Chapter 2
He was furious. How could she do this to him? How could she keep something like this from him? Didn't he mean anything at all to her?
Neal stormed onto the ship and stomped towards where Emma was standing with her old friend, Ruby.
"Mr. Cassady!" He could hear Granny call after him. "Wait!"
He couldn't believe it. He had thought the damn pirate was dead. He should have known better.
"Neal! Babe, can you believe it, Ruby and I just ran into each other after all these years! She's working for Mr. H regularly as a part of the theme park." He could vaguely register the nonchalant words that Emma was speaking as she tried to ignore his obvious rage.
He angrily grabbed Emma's arm.
"Neal," she said innocently enough, but the warning in her eyes was clear. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?!" He scoffed. "Oh I think you know, Emma. Oh, yes, you know perfectly well…"
Emma's face was one of pure bewilderment. "I don't know what you mean…"
"Save me the fake ignorance," he hissed. "You had to know that he was the one who gave you this job."
"What do you mean, he?"
During this discussion, Granny had caught up with them and had gone to Ruby's side.
"Did you know that he had asked her to come here?" whispered Granny into Ruby's ear.
"No, you?"
"Of course not! I can't believe he would betray us like that. After all we've done for him, helping him get to safety and housing him…"
"Granny, could you please enlighten my wife as to whom her employer really is?" Neal interjected.
Everyone stood silent for a moment, no one daring to say anything at all.
Finally, Emma broke the silence. "Where's Henry?" She observed slightly panicked.
"Oh, for the love of God, could you please teach that boy to stay in place for one moment?" Neal complained after looking all around for the boy. "Do we always have to be searching for him?"
"I'll look for him, Neal. You just go do…whatever it is that you want." Emma proposed.
"What I want is for us to leave this Godforsaken town and go home to Tallahassee."
"Not gonna happen," Emma stated. "We need the money, remember?" She hissed.
"Fine." Neal stated flatly. "Find the boy. I'm going back to the hotel."
Neal stormed off, probably to a bar or a poker game, Emma knew. He had lied when he said he was going to the hotel. He lied almost every day when he said he would be home before 4 am. He lied when he told people they still had his family money. He lied when he said that they weren't chest high in debt. He lied when he said he wasn't a drunk. He lied when he said he loved their son.
Emma pushed the thoughts from her head as she focused on finding her son. Henry did so love to explore and go on adventures. She was sure she would find him climbing something he wasn't supposed to. Ruby said that she would help find him if she could. Emma graciously accepted.
Henry had been looking at the souvenir shop's toy swords when one of the employees, Leroy maybe, had come up to him and said that Mr. H wanted to see him in his private study so that he could give him a private tour of his pirate theme park. Henry had excitedly followed him.
As he descended below deck to the captain's quarters, he suddenly felt nervous about going into the captain's cabin.
"Does my mom know where I'm going? I don't want for her to worry…"
"Ah, kid, relax, she'll know where you are," Leroy replied gruffly.
"Oh…Okay," Henry said meekly. He tripped slightly as he followed the bear of a man through the dark underbelly of the "ship". Mr. H's theme park was entirely based off of fairytales, but with a twist and the main attraction was the pirate show that occurred every night at 8 o'clock on the Jolly Roger, which also housed all administrative offices. All of the fable-based rides told a much darker story than the one's he had been told to help him go to sleep. In the distorted versions that Mr. H had based his rides on, Red Riding Hood was the wolf, Prince Charming was originally the the poor shepherd twin to awful Prince James, Jack, from Jack and the beanstalk, was a ruthless female mercenary, and Snow White was an awesome bandit and hunter. He preferred these stories to the originals any day. They made so much more sense to him.
Suddenly, Leroy had stopped and opened the door to the captain's cabin for Henry. He could had only registered this fact when he was shoved into the room and the door was quickly shut after him. Henry stood there in the entryway petrified of what he had just stepped into. The entire room was dark, even though it was not quite mid-day outside. Only a few melting candles gave illumination to the objects in the room. Still, the boy could tell that he was not alone in the room. A shadowed figure loomed by the windows, which were covered in black curtains as if the man was purposefully trying to make the room as dark as possible. Or maybe he's trying to keep something out…
"Henry, m' lad, come in!" Welcomed a familiar Irish voice. It was Mr. H himself. Henry expelled a small sigh of relief. If his mom could trust Mr. H, so could he.
The man approached Henry and extended his hand for a greeting shake, which Henry returned politely.
"How are you, lad? Hope Leroy didn't frighten you too much. I know he can be quite gruff at times, but he's still the best and most loyal member of me crew. Now, why don't I open the curtains a bit so that we can actually see one another, aye? I tend to like it dark for business transactions, makes the other men nervous and allows me to get whatever I want, ha, but I dare say we should let some light for this occasion…"
Mr. H was rambling. Henry knew this because he did the same thing when he was nervous. But why Mr. H was nervous, he couldn't quite figure out…
It was only later that he realized something was weird with Mr. H.
It was only later, after they had realized how many similarities they shared, that he thought something wasn't quite right with what was occurring between the two males.
It was only later that he was able to reflect that he had felt more of a paternal bond with Mr. H within minutes than he had ever felt with his real father his entire life.
It was only after he had seen the hook had he realized why Mr. H always wore dark clothing that covered his hands.
It was only after he had screamed that he realized there was more Mr. H in him than Neal.
It was too late after he screamed.
It was too late after he fainted.
It was too late to undo the hurt that had been inflicted upon Killian by that scream.
It was too late for Emma to protect either of them anymore.