Closing my eyes, I talked myself into doing as she asked. I felt Dolly’s legs shift and open under me. I groaned when her fingers wrapped around my cock. I opened my eyes and tore them away from the vein in her neck. Instead I looked into her eyes. I kept my focus on them as she placed me at her entrance.
Dolly nodded. She was giving me permission. Dolly was giving her permission . . . to me. To us. To tonight.
I pushed forward, arms braced on either side of her head. I slowly entered her, inch by inch. Dolly’s hands landed on my back. But instead of clawing, she ran her fingertips up and down, bringing bumps to my skin. Dolly moaned when I filled her. I froze above her, panting as I refrained from doing what my inner demon demanded I do.
“Rabbit,” she breathed, eyes fluttering closed as I began to move. I slowly rocked into her. Gentle motions. It wasn’t long before the need to take her roughly disappeared. As I studied her face, I stared at her lips parting slightly. At the flush on her cheeks and the pleasure in her eyes. I knew that I could stay here forever, just watching her pretty face lost to my touch. Feeling her hands on my back. Feeling her hands as they traveled up my side until they landed on my cheeks. “Rabbit,” Dolly mouthed, no sound coming from her throat.
I had no choice but to kiss her.
So I did.
I pressed my lips over hers as my hips moved faster. But the gentleness continued. Sweat broke out on my body as I took her in the balmy night. Dolly’s breathing grew labored, and I felt her pussy begin to clench. I groaned against her mouth, my tongue sliding against hers. I swallowed Dolly’s moans and she swallowed mine as we built to a high. My hands hooked under her shoulders as pressure built at the base of my spine. My thighs grew tight. My chest was flush against Dolly’s, my lips fused to hers.
“Rabbit,” she whispered against my mouth. I felt her pussy contract, and Dolly’s mouth broke from mine and her head tipped back. She cried out in pleasure, the sound and feel of being inside her carrying me with her. I groaned, eyes closed, as I came inside her. Our bodies were slick with sweat, arms wrapped around each other.
I breathed hard as I came down, my head tucked into her neck.
Dolly stroked my hair, her short, shaky breaths warming my skin.
I opened my eyes. I blinked into darkness, and then slowly lifted my head into the night. Dolly’s eyes met mine. I felt a pain in my chest. The pain of knowing I could never live without her. Dolly was as much a part of me as my blood and beating heart. And I part of her.
I recalled what Chapel said to me.
My nerves returned. When I saw a smile pull on her lips, I opened my mouth and let the words spill out. “I love you.”
There wasn’t a part of Dolly that didn’t tense. I froze, and then fucking broke apart as tears filled Dolly’s eyes and fell down her cheeks. “Rabbit . . .” she said in a hushed voice. “I love you too.”
My nose flared at her words. I thought of all the kills I’d made. Of her blood that I had consumed, and all the times we had fucked . . . then the one time we had made love.
Nothing compared.
Nothing compared to my little Dolly, beneath me, telling me she loved me too. Dolly placed her hands on my cheeks and looked into my eyes. “Heathan James, you have eaten my heart and drunk my soul. I am yours. I have been consumed by you . . . happily.”
I blinked, sure she hadn’t noticed what she had called me. Heathan James . . . She had called me by my real name. My Dolly, my Ellis. Two very different personalities sharing the same body.
I loved them both.
Minutes passed. We kissed. Then I rolled us to the side. Dolly laid her head against my chest, staring up at the stars as her boombox continued playing all her favorite songs. Dolly’s hand traced up and down my chest. I played with her long blond hair.
“We only have one more left,” Dolly said, breaking the silence.
My hand stilled in her hair. “Yeah.”
“The King of Hearts.”
“Yeah.”
Dolly didn’t look up at me. “Then what, Rabbit? After we destroy the final bad man and free Ellis, what comes after?”
My eyebrows pulled down. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I never planned beyond the final kill.” Not beyond our getaway, anyway.
