by Lanie Olson
She’s the price to be paid to restore Wonderland to order, and I will have my due before I watch the life slip from her thieving eyes.
We’ve been staring each other in equal defiance for about ten minutes, neither of us having given a word to the other. Not in anger, in greeting—in anything. We’re locked in a silent war of dominance and I know that this little bitch will crumble soon.
“Where is he?” she finally asks in a low, even tone.
I give her a smug look, as I cross my arms loosely over my chest.
“Where I please,” I snap at her.
Alice looks away for a moment, before turning her eyes back to mine. “If I give you The Fear, will you let Ever go?”
“I might,” I muse, tapping my chin thoughtfully. “But of course, you’ll have to show me that you have it.”
She looks at me through narrowed eyes, before she sighs heavily and reaches into the waistband of her pants. I suck in my breath as she pulls out a small locket with a beating black heart encased in the thick, tempered glass.
The Fear.
“Give it here, girl,” I demand, holding out my hand, but the defiant little bitch, closes her fist tightly around it, and moves a step down.
“Ever first,” she replies evenly.
“Bring the Bandersnatch,” I call out over my shoulder.
The rustling of heavy chains scraping along the palatial floor makes me smirk. I know he looks beaten half to death, disoriented, and bloodied, but this will show the girl how serious I am about reclaiming what’s mine.
She looks ready to cry her poor little eyes out when Henry stops at the top of the staircase with her beloved beast and I hold my hand out again. “Give me The Fear or watch him die.”
With shaking hands, she opens her fist and I reach for The Fear.
Just as I’m mere inches away from reclaiming what’s mine, it’s stolen from me again.
This time by Glower.
He’s appeared out of nowhere, jumped between us, and stolen The Fear from her precious little hand.
I turn to give Henry the command to cut the Bandersnatch’s throat, but scream in absolute terror when I see that Glower has already reached him at an inconceivable speed, and is attacking him viciously; gouging out his eyes, leaving him in a bloody, blinded heap at the top of the stairs.
“Henry!” I scream as I turn and attempt to run up toward him.
I don’t want to save him because I love him—I honestly don’t think I ever have. I want to save him because I need him to help me control The Fear. If he dies, it’ll be harder than ever before since The Fear requires two voices to command it and not just one. It requires a union of sorts to be used properly and Henry serves that purpose well.
It’s a secret that I’ve kept with my King. If the creatures of Wonderland knew this, they would have attacked him long ago.
“No!” I screech, as I climb the stairs as quickly as I can, but I’m stopped short of reaching him.
A strong hand grabs my hair, balling it into a fist, and pulls me back so violently that I almost tumble down the stairs.
My arms pinwheel at my sides and I manage to regain my footing, reaching for my attacker.
If I tumble down these stairs, then I’ll take her with me.
A turn.
A shove stronger than I thought her ever capable of, and I see the flash of white-blonde hair run past me and toward the beast in chains.
I’m just about to regain my footing again when Glower grins at me, leans back on his haunches, then jumps, landing squarely against my chest and ensuring my death by knocking me off my feet and sending me tumbling down the stairs.
Carroll’s Home for Troubled Youth
Chapter Fourteen
“Wake up, kid!”
A hard smack against the side of my face makes me gasp and open my eyes. Ever is sitting on the edge of the bed next to me and watching me with slightly frightened eyes.
Ever—not the Bandersnatch.
“What? Where am I?” I ask sitting up in abject fear, then pitching forward against him. A wave of nausea crashed over me almost making me vomit, but Ever’s hands are strong and kind as he holds me against him and chuckles.
“I watched you tumble down the front steps. I think you hit your head. You were out cold for a while; scared the shit out of me.”
“Out of all of us,” Miss Lory chimes in softly.
I glance up at the white, cracked ceiling of my bedroom and sigh. If I was in bed, then he didn’t really have to slap me to wake me up.
“What were you doing outside alone, Alisanne?” Miss Lory asks in a sterner tone. “You know you can’t go out there without permission.”
“Uh. The Queen wanted The Fear. I was … trying to save … and the cat …”
“You tripped over that stray cat again?” Ever asks loudly. I wince and look over at him and he’s giving me a harsh stare. I nod as I lay back down. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, I think you taught yourself a lesson then. I won’t tell Dr. Carpenter about this little incident, but you go out there alone again and I’ll turn you in, understand?” I nod as does Miss Lory before she gets to her feet and leaves Ever in the room with me, telling him that he has ten minutes before she comes to collect him.
“Sorry about that,” he says once she leaves.
“About what?” I ask him tiredly.
