He didn’t speak after that, just stared. I wanted him to say something. Wanted him to touch my cheek, my lips, the clock around my eye. But when he didn’t, I felt my heart deflate.
“We need to go,” he said as he walked past me. I fought back tears as I gathered my makeup from the vanity. I placed my lipstick in my pocket and took hold of Alice’s hair. I closed the door to the motel and stepped into the bright sun, keeping my head down as I walked to the car. Alice’s cracked china face knocked into my leg with each step.
I climbed into the car. As Rabbit pulled out of the car park, I pressed play on the tape player. Just as one of my eighties songs began to play, Rabbit snapped his hand forward and slammed the music to silence. “No music today,” he said coldly, and I felt the icy chill from his dark tone seep into my bones. Even though the hot sun blazed down on my painted pink cheeks, I felt as though I had been plunged into a freezer.
Rabbit made me warm.
He was the only thing that ever did.
I didn’t like this side of Rabbit. He made my heart hurt.
Fighting the tears in my eyes, I took out my lipstick, pulled down the mirror in my visor and began to draw. I circled my lips, and then pulled the lipstick down at the corners.
I sat back and studied my reflection.
Dolly now had a sad face.
I didn’t know if Rabbit saw. He didn’t say anything as we drove along the empty roads. No cars passed us as we chased the sun across the sky. I hugged Alice to my chest, sniffing back my sadness when it became too much for me to take.
As more and more time passed, with Rabbit still not looking my way, I took my blade from the teapot-shaped white purse Rabbit had bought for me. “We’re the Sick Fux,” I whispered, practicing for the kill. “You, the Cheshire Cat, will never smile again . . .” My lip hooked at the corner, proud of what I had said. Suddenly, Rabbit yanked the car to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. I was flung forward, my blade slipping from my hands and landing beside my boots.
“He’s mine,” Rabbit growled, his hands gripping the wheel so tightly I feared it would break.
“W-what?” I whispered, feeling my heart pound as Rabbit’s tattooed neck corded and bulged with venomous veins.
My eyebrows pulled down, and a fire flared in my stomach. I turned, Rabbit’s face only an inch from mine. Gritting my teeth, I met his eyes and said, “I am the champion of Wonderland. Charged with destroying the bad men.” I narrowed my gaze. “The Cheshire Cat is mine.”
A sound like a groan mixed with a vicious snarl poured from Rabbit’s mouth, and I saw his lip flick up at the corner. He shifted in his seat. When I looked down, the bulge in his trousers was back. But he was harder than ever before. The shape of his shaft was visible through his black pants. Rabbit shook his head slowly. He tutted at me. “My sweet little Dolly,” he said quietly . . . menacingly . . . lovingly. “You just tread carefully, pushing me this way.” He raised his left hand, and I felt the tip of the long, sharp-nailed thimble creep up my neck, along my vein. The vein he liked to lick when I was asleep.
The tip of the thimble traveled up my neck and over my chin until it reached my mouth. Rabbit’s eyes flared as he concentrated on my lipstick, a frame to the frown that now curved my bright pink lips. His head tipped to the side, and his eyes followed the path of the lipstick. He sucked in a quick breath. “You will do as I command, little Dolly. I am the White Rabbit. I lead you . . .” His head straightened. “I control you in Wonderland.”
I was breathless, my eyes fluttering slowly to a close, as if his words, his commands, were a string on my heart. Plucking and pulling, holding me in its grip. His thimble traveled downward as his heavy breath played across my face. It traveled down until it ran over the swell of my breasts. Dancing with the top of my corseted blue dress, back and forth . . . back and forth . . .
“You will obey, darlin’,” he ordered curtly, and I shifted on my seat. I cupped myself between my legs and arched toward him; a magnet, a pull of need as my moan traveled into the balmy air. A bird up above caught it and it rode away on its feathered back. I rocked forward and back as Rabbit’s thimble held me in its thrall. “Today, you will stand back and watch.”
“Yes,” I said, breathlessly, passively.
“Today, you will watch your master at work.”
“Yes . . .” My fingers moved faster.
Tingling. Heat. Pressure . . . so much pressure . . . building . . . building . . . building . . .
“Today you will watch me. You will watch the killer you belong to. You will watch as he takes back what he lost to the Cheshire Cat.” He leaned forward, and my mouth parted as a crest, a high wave, began to surge through my body.
