“Endless as the seas.” Hook whispered the words in silence as Blackbeard said them aloud. What a joke. As if Blackbeard could love anyone but himself.
“See there. And yer just like me. Proud. Ruthless. Skilled on tha seas. Born leader. Almost good as me.” He stood. “Almost.”
“You cut off my hand.” His head snapped up, staring at the man before him with all the hate he could muster. “Nearly killed me!”
“I killed tha mewling fisher boy,” he sneered. “That weak child couldn’ be part a’ my crew. My heir.”
His eyes widened. “Your—”
“Why did ya think I let ya live? You think I couldn’ a tracked ya down, snuffed out yer littlecrewbefore ya became a threat? Really, son, I expected better.”
“Don’t ever call me son.”
“But ya are. Was there tha day ya were born.” He looked away. The slight gleam in his eye turned Hook’s stomach more than the sea in a squall. “Planned to raise ya meself. I’d make those royal rats cower on tha seas, become a king over ’em all on the waves, and pass on tha crown to my heir. They wouldn’t look down on us. Never again. But no, Marianna wouldn’ have it.” He glanced back at Hook. “Thought I’d lost ya, ’til ya showed up on that dock. Knew right away who ya were. Too much like tha face I saw every time I closed my eyes.”
Blood dripped from his fist. He didn’t even feel the pain. “She’s dead.”
“Aye.”
“Because of you,” Hook snarled.
He had the gall to look shocked, to take a step back in surprise.Bloody good actor too. “I never saw ‘er after she left. Came lookin’ for ya both a year or abouts later after our little rendezvous. Thought maybe by then she’d a changed her mind. You too. Heard she’d passed and ya were up and vanished.”
The tip of his hook slammed into the floorboards. “When I boarded your ship, I was hunting for violet root. For her! To heal her!” When he didn’t respond, Hook continued. “You dropped me on that bloody, remote dock, and it took weeks to get back. She died two days before I got back with her medicine. Two. Bloody. Days!” He smashed his hook into the ground again. “She died because of you!”
Blackbeard wouldn’t quite look at him. Kept staring just beyond his head.
“You think I’d ever sail for you? You’ve destroyed everything I loved! First my mother, now my crew, my ship, my…”
My Tink.
Tears hadn’t come. Not when his ship burned. When he watched her fall, or watched his crew, his family, meet their fates. He wouldn’t give Blackbeard that, not when he took everything else. But now. Now… They tingled at the edges of his eyes, forcing their way free.
Fuming silence hung in the air between them. Eventually, Blackbeard broke it. “Good thing I thought ta make a spare. He’s already tough. Harder than ya were years older.”
He...A brother.
When he’d thought the last lash had fallen, there was always another. One more to bring the stinging pain of the others roaring back to life.
“Who?”
He had someone left. Family that might not be dead, or dead to him. He could find him, save him…
The answering smirk told him all he needed to know.
The shape of his face. The calculating twinkle in his eyes.
The boy. “Peter.”
A half nod confirmed his fears. “Just picked him up. He and his…crew. Tough ones ta find, let me tell ya.”
That was why they were here, on this ship, in his service. Blackbeard had found another son. Had he abandoned this one, or had Peter’s mother stolen him away too? Whatever happened, the boy was on his own now with his gaggle of friends. Or he had been.
“Does he know?” Had it gutted Peter the way it did him?
“Not yet. Gotta get a measure of him.”
What he didn’t say spoke volumes. If he didn’t like what he saw, he’d leave him stranded on the docks somewhere, maybe without a hand, or two, or some other grim reminder. And his friends… Hook shuddered. Those boys didn’t deserve that.
