The White Rabbit Chronicles

by Gena Showalter

  “Your friends asked me the same question, and I’ll tell you what I told them. I don’t know.”

  He was lying. He had to be lying.

  “How did you and Reeve meet?”

  “Can we not do this now?” he asked tightly.

  “You’re right. We’ll wait till we get to the car. We’ll put the girls inside, and then you and I will walk away for a little chat.” Afterward, there was a chance only one of us would be walking back.

  “Ali?” Reeve said. “What’s going on?”

  He nodded readily. Too readily? “The car.”

  “I’ll let Ethan explain it later.” We reached a small, round clearing, the sky no longer shielded by the tops of the trees. A big white cloud shaped like a rabbit appeared to be...pulsing. There. Gone. There. Gone. There.

  I stopped, stiffened. Smelled nothing I shouldn’t.

  Hungry, a voice whispered. So hungry.

  Hmm. Smells so good.

  Must have.

  Want.

  Mine. Mine, mine, mine.

  The zombies were out, and they were nearby.

  “What is it?” Ethan whispered, his voice trembling.

  “Kat, Reeve, climb the trees behind you,” I demanded, palming a dagger and a gun. “Now!” I scanned the line of trees in front of us. At the far right, a bush shook, snow dancing to the ground.

  A second later, Emma burst through, even though I hadn’t summoned her.

  Panic bathed her expression as she ran, her tiny arms pumping quickly at her sides. “They’re coming!” she screamed. “Leave! Alice, leave now! It’s a trap!”

  A trap? I couldn’t leave and protect my friends. What was more, I wasn’t going anywhere without my sister. I launched into motion. As I raced, I tried to push my spirit from my body, but Z.A. wrapped her hands around me and anchored me inside.

  “Let go,” I screamed at her.

  She laughed.

  Behind Emma, zombies broke through the thicket.

  They were chasing her?

  Oh, heck no. She was a spirit. They were spirits.

  They would be able to touch her.

  Not on my watch.

  The closer we drew together, the faster we both pushed ourselves. Then she darted through me, the contact shoving my spirit out of my body, making Z.A. shriek in pain.

  I stumbled backward, my body remaining in front of me. The cold should have thickened. Instead, I felt embraced by warmth. I looked back. Emma had finally stopped—in front of Ethan. She swung her fists at him, but no contact was made. He stood beside a tree, his hand resting on the bark. He was unaware of what was happening around him, watching me, his expression grim. The girls were nowhere to be seen. They must have obeyed me and climbed.

  I turned back to the zombies, aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger. Boom, boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom!

  Bodies fell...only to crawl back up. I threw down the gun, the clip empty, and grabbed a second dagger. The creatures came closer and closer, moving faster than ever before. Almost within reach... For the first time in weeks, those red, evil eyes were utterly focused on me. Eager for a go at me? Oh, yeah. Whatever the reason—had Emma done more than freak out Z.A.?—I was once again a target. I pounced.

  My daggers slashed through one throat, two, six, then severed a spine, two, eight, rotted arms continually reaching for me. Blackened teeth chomped at me. At least no other whispers bombarded me. I arched backward, forward, avoiding being grabbed. I turned, stabbed. Turned, stabbed, staying in constant motion, knowing a single moment of hesitation would lose the battle for me.

  I swung a zombie in front of me, using him as a shield as I spun around and stabbed his partner in the side. Black goo sprayed in every direction. Then I decapitated my shield.

  No one else made a play for me, and I realized a wall of writing bodies had formed, blocking the others.

  I climbed out, on alert, and my new targets stalked around me as if pondering the best course of action.

  Some were mindless. These were not. And they weren’t just stalking around me, but were inching closer and closer, closing in. I exploded into motion—crap, I’d lost my daggers. I slammed the heel of one hand into the jaw of the zombie on my left, and the heel of the other into the throat of the zombie on my right.

  As multiple other arms stretched out, I rolled to the ground, knocking several of the creatures off their feet. Coming up with two new guns, I aimed, fired, aimed, fired, taking no more than a second for each action, but always swinging my arms to ensure that I got the zombies closest to me.

