Never Never

by Brianna Shrum

  John walked slowly over to the spot where the plank met the Main, and he looked, long and doleful, over the band of Lost Boys.

  Hook made a sudden, panicked move toward him, unwilling for him to plunge into the water with his hands tied behind his back. John jumped, and he fell backward onto the plank, which vibrated heavily beneath his weight.

  “Wait, boy.”

  John sat up and hung each of his legs over the rough wooden beam, wincing momentarily. Hook cringed when he saw a spot of blood appear on the child’s leg.

  “You won’t die with your hands bound like that. I will allow you to die with dignity.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of surprise on Wendy’s face. He smiled to himself. Then, he approached the plank and held out his hook.

  John eyed it, suspicion written plainly all over him. But the captain remained steady, and John held out a shaky hand and took the hook. He pulled John back onto the ship and turned him around.

  “I thought you’d slash me for sure,” John said.

  “That would be terrible form, boy. And I am nothing if not a man of good form.”

  He took John’s bound hands in his and drew back his hook to cut the rope, when he froze. A sound came, first from the sea and then from the side of the boat. It turned his insides and made him white at the gills. He forgot completely about John and left him tied, then backed away, trembling from head to toe.

  Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  HOOK SHRANK BACK UP AGAINST THE WALL OF HIS cabin, pale and shaking.

  “Captain?” Starkey said, looking at him strangely.

  “Do you not hear it?” Hook was next to breathless. The ticking of the clock had changed him wholly in a matter of seconds.

  “Hear what, sir?”

  A sweat broke out over Hook’s brow and he hissed, “Listen.”

  Starkey cocked his head toward the edge of the boat, and his eyes widened. “The crocodile.”

  In an instant, Starkey was by Hook’s side, brandishing his sword in one hand and a gun in the other. Smee came to him as well, and most of the rest of the crew followed— Cecco, Noodler, Thatcher, Jukes, all of them. Despite the fear paralyzing him, Hook was touched by this. The men all looked terribly fierce and aggressive, ready to defend him in a blink.

  Hook breathed in and out, in and out, then drew his weapon. He refused to play the coward while the rest of his band looked able to fell the creature with their bare hands. The boldness started to dissipate when the ticking grew louder.

  “He’s coming up the side of the boat,” Hook whispered, and Starkey drew a bit closer to him, and stared, unblinking, out over the ship’s edge.

  How was it that a mindless creature terrified him so, when the thought of fighting a cunning knave like Pan did not chill his blood, but boiled it? Perhaps it was the mindlessness itself. A cunning person, he could predict. A fellow with a brain had strategies and thoughts and precaution and weakness. But a reptile, one that lusted after his blood, he could not hope to understand. A reptile would stop at nothing to get what it was after, even if it was foolish. Though he hated to admit his fear, he could not stop himself imagining the thing ripping at him and biting into him and consuming him whole.

  He allowed himself to consider the possibility and to collapse into his own mind, give in to the panic, only for a moment. After he’d exhausted every possible feeling he could have about the brutal death he so dreaded, there was nothing to do but stand up straight. So, he did.

  Hook blinked quickly several times, then straightened to his full height. He controlled his breathing until it was even and low. And he ran his fingers through the hair that hung by his chin and brushed his hook across his lips.

  If he was to meet his death at the jaws of this awful creature, he was resolved to do it, as Wendy had said, an English gentleman, a captain. He flipped the sword once over in his hand and stepped in front of his men, steeling his features, staring out into the blue, resolved not to be afraid.

  In that moment, as he faced the deepest fear he’d ever held, he felt a profound sense of peace. That could have had to do with the instant change in him, or it could have had to do with the sudden lack of ticking.

  Hook frowned and let his sword drop just a bit. “Do you hear that? The quiet?”

  “Aye. Seems to me the beast is gone, sir,” said Starkey.

  Hook was uneasy and shifted his weight. It seemed odd behavior, even for a mindless creature, to simply swim off in the midst of a pursuit. He turned around and faced his crew, then opened his mouth to speak. But as he did, he there was a tiny thump behind him. He whirled around. Nothing. Perhaps he was finally going mad.