I was lost in thought when Dolly suggested, “A tea party, I think.” I smiled. “We shall celebrate with a tea party, with all the buttered crumpets one could ever eat!” She sighed happily. “Yes. A tea party we shall have. We can decide what to do after that.” She giggled, and my heart stopped for a second at the sound. “A nice cup of Earl Grey. Everything is solved by sharing a pot of Earl Grey.”
I smiled and ran my fingers through her hair again. I closed my eyes, inhaled her rose scent, and agreed, “Only Earl Grey will ever do.”
Chapter 16
The King of Hearts
Rabbit
I watched from the bed as Dolly applied her makeup. Needing to feel her again, I walked over to where she sat. She smiled at me in the mirror as she applied blue shadow to her eyes. I picked her up and sat down on the stool. Dolly yelped as I placed her back down on my lap.
It was all part of her game. I’d done this every day since the night at the field. Since the night I couldn’t keep my hands off her.
Dolly picked up her blusher and started to brush pink onto her cheeks. I rested my chin on her shoulder and simply watched her. Moving her hair out of the way, baring her neck, I kissed at her skin. I flicked my eyes up to her reflection. Her hand had paused midair and her eyelids had become hooded.
We were in Laredo now. The final place on my map, home to the King of Hearts—Dolly’s papa. The mastermind behind the ring of rapists. The man who bet his daughter’s pussy. Gave it away to whoever won a round of poker.
I closed my eyes, inhaling the rose scent from Dolly’s skin. When I opened them again, she was finishing off her lipstick. She lowered the lipstick to the table and, sighing, lay back against my chest. My arms wrapped around her waist. I held her close. I ran my nose down her cheek.
“Mmm,” she murmured and closed her eyes. Her hands covered mine at her waist. Her fingers ran over my skin. When I pulled back, I met her open eyes in the mirror. I played with the ribbon around her neck, the one that held the vial which read “Drink Me.” It had been filled since the night at the Jabberwock’s home.
My blood once again hung around her neck.
“We have to go,” I said. Dolly nodded. We had been in a cabin Chapel had organized for us. It was another one of his homes. Now that the police were after us, now that our faces were splashed all over the news, we couldn’t risk motels.
We couldn’t risk traveling during daylight.
“The Sick Fux,” the news claimed, “are highly dangerous.” The Texas Rangers had declared a manhunt. A reward had been offered for our arrest.
It was never gonna happen.
I wouldn’t live without Dolly.
She wouldn’t survive without me.
Dolly placed all of her makeup in her bag on the vanity. “Ready,” she sang. I lifted her up and placed her feet on the ground. I righted my cravat in the mirror and took my jacket from the bed. I buttoned it up and picked up my cane from where it leaned against the dresser.
When I turned around, Dolly was holding her crown. She was stroking the “jewels,” as she called them. In reality, they were inexpensive colored stones.
Seeing how happy she was, just looking at that damn crown, made my black heart melt. I walked to her and stopped a few inches away. Dolly looked up and cast me a huge smile. I took the crown from her hands and placed it on her head.
Dolly stilled as I did so. She touched the crown, and her searching eyes tried to read my face. “A queen is never seen in public without her crown,” I said. Tonight was the first time we had been out in the world since we defeated the Jabberwock.
“Queens are not seen without their crowns.” She nodded. She turned to look at herself in the mirror. “So beautiful . . .??
? she murmured, never taking her attention off the sparkling crown.
I thought exactly the same thing, though I wasn’t looking at the crown, only her.
Always her.
I held out my hand. “Let’s go.”
Dolly placed her hand in mine and I led her outside. We walked past the Mustang that had seen us through the slaughter of the “bad men.” Dolly’s hand came out and stroked along the door. “Bye-bye, Mustang,” she sang as we left it behind.
I unlocked the garage at the end of the property. When the wooden doors opened, Dolly gasped and stared at the large black truck that awaited us.
“It’s huge!” She rushed forward to brush her hand over its hood. “And so shiny!”
I passed by her and opened the door. I bowed in her direction. “Your carriage awaits, Your Majesty.”
