I violently shake my head no, which only earns me an evil smile as my heart breaks into a million pieces.

“So, you do remember?”

My eyes plead with his as he studies me in the dim light.

I try to take a step back but stop when I hear footsteps behind me. The lost boys are coming closer. I stayed away all these years in fear. To get to the end of this, to finally make him understand, I can’t live in fear of what I’ve always dreaded most. Not any longer.

“You have no clue what that does to a man, Darling,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “Losing you. All those years. Knowing. Watching.” Watching? “Understanding that what I once believed, what I once,” he pauses and my heart stops, “loved,” it comes out barely as a whisper, his face full of pain as it leaves his lips, “was only a joke. Make-believe. Fucking pretend.”

He pulls on the ropes around my middle, tugging me towards him. I feel the cold prick of metal against my neck a moment later and suck in a sharp breath.

His hook.

“I wasn’t fucking pretending, Wendy,” he whispers so softly I blink, struggling to understand what I’m hearing. It’s a confession only meant for the two of us, and my heart races trying to understand why. Raising his hook, he slides it between the gag around my mouth and my skin. I feel it pierce my cheek and feel the sting of it gently scratching through my flesh as he lowers the constraint finally from my lips. His eyes trace the fabric as it falls. An eerie silence falls between us as he licks his lips and, in my mind, I repeat the words he just told me.

Before he can say anything, I pull from my own truth, gather as much strength as I can to face my fear head-on, take a deep breath and blurt out, “I was never pretending, Pan.”

Hushed murmurs sound behind me as his eyes flash up to meet mine. I didn’t call him Peter. But I refuse to call him Hook. For once, he’s going to listen to me. Even if that means it costs me what I’ve always feared most. And even if I eventually have to tell him the truth, I know he’s not ready to hear. One he may never be ready to hear.

His nostrils flare, but the darkness in those once beautiful eyes lifts momentarily, giving me a gateway to his soul, and so I go on.