my spine. “Why do you want to know this? I can’t understand why you’d want this in your head, especially after the last few days and what you know, after last night.”
“I have to know, Callan. Thoughts of him keep popping up. I don’t want them to, and yet they do. I’m tired of it. I just want to know why. He never mentioned anything about leaving, not even on his hardest days.”
“Does it really matter at this point? He’s gone—he has been.”
“It doesn’t matter, no, but I need the closure. My mind will never put it to rest, will never stop with these incessant comparisons if there isn’t a logical explanation. It just doesn’t make sense.” I pray to whatever deity might hear me that this won’t shatter what Callan and I have built these last few days.
He continues pacing as if contemplating how to answer, a prospect that worries me, when finally, he sighs and turns toward me once more. “It does if you consider he might’ve been hiding something in the first place.”
My head rears back just slightly. “Peter and I didn’t have any secrets. He knew everything about me and I knew everything about him.”
His head cocks to the side. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
Hook nods dubiously, stare pinning me in place. “So you mean to tell me you knew you were fucking your brother the whole time?”
Silence.
I’ve felt this before—the world around me stopping from one moment to the next.
This time, though, it doesn’t just stop turning. It literally screeches to such an abrupt halt, everything around me feels like it crashes on impact, crumbling away into nothingness.
He didn’t just…No, there’s no way. I have to be hearing things...
“What did you just say?” I’m practically panting, every single hair on my body standing at attention.
My stomach roils in protest, too.
Callan nods again and begins taking precise steps toward me. “Peter’s your brother, Tinksley. Your half brother.”
“You’re lying,” I grit, barely swallowing past the lump of bile now lodged in my throat.
“Why would I lie about something like that?”
“I-I…That’s not possible. My mother doesn’t have any other children.”
“That’s because he’s not your mother’s. He’s your father’s.”
No.
“Again, not possible. My parents have been together for—”
“For a long time? Yes. Their love story is one of Rosewood’s greatest tales.”
“Exactly, so how could Peter be my father’s then?” There’s no way, there’s just no way…
Callan comes to sit beside me, exhaling another hesitant, trying breath. Very gently, he takes my hand, lacing our fingers together. That electricity, the burn that always passes between us when he touches me, it’s there—but no part of it is enjoyable in this moment. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“Years before you were born, your father and his men ventured out into the human realm. While he was there, he met a mortal. One thing led to another and about a month after he returned, a coven of witches sent the Sacred Six a message. That message was to be passed to your father. Not that he did anything about it. I guess with Peter’s mother being so far, he assumed he’d never hear from her again. I’m sure he also assumed because she was a mortal, nothing could possibly result from their little rendezvous. I’m sure you can imagine his panic when the witches alerted him he was to be a father.”
“He was to be a father.”
A father to a child who wasn’t meant to exist.
“How did Peter end up here then?” I still don’t want to believe any of this is true, and not for my father’s sake, but how could Hook have fabricated a story of this nature? One so detailed.
So vile.
He’s your brother, Tinksley.
I nearly gag as the words slam into me again.
“He didn’t for some time. Those same witches who sent the message kept an eye on little Peter over the years. Knowing he was of supernatural descent, they wanted to ensure their world was safe. And it was, at first, until he started growing older and his temper grew harder to control. There was only one thing that kept him grounded.”
“And what was that?” I whisper.
“A girl. A girl named Wendy Darlington.”
♫ It Will Rain - Bruno Mars ♫
“Wendy?” The name leaves her mouth in another whisper, as if she’s savoring it, yet disgusted by it in the same hand.
The color drained from her face the moment I blurted those three little words, but she grows more pale by the second. A sickly pale at that, tinged with green