A Losing Battle {The Land of Ecstasy: Book Three}

Chapter 2

Cal

        I stood on the bow of the Jolly Roger, staring out into the water that surrounded Neverland. I could see a small boat in the distance with a boy hovering over it. A tear slipped down my cheek. Knowing about Bix's conflict with the mermaids, it didn't take a genius to know what my depressed best friend had done. My only salvation in that moment was knowing that Bix would not have to suffer the coming war, that he would not have to fight the people he had come to love so much. Truthfully, I had always known that Bix would not have the stomach to fight the lost boys that would take my side, nor the wisdom to be able to see the truth about Peter, one I had known long before Max's confirmation. 

        I looked back at the ship. It was only just after Max's death that I came onto he ship in peace. I explained to the pirates that had once been my enemies that I had long known the truth about their origins as lost boys, and I wanted to support their mission to leave Neverland forever, return home from this well-crafted prison Peter has disguised as a paradise.

       The pirates chose to trust me, and told me something even Peter did not know. They told me that their captain has been old and ill for a long time, and he is on the brink of death with no determined successor. Then, they told me something I did not know, but Peter surely did. They told me that Captain Hook had been the first lost boy, and had cared for Peter deeply. Then, one night, Peter had tried to have a one on one conversation with Hook, explaining that he didn't think Hook belonged with the lost boys, and had tried to kill him. Hook had run away, taken in by the merpeople, who showed him a hidden ship. Hook renovated it, creating the Jolly Roger, which he named after his father he longed to return to. Eventually, he and Peter fought again, which resulted in his hand being lost to the crocodile. Hook had taken in every lost boy who found that Peter did not treat them well, and eventually gained a massive crew. Hook had never reconciled with Peter, and they had fought ever since.

          When the pirates had finished telling me Captain Hook's story, they took me to see him. I explained my master plan to him, of me remaining with the lost boys and spying on Peter, of me making sure that once our world inevitably fell to war, most, if not all, of the lost boys would join the pirates. Hook was beyond pleased, and, in his dying moment, named me the new Captain of the Jolly Roger.