I have a problem getting attracted to assholes …
My last boyfriend …
No. Nope. Not going there, not today.
“Tea is a drug here,” the purple-haired twin explains, looking down at me with a slightly less bitchy than usual expression. “It's blended from the get-go to have certain properties. I can't remember the last time I drank normal tea.” He pauses and looks right at me, his eyes the color of violets, this beautiful purple that shimmers beneath long, dark lashes. “Maybe never. People stopped drinking plain tea after the Riving.”
I rub a hand against my forehead and glance over my shoulder as Dee throws his feet out of bed and groans, the blue and black wings on his back catching the light. I wonder what the symbolism is there? I mean beyond the obvious you are slaves, you will no longer fly free vibe that I'm getting. But why angel wings and chains specifically?
Doubt I'll ever feel comfortable enough with this pair of weirdos to ask.
“I'll remember that,” I say as I take a step back, suddenly aware of how hot the air between us has gotten, and how much like soap Tee smells. It's intoxicating, that warm, wet muscular god smelling like shampoo and soap … God. I turn around and glare at Dee as he leans over and puts his head between his knees. If I hadn't seen the look of genuine concern on Tee's face, I might've thought they did it to me on purpose. “Is there somewhere I could grab new clothes?” I ask and Dee's face whips up, pale but with a sinful little slash of lips.
“We could always ask Lory to borrow some?” he says, standing up and groaning, like the effort's just too much to bear. I wonder if he finished off Tee's cup last night? The last thing I remember is collapsing on the dance floor. “But otherwise, no. We're in the middle of nowhere which is to say, we're as far from everywhere as we can get.”
I roll my eyes because I'm not in the mood for riddles and games, and head straight for the door.
If Dee thinks I'm too scared to ask the cranky pirate lady for a change of clothes, then he has never slept in a dress soaked with his crush's blood.
The boat we're sailing the river on is called The Long Tale and the crew is a motley assortment of weirdos that make the twins seem normal. Lory seems to be the least crazy of them all and she did lend me a pair of black breeches, a pale blue peasant blouse, and some clean undergarments. Took me about fifteen minutes to try to figure out how to slip into said undergarments before Lory burst in the bathroom door, ignored my screams of protest, and laced me up in a white corset with hidden pockets for knives.
Hell, she even supplied the knives for me.
I keep my headband with the top hat, the red waist cincher, and my own boots, but at least I'm not wearing Brandon Carmichael on my dress anymore.
“Are you bloody stupid?” the captain—a huge hulking beast of a man named Dodo—shouts as he stands on the dock and watches several men carry large crates onto The Long Tale. “Do I have to do fuckin' everything around here?” he growls as I stand on the stern … er bow … uh, whatever the front part of a ship is called.
And when I say ship, I mean floating hunk of rotted wood covered in barnacles that smells like rotted fish and looks like it has an equal chance of sinking as it does floating.
“Are we sure this fucking thing is sturdy enough to get us upriver?” I ask as Dee unlocks our rented cabin and opens the door. The smell that emanates from inside there is almost worse than the one out here. Wrinkling my nose, I step up close to the blue-haired twin and act like I don't notice the spark of heat that jumps between us when our shoulders brush together. “What the hell is this?” I ask as I examine the room—if it can even be called a room.
There's a ten by ten square—a wet ten by ten square, mind you—that's taken up by an odd square bed covered in what looks like burlap sacks. No pillows, no blankets, nothing else in there except for a small, dirty round window and a trunk that, when I step into the room and open it, is also partially filled with water.
I purse my lips.
“Bet you wish you'd sucked my brother off now, huh?” Dee chortles, and I swear to God, I almost punch him right in the nuts. “A mouthful of cum or this room for two nights—which sounds worse?”
“Two nights?” I ask, and I try really hard not to shriek.
“Dee, knock it off,” Tee snarls, and it sounds like he is now trying really hard not to punch his twin in the family jewels. I glare at the two brothers as they engage in a stand-off, and I see Dee's hands clench into fists at his sides. That strange poem that Dee recited for me yesterday comes to mind, and I wonder what the brothers were like before they were enslaved by the King of Hearts. Were they princes or paupers? Based on that poem, it doesn't much seem like they got along any better then than they do now.
Sibling rivalry, I can definitely understand though. Edith and I have never had a peaceful relationship, and my older brother Frederick and I were sworn enemies. Until he was murdered, anyway. I close my eyes against a rush of emotion and slam the lid closed on the old trunk, standing up straight, and keeping the satchel slung over my shoulder—another gift from Lory. It's an old, wrinkled, cracked leather bag that smells like salt, but it works for keeping Edith's dress safe. I know I should probably just throw the hideous thing away, but … I already lost one sibling. I won't throw away a dress—no matter how grotesque or bloody it is—that my sister bought with her own money.
After a moment, the twins break their relentless stare, stepping way from one another in near unison and clearing the doorway for me to slip out of the cabin. I pause on the deck of the boat and cringe when Dodo starts shouting again.
