Book 1 of The Shadow Kings of Neverland
Hook
I closed my eyes. I could already feel the headache forming, because I knew what came next.
“You’re asking me to go to the island.”
Ransom didn't answer immediately.
He didn't need to.
“Caius, if there was anyone else I could ask, I wouldn't have called. But we both know you’re the most qualified person to extract her.”
My hands ached with the sudden need to ball into fists and pummel into flesh, or tear something apart—anything to stop my skin from crawling at the thought of stepping one foot on that fucking island.
Meanwhile, my Shadow stirred.
HE’S RIGHT.
Yeah, he’s right, I told Shadow. That doesn’t make this an intelligent decision.
TAKE THE DARLING. FUCK PAN.
Shadow wasn’t wrong. I did like the idea of sticking it to Pan extra hard. Even if the sick fuck never found out, the thought of stealing his newest underage toy had a vicious appeal.
Going back to his island did not.
“Just to be clear, you want me to sneak into the most heavily patrolled territory in all of Neverland, steal a girl out of the Games, and get her off the island before Pan or the navy realizes I was ever there.”
“Pretty much.”
“It’s practically a suicide mission.”
“For most people, I’m sure it would be. But you’re not most people. You’re Captain Fucking Hook.”
“Exactly,” I told him. “I’m a fucking pirate. I’m not a hero.”
“I don’t need a hero. I need a heartless motherfucker who can get the job done. And you’re the only one I trust.”
I had the qualifications. I also hadn’t set foot on that island since Pan wrapped me in chains and threw me off a cliff to my death.
Turns out I’m not very good at dying.
Even though I’d vowed never to return, I was already mapping out a plan for how to get past Pan’s navy and onto his island without being detected. That alone pissed me off almost as much as Ransom’s call. He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“If this fucks with your business, I’ll cover it. Double. Triple. Whatever.”
“This isn’t about money.”
“I know it’s not. I also know your particular skill set doesn’t come cheap.”
“We can worry about that later.” I pulled my chair closer to the Whisperglass. “Give me everything you’ve got on the Darling.”
“Her name’s Marcella.”
“Description?”
“Long brown hair. Brown eyes. Tall.”
“How tall?”
Ransom frowned. “I don’t know. Taller than average.”
“Spectacular intelligence work.”
“She’s obsessed with notebooks and colorful pens. She likes sparkly gold shoes and dangly earrings.”
I stared at him.
“That is a catastrophically useless description.”
“She’s loud. Half Italian. Swears a lot.”
“Just stop. You’re making it worse.”
His mouth tightened. “I don’t know what else to tell you. She’s a rich girl from Malibu. She’ll know about the ocean, but she doesn’t have the kind of survival skills to last long in the Games. She watches a shitload of nature documentaries. Maybe she’s learned enough to make it until you find her.”
“Anything else?”
Ransom held my gaze through the glass. “She’s Alice’s sister. Find her, Caius. Please.”
“If she’s still alive, I’ll extract her. If she’s not, I’m leaving her there.”
His expression hardened. “That’s not funny.”
I leveled him with a flat look, rubbing my thumb along my jaw. “It wasn’t meant to be. It’s a reality check.”
People always think they need a body to bury.
They fucking don’t.
If Marcella was dead, the tropics would turn her into soup long before I got her home, and I wasn’t delivering that nightmare to Alice.
I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
“Right,” Ransom finally said. “Bring Marcella back if you can. Same goes for you.”
I laughed at his sentimentality.
“If I die, I’ll see you in Hell.”
I closed the Whisperglass before he could tell me what an asshole I was.
I already knew.
What I didn’t know was exactly how tall Marcella was. How much did she weigh? What was she last seen wearing? And why the fuck hadn’t I asked how old she was?
Probably because the Never Games had already answered that question for me. Everyone knew that Pan liked them young. Marcella was probably twelve or thirteen…the same age as Wendy back when our paths crossed all those years ago. John and Michael were even younger.
The Darlings had been brought to me through a network of exiled high fae just like myself. Those three human kids had done the impossible and not only escaped Pan’s magical hold on them, but escaped his fucking castle. Someone else had done the suicidal part by getting them off Pan’s island and bringing them to me.
Smuggling Wendy and her brothers out of Neverland had been relatively simple. But I had a business to run. I couldn’t have three brats running around the ship, so I locked them in my cabin with a knife and some coconuts and told them to figure it out.
Four days later, they were still alive.
And they’d figured it out.
I began to feel uncharacteristically optimistic. Maybe this mission wouldn’t be so bad. After all, Ransom was only asking me to deal with one kid, not three of them. It wasn’t common to have kids aboard the Queen, although it happened often enough to have a protocol for the occasion. But we were just a middleman. We only had them for a few hours or a couple of days at most.
That spark of optimism evaporated the second I remembered the rifts would be closed for two months.
This wasn’t a rescue mission.
It was fucking custody.
And my operation wasn’t a fucking dinner cruise. I ran a floating asylum powered by eighty-five pyromaniacs, cannibals, and other degenerates too feral to live anywhere else.
Keeping Marcella fed would be easy.
Keeping that little girl safe? Out of the way and out of trouble? On a ship with guys named Skullfucker and Jamie the Jizzbucket?Right as we were heading into hurricane season?
For two fucking months?
I was going to need a lot more coconuts.
Assuming I got her off the island in the first place.
