Monstrous as a Croc (Daughters of Neverland Book 4)

by Kendra Moreno

  My heart squeezed at her words and I shared a look with Pete. There it was. Wendy was brave enough to say it. Her chin tilted up as she waited for Hook’s reply. My eyes trailed to his face, and I tensed at what I found there. He stumbled a step back as if in fear, pure panic coming from him in waves. I’d never seen the Captain so shaken.

  “Oh no,” I whispered and took Pete’s hand. We could tell. Hook was going to ruin it before it ever began.

  Hook straightened. “That’s cute,” he said, mocking. “I never thought you’d have a crush on me, Wendy Bird.”

  I watched the Captain, ice in my veins, knowing exactly what he was doing, but if he couldn’t be man enough to love Wendy in return like she deserved to be, then she was better off without him. I fully supported Wendy Darling, and Hook was making the biggest mistake of his life.

  Wendy tensed. “It’s not a crush and stop trying to let it roll off you. You can’t dictate how I feel, and I can sense you trying to.”

  “You’re a clever girl, but you’re blinded by your infatuation. I’m a pirate. I care for nothing but my ship and gold.”

  I made to step forward, but Pete’s hand held fast to mine. He was right. It wasn’t our business, but I desperately wanted to smack Hook upside the head and tell him to wake up.

  “That isn’t true. I’ve watched how you act with me. You care.”

  “Then I’m a better actor than I give myself credit for. After all, we need better fighters on my ship, and you’re one of the best.”

  Wendy never let her tears fall. At the time, I assumed it was because she was too strong for that. Only at the end of Neverland did I learn it was because she refused to drop more of her crystals. Years later, I wondered what sort of strength it must have taken to look the man she loved in the eyes as he told her he didn’t love her and not cry. But Wendy was always strong like that. A spine made of the very crystal her tears formed.

  She straightened her spine and tilted up her chin, every inch the strength she held even before she was a Daughter. “You’re an asshole, Captain Hook, and I know how full of shit you are. You don’t want my affections? Fine, I’ll accept that and move on.”

  My chest squeezed. No, they were meant to be! I knew it! But before Wendy could take more than a single step away from him, the air charged with static and I froze, just as everyone else aboard the ship did. Wendy’s eyes were wide with fear before she raises into the air on phantom arms. I stumbled forward, to do what I didn’t know, but I had to do something.

  “Wendy!” Hook shouted, before he, too, lifted into the air. I didn’t pay as much attention to Hook.

  Bright light flared painfully, forcing Pete and I back from the flare that suddenly surrounded us, blinding us, and I couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t understand what was happening, not yet. Pete squeezed my hand and we moved back a few more steps, trying to make sense of what was happening to Wendy and Captain Hook.

  And then words filled my mind as if I was meant to hear them, as if I am being given that privilege.

  “Children, you have been Chosen for something far greater than mere pirates.”

  “What does that mean?” Wendy asked, but I couldn’t see her. The light burned my retinas and I couldn’t see anything at all.

  “One of you shall be the Captain of the Seas and the other shall be the Captain of the Stars. You will be protectors of this land and be duty bound to take care of it.”

  “What if we don’t want to be Chosen?” Hook snarled. Always Hook. “I don’t care for Neverland.”

  “Always lying to yourself, Captain Hook,” the feminine voice chuckled. “Choose: the sea or the stars.”

  I held my breath, waiting for him to say he chose whatever meant he would be near Wendy. Even without sight, I could feel the tension, could feel what Wendy waited for.

  “The stars,” Hook rasped. “And nothing else.”

  My heart broke for her. He’d been given opportunity, had been given so much, and he turned her away. Didn’t the pirate realize that Wendy made him more human? That her love would save him in the end? I pitied the Pirate Captain, even back then.

  “It is done. Wendy, Daughter, you will form a trifecta of power, the three Daughters of Neverland. You will be the Captain of the Seas and with that burden, you’ll find the freedom you yearn for. Captain Hook, Captain of the Stars, you will act as support for the Daughters should they call. With this burden, you’ll find the freedom you desperately want, and with it, you’ll find your own darkness.”

