of me?”
“Of course.”
“What? Why?” I put my hands on my hips. “I’m harmless.”
He laughs at that, a hearty one that makes me go warm all over. “You, harmless?” He smiles down at me.
What is this feeling? It’s new. It’s scary. It’s probably just my fear of falling to my death off the side of the platform.
“Smee is the most careful of all my crew. Naturally, he has his misgivings about you. After all, you came to this island under the arm of our greatest enemy. You lived with him, and I’m pretty certain you’d run right back to him if given half a chance.” His voice sobers on his last words, the smile gone from his lips.
“He thinks I’m a spy?”
“He thinks you could be, yes. He doesn’t want you parroting information back to Pan.”
I mean, it makes sense. I’d still argue I’m harmless—it’s not like I know any inside intel on the Jolly Roger. Hell, I can barely find my way around the deck, much less have any idea of what lies inside. But if Smee loves Hook like he seems to, then he’ll want to protect him from every possible threat.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I say quietly.
“You certain?” He focuses on turning the crank. “I’m not so sure.”
“Look, you’re the one who kidnapped me from the Lost Boys and—”
“Isavedyou from the Lost Boys,” he corrects me.
I wheel on him, hands back on hips. “You didn’tsaveme. You stole me, and you killed Coy in the process!” I don’t realize I’m shouting until the words are out.
“I told you, lass,” he grates. “What I did was a kindness.”
“How can murder be kindness?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
