It was just as fanciful as the hook it was based on, maybe, but it dreamt of very different things.
That’s what he was. If the versions of Captain Hook she had seen before in her life were the versions that lived in a dream, what she saw in front of her was thenightmare.
Hook walked past her without even looking at her, eyes locked on Peter Pan. “Shall we dispense with the pleasantries,old friend,and simply jump to the conclusion?”
Nervously, Peter took a step back—clearly afraid of Captain Hook in open combat. This wasn’t the cocky, laughing cartoon, always certain he’d get the one-up on his foe.
Hook leveled his rapier at Pan. “Stand and fight. Or, run. Like you always do.”
Peter flinched. “Because you don’t fightfair.”
Hook laughed, a sound that sent a shiver down her spine. “You accusemeof fighting with bad form? Pah! You merely wish tocomplain that I fight with this.” He lifted the hook. “Whose fault is it that I wield a blade with my off-hand these days, boy?”
Someone came crashing out of the overgrowth, looking like a baby deer who hadn’t figured out how to use their legs yet. She was wearing a blue cotton dress. Sasha knew her face on sight.
She’d have to. It was her own face too, after all.“Sid!”Her legs were moving before she realized she had even started running toward her sister.
“Sasha!” Sidney started running toward her in return.
Sasha almost collided with her in the middle of what had just been a bloodbath, ignoring the dead bodies and puddles of gore as she hugged her sister desperately.
Sidney was already weeping into her shoulder. “I’m so scared, I was so scared, I still am—I, oh god, Sash, this guy—your guy, we have to warn you—are you okay? Did he hurt you? What’shappening?”Sidney was babbling.
Not like Sasha could blame her. She felt exactly the same way. “I don’t know, I really don’t—” She clutched Sidney close, relief washing over her. Well, no. Relief was the wrong word. “I was really hoping none of this was real…”
Sidney sniffled and lifted her head, wiping her tears. “Ditto. Maybe it’s still drugs?”
“Maybe.” But she was very much starting to believe it wasn’t. “I?—”
“You’re bothruiningthe sceeeene.”Hook whined through a long sigh. But it wasn’t with the voice he’d been using before. That was with Vile’s voice.
Oh. Now she was starting to get it.
“Let us go!” Turning, she kept her body between the Captain Hook she surmised was actuallyVile, and her twin. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you dragherinto this now?”
“First of all, I have nothing to do with your sister being here.” Captain Hook rolled his eyes. His voice was still that of Vile’s, however. His whole demeanor changed. Like an actor playing a role, the posture of Hook became more relaxed. More debonair. More likeVileand less the pirate captain. Sasha saw one of his eyes glow an eerie shade of purple.
“That’s a lie, and you know it.” Peter Pan was standing beside them, rapier still held high. His voice had now changed as well, though Sasha didn’t recognize it. She assumed it was now whoever Vile’s counterpart was. “You abducted Sasha first.”
Hook-Vile, or whatever he was, took a step forward. His shape shimmered, and like a mirage, the form of Captain Hook was gone, and the no less bizarre form of Vile remained. “That’s a technicality and you know it.”
And like a dream, the world around them fell away with it. Soon, they were standing in a library—the library Sasha had woken up in.
Sidney clung to her. Their clothes had changed. Sasha was no longer the pirate Mr. Smee, and Sidney was wearing what Sasha assumed her twin had been wearing before falling into the other book.
The man who had been Peter Pan was now who she assumed was Vile’s “brother.” And just like Sasha and Sidney, they were twins…kind of.
More like mirrored images of each other. Exact copies, but inverted. One light, one dark. One golden-yellow, one purple. One tanned, one pale. One good, one…evil.?*
“Dang,” Sasha muttered, and lost the fight to not stare at Vile’s sunnier twin. She might not like to date, but that didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate a handsome man when she saw one. And the one she was looking at could stop traffic.
“Right?” Sidney muttered back. “Scenery’s nice.”
“Can you two focus forone moment?”Vile rolled his eyes as he stormed away from them. “We are all quite well aware that Virtue over here is the shining example of all things handsome andprincely.It’s the whole damnablepointof hisexistence!”
“He’s just jealous he’s the unlovable one.”Virtue smiled at them both with a sad, sympathetic air. “You have to be patient with him. Being the monster can be hard for him sometimes.”
Vile growled in abject rage. His form seemed to—there wasn’t a good word for it besidesmelt.His humanity leaked away as his anger seemed to take over. Darkness overcame half his body, as though drawn on by some invisible force. It began to spread onto the world around him, up the bookshelves and onto the table. Just like the tendrils that had come from the book.“Do not speak of me as if I am some kind of child, you blundering half-wit.”