“Oh for fuck's sake!” the captain snarls and I glance over to find Lory smoking a cigarette on the dock, watching as her fellow mates get their asses handed to them. Dodo's red beard and disheveled appearance make him look like a fucking Viking, but he's handsome in his own way. I'm not into guys the size of tree trunks with hairy arms and permanent scowls, but I bet my mother would find him cute. If we saw this Dodo guy on a movie or something, I know she'd sigh and tap me on the knee a few times, maybe toss a piece of popcorn my way. 'He's a bit attractive, don't you think? But just a bit.'
I sigh.
I'll never watch movies with Mom again, so what's the point?
“Why do they all have animal names?” I ask, referring to the crew: Duck, Mouse, Dodo, Eaglet (a baby eagle), and Lory—a nickname for lorikeets that I only know because I read the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and had to look it up, thank you very much.
“Why shouldn't they all have animal names?” Dee asks, jumping back into the whole riddle game again. One day I've known these guys and I can already tell that when they start to get a bit singsong-y like that, I'm in for some of that awful lyrical nonsense that made me love the original book so much in the first place. But like, in real life? Not a huge fan.
I decide to ignore Dee and make my way over to the edge of the boat, on the side opposite The Pool, glancing down into the salty waters and wondering how a geographical anomaly like this came to be in the first place. Lifting my gaze, I see the forest and the giant mushrooms again, their caps as big as the roof on my parents' house. Some are spotted, some striped, but they all seem to have white stems and gills.
As I gaze out at the weird as fuck forest and wonder why I'm not freaking out about any of this, I hear the sharp slap of rope against wood and glance over my shoulder to see Lory untying big, fat knots from the railing of the dock.
We're getting ready to leave—finally.
I wonder why she was in such a hurry to get us down here this morning?
Tee and Dee stay ridiculously close to me like guards. I watch them surreptitiously and try to decide if it feels like they're guarding me from the outside world … or if they're escorting me like a prisoner. But after a few moments of watching them—Tee, especially—I can see that they're constantly scanning the environment, looking out at the woods, down at the water, and even up at the sky.
Shit.
I do not want to know wh
at comes down from the fucking sky.
“Why are you so concerned with what happens to me?” I ask as Dodo shouts orders to his crew and I feel the boat start to move. My stomach lurches and I clamp my hand down around the railing to try to gain some stability, heart racing in my chest as we drift away from the dock … and then start to fly down the river at a speed that whips my blonde hair back from my face.
“Because,” Tee says, and even though his voice is fairly low, he's not hard to hear over the wind and rapids. “You're the Alice.”
“What's …” I swallow hard and lock my knees as the boat jostles and bounces on the water, swerving this way and that to avoid the hulking shadows of stones. We're moving so goddamn fast, I have literally zero idea how the small crew is keeping up. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“The Alice,” Dee begins, and when I glance over at him, he actually looks a tad serious, “is the only one that can save Underland.”
Besides the small, shitty cabin we rented for the trip, The Long Tale also sports a dining hall and kitchen, a storage area, bunks for the crew, and the captain's quarters. Not a one of them is much nicer than the original cabin I saw. And everything is wet, every damn inch of that fucking boat.
Thank God for my combat boots—they keep most of the saltwater at bay. Well, you know except for the fact that after eating breakfast in the 'mess hall' my butt's soaked. Nobody else seems to be bothered by it, so I do my best not to complain.
Although, you know, I am eighteen and liable to go there on occasion.
“How long did you say this, uh, portion of the trip's going to take?” I ask Dee as I sit smashed between him and his brother on a narrow bench in the dining area, staring down at a plate of dried crackers smeared with some sort of salty-meaty paste—i.e. my lunch. My nose wrinkles and I try to pretend like having two big, warm, male bodies on either side of me doesn't matter at all.
But holy crap.
Holy. Crap.
When the twins move, I can feel the muscles in their bodies sliding beneath the skin, these powerful pistons stretching and contracting, and I have a seriously hard time keeping my mind out of the gutter.
Being a hormonal teenager blows.
“Two days,” Dee answers as he picks up one of the crackers and takes a bite. Somehow, he even manages to make eating our weird lunch sexy.
“Or two nights, depending on who you ask,” Tee adds automatically, staring at his plate in a similar way to how I'm staring at mine.
“Two nights and two days, really,” Dee continues, “because you can't have another day without having a night, now can you?” I sigh and, giving into my rumbling tummy, reach down and grab a cracker, closing my eyes as I take a bite. If I have to sit here and listen to nonsense, I may as well do it with a full belly. Surprisingly, the giant cracker is flavorful, herby, and the paste on top turns out to be something like pâté. “Say, you like poetry, Alice?”
“Allison. Hell, you can even call me Sonny, like my sister does if you want. But not Alice. Whoever this mythical Alice is, she's not me.”