  Hook ground his teeth and took several paces toward the children, who were all still safely bound and sitting in a huddle. One of them was grinning a little.

  “Why are you smiling, boy?” he asked Slightly.

  Slightly’s grin left his face quite quickly. “I’m not.”

  Hook shook his head. The entire ship was going batty. Hook paced back and forth in front of the group for a moment, trying to calm his rapidly fraying nerves.

  “Cecco,” he said.

  “Aye, aye,” said the man, running up to the captain, dark curls flying behind him.

  “Fetch me a glass of wine from the main cabin. Red.”

  “Wine, Sir?”

  Hook’s nostril flared. “Do not question me.”

  Cecco gave him a strange look and headed off toward the cabin.

  Hook was aware that alcohol was a strange thing to be requesting, especially at this moment. But, without it, he would be a paranoid mess if Pan ever did come to call. And without it, he feared he would not truly be able to send any of the children overboard.

  Minutes passed. Hook furrowed his brow. “Blast that Cecco. Where is he?”

  Slightly said solemnly, “One.”

  “What?” he said, peering at his old friend.

  Slightly shut his mouth and stared defiantly up at him, seeing him fully as a pirate, and not at all as James. He would get no answer from the boy.

  Hook rolled his eyes and made off toward the cabin.

  “Cecco! What could possibly be taking this long?”

  Cecco did not answer.

  He stepped closer and stared into the dark. There were no lights in this cabin, which seemed strange. It contrasted completely with the warm brightness outside. Hook felt a chill course through him. And then, he furrowed his brow and lifted his boot. Pooling around it was a circle of dark red liquid that was not wine. The blood stuck to his shoe when he stumbled backward.

  “Cecco!” he called, voice holding no malice now, but fear.

  Several of his crewmen rallied around him, and they all looked on into the black.

  “Show yourself.”

  There was no response.

  “I said, show yourself or be known as a coward!”

  There was a second of silence, and then, “I am no coward.”

  Out of the cabin shot a boy, the one Hook had been baiting. He was ticking and tocking and laughing. He’d come after all. A little light shot out with him. A fairy. Pan’s fairy. Of course—the one he’d seen in the woods. Pan went through fairies like he did Lost Boys. Hook had never had the time to learn the difference between Pan’s fairy and the myriad of others, particularly since he’d had a difficult time telling fairies apart anyway. She’d warned him, no doubt. Hook scowled; he hated this fairy more than any other he’d had the pleasure of hating.

  Peter did not come at Hook, not at first. Instead, he went for Wendy. Of course he went for Wendy. He slit her bonds easily, before any of the pirates could react. Then, he freed several of the boys. There was no detaining them now. Each of the ones who was freed was hastily untying another, and it was a useless cause.

  Though Hook could focus on no one but Pan, the boy was darting around, totally scattered, poking at a pirate here, kicking another there, laughing. His little dagger was flashing in the
sunlight, sending flares into Hook’s eyes. Hook squinted up at him, and his vision distorted. Peter darted in and out among the pirates and back into the cabin before any of them could move. He came back out in a blur, arms full of weaponry, and dropped the treasure trove of daggers and tomahawks beside the Lost Boys, who gathered them up immediately.

  Hook brandished his sword as the whole lot of the children scrambled toward him and his crew, weapons flailing. It put him in a position he desperately did not want to hold, one where he was forced to slash out at the children who were more or less playing war games and dress-up. Most of the rest of his crew was on the defensive as well, all pirates, but none villainous enough to seek the blood of children.

  Despite the chaotic nature of the swordplay, the battle itself was not terribly frightening. Children with knives were decidedly less threatening than many of the other foes he had faced. So, he found that as he swung his sword and hook this way and that, he did it in an easy manner, almost relaxed, until a loud cry sounded to his right. He turned his face over his shoulder to see a large body, covered in tattoos, falling to the floor. Blood coated Bill Jukes’s back and seeped out onto the waistband of his pants. Hook stifled a cry.