A loud giggle burst from her throat. Slipping her hand in mine, she nodded her head regally and said, “Why thank you, kind sir.”
I lifted Dolly up to the seat and shut the door. I put her makeup bag in the back of the truck with the rest of our things. I grabbed the boombox and jumped into the driver’s seat; the truck was too new to have a cassette port. Dolly took the boombox from me and pressed play. She danced as I pulled out of the garage and onto the dirt road that led us out of the property.
I killed the lights, eyes focused on the dark as I led us toward our final destination. The drive was quiet but for the music. I stopped outside of the property lines, hiding the truck from sight behind an old barn.
I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. But if we got out, I wanted to make sure we had the truck ready.
Out of all of the bad men, Earnshaw was the only one the PI couldn’t get much on. He never left his home. Hadn’t left in two years. As far as the PI knew, he had no guards. There was no sign of a housekeeper. Just an occasional delivery man. The PI didn’t know what he was delivering.
I wasn’t surprised. Earnshaw was always the smart one. The creator of the fucked-up life he and the uncles led. The chess player moving us all around, his fucking pawns. He had never touched me. I didn’t know if he had touched Dolly. She had never mentioned him in her conversations with Ellis.
But I knew he had touched all those kids I saw being brought in at night. Delivered in trucks, for God’s sake. My blood ran cold as I wondered if that was what was being delivered to his door. More kids from foster homes. Carers paid off with thousands of dollars taking kids to be raped.
“Rabbit?” Dolly’s voice dragged me from my fucked-up thoughts. “Are you ready?”
I nodded, staring at her in her blue dress, striped socks and the crown on her head. Her makeup was impeccable. Then I looked at the scars on her arms. The ones she gave herself when she had begun to go insane. The ones she inflicted on herself because of what he let happen. When he had sent me to that hell, the Water Tower. Endless days in darkness, devoid of Dolly.
My blood began to boil, like a kettle bubbling with rising heat. He had been responsible for all of this. He had been the one to take me into that fucking office and ply me with whiskey. Got me so drunk, day after day, for the Cheshire Cat to fuck me. To hold me down and fuck me hard.
He had been the one to take Dolly on her tenth birthday and give her to the Jabberwock. The man responsible for so much hurt over so many years that her mind had blocked out her life, retreating into the world of a zombie. A shell of the little girl who liked to sing and dance, and hold imaginary tea parties with me.
The boy she loved . . . who was sent away for killing one of them.
That fucker had deserved to die.
“Rabbit?” Dolly asked again.
Nodding, I exited the truck. I kept my cane close. I walked to Dolly’s door and lifted her out onto the long grass. The night was humid and sticky. Dolly held her doll’s head in her left hand. Her knife and gun were tucked into her waist belt.
Dolly slipped her hand into mine. I stared at our intertwined fingers. We always walked this way now. Ever since the night at the field, she never let me go. I had only taken her that way once since. It wasn’t in me to be . . . romantic. I needed more. Needed the blood. The fight.
Dolly needed that too. But she also needed me to be soft with her. Gentle. To keep her by my side, to have her happy after so many years of being lost, it was a sacrifice I could make.
The house had only just come into sight when I pulled us to halt. Turning to Dolly, I said, “I don’t know what’s waiting for us in there.” I stroked her cheek over the blush she’d so expertly applied to her porcelain skin. I drank in her huge blue eyes, committing them to memory . . . just in case.
“Rabbit?” she whispered and lifted to her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. “You look sad.”
I thought about it. Sadness. Shaking my head, I pushed the truth of her statement away and said, “I don’t know what will happen in there, Dolly darlin’.”
She blinked, long false lashes brushing the tops of her cheeks. She looked down, then back up at me. She swallowed, like she understood what I was saying. “It could be dangerous,” she ventured.
I nodded, touching her face again. I ran my fingers down her cheek, her neck and down her arms. I squeezed her hand still joined in mine. “He knows we’re coming,” I said and saw Dolly hanging on my every word. “He will have seen us on the news. He will know that we have killed his friends.” I paused when Dolly took a deep breath. “He will be expecting us.”