  “What?”

  But the light began to fade and I was blinking the brightness away as Hook and Wendy dropped to the deck before us. The rest of the crew watched silently, only knowing the light had picked them up and nothing more. No one else seemed to know what truly happened. But I did. I’d heard every word.

  I noticed the second ship first, the words The Jolly Roger emblazoned on the side, beautiful, and perfect for Wendy, the new Captain of the Seas. But Wendy was looking up at Hook with an emotion I couldn’t read, but I understood how she had to be feeling. Heartbroken. Betrayed. Still, no tears fell. Though her shoulders were tense and her lips turned down, she was still the image of strength, even then, the Daughter with humanity in her eyes.

  “It looks like we have another Captain,” I said to break the tension, moving closer to Wendy. Pete followed me, just as I knew he would, and half of Hook’s crew also moved over to her. I blinked in surprise. That, I hadn’t expected.

  Hook bowed his head to Wendy, understanding, perhaps, what exactly he’d done, what he’d ruined with his fear. Wendy slammed down her mask, hiding the emotions she’d spilled to Hook that he refused to acknowledge, and when I took her hand, she squeezed mine in reassurance, as if I was the one who needed it.

  “Captain Hook,” she said, her gaze hard. “Enjoy being the Captain of the Stars, and nothing else.”

  With skill honed on a pirate ship, Wendy turned, grabbed a rope, and swung across to The Jolly Roger, the rest following her. But I lingered. I couldn’t help it when Hook’s eyes followed her sadly, when he watched her go after he rebuffed her feelings.

  “You just made the biggest mistake of your life, Captain Hook,” I said, staring at the Captain I couldn’t understand. Life was eternal in Neverland, but death was around every corner. It was foolish to not seize love when it stood right in front of you. It was foolish for Hook to think Wendy couldn’t handle herself.

  “What do you mean?” Hook’s voice seemed normal, but I detected the smallest shake in it. He wasn’t as unaffected as he was trying to seem, but it was his own fault. He did this. No one else did.

  “You know what I mean.” I let him see everything in my expression, but I didn’t add any more. Hook already knew what he’d done and he’d have to live with that.

  With that final thought, I swung across the distance and joined Wendy’s crew. We watched, together, as The Star Chase began to lift into the sky by some sort of magic. Hook stood against the balustrade and watched Wendy, where she did the same. Their eyes remained locked until the ship disappeared into the cloud layer, until The Star Chaser joined the stars.

  “Was I foolish?” Wendy whispered, staring after him.

  “Never,” I murmured, taking her hand. “You’re the bravest person I know.”

  She smiled and looked at me, a look I’d only ever received from Pete on her face. Wendy cared for me and I would spend the rest of my time showing her I cared for her, too. There’s more than one type of love in the world, and I was privileged to know two. “Only because I had the original happy thought to show me how it’s done.” She tugged me into a hug and squeezed tightly before whispering, “you’re free to love whomever you want on my ship, First Mate.”

  She released me and stepped away, disappearing into her Captain’s quarters to handle her own heartbreak. I wish I could have helped her, that I could tell her Hook and her were meant to be, but that wasn’t my place. Both needed time to realize what they were missing.

  Too
bad it took them until Neverland began to end to admit what really resided in their hearts. . .

  Note: Hook would like me to add that he saw the error of his ways and apologized for nearly killing Pete. Preferably, I would rather leave everyone with the thought that Hook is a total asshole, but here we are.

  Extra Note: Captain Hook is the sexiest pirate captain to ever walk the earth.

  ^^Assholes aren’t allowed to add their own notes, Captain Hook.

  THE ORIGIN OF THE MARCH HARE:

  A SEQUENCE OF MAD MEMORIES

  Chapter One

  A Hole Is A Hiding Place

  Too young to know much of anything except for the way others look at me when I venture outside the cabin and yet too old to miss the way my mother looks at my father with a predatory glance. That was what I understand, what I know, and the reason I know I will end up alone. My mother and father aren’t meant to be together. There’s no destiny between them. I certainly shouldn’t have ever been conceived between them. Some sort of magic allowed it to happen. Maybe it’s because my father is the Keeper of Memories. Maybe he needs an heir no matter what. It’s just unfortunate that my father’s madness allowed him to fall in love with a chimera like my mother.