  I shot a zombie in the face, and both guns clicked. Out of bullets.

  As a new horde approached me, I pressed the button on the side of the handles, causing blades to extend from under the barrel of the guns. Gnarled arms reached for me. I crossed the weapons in front of me and hit two creatures in the temple, twisted, hit two more, twisted, hit two more—

  A hard fist slammed into my jaw.

  Stupid stars, winking at me. Still I managed to duck, missing a second blow and forcing the zombie behind me to take the brunt of the impact. I straightened, grabbing another zombie, intending to use him as a shield, but his arm detached. I stumbled to the side, my momentum jacked. One of the creatures shackled my wrist and tugged me to the ground. Jerking free, but losing my hold on the weapons, I rolled, once again knocking down several of the zombies.

  “Light up!” I shouted.

  The smallest of flames flickered across my knuckles, and it was white. Relief speared me.

  Footsteps behind me.

  I twisted, reached out to brush my fingertips against the zombie closest to me. He didn’t ash, but he did hiss and stumble away from me.

  He came back for more, the fool, and I did it again. This time, he batted my hand away, determined. Someone stepped up behind him, stopping him, attaching a metal collar to his neck. He sagged to the ground, motionless.

  I looked around, confused.

  Hazmats surrounded me, and they were snapping collars on the rest of the zombies.

  Realization sent me backpedaling, but I ran into something solid. I turned, already swinging, and nailed a Hazmat in the chin. He stumbled to the side and would have given me a clear shot to my friends, but three other Hazmats took his place.

  Before I realized what was happening, a collar was being snapped around my neck, sharp electrical pulses shooting through me. Suddenly I couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Panic filled me, joining the adrenaline rushing through me, and my body wasn’t sure how to react. Keep fighting, or shut down.

  “What are you doing?” I heard Kat scream. “Let her go!”

  She could see me? The collar, maybe...

  Keep fighting. Definitely keep fighting. I tried to stand, but my legs refused to cooperate.

  “You want me docile? Leave the girls out of this,” I tried to shout, but only gurgles escaped.

  “Ethan?” Reeve gasped. “Help us!”

  “You told me you wouldn’t hurt Reeve,” Ethan shouted.

  Instant comprehension. He knew the Hazmats, because he was one of them.

  He was the spy—no doubts about that now—and he had gotten some of his information from Reeve. When I’d lived with her, she’d known my schedule. The rest he must have gotten by watching me.

  He’d covered his tracks very well. I still felt stupid. I should have known.

  Someone crouched in front of me and removed the clear panel from his mask. He had to be in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and thick lines around gunmetal-gray eyes.

  He offered me a sad smile. “I hate that matters have come to this, Miss Bell, I really do, but my daughter is sick, and I suspect you’re going to be her cure.”

  Chapter 25

  Who Stole the Poisoned Tarts?

  My spirit was dragged to my body, the collar removed by one Hazmat while several others forced the two halves of me to join. At the moment of connection, I jolted into motion, determined to fight these people with everything I had. S
ome of the Hazmats were not in spirit form, however, and one of them managed to slam a hard fist into my temple.

  Dizzy...

  Slowing...

  Still I fought.

  I heard a whoosh of air, felt a sharp stab of pain in my arm. I patted blindly at the spot and dislodged a small dart.

  The dizziness spun out of control, helped along by...a drug? I swayed, bones liquefying, knees buckling. When I hit the ground, I was roughly hauled to my feet, my hands tied behind my back, and there was nothing I could do about it. A black hood was draped over my head, and I was stuffed into a vehicle, driven I don’t know how many miles. Time ceased to exist. There was only here, now. Darkness, rising panic. Where was Kat? Reeve?

  I listened for movement—or whimpers—but heard only the wet slosh of tires, the zoom of passing cars and the soft hum of the radio.

  Stay calm.

  Easy to think, so difficult to do. Tremors racked me, and sweat beaded over my skin. The blood in my veins was somehow a dangerous mix of too hot and too cold.