“Yes!” I shouted.
“Today,” Rabbit whispered directly into my ear, moving forward until I felt the smoothness of his cravat slip against the tops of my breasts. “Today you will watch your master shred a man. You will watch me stab and cut and bathe in his tarnished blood . . . over and over and over and . . .”
“Yes!” I screamed, my legs parting as I was swept away by bliss, a heat so intense I was incinerated, only to return to a pile of pathetic bones and skin and flesh. “Yes . . .” I slumped against the seat. “Yes . . . Rabbit . . . yes . . .”
The thimble that had stilled on my breasts retreated, but his masterly hand patted my head. I opened my eyes to see black eyes watching me, only a sliver of gray coating their edges. “Good Dolly.”
I smiled. I had pleased my Rabbit.
I caught my breath as Rabbit pulled the car back onto the road. It wasn’t long before we made a right turn to travel down a dirt road. Rabbit stopped at an old wooden house and tucked the car out of sight. Bushes hid us, just like with the Caterpillar. I turned to Rabbit, about to speak, but he held his hand in the air. I slammed my mouth shut and looked through the gap in the bushes. A man came out of the wooden home.
My eyes narrowed—the Cheshire Cat.
Rabbit’s gaze followed him as he walked to a barn at the back of his property. Rabbit reached for his cane and flicked the trigger of his rabbit’s head over and over. The Cheshire Cat disappeared into the barn.
The air thickened around us. “Rabbit?”
“He’s mine,” he hissed, glaring me into submission.
I nodded dutifully. “Yes, Rabbit.”
So vicious a veil of darkness descended over Rabbit’s face that I waited a long second before exiting the car. Rabbit never took his eyes from that barn.
Then we were moving.
I followed Rabbit, Alice in hand, gun tucked into my waist belt, blade in my right hand. As Rabbit picked up speed, so did I.
Then we were at the doors of the barn.
Rabbit stopped. I watched his back as it froze, solid and tense. He rolled his neck from side to side. It cracked, the crunching sound ricocheting off the walls of the wooden barn.
Rabbit split his cane in two, one weapon in each hand. I stayed behind, waiting for him to lead the way. My heart swelled with anticipation.
Rabbit lunged forward and slid the barn doors open. He charged in. I followed behind. But all that greeted us was . . . an empty barn.
Rabbit’s head whipped from side to side. I felt the rage pulsing off him in waves. I scoured the barn, but there was nothing. Rabbit took off, searching the walls. I did too. Then he stopped. I ran to where he crouched and looked down at a door in the floor.
“Another rabbit hole?” I whispered.
Rabbit glanced up at me through his fallen hair. “Not a good one,” he said, and then paused. “Or maybe it is . . .” He smiled a dangerous smile. “It depends. If ripping someone apart can be classed as good . . .”
I smiled, turning my lipstick-painted frown upside down.
“It’s good,” I replied. “Really, very, very good.” I bent down. “Maybe even as good as a strawberry tart.”
Rabbit glanced down, and the smile fell from his lips. He quietly lifted the heavy wood and climbed down the ladd
er underneath. I followed, my palms twitching as the call for blood lured us further down.
When we reached the bottom, a sliver of light shone from the end of a narrow hallway. Rabbit placed his finger over his lips. “Shh,” he whispered. I nodded obediently. My pulse was aflame as I followed Rabbit further down the hole.
Suddenly Rabbit stopped. An ice-cold feeling shot down my spine when I heard a familiar sound seeping from the room at the end of the hallway. My eyes slammed shut.
Echoes of Ellis’s tales of the bad men came back to taunt me . . .
He would take me by my hand and lead me to his room. I would be forced to stand before a bed, Dolly. He would turn me around and touch me between my legs. He would play with me, Dolly . . . and then he would put himself inside me. And I would scream . . . I would scream and scream and scream . . . and I’d want Heathan. I would cry and scream for Heathan . . . over and over and over again . . . but he never stopped . . .
I shook my head, body shivering, as I blinked myself back into the hallway. I was sweating, Ellis’s story making me feel sick . . . making me feel rage . . . making me feel . . . There! That sound. The sound coming from the room . . . it was the same. It sounded the same as Ellis had described, it was—
Rabbit roared and ran forward. He burst into the room. With a shrill cry, I followed. A bare lightbulb hanging above bathed us in brightness as we took in the scene.