“It will be dangerous.” This time there was greater certainty in her tone. When her eyes fell and she held my hand just that little bit tighter, I knew she understood perfectly.
We might not come out of this alive.
But he had to be destroyed. It was the penance he had to pay for all the years of pain he had put us through. For all the years he had kept us apart.
“He has to die,” Dolly said, as if she had heard my thoughts. I nodded and saw a sheen of tears in her eyes. She looked away, wiped her eye, then said, “Ellis must be freed . . . even if Dolly and Rabbit must die.”
“Yeah,” I rasped, trying and failing to imagine a world without her in it.
“Rabbit?” she asked. I lifted my chin. “Where does one go when one dies in Wonderland?”
I smirked, seeing the surge of hope in her face. “To the best part,” I said. “Bright skies. Green fields . . . and lots and lots of tea parties.”
Her face lit up. “With Earl Grey tea, buttered crumpets and strawberry tarts?”
“Of course,” I confirmed. Leaning down, I kissed her lips, and then whispered against them, “Only Earl Grey will ever do.”
I went to pull away, needing to go and face the cunt, to escape the thought of losing Dolly, but she tugged on my arm. She sniffed back a tear. “I love you, Rabbit.” A smile ghosted on her lips. “Maybe even more than Earl Grey tea.”
My heart fucking cracked. “I love you too.” My voice was rough, resonating through my insides. Edging closer, I kissed the back of her hand. “But there is nothing to compare it to, because I have never loved anything else. It has always been you. Only ever you.”
“Rabbit . . .” Dolly whispered, wrapping her arms around my waist. She held on for a few moments, and then she pulled back. Tucking her doll’s head into her belt by its hair, she took her gun in hand. She held it up, slipped her other hand in mine and said, “We’re going to be late.”
On we walked, my cane at the ready. Dolly held her gun up as we approached the dark house. We scoured the ground, waiting for any sign of movement, of threat . . . There was none.
We reached the front door. It was unlocked. We entered the large foyer. It was as deserted as the grounds. Dolly’s hand held mine tight as we searched the rooms. Each one was empty.
A lone door stood at the end of the hallway. We stood before it. Dolly looked to me and cast me a small smile.
A second later I had opened the door. I held my cane up, Dolly readied her gun . . . and sitting before us was large desk, identical to the one in the office of the Earnsha
w estate.
And behind that desk was Earnshaw.
He was dressed in a suit. His hair was white where it had once been dark. He was thin where he had once been built . . . and there were two tanks next to him; clear plastic tubes led from one to his nose.
His eyes locked on us, a stand-off.
A handgun lay on his desk, nothing else. Two chairs were positioned opposite him. I darted my eyes around the room.
“Heathan James. I have been expecting you.”
I felt Dolly freeze. I heard her breath stutter into short, quick pants. The King of Hearts looked at her. His face melted, a look of pure adoration gracing his sallow features. “Ellis . . .” he breathed. Tears seemed to build in his eyes. “You look beautiful.” Dolly’s hand began to shake in mine.
“Take a seat.” He gestured with a weak hand to the empty chairs opposite him. My eyes narrowed, waiting for someone to leap out and attack. I expected him to pick up the gun and fire. But his hands lowered unsteadily to his lap, the tubes coming from them tapping on the wooden top.
I took a hesitant step into the office, then another, keeping Dolly behind me in case this was a trap. I expected nothing less. He was smart. Calculated.
I was too.
“Please,” he said, his once deep, commanding voice weak and strained. I sat down. Rather than have Dolly sit on her own, to face the man who should have loved her more than life itself, I pulled her down onto my lap. I kept my cane at my side, ready to fire when the time came. I eyed Dolly’s gun. She had it braced for action.
Then I studied Earnshaw. Bags of medicine hung at his side on metal poles. His skin was pale, and he wheezed when he breathed.