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Chapter 20
"How noble you are, my dear," Hook said in a bored, detached voice.
Jane didn't reply, just stayed where she was stood and tried to stop the persistent tears.
Hook waited for a moment, watching her with one eyebrow coolly raised. It was only when he was certain she had nothing to say that he turned to his men, his eyes flashing dangerously as they scrambled to attention.
"After them. You know what to do."
Jane heard his words as if through a thick fog and her movements seemed just as slow and distant as she turned. After that though, everything went much too quickly.
The pirates rushed to do their captains bidding, grabbing their weapons and trooping out of the tree house before Jane could gather her wits.
Not that she would have been able to do much about it anyway.
As it was she could only watch, horrified as they left. Her mind ruthlessly offered up image after image of what would happen if they found Peter and Johnny and her agony was shown all too clearly on her pained face.
Hook hadn't moved.
Still he watched her with folded arms and icy eyes, one eyebrow raised. Slowly, furiously she turned to face him.
"Call them back," she said in a low voice, meeting his eyes boldly and even taking a step towards him.
Needless to say the captain did not step back.
"And why would I do that?" he asked, sounding at most mildly interested.
Another step and they were within arms reach of each other.
"Because if you don't, I won't cooperate with you," Jane said, never breaking eye contact. "I won't do a thing you ask."
Hook seemed to find a black kind of humor in her words and began to laugh, his eyes glinting as he stared down at her.
"I did not bring you here to ask you anything, my dear," he said, putting a sardonic emphasis on the last word and causing her to flinch.
"Then – then why?" she faltered.
Note from the Narrator
At this point in her story Mother would always pause, her forehead creasing as she thought back. Without fail she would shake her head, saying: "I just couldn't understand it..."
It was Hook who stepped closer this time, a dark smile on his face.
"Let's just say that I did you a favor by sending that rabble away. I doubt you'd wish for an audience now, in your last moments."
Jane's wide, terrified eyes slipped from his face to his hand, which was resting on the hilt of his cutlass.
"No..." she whispered, backing away, but again he only smiled.
"You can't have brought me all this way just to – to..." she swallowed, unable to say 'kill me'. It made it seem too real. She could still at this point pass this off as a nightmare.
"On the contrary, I could not dispose of you half so elegantly in your uptight world. People always manage to get involved." He paused and took yet another step, his smile widening.
"But not here. Not where I am King."
Through her terror Jane found a seed of defiance.
"Peter is King," she hissed.
Unfazed Hook tightened his hold on his cutlass. Another step and her back was to the wall.
"He was, but not anymore."
His cold eyes flashed and Jane's shallow breath caught in her throat.
"Times have changed," Hook whispered throatily, dark amusement showing in his gaze as she shrank away from him, "remember?"
"Why go to all this trouble?" Jane asked, hating the note of pleading that had crept unbidden into her voice.
Hook's smile faded and changed into a scowl.
"I have my reasons," he assured her through clenched teeth.
With that he drew his cutlass.
Without thinking Jane dived out of the way, evading the blow that she hadn't even seen coming. Snarling, Hook strode after her and grabbed a handful of material from her dress even as she tried to run.
"I will finish this," he growled, jerking her towards him and raising the point of his weapon to rest against the base of her throat.
Jane was gasping, the loathsome feel of cold metal against her skin sending shivers down her spine. It was nigh on impossible to think of this as the end, she realized, though she was a second away from possible oblivion. Though all it would take was a flick of his wrist to rid her of her life's blood.
How could her life just end? Surely it couldn't. Surely a life could not just stop.
Surely there was some reprieve.
She did not deserve this, that was the worst part. To die like this.
Hook looked at the girl, his hooded eyes lingering on hers. It was normally his favorite part, to see the look in people's eyes just before the end...but she was different.
She'd always been different.
"Any last words?" he asked as he always did, still not taking his eyes away from hers as he pressed the blade more firmly against her skin.
He saw her eyes widen and then narrow, saw something flicker in their depths.
"I hate you," she said slowly and emphatically, "for forcing me to die with hate in my heart."
She hadn't meant to say it, had meant to say something brave and clever, but instead she'd said what was real. What she actually felt.
And it was too late to take it back.
The truth, once begun, cannot be stopped and so she kept talking.
"I was meant to die in bed, old and worn but surrounded by people I loved and who loved me. I deserve that. Instead I die with a bitter heat in my soul, and hate and disgust to comfort me. I die having said nothing of goodbye to my family, and I face my end alone."
Hook had expected her to plead, to beg as the others did. Her reply was the last thing he had anticipated, much less the cold, unflinching honestly of it. Much less the impact it had on him, much as he tried not to let it.
"And I hate that knowing how much you must hate and loathe yourself prevents me from despising you completely," she said after a moment of silence. Her voice shook – she couldn't help it.
Hook closed his eyes, just briefly.
When he opened them they were no longer scarlet.
Back to their icy, haunting blue.
Did he hate himself? He hated others, he knew...and others hated him. But was he an object of his own loathing?
His blade lay still against her throat, its coldness mocking him with its impassivity.
What are you waiting for...it seemed to hiss...
Coward.
His hand, his notoriously steady hand, was trembling. Faltering like his mind.
Why wasn't he moving? Why couldn't he finish her?
For Jane, only a few seconds had gone by; a few agonizing seconds. Another heartbeat and she could be dead. Could he hear her heart, she wondered? It was hammering, thudding against the confines of her chest. One heartbeat more and she could be gone.
Peter, she thought, Peter, I love you.
Another heartbeat.
Johnny, I love you.
Another.
Mother...I'm sorry.
Another.
I love you.
Still her heart beat.
Peter.
Again.
I love you.
Hooks hand curled tightly round the hilt of the blade but still he could not strike. He needed her gone or his plan would bear no fruit, if he didn't end her then everything would come crashing down around him.
So why the hell couldn't he do it?
Jane was still.
Waiting.
For a blow that never came.
Suddenly she felt the blade lift and a sharp push to her shoulder blades, making her stumble forwards.
"Get out," Hook roared, fury clear and savage on his face.
"GET OUT!"
Shakily Jane forced herself to move; she ran, gasping for the breath she'd so nearly been robbed of.
Once she started running, she found she couldn't stop.