The Cheshire Cat . . . the Cheshire Cat over . . . a boy. My body vibrated with rage as I saw a boy, no more than ten, bending over a dirty old cot at the side of the room. His dark, sunken eyes snapped around and fixed on mine.
I heard a whimper from behind me. When I turned, I saw a cage. I took a step forward, my blade readied to draw blood, and I saw a pair of blue eyes. A young girl with long blond hair looked back at me.
“Ellis?” I whispered Her eyes darted behind me . . . so I turned too.
“Guess who?” Rabbit taunted as he grabbed hold of the Cheshire Cat’s hair and yanked him off the boy. The boy fell forward, hands in the dirt, his pants around his ankles. Rabbit spun the Cheshire Cat around and slammed him into the nearest wall.
The little boy ran to the cage. I opened the door. The girl and the boy watched me with huge eyes. “Run. Run, little ones,” I urged. The boy reached inside for the girl, dragging her to her feet. As they ran past, I stood in the girl’s way and asked, “Ellis? Are you Ellis?” My head cocked to the side. I thought she looked familiar, perhaps someone I knew long ago, with her long blond hair and her big blue eyes. She could only have been about ten years old.
She shook her head, folding her arms around her stomach. “She’s called Helena,” the boy said.
“Helena,” I repeated. Such a nice name. “Run.” I smiled and waved my blade. “Unless, of course, you want to see some blood spilled?” I added in excitement. I knew it would be such fun to watch.
The children ran. I laughed. The little ones had no idea what a show they would be missing! “Run, run, little ones. The little kitty-cat is about to purr and purr!”
Spinning, I gripped the Alice doll-head at my side by her hair.
“Impossible,” the kitty-cat hissed at Rabbit, who was holding him by the neck, glaring.
Rabbit ran his blade down the kitty-cat’s face. “Possible.” Then the kitty-cat looked my way.
His eyes squinted. “Ellis? Ellis Earnshaw?” He blinked. “You’re better?”
I shook my head and tapped my skull with my blade. That name cut through me. “Ellis, Ellis, Ellis. Why does everyone keep calling me Ellis?” I walked forward, but stopped when Rabbit turned his furious face to me. I nodded, then peeking from around Rabbit’s shoulder, I said, “What’s new, pussycat?”
Kitty-cat’s eyes widened. I smiled and hummed a teasing tune under my breath. “Poor, poor kitty-cat. My rabid Rabbit has come for you.” I skipped to the edge of the room and sat on the edge one of the tables there. Kitty’s eyes tracked me the entire way. “Naughty, naughty kitty—time to pay the price.”
“What the fuck?” Kitty-cat asked, just as Rabbit lifted his blade and sliced it across his mouth. Kitty screamed. I giggled, clapping my hands. Rabbit grabbed Kitty’s hair and wrenched him back up. Kitty’s flesh was cut, his cheeks. I screwed my eyes up to see better, and I suddenly realized what Rabbit had done.
“The Cheshire Cat!” I danced my bottom on the table in happiness. “You gave him a smile, Rabbit, a wide Cheshire Cat smile!”
But my happiness evaporated when I looked to the wall behind me and saw lots and lots of pictures. I jumped up as Rabbit dragged Kitty to a table in the corner of the room. Rabbit grabbed some ropes that were hanging on the wall beside him.
I focused my attention on the pictures. I didn’t like them. In fact, I hated them. Hated them so much I shook my head and closed my eyes to block out the images. “Rabbit!” I shouted as a sob escaped my throat.
I felt him beside me in moments. When I looked around, I saw Kitty tied to the table by the rope. I pointed to the wall. “The pictures, Rabbit.”
Rabbit faced the wall and studied the nasty pictures. I saw him squirm at the sight of the Cheshire Cat putting himself inside all the children of Wonderland, defenseless girls and helpless boys. He looked at them crying, screaming . . . and bad Kitty just laughing. Laughing, laughing for the camera . . . nasty, smiling Cheshire Cat.
A harsh cry thundered from Rabbit’s throat. Slowly, he put his cane back together. He rested it against the table I had been sitting at. I sat on a seat next to it. I looked on, blinking the sad tears from my eyes, as Rabbit unbuttoned his coat and slipped it from his shoulders. He placed it carefully on the table beside me. He undid his cufflinks and rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. He reached for his cane once more and walked over to naughty Kitty, who was staring at him with big eyes.