  Chimeras, by all measures, are unsettling creatures, and my mother is no different. When I grew old enough to wonder about such things, I could never figure out how my father could look at her and see something of beauty. I also never knew how my mother could look at my father and not see food instead of a husband. Both of their restraints are to be respected and feared.

  I’ve always been a little afraid of my mother. She birthed me, and yet, I saw the way she snaps her teeth sometimes, the way her mouth opens like a shark before she reminds herself of whatever keeps her from snapping. I stay out of her way most of the time, but my fear only grows worse when I see my father come inside the cabin with drying blood on his shoulder, a great gaping wound there.

  “Don’t worry your head, little friend. It’s only a surface wound.” My father speaks without pain, without fear, even though I can see the bone of his clavicle through the gaping flesh.

  I stand and back away, because I know where the wound came from, and worse, I know she can’t be far away. “Is Mother coming?”

  “Hmm? Your mother? I don’t know who your mother is, little friend.” He pauses as he pours his tea and narrows his eyes. “Why do you look like me? Have you stolen my face?”

  I pause and straighten. It’s one of those days, which explains how my mother seemed to bite him. She usually restrains herself but with my father’s growing madness and her growing savagery, I expect there to be true violence in our home one day. I just hope I’m not home when that day comes to pass. There are many things I hope to never witness.

  “I’m a mirror,” I respond, for my safety and my father’s sanity.

  His face wrinkles before he nods and finishes pouring his tea. “That makes sense. Yes, that makes sense.” He pauses again. “Tea. Tea. What’s wrong with me?”

  From outside comes the sounds of growling and something ferocious. I know that sound well. With my eyes wide, I rush to the large chair, the one I’d taken all the backing out of. Carefully, I pull it out from the wall, just enough to fit through and tuck myself inside the hole. I’m just small enough to do so, to hide as the door of the cabin slams open. I hold my breath, because she can hear a pin drop, can sense it, and I’m thankful I have no cuts or bleeding. She can smell a single drop of blood from a mile away. I’m thankful she’s the only chimera out of the Badlands, but even that is too much. I try desperately to stop my shaking as I hear her vicious snarl, biting my knuckles to keep my teeth from chattering at the inevitable cold that goes everywhere with my mother.

  “Who are you, beauty?” My father asks her. Today must be a bad day if he can’t even remember who Mother is. He forgets me often, but he rarely forgot the monster he mated with.

  My mother doesn’t answer. The sound of china crashing to the floor a moment later and my father’s wheezing sound of pleasure fills my ears. I fold them down against my head and clench my eyes tightly shut. But I can’t turn off my sense of smell. The sense of smell I get from my mother. The sense of smell that brings blood to my nostrils and drowns me in it.

  In my mind, I repeat the rhyme my father used to chant when he was sane enough to remember.

  One for sorrow. Two for a cure. Three for happiness. Four for a massacre.

  Five for hunger. Six for disease. Seven for loss and a crate full of fleas.

  Eight for death. Nine for life. Ten for the end at the point of a knife.

  I sleep inside the back of the chair and don’t come out until the next day. Shattered china and tea stains cover the kitchen. Blood drips down the cabinets but not enough for death. Not enough for death. Not enough for death.

  I thank wonder there’s no body for me to find. Slowly, I sweep up the mess and clean up the blood, pretending no one sees a monster when they look at me, pretending I’m normal, pretending my fate will not one day be the same as my father’s.

  Chapter Two

  A Bitch And Her Dogs

  Running, running, running. Do I even have feet? Am I the March Hare or am I lunch meat?

  The howl echoes around me, close, too close; the Jabberwocky are gaining on me. I’m fast, but not as fast as the White Rabbit. Wonder, where is the Hatter? Where is Cheshire? Where is my father? Oh, right, he died. Everyone died. But why am I alive? Why am I running? I slow for a second before the smell of rotting flesh reaches my senses again.