  The Lost Boy standing nearest Jukes was Slightly, and he was grinning wickedly, his knife coated red and shiny.

  “Two,” said the boy. And then Hook understood. It was a body count.

  He felt a horrible hollow in his stomach. Hook had lost men before, of course, but not this way. Not to a Lost Boy, and not a man he truly knew. Hook was stuck looking at the hulking, dying man. In the midst of that paralyzing, silent moment, he felt a large force crash into him.

  “Captain, look out!”

  There was a blur of color and arms and legs twisting together and a crash as Hook’s body hit the deck. And there was Peter above him, laughing and spinning and flying off, his little dagger slick with blood. Hook felt sick, for whoever was lying on top of him had taken the blow for him.

  He only felt sicker when he heard the man’s voice.

  “Captain, don’t ye be concerned. ’Tis barely a scratch.”

  When Hook detected a bit of wetness seeping onto his own shirt, soaking onto it from the other man, he nearly lost the contents of his stomach. Starkey.

  Hook slid out from under his first mate and stared at him, willing it not to be him. But, of course, it was.

  “Starkey, why did you do it?”

  Starkey coughed, color draining from the leathery skin of his face. “It’s my job, sir. Protectin’ the captain.”

  “You shouldn’t have, you shouldn’t have,” Hook said, barely able to come up with full sentences. He was desperate, grabbing at Starkey’s shirt, pressing his hand into the pool of blood.

  “I’ll stop it. We can stop the blood. Of course we can. Don’t you worry, Starkey. Don’t you worry.”

  “Careful, Captain,” he choked, bits of blood spraying out onto his lips. And he smiled. “Don’t go usin’ the wrong hand. That hook won’t do a whole lot to help me, will it?”

  “Don’t joke, Starkey. Don’t waste your breath.”

  “Don’t have much of it left anyway.”

  Hook was frantic, eyes darting around, searching for anything he could use to stop the flow. He could not lose Starkey. Anyone but him. And not to Pan.

  “Don’t speak that way. I am your captain. That is an order.”

  Starkey grinned and leaned his head back, staring up into the sky.

  “Don’t you just lie back and die. I’ll have none of it.”

  Hook’s voice was unnecessarily aggressive, hoarse with fear and sorrow mixed. He kept pressing at the wound until Starkey reached out and grabbed his hand.

  “Leave me be, Captain. Worry about the Main. This isn’t the first time I been stabbed, and it won’t be the last.”

  The dullness in Starkey’s eyes suggested otherwise. He was dying, and the sparkle of Neverland was leaving his skin.

  Starkey pushed Hook in the shoulder. “Go. Three more’ve died since you been sittin’ here.”

  Hook clenched his jaw, eyes stinging.

  Starkey blinked slowly, eyes clearer than they’d ever been as his gaze shifted to Pan, like a fog was drifting away from them. Then he looked directly into Hook’s eyes. “Kill the boy, Captain Hook.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  STARKEY BACKED UP AND LEANED AGAINST THE CABIN, breathing heavily, clutching his torso, fingers stained red. Hook rose to a kneeling position, hair falling into his face, and pulled his sword slowly up. His hand and hook were covered in Starkey’s blood. The visual darkened his eyes until only rage spat out of them.

  He took in a deep breath, then bellowed, “Pan!”

  His voice echoed across the ship, and Pan turned to look at him and flashed him an arrogant smile. Then, Peter darted down and slit Thatcher across the throat. Hook was overcome with violent, deep, vibrating wrath, and strode toward the child. Waves of malice poured off him as he got closer, clearing a clean path to the boy.

  Tootles stepped bravely in front of the captain, holding out his needle of a blade. Usually, this would have stirred something in Hook. But not today. Not now. Hook did not even look the little one in the face. He drew back his sword and smashed it across Tootles’s dagger. It was to his credit that he did not injure the child, but the force of the blow was enough to knock the boy on his bottom. Hook continued, without stopping, toward Pan, and he flinched when Peter felled another of his men.

