Peter awoke to the sound of his name being called. He frowned, then felt a jolt of panic when he realized it was Hook’s voice that called to him. He tried to sit up, but a firm hand held him down.
“I did not sit up all night with you to stop your bleeding just to have you reopen your wound today,” the man snapped. Inwardly, he smiled to see the boy had some life left in him.
Peter opened his eyes and saw Hook sitting in a chair close beside him. On the man’s knee sat Slightly, with Hook’s claw arm around his waist. Hook withdrew his hand and smiled.
“Good morning, Peter,” he said happily. “Tell Peter ‘good morning’, Jason.”
Slightly stared at Peter expressionlessly. “Morning, Peter,” he said simply.
Peter stared back at Slightly. He could see the marks and bruises on the boy’s arms and legs. He recognized the look in the boy’s eyes and felt despair. “Slightly…”
“His name is Jason, boy,” Hook snapped. “As you said, Slightly is dead. As a matter of fact, as soon as you’re strong enough for the party, I’m making Jason a full member of my crew, following that with your execution. But he needs a last name. Unless you can remember that, too, I was thinking of calling him Jason Hook. How does that sound, Jason?”
“I don’t care, sir,” Slightly replied. “Call me what you want and I’ll answer.” His eyes tightened in anger for a moment, but only Peter saw that reaction. Then the mask was back in place.
Hook hugged the boy and set him on his feet. “Go play with Billy. I meant it when I said I was sorry for hurting you so badly yesterday. Enjoy your day of rest – you don’t have to fear Pan or me today.”
Slightly stared at Peter a moment longer, then glanced at the two boys bound and gagged in the corner. “Ay, Cap’n,” he said and gingerly walked out of the brig.
“I hate you,” Peter snarled at Hook. “I’m going to kill you for what you’ve done to Slightly.”
“What I did to Jason?” Hook asked innocently. “The wounds I’ve given him are physical and will heal quickly, no more than bruises and a few welts, really.” He leaned forward and waved his hook in Peter’s face. “But perhaps I should punish you for what you did to Jason. The petty torments you heaped on him deepened the wounds you gave him when you threw him away. Those wounds are in his soul, and those wounds are slow to heal. Many people will give themselves physical pain to distract them from their spiritual pain. Jason hasn’t had to do that yet, and with you gone he won’t have to.”
Suddenly, Hook laughed. “You really are pathetic. You act so noble, pretending to be the good pitted against my evil. You have your friends that love you and that you say you love. But you are ready in an instant to dispose of them at the hint that they aren’t exclusively yours. Billy and Slightly were friends, but I found out at the same time you did. Never once did Billy tell me anything Slightly may have told him. But you didn’t even consider that it was an innocent friendship. You just assumed he was guilty, that by befriending one pirate, he’d befriended us all. You exiled him. And then you tried to murder him by pushing him over the falls.”
“I did not!” Peter yelled, causing his stomach to hurt more. He ignored it, “I tried to save him, but he slipped.”
Hook chuckled, “That’s what young Slightly insisted when I brought him here. But I planted the seeds of doubt, and later I let him return to you to watch them grow. When he became this Jason child again, it was easy to convince him you wanted him dead. I played you both like keys on my harpsichord. I brought him here when he was too weak to get away. I knew you were eavesdropping, so I made conversations seem like he had betrayed you. You fell for it so easily, I couldn’t believe it. And when you never came to free Slightly, it was easy to convince the poor, lonely little boy that you and your friends hated him.
“He wouldn’t give up before then. He’d insisted on going back to you as soon as he was well. So I let him go and followed him. I figured that either he’d unwitting lead me to you, or you’d see me following and assume the boy was taking me there. If you truly had been his friend, you would have considered that he didn’t know I was there.” Hook smiled sweetly, “And the reception you gave him – bravo, Pan! I couldn’t have hurt him that much if I tried.”
Peter stared at Hook, stunned by the man’s recount. Put that way, Peter saw that he’d behaved like a monster. No wonder Slightly’s died inside… I killed him myself.
But Hook wasn’t finished yet. He saw the pain in Pan’s face as he realized what he’d done, and it gave him exquisite pleasure. “I used his friendship with Jukes to force him to come back. Seems he didn’t want his last friend in the world to be hung. A few days later, I tried to take him ashore, to force him to lead me to you. Imagine the look on his face when the very island itself rejected him. That was the second time I saved his life. Those damned pixies are a lot stronger than they look. He’ll have a nice scar on his back forever. Then a week after that, the mermaids try to drown him, and I saved him a third time. So Jason had no place to be but my ship. And nearly every day his former friends – friends he still inexplicably loved – came to torment him and give him a fresh reminder of what he’d lost.”
Hook sighed and looked at the door. “He really does miss flying. And he’s grown a good half-inch in this past month.” He looked back at Peter, who was openly crying. “I thank you for giving me a new crewman. I’ll care for him more than you did – actually that should be easy since you never really did care. I won’t force him to watch you die, but I think it would make him feel better.”
“I hate you,” Peter sobbed as he tried to sit up. Hook held him down again and tested the ropes on his wrists and ankles.
“Don’t sit up without help, Peter. You’ll bleed to death. You can’t get off the cot anyway, you’re tied. I’ll leave you to your rest, trust me you’ll need it. I’ve decided to make you walk the plank and feed the croc. I don’t want to have to toss you over myself, but I will if I have to.” Hook stood and left the brig.
Peter turned his head to look at the two boys in the corner. “I was wrong, and I hurt my oldest friend. If I don’t get the chance, tell Slightly I said I’m sorry.” Death was very real to him right now, the burning in his belly and the weakness in his limbs proving to him that he wasn’t invincible after all.
Nibs and Curly nodded slowly. Curly tired to say something reassuring, but the mumbles around the gag in his mouth were indecipherable. Peter looked away and silently cried himself to sleep. End Chapter 12