This is for those who have chosen to skip Chapter 31 in Hook to avoid possible triggers in the full chapter. This is a brief summary of what happens in the beginning, then gives you the rest of the chapter.
Hook is 17 years old, almost 18, and he’ll be forced to move out of the school soon. In the beginning of this scene, he talks about the different coping mechanisms he uses to get through his “sessions” with Croc. Then we find out he’s in the middle of one but learn that Hook is baiting Croc for some kind of plan he has. Then Peter accidentally walks in on them and knocks Croc out with the fire extinguisher in his hand.
The following excerpt is the rest of the chapter, as it is in the book:
Pan stares down at the bastard, his eyes wide and filled with confusion. I use his distracted state to put myself—and my clothes—back in order. There’s no fixing my busted face right now, so I just drag my sleeve across my mouth to sop up the excess blood. That’s when I realize there’s a fire extinguisher in Peter’s hand, and it dawns on me what he did. I swing my gaze back to Croc, hoping for a miracle… Nope. Still breathing. I guess an accidental death was too much to ask of the universe.
“What the hell, Hook?” Pan says, finally darting his gaze back and forth between me and Croc. Jealousy stabs me in the gut at the glaring innocence he still has at almost sixteen. Even though I’m the one who afforded him that luxury, it doesn’t make me resent him any less for it.
“Why—” he tries again and then stops.
I see the exact moment it clicks. The moment he realizes that what he does with Wendy can be done other ways, and that it doesn’t have to be consensual. The moment he realizes that my “training” hasn’t been about learning the business after all. He actually turns five shades of green as his brain clicks through all the revelations, which I’m willing to allow. But the second he drops the extinguisher and looks like he’s going to be sick, I pounce.
Jacking him up by his shirt, I slam him against the wall. “Don’t you fucking puke, Pan. You keep that shit locked down, you understand? Lock. It. Down.”
“Yeah.” He nods and swallows hard. “Okay, but—”
“But nothing. You forget what you saw and get the hell out of here. You breathe a word of this to anyone—ever—and I’ll fucking kill you.”
His blue eyes go soft as his brows knit together. “Dude, I would never do that. Like it or not, we’re family. Why do you think I crushed Croc’s skull? He was hurting you somehow—that much I knew—and I couldn’t let him do that.” He shakes his head and steels his jaw. “I never would’ve let him do that. I’m sorry, Hook. I didn’t know.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” I say as I release him and push away.
Pan shoves a hand through his hair and looks down at Croc again. “You’ve been protecting us from this—from him—the whole time, haven’t you?”
Great. The last thing I need is for him to place me on a pedestal I don’t want to be on. “I didn’t do shit, Pan. Don’t go thinking I’m one of the heroes in your stupid fairytales, because that’s not what real life is. I don’t know how his demented mind works, and I don’t fucking care, all right?”
“Yeah, all right.” He blows out a breath. “Shit, he’s gonna kill us for this one.”
“He’s not gonna do a damn thing.”
Pan shoots me an incredulous look. “You think the guy who beats us for fun is going to let me get away with denting his skull?”
“I got it under control. He won’t lay a finger on either of us. Just get the fuck out of here already and forget this ever happened.” When he hesitates as though unsure about leaving me alone with the guy who was violating me five minutes ago, I point to the door. “Go!”
Finally, he listens. As soon as he closes the door behind him, I step over Croc and retrieve the small video recorder from the shelf across from the desk. I stop the recording, check to make sure it captured what I need, then take my first full breath since walking into this storeroom earlier. My insurance policy is intact.
As much as I hate it, when it comes to my revenge, I have to play the long game with Croc. If I take him down now, the school will go under, and the kids will be split up. I won’t know where they are or what kind of homes they end up in. I won’t know what happens to Starkey. I need to keep the kids together at the school until they’re all out while keeping Croc in check at the same time.
Sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. So now that I’m about to move out, I need a way of controlling the situation at the school—one that doesn’t involve him fucking me—and I could only think of one way to do it. By blackmailing the bastard.
It’s not the greatest leverage, but it’s all I’ve got, and so far, everything’s gone according to plan—not including Pan showing up. Earlier, I’d planted the video camera. Then, when I knew Croc’s eyes were on me, I pretended not to see him as I shook out a cigarette from my soft pack and slipped into this storeroom in the back corner of the shop. I’ve been punished for taking a smoke break in here before, which is how I knew he’d be on the warpath as soon as he saw me.
