Chapter Two
In Which Sleep Schedules are Abandoned
“Ah, did I forget that part? Captain JamesHook, at your service.” He bent in an outrageous bow, with both arms swept to the sides. This caused the hook that had replaced his left hand to gleam in the sunlight, an effect he undoubtedly employed on many occasions.
The hunger in Wendy’s stomach curdled to nausea.Thiswas the man who terrorized Neverland’s shores and slaughtered faeries and Lost Boys indiscriminately? How could she have ever thought he was attractive?
“The pirate?” she asked, scorn dripping from her lips.
A hard light entered his eyes. “As you say.” He stood, tugging on the cuff around his hook, then smoothing down his vest. “But again, how did you come to board my ship?”
“Why don’t you ask Smee?” Wendy folded her arms tightly, trying to hold herself together physically, if not emotionally.
“Smee isn’t a big talker.” Hook ignored the snort of laughter from someone behind him. “I prefer to get my answers from the source.”
Wendy pursed her lips and stared him down. She had no intention of giving this villain any ammunition. For all she knew, he would rejoice in the knowledge that her brothers were being held captive by a homicidal youth-hoarder. Hook would probably laugh maniacally while twirling his too-trim-to-truly-twirl-but-oh-well mustache before making her walk the plank.
Hook stared back for a moment; then he looked at the crewman closest to her. “Tam. Take her to the brig, please.”
Startled by the inclusion of “please” at the end of his order, Wendy allowed the pressure on her arm to guide her forward a few steps. Then she planted her feet and turned to glare at the offender.
Any protest she had died when she recognized the young face at her side. “Tam?”
“C’mon, Wendy. It’s a nice brig.”
“ ’Cause that’s a selling point.” Too focused on her retort and her surprise at walking with a suspiciously solid ghost, Wendy followed the former Lost Boy. “How are you not dead?”
Tam shot a glance at Hook. Wendy looked in the same direction in time to see the fiend arch one eyebrow. Again.How original.
Tam’s half-smile waned, but his firm grip on her arm remained steady. “Oh, you know.”
“No,” Wendy huffed. “I don’t know; that’s why I asked.”
Her next step was a stumble as they exited the brilliant sunshine and entered a pitch-black doorway. Tam moved with the confidence of long familiarity. Wendy muttered a few choice words to herself as she tripped her way down the steep steps and along a narrow hallway that turned in an arbitrary manner seemingly designed to anger her.Stupid pirate can’t even use lights? Are lanterns not evil enough?Eventually, a small circle of light set in the wall drew her eye.
“Here we are,” Tam announced calmly.
“Wha—?” Wendy found herself behind solid bars before she could blink the dazzle away. Her ears informed her that Tam had deposited her and left.
As her eyes adjusted, she examined the contents of the cell. It seemed larger than strictly necessary. Iron bars formed two walls while the ship’s hull and another wooden barrier made up the other two. A padded bench, long enough to stretch out on, occupied the left third of the space, nestled against the planked wall and perpendicular to the porthole; Wendy would have to choose whether she wanted to sleep with her head or her feet within reach of the bars. A very small table or desk and a singlechair filled the rest of the wall under her only window. Nothing else resided in her prison, not even a privy bucket.
A search under the cushion and beneath the bench proved no hidden tools or nasty surprises lurked out of sight. Mildly impressed by the relative cleanliness, if one overlooked the slight salt crust that remained from mopping with seawater, Wendy plopped herself down on the bench after ensuring that the table and chair were also devoid of treasure. The padding felt new.
“I bet everything is still nice because a pirate like Hook doesn’t take prisoners. He chucks them overboard and then asks questions,” she said aloud, hoping one or both of her sheeries had followed.
But if Hook was a “kill first” kind of pirate, why wasn’t she dead yet? Wendy slid her hands along the soft fabric, mildly regretting her filthy state. She had just about decided to test the bed with her full body when Tam reappeared.
“Here, Cap’n sent you some food.” He held the plate through the slot in the door that she now understood must have been designed for the purpose.
Stubbornness reared its head, and she wrapped her arms around herself like a cloak. “I’m not hungry.”
“Your stomach growled when we were all on deck.”
“It did not!” Wendy gasped.
Tam’s eyebrow arched in a pale imitation of the villain running this gang. “The whole crew heard it.”
Resignation and curiosity caused her shoulders to drop, and she unfolded her arms to accept the dish. Steaming fish with some sort of vegetable and a thick slab of fresh bread filled the plate to the edges. Tam made his escape before she could tear her eyes from the tantalizing feast.