“Pow,” he says softly miming the slap that woke me up.
I smile and close my eyes. “It’s okay. I was having a nightmare so I honestly don’t mind.”
Ever chuckles slightly as a thought crosses my mind.
“Miss Lory; how did you talk your way out of what you did to her?” I inquire curiously.
“This place has wet floors all the damn time; everyone knows that. She must have slipped and fell down,” he replies with a wink.
I giggle despite the pain I feel in my head as he makes a face at me.
He never ceases to amaze me with how he gets his way.
“Alright, well I probably shouldn’t overstay my welcome. I’ll come back later and we can finish that game of chess we started earlier, okay?”
“Wait. One more thing. How did I get back in here?” I ask, grabbing his arm.
“Huh? Oh, when you hit your head, I freaked out and brought us back over the fence. I didn’t know how bad it was and I’m not exactly medically trained, so I kind of left you outside until Miss Lory found you.”
I sigh.
We almost made it out of here.
“You get some sleep kid, I’ll be back later for ya,” he says leaning down. Ever hovers over me for just a moment, his eyes reminding me of the beast in my nightmare. I smile slightly and reach up to push his hair out of his eyes, when he leans down closer still, and then gently licks the side of my face.
When stand back up to his full height and turns to walk toward the door, I sit up immediately and reach for him, which he easily managed to sidestep.
“Wait a sec—”
But Ever cuts me off, by holding something up to his lips and winking before he leaves the room. A small locket with a beating black heart encased in the thick, tempered glass.
Maybe it wasn’t a nightmare after all.
Maybe this time, Ever saved me, just like he was always destined to do.
Maybe it isn’t over.
Not by a long shot.
A Glimpse at The Black Queen Coming this winter
Prologue
It’s been three years since we came back from the Strange Lands. Ever Hart, my knight in shining fur and razor sharp fangs has yet to leave my side. He’s been progressing and becoming a better person, but he still won’t give me The Fear.
He tells me that it’s for my own good, and that as long as he holds onto it, the nightmares will stop. Even now, even after all we’ve been through, he’s gone back to trying to make me think that the Strange Lands were nothing more than a nightmare.
I don’t understand.
After what we shared there, after all we
went through, after almost losing him …
“Are you coming or are you going to stand there like a statue all day, Alisanne?” Ever asks me impatiently.
I blink a few times and realize that I’ve been standing at the top of the staircase to Carroll’s Home for Troubled Youth with a leg in the air, and staring into oblivion.
He stopped calling me Alice when he decided that the best thing for my “recovery” would be forgetting about the Strange Lands.
But he’s wrong.
Pretending isn’t what I need.
It’s not doing either of us any good to try and chalk up what happened to nightmares and fairy tales. Not when there’s still work to be done in the Strange Lands.
Isabella, the Queen of Hearts, fell to her death when the cat charged at her, but something deep inside of me tells me that’s not the end of her.
“Sorry,” I tell him softly as I do my best to push the thoughts from my mind. They’re muddling our time outside together and we’ve both worked hard over the past years to be allowed to go outside for one hour each day. I let Ever take my hand, but I hesitate for a moment as I turn to look at the door and see our favorite caretaker watching me curiously.
Miss Lory still works here; she watches us from the doorway while we take our walks, and I know that there are other orderlies around. They stay out of sight, though. She wants us to feel as normal as we possibly can when we’re on the other side of the doors, and she’s even forgiven Ever for that nasty blow to the head when we tried to escape.
He spent some time in the White Room for what he did, but she wasn’t too angry when he told her he just wanted to help me.
I still don’t know what lie he told her about why we were outside or how I hit my head, but she believed him. That’s part of Ever’s charm—he can damn near talk his way out of anything.
“You’re eating up our time by standing around, let’s go,” he complains, giving my hand a gentle, but firm tug.
Something about the way he gently squeezes my hand tells me that he’s not really as exasperated with me as he’s pretending.
Something in the way he looks at me with that sly grin of his curling the edges of his lips tells me that he there’s going to be more to this walk today than I probably will be able to deal with.
But like I said; that’s Ever. He can talk his way in and out of anything he wants.
Ever Hart.
Twenty-five years old, and a sociopath through and through.
About the Author
Lanie Olson is a strangeling that likes all things dark and macabre. She enjoys the original Twilight Zone episodes, Tod Browning’s FREAKS, and black and white horror everything.
A firm believer that not all monsters are human, she delights in bringing the things that go bump in the night to her readers with a dash of horror, a little hope, and a wicked twist.
You can keep in touch with her on Facebook.