  Oh, that’s why.

  “Come now, March. Let’s have some fun,” Alice calls from behind me, her voice too close to the evil my mother used to ooze before she died. Another death. Another life. Another meal.

  “Go away, Alice. I don’t want to play,” I sing as I run, as I sense my death on the horizon, but Alice won’t let me disappear completely. She isn’t like that. She is as evil as my mother. Worse, something far worse.

  “Don’t be a spoil sport, March.” Her voice is getting closer.

  I can survive many things, many massacres, and have, but I’m not sure I can survive being ripped apart by her bandersnatch. I’m not sure I can spin my enchantment fast enough to survive, but I can’t die. I can’t leave this plane. One day, someone will need me, whether it’s the Hatter or someone more profound. I know, without a doubt, I need to survive passed this day. Call it prophesy. Call it hope. I don’t care. My madness is too advanced to question it and too soft to care. I begin to chant the words I’d once heard my father use, the ones he’d forgotten the day he’d died, the one ingrained in my childhood memories.

  “One for sorrow. Two for a cure. Three for happiness. Four for a massacre.” As I chant, I pluck out hairs, pluck out painful things. I’m immortal to some extent, though not as much as Hatter. I can survive many things, but if I’m not careful, I won’t survive what comes next. I shove the pieces of me, a group of hairs, a tooth, a fingernail into the small vial. “Five for hunger. Six for disease. Seven for loss and a crate full of fleas.”

  “What are you doing, March?” Alice calls, and I feel the breath of the bandersnatch she rides, the heat of it slamming into my back and making me break a sweat as I run. I try my best not to trip, not to fall and become easy prey.

  I slam through the trees into a clearing and skid to a stop. Time. I’m out of time. Completely out of time. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. My ears twitch with the ticking.

  “Fuck,” I snarl, ripping my glasses off and tucking them away. They’ll be broken if I leave them on. I know it, and I really fucking love these glasses.

  I hate Alice, almost as much as I hate my mother, and that’s profound, even for me.

  “Eight for death. Nine for life. Ten for the end at the point of a knife.” I nearly trip and right myself at the last minute as the two bandersnatch step from the trees before me, blocking my path. “Take one piece. Take twelve more. Make the pain last, and death no more.”

  Th
e small bottle in my hand begins to glow, bright, brighter, as I sling it over my neck and prepare myself. I will live, but that means nothing for the pain, and it takes a few minutes to take hold. My best hope is she’ll wait to tear me apart so I don’t end up living as only a head.

  I giggle. A talking Hare Head. A Head of a talking hare. Monstrous. Lethal. Ridiculous.

  “Do you know the prophesy?” Alice asks as her bandersnatch circles me where I stand.

  Trapped. I’m trapped.

  “Prophesy is for prophets. I deal in memories, Alice. Would you like to revisit yours?” I grin, my head twitching with the voice chanting for me to attack. “Oh, no. Memories can be just as evil as hearts, and yours, Queen of Hearts, is so black, it’s dead.”

  She tilts her head, her unnatural black eyes studying me closer, focusing on the glow around my neck. “I rather like that moniker, Hare. The Queen of Hearts. Should I add to my collection with yours?”

  I giggle. “My heart is just as black as yours, bitch.” Her eyes narrow at the insult, and if I’m being honest, I’m being foolish for calling her names at all. This will already hurt. I don’t need it to be worse. “You can’t kill me.”

  “No, you’ve made sure of that,” she sneers and holds up her hand. I tense. “But I can make you suffer, March, and suffer you will. Forever alone in that cabin of yours, trapped with only your memories and madness until the day Wonderland dies.” She blows me a kiss. “Black hearts flock together, like birds of a feather, no?”

  She snaps her fingers, and the bandersnatch surrounding me descend.

  Teeth, sharp teeth, talons, blood, the distinct scent of blood. Memories flash through my mind, too fast to focus on, too painful to remember, so I lock myself behind them as I lose pieces, as I lose sanity, as I scream, and scream, and scream.