  “Twelve!” Slightly called out.

  Hook was silent, his brow shadowing his features, and in his eyes was a fierce determination. He brought up his sword and pointed the tip at Peter. Despite the weight, his hand was steady. The captain did not so much as blink; he simply held out the blade, a dark challenge.

  “You,” he said.

  Peter floated down, that horrible smirk still marring his face, and he turned to his Lost Boys. “Stand down. This man is mine.”

  They stared at one another for a long, tense moment, each of them pouring loathing into the other.

  “Proud and insolent youth,” said Hook, voice threaded with hate, “prepare to meet thy doom.”

  “Dark and sinister man, have at thee.”

  Pan struck first, true to form. But the little dagger was no match for Hook’s long blade. He parried with ease and counter-struck, throwing all of his weight behind the sword, knocking Pan backward. Pan’s eyebrows shot up, and he flew back at Hook.

  Hook could feel the Lost Boys’ eyes on him, and very few of the pirates’. Most of them were dead or dying now. Pan lunged at him again, and he dodged the blow, then they circled each other. Perhaps it was best not to focus on casualties at that particular moment.

  The captain jumped out at Peter, distracting him with the sword, lashing out with the hook. Hook caught him in the cheek. Peter gasped and stepped back, then put a hand to his face. When he pulled it away, his fingers were red. Peter frowned. Hook was filled with a fleeting elation and grinned broadly.

  “Ah, so the Pan is not so indestructible after all.”

  Peter gritted his teeth, looking like a child who has not gotten his way. He burst toward Hook and slashed at his neck, tearing open his long red coat. The top fell apart, and his throat was bare. Hook could feel the air tingling against his scar, and his cheeks flushed crimson.

  When Peter saw it, something flashed in his eyes. Almost recognition, but not exactly.

  “How did you get that?”

  “A villain gave it to me, long ago.”

  Peter smiled. “And I shall give you another.”

  He made good on that promise immediately and flew into Hook’s rib, knife out, drawing blood. Hook lost his grip on the sword, and it clattered to the ground.

  Hook blanched. This was it.

  Peter approached him, holding out the little blade. To Hook’s surprise, though, rather than stabbing at him, he knelt to pick up the sword. Then, he handed it up to Hook. He wished, in that moment, that Peter had run him through. I
t would have been preferable to the shame that overwhelmed him.

  But he hadn’t. The captain shook as he reached for his blade, and then he grabbed hold of it, and Peter returned immediately to the battle.

  There were no more interludes after that, no more moments of peaceful introspection or witty banter. There was only the hook and the dagger and the sword, and they beat against one another with a powerful vengeance. Hook swung again and again, trying in vain to so much as nick the boy. Peter flitted back and forth in the air above him effortlessly.

  To Hook’s utter distress, he found that he was tiring. He was no longer a child, no longer able to move endlessly for days on end and not suffer for it. He was breathing hard and swinging at Pan with all his might. Hadn’t he thought less of Blackbeard for fighting in such a way not so long ago? But here was Pan, forcing him into maneuvers he so despised. Pan barely breathed at all, unless he was laughing. The boy struck and struck again, with no effort, and swam through the air above Hook, doing a backstroke, and then breast.

  Peter was toying with him.

  The second Hook realized it, his energy drained. The child was not even trying. And if that was so, there was no escaping this, not for him. Perhaps for some of his fellows. Starkey hadn’t quite died yet, and Smee had a chance; he doubted any of the boys could truly lay a hand on the man. But, for him, this would be the last hurrah. So, in the midst of the little war, he stood up straight and he adjusted his hat, and he stared at Peter so regally, so dashingly, that Peter himself had to stop for a moment and stare.

  James drew in a long breath and grinned, the grin of a man who knows he is at his end.

  “Forget James, the child I was, and forget your fairies and forget your Lost Boys. Forget everyone you ever knew, Peter Pan. But you will never, never forget me.”

  With that, the taste of metal flared through the air, and Peter barreled into him. James was knocked over the edge of the ship. Bad form, he thought as he hit the ocean.