“He was already dead.”
“He wasn’t!” I step to him, staring up into his deep blue eyes as he stops turning the crank. “He was alive. He helped me. He kept me safe. He was my friend.” My voice breaks on the last word, my eyes filling with tears.
He sighs and runs his free hand through his black hair. “Listen, lass, I know you won’t believe me when I tell you this, but it’s the truth. That boy—all those boys—they are well and trulylost. They’re dead. They died young, most of them so young that they barely remember their parents. Pan—” Hook’s face sours just at the use of his name. “He takes them when they die.”
“No.” I shake my head. “They aren’t dead. I was there. I was with them. They are living, breathing people. Coy wasalive.” I swipe my tears from my cheeks, the hurt still so close to the surface that if it’s grazed, it bleeds. “He was alive,” I whisper.
“All right, lass. All right.” He sighs and returns to the crank, turning faster now as we rise over the trees and hover closer to the edge of the cliff.
I’m stuck in that memory now, unable to see anything except the look in Coy’s eyes as he fell. He wasn’t dead. I don’t care what Hook says to try to make himself seem less of a villain, I know what I saw. What I felt. Coy wasreal. That thought strikes me wrong, though. Because none of this is real. Not a single solitary bit of this fantasy is the least bit true. I have to remember that. I keep slipping deeper into it, like I’m being seduced by the make believe of Neverland.
I can’t be her. Iwon’tbe her. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep that damn cinderblock wall at bay. So maybe Hook’s right on some level. None of this is real … which means Coy isn’t either. I rub my temples, a headache threatening to set in.
“Here we are.” He stops cranking, and the platform halts abruptly, hanging so high in the air that I swallow hard.
He jumps a short distance to a rock outcrop. “Come on. You can make it.” He holds out his hand. “Just don’t look—”
I peer between the platform and the rock, then grip hard onto one of the ropes overhead.
“Down.” He grimaces.
“I can’t.” I shake my head vehemently. “Nope. That’s a whole lot of nope.”
“Lass, just breathe. It’s no more than a few feet. Come on.” He steps to the edge of the rock and reaches out for me.
“Don’t! You’re going to fall.” I clench my eyes shut.
“Worried about me, are you?” I can hear the amusement in his tone, and I have the urge to smack him. Not hard. Just enough to wipe the smug look off his face.
“Shut up.”
“I don’t recall a lass as pretty as you ever being worried about me.”
I open my eyes. “Did you just call me pretty?”
“Aye.” He still offers his hand. “Prettiest thing I’ve ever found in any waters.”
I scoff. “You’re just trying to distract me.”
“By telling you the truth?” He waggles his fingers. “Grab on. You can do this.”
Why am I blushing? I feel like my emotions are attached to a boomerang, flying away and then coming right back. I can’t settle down.
“Captain? We’re ready!” Smee calls from far, far,farbelow.
“I’ll send it back down. Rein it in for now.” Hook always keeps a rather harsh tone with his crew. I have to admit I like it when he uses it on Smee.
“Aye!” Smee calls.
“Look, if you take my hand, I’ll let you hit the lever that’ll send the raft crashing down on Smee’s head, all right?”
“Why would you think that would be an incentive?” I shake my head.
He groans. “I didn’t want to do this.”
“Do what?” I yelp as he jumps back onto the platform, wrenches my hand off the rope, then scoops me into his arms and jumps over the chasm and onto the rock, which draws a bloodcurdling scream from me. Raucous laughs echo up from below us, and with a sideways kick, Hook hits a lever that sends the wooden raft back down at a mannerly pace. God, I’m mortified. “Okay, put me down.”
“I lied.” He carries me up a set of stairs.