After that, it was just a matter of putting on a good performance. Instead of mentally checking out and being physically complacent, I made sure he looked like the rapist he is. As a bonus, I got him on tape admitting this wasn’t a one-off; that he’d been at this for four years already and planned to continue with younger kids.
Since I don’t have any smelling salts on hand, I go with the slightly more barbaric tactic of kicking Croc in the ribs to wake him up. He comes to, wheezing and curling in on himself.
“Wakey, wakey, asshole. It’s showtime.” I light another cigarette as he attempts to drag air into his lungs.
“I’m gonna make you wish you were never born,” he rasps.
Blowing out a stream of smoke, I grin and stare down at him with my one good eye. “Too late. My mom already beat you to it.” I crouch down next to him, hold up the camera, and hit play. I block out the sounds coming from the tiny speaker, unwilling to relive even a second of it, and instead I watch with satisfaction as his eyes grow wider with every passing second.
“Here’s how this is going to work,” I tell him. “We’re gonna become business associates, you and me. We can call it entering into a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
He growls and makes a grab for the camera, but I yank it away in plenty of time. “Nice try, but that concussion you probably have is making you slow as shit, so you’re better off just listening.”
“What do you want, you little prick?”
Now that I have his undivided attention, I give him my conditions. I tell him I’ll work for him at his shop and otherwise, doing whatever he wants. I promise not to release the video as long as he lets me run my own crew and he doesn’t lay a hand on another kid for as long as he fucking lives. He grudgingly agrees, even as he glares at me like he hopes I drop dead, but neither of us have that much luck. At least this time I’m not the one left behind to lick my wounds. It’s his turn for a fucking change.
Just as I turn to leave, something metallic catches my eye. It’s on the ground under the edge of a shelving unit. Ignoring Croc’s groans behind me, I pick it up and study it. It’s a pewter ring in the shape of a wicked-looking skull. Finders keepers. Taking it with me, I slide it onto my right thumb and smirk. It fits me perfectly and looks just as badass as I feel walking out of the shop. Heading back to the school, power surges through me. I finally won. I bested Croc at his own game, and now I won’t have to worry about him turning his sick shit on one of the other kids after I’m gone.
But the farther away I get from my place of victory, the sense of power starts to dissipate as the usual ones settle over me. Disgust, shame, humiliation. Their weight is suffocating. And now it’s worse because there was a witness. Someone knows. Fucking Pan.
Back in our room, I don’t acknowledge anyone on my way to the bathroom, not even Smee or Starkey. I lock the door behind me, then strip out of my clothes on the way to the shower area, not caring where they land or if they spontaneously catch on fire. Turning the temperature knob in the corner as hot as it will go, I sink to the floor and pull my knees to my chest. I release a shuddering exhale as the scalding water sluices over my body. I imagine it burning away any flesh tainted by Croc, giving way to new skin that will never know his touch.
I don’t even realize I’ve moved my hand until I see the blood running down the tile as I scrape the edge of my thumb on the grout. I don’t know why I do this. It’s become a compulsion, something I can’t stop myself from doing after one of my “sessions.” Maybe it’s the idea that I can focus the pain to one specific point, then watch it leak from my body in watery red rivulets until I go back to feeling numb. Maybe I like the idea of wearing a hole in this grout, making it bigger and more pronounced to match the hole eating away at what’s left of me.
My gaze drops to the ring sitting at the base of my thumb. Sunken black eyes stare back at me over its triangular nasal cavity and toothy smile. Its expression is menacing, like it’s promising pain to anyone who dares cross it. Don’t fuck with me. You’ll regret it.
That’s exactly how I’m going to be from now on. I won’t let this hole inside of me take everything. I’ll make sure there’s just enough to finish the job I started, to make good on my vow for revenge. It won’t happen tomorrow, or next year, or even in the next several years, but it will fucking happen.
In the meantime, I’ll do what Croc expects of me. I’ll work for him; I’ll break the law for him. I’ll become everything he wants me to be—a criminal with no moral code, a man who forgets his past and doesn’t plan his future. Then, when he least expects it, I will turn on him. I’ll bite the hand that feeds me with the ferocity of every dark memory and every gash he ever sliced into my soul. Croc’s fate is sealed. One way or another…
I. Will. End. Him.