I didn’t like those eyes.
“Dolly darlin’,” Rabbit said as he stood behind the kitty.
“Yes, Rabbit?”
“Come here.”
I stood up from the chair and skipped over to my Rabbit. I looked up at him, waiting for him to speak. Rabbit ran his lips over his teeth, then ordered, “Pull his pants down.”
Kitty made a sound in his throat. But he didn’t speak. I wasn’t sure he could now that Rabbit had given him such a pretty smile—new, bloody, and wide. I looked at the Kitty’s trousers. They were already open from when he had bent over the little boy.
I walked behind him and pulled down his black slacks. They fell to the floor and pooled at his ankles. My hands covered my mouth as a laugh escaped me. I shook my head and stuck out my tongue in disgust. “Eww!” I said as I stared at his ugly, hairy bottom and the limp shaft hanging between his legs.
I looked at Rabbit, and my hands fell from my mouth. My stomach turned and my heart sank at the look on Rabbit’s face as he stared at Kitty’s bare bottom. His hand tightened on his cane.
“Take it, boy,” Rabbit said, so low that I almost didn’t catch it. But naughty Kitty did. His face went white. Rabbit lifted his cane and unsheathed his blade and gun. “Suck it, boy.” He began to circle Kitty. My stomach swam. But I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t take my eyes from Rabbit’s face. I wasn’t laughing anymore.
He was hurting.
My Rabbit . . . he was hurting so badly.
My Rabbit was feeling intense pain.
“Feel my cock.” Rabbit lifted his blade into the air. He studied the blade as his rough voice got even rougher . . . as it began to break. His hand shook. “Take my big fat cock, little boy,” he said, choking on the words.
Then he stopped dead. He closed his eyes, and in a high voice, like a child’s, he called out, “Don’t touch me. No one touches me but Dolly . . .” He hissed, and then cried out as if he was in agony. “You made it so I can’t be touched . . . I CAN’T FUCKING BE TOUCHED!” Rabbit spun around, blade held high, and sliced down hard between Kitty’s legs. The Cheshire Cat howled as his shaft dropped from between his legs to the floor.
> But Rabbit wasn’t done. As though nothing had just happened, Rabbit began to pace back and forth. “Your scent. Your touch. Your fingers. Your cock. Your cum. Your fucking spit. Your fucking breath! Your breath on my face, on my neck, my body, my dick . . . all fucking over me!” Rabbit slashed and slashed again at Kitty’s back. Kitty screamed, but it was drowned out by Rabbit’s roars.
Rabbit lurched forward and cut the ropes that held Kitty down. Rabbit grabbed him by the neck and threw him down hard to the dirt-strewn floor. Rabbit glanced around the room. He darted to the back of the cellar and grabbed something in his hand. As he came back into the light, I saw it was a big spade. Rabbit turned and dropped on top of Kitty, one leg on either side of his torso. He glared at Kitty and held up the spade in his hands. He rose on one knee. Gripping the spade tightly, he slammed it down over his strong thigh. The spade snapped in two, leaving a long stick, jagged and sharp. Rabbit threw the half with the metal to the side. I watched it skid past me as I sat on the table, entranced by the master at work.
He was magnificent.
“You took me when I was a kid,” he hissed and held the stick in the air. Kitty stared, eyes wide, waiting for the inevitable. He tried to speak, but his cheeks flapped too much. Blood from his back leaked into the dirt beneath him. But my Rabbit wasn’t done. His wide back was taut, his shirt and vest pulled tight. My heart beat so fast.
My Rabbit was so handsome.
My Rabbit was such a beautiful, pretty, pretty killer.
“You fucked me. Fucked me so hard I couldn’t walk.” Rabbit’s head tipped back. I couldn’t see his face, but I imagined his eyes were closed. Imagined his red lips pulled over his teeth. Imagined his black hair fallen over his eyes.
I squirmed on the table.
My Rabbit was formidable.
Rabbit crouched down and ran the edge of the stick down Kitty’s face. Kitty tried to scream, but he choked on his blood. Rabbit sliced down Kitty’s chest and stomach with the sharp end of the stick.