  After we parked, I was towed outside with the kind aid of two guards. We ascended a flight of steps and entered a pool of warmth. A heated building? I heard footsteps. A ding. We stopped, and the world around me jostled. We were in an...elevator?

  Another ding. Again I was towed forward. We stopped several more times, and I imagined my surrounding went far beyond grim. A dungeon, like Mr. Ankh’s. A torture chamber, with wall after wall of deadly weapons once found in the Middle Ages.

  We entered a room with a deluge of new sounds. Moans, groans, rattling metal.

  Other prisoners?

  Can’t stay here. Act! Gathering every ounce of strength I possessed, I struggled for freedom. I managed to head-butt one of my captors and trip another, and we all tumbled to the floor. Before I could run, someone fisted the back of my shirt and lifted me to my feet. The ties were cut from my wrists, and I was thrust forward. As I tripped to my hands and knees, I thought I heard Kat and Reeve gasp. Hinges groaned, and a door slammed. Trembling, I ripped off the hood and blinked as the bright light in the room stung my eyes.

  We were in a laboratory. There were computers, strange equipment I didn’t recognize and a handful of humans wearing lab coats. There were also cages, with collared, frenzied zombies locked inside.

  Locked inside—like me.

  And in the cage next door to ours was a girl I’d thought dead. Jaclyn Silverstone.

  She was dirty, her hair in tangles, her far-too-thin body stretched out on a cot. But she was alive, and in that moment, she stopped being my enemy and became my best ally.

  “They’re not allowed to talk to or look at us,” she said weakly. “Mr. K is too afraid they’ll start feeling guilty and set us free.”

  The horror of the situation struck me, followed by rage, and I lumbered to my feet. I had to know if she was right, and threw myself into the bars, shaking the entire cage. “Let us out!”

  As Jaclyn had promised, everyone ignored me.

  “Hey!” Kat called, stepping up to my side. There was a tremor in her voice. “She’s talking to you. You better listen or you’re gonna regret it.”

  Again we were ignored.

  Soft sobs echoed behind me. I turned to see Reeve standing in the center of the cell, her arms wrapped around her middle. Tears streamed down her cheeks, little pink track marks left behind.

  “He betrayed me,” she said with a sniffle. “I caused this. I talked to him, told him everything I discovered. I just... I never suspected he already knew what was going on, that he was pushing me to find out more for him, that he was using me. Using me.”

  Kat raced to her side.

  I threw one last look at the lab coats—no one met my gaze—before striding to my friends. Reeve verged on the edge of a breakdown; I recognized the signs.

  “You couldn’t have known his plan,” I said, doing my best to sound calm, rational. But when my words registered, I realized I’d lied. She could have known—if I’d told her what was going on when she’d first expressed interest. “Your dad has cameras everywhere. He will have seen what happened in that forest. He’ll find us.”

  He had better find us.

  Kat nibbled on her bottom lip. “I’m so sorry, Ali, but Ethan helped us disable all the cameras. He said he didn’t want anyone to be able to see or stop us from rescuing you.”

  The brightest hope I’d had died a quick death, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. This was bad. Really, really bad.

  But I had three small hopes left. The first, Emma. She could warn Cole. The second, the message I’d left him. The third, Justin. He might know the truth about what had happened to us. But...was he truly on our side?

  I did my best to keep my expression neutral as I urged the girls to the back of the cage and onto the cold, concrete floor.

  “What are we going to do?” Reeve whispered.

  “Yeah, Ali, what?” Kat asked, her usual bravado gone.

  “Right now we’re going to rest,” I said with a small smile. I glanced over at Jaclyn. “I’ll think of something. Promise.”

  * * *

  Hour after hour ticked by with agonizing slowness. I summoned Emma, but she didn’t appear. I studied my surroundings, taking in every detail. The same glow I’d seen in the forest, when I’d tracked the spy, streaked the floor and walls in here. Zombie toxin, maybe?

  There was a camera posted at the top right corner of our cage, recording our every move and word.

  There were no beds for us, no blankets and the toilet was out in the open. The number of lab coats thinned out in an unhurried but continuous stream, until only two people remained. The others would be back, though. I knew they would.

