Fuck it. Maybe I am on a rampage. Maybe I will end my first mate after all and unleash hell on my men. All for a past I can’t change and a future I’m screwing up more and more with each second that passes. Just the thought of Wendy makes me fucking destructive. Crazy. Psychotic with the knowledge that she’s here, just a few steps away, and I still don’t know how to get back what I lost. What we lost. It’s killing me after all this time to have her so close and yet, so far away.

Subconsciously, my eyes lift to the top deck, catching a light on in my master’s quarters. Without me realizing, my grip on John’s throat starts to loosen. I’m instantly drawn to her, like I’ve always been. I release my grip on John’s throat without thinking. Taking a step back, I hear him cough, suck in air, desperate to reclaim his life that was, seconds ago, slipping through my fingers. I, however, only have eyes for her as I watch shadows move in my upstairs quarters.

Shoving him out of my grip, I turn to leave, hell-bent on putting her behind me. But when he sucks in a deep breath, his words pierce through any solace I was going to find by letting myself go balls deep in Tiger Lily tonight.

“I do,” he finally grits out. “I say you fucked it up.”

Turning back around slowly, I watch him push off the wall and stalk past me, rubbing his neck, still trying to regain his breath. I notice the look in his eyes as he passes and against my better judgment, I stand down. It’s the look of death. Death for any man that crosses him right now, although I know I can take John in any fight, I respect Wendy and what we had too much to do so.

Normally, I’d kill any man that spoke to me that way. But hell, I regard Smee higher than any man who has ever served on my ship. For that I let him pass. What’s more, beyond the respect I have for John and Wendy, I’m also paralyzed by the truth. Because damn it, he’s right. He turns back to look at me just as my eyes lift once again and catch her shadow in the window overhead.

“She may be a traitor, but she’s my sister first,” he hisses. “You’ve had seventeen years to fix this, Hook. I stood by your side because I couldn’t bear the thought of going home. As long as I was here, she might come back, and you might finally fix a chance you screwed up with a girl you sure as shit never deserved.”