  I stepped up to the bars blocking me from Jaclyn. Up close, I could see the gauntness of her cheeks.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “A little over a month, I think. I lost track of time.”

  “We thought you were dead.”

  “Only in my favorite dreams.” She shrugged, the action weak. “Mr. K wanted a way to control Justin, to force him back to Cole...to you. Rather than tell him I was a prisoner, and risk him spending his time searching for me, he told my brother Cole killed me.”

  Mr. K. The guy running this show. Ms. Wright’s replacement. The man whose daughter was sick—the girl I was somehow supposed to help.

  “I’ve tried to escape,” she said. “I think that’s why they keep me undernourished now. So I stay pathetic and feeble.”

  Good plan. Fatigue had added weight to each of my limbs, and my eyelids felt as if they’d been replaced by sandpaper. Blinking was a terrible chore. Can’t allow myself to fall asleep. An opportunity to do something, anything, might present itself.

  “People come in, but they never walk out,” she continued. “Mr. K likes to experiment on cancer patients. I think maybe he’s trying to cure them, because he’s always upset when they die, but he’s sucked it up worse than a Hoover. The patients are now the zombies that you see here.”

  He’d made an army of zombies out of cancer patients? The man was seriously unbalanced.

  “What kind of security does he have?” I asked.

  “There are always guards outside the room, monitoring us. I don’t know how many. And they’ve got their version of the Blood Lines all over the place, even the bars, so our spirits can’t leave and alert another slayer.”

  No wonder Emma hadn’t shown.

  Another hope withered.

  At 7:58 a.m. the doors at the far end of the room slid open, and the grinning man from the forest entered. Two tall, armed men flanked his sides, and the group approached my cage. Kat and Reeve were huddled together, leaning on each other, their eyes closed and their breathing even. Their adrenaline had crashed, I think, and when sleep had finally come, they’d been unable to resist.

  “You’re coming with us, Miss Bell.”

  Jaclyn reached through the bars and squeezed my wrists. “It’s going to hurt. I’m sorry.
”

  Metal rattled against metal as the cage door was unlocked. The armed men pounded inside, and my heart beat in tune with their angry steps. I wouldn’t leave my friends easily and threw a punch. My knuckles connected with the nose of the guy on the left. Blood spurted, and he howled with pain. Before I could do the same to the other guy, he grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back, pain exploding through my shoulder.

  Cuffs were slapped on me and I was shoved out of the cage. That. Easily.

  “Hey! What are you doing? Let her go!” Kat called, the commotion having roused her.

  The zombies erupted into a flurry of motion and sound. Grunts, groans, shuffling footsteps.

  Hungry...

  Feed...

  Soon...

  Now...

  As the whispers reached my conscious, making me tremble, I was led into another room. There was a chair; something usually found in a dentist’s office. Beside it was a padded stool, a table with different-sized blades and syringes strewn across the surface and some kind of machine that looked like a car engine.

  As I was strapped to the chair, I fought for freedom.

  “Calm down, Miss Bell,” Forest Guy said. “We’re going to talk, you and I.”

  “Screw you.”

  He ignored me. “I’m Kelly Hamilton. I don’t usually share my name—I prefer the anonymity of Mr. K—but you and I are going to be closer than most. You, my dear, may call me Kelly.”

  Hamilton. Like Ethan Hamilton. Kelly had to be his father.

  More of a betrayal than I’d realized.

  And oh, glory, I wasn’t meant to leave this laboratory, was I? That was why he felt so comfortable sharing his full name, his link to Ethan. It had nothing to do with closeness.

  He sat on the stool and tugged on a pair of latex gloves. “I must admit, you have been a difficult girl to find. Just when I decided you could help me, you disappeared.”

  “For good reason.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “I’m dangerous.” You better believe it, jerk.

  “Yes. I was told you’d developed a few zombielike tendencies. The fact that you’re still alive, your body healthy and whole, intrigues me.”

  I snapped my teeth at him. “If you aren’t careful, I’ll show you those tendencies firsthand.”