“Mm, what an interesting segue into a non-sequitur, wouldn't you say, Tee? This Alice is good at roundabouts. You'll make a fabulous mythical Alice, Alice. Now.” He finishes his cracker, slaps the crumbs from his palms, and then swings a leg over the bench so that he's straddling the wood.
He scoots closer to me, so close that our faces are only inches apart.
“Do you like poetry, Allison-who-isn't-Alice?” Dee asks again and I sigh.
“Depends on the poem,” I hedge, taking another bite of my cracker and trying not to like the way Dee's lids drop, heavy and sexy. Bedroom eyes, that's what he's got. Fucking bedroom eyes.
“Can I tell you one then?” he continues, and I hear Tee sigh from behind me. “It's a long one, though.”
“I have nowhere else to be,” I say, and I realize with a start that I don't even really care. I should be at school right now, sitting in my statistics class and staring out the window, wondering if my dad's going to get a Christmas tree this year, or if it'll be like last year where he made us go and sit in the cold, sterile visiting room at the prison with Mom. “Go on,” I continue as Dee's face splits into a grin and he slides back and off the bench, standing up straight and tapping his boots together. He clasps his hands together behind his back and clears his throat.
“The sun was shining on the sea,
shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright—
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done—
'It's very rude of him,' she said,
'To come and spoil the fun!'
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead—
There were no birds to fly.”
“Tee?” he asks, but his brother just glances up from his plate and narrows his eyes. “Would you like to finish the rest of the poem?”
“Not particularly, Dee,” Tee says, taking a deep breath before pushing up the sleeves of his purple military coat and grabbing the cracker. In three quick bites, he eats it, stands up, and wipes his hands on the napkin he had tucked in his lap. “Allison doesn't want to hear an epic-length poem about a prophecy she doesn't believe in.”
He turns his gaze to me and pauses just long enough to make me uncomfortable before he flicks his eyes back over to his brother.
“You'll stay with her for a while? There's hardly enough room on that bed for the three of us. I'll sleep the first shift.” Tee adjusts his peaked cap, nods briefly at me, and then turns on his heel and leaves the room.
Well, shit, now I'm intrigued to hear the rest of the poem.
A prophecy she doesn't believe in, huh?
“What's his problem?” I ask as Dee sighs and takes his cap off, twisting it around in his hands. His blue-streaked black hair is sticking up all over the place and his sapphire eyes seem to flash with something before he looks up at me.
“He hates this world and everything in it,” Dee says, moving over to one of the round port windows and opening it, letting in the pungent reek of salt. He turns and leans his back against the wall, watching me carefully. “There's not a person we know or love that's still alive.” He pauses for a moment and I see yet another flicker of seriousness on his face. “Well, except for each other. Tee doesn't want to see Underland restored. He likes seeing it fall apart; he wants it to crumble away into nothing, and I can't blame him.”
“You don't feel the same way?” I ask as Dee stands up straight and spins his hat around on a single finger, throwing a grin my way that makes my heart stumble and fall, scraping its damn knees as I try to pick myself up off the proverbial pavement.
“Me? Do you mean does Dee feel the same as Tee?” He winks at me and moves over to the bench, putting his boot on the end of it, leaning down close again. “No. Because, like I told you last night Allison-who-isn't-Alice, you're not going to save this world.” Dee's grin ratchets up a notch and he reaches out to play with a strand of my blonde hair. “You're going to change it.”
He straightens up, my heart still racing and holds out his hand.
“Come, come, it won't do for the Alice to be running around with the Queenmaker when she's as likely to blow off her own head with it as she is a bandersnatch's.”
“These might be the only things on this ship that aren't wet,” Dee says, looking at me with such an innocent expression that even though I'm pretty sure he said wet with a lusty bite to this tongue, I let it go.
He hands out a box of matches from inside one of the stiff leather pouches attached to his belt and passes them over to me.
“So this thing's called the Queenmaker?” I ask as I look back at Dee and heft the gun out of the leather satchel that still holds my sister's dress.
Dee watches me with his sapphire eyes, his voluminous blue coat billowing in the breeze. His smirk is crooked and way too endearing for his own good. Or mine. Definitely not good for mine.
“Here,” he says, reaching out and taking my hand, using his fingers on mine to turn the gun over so I can see the crown stamped onto the bottom of the grip. “The Queenmaker, a weapon designed by the former Queen of Hearts. It had the sole and very specific purpose of being used in a Royal Hunt.”
“For a jabberwock,” I say, because my mind just can't seem to get over the fact that something like that might actually be real. John Tenniel, the original illustrator of Lewis Carroll's Alice books, certainly painted a nasty picture of a jabberwock. And the idea that something like that actually exists? Must still be in shock.
Because … standing here on the deck of this boat with the cold air stinging my face, my lips dry from the constant splashes of saltwater, and my wet—from the river water, not arousal—panties stuck up my butt crack, I'm pretty damn sure I'm not in an LSD induced trip anymore.
Standing here next to Dee, his warm hands on mine, his sapphire eyes bright and curious, I'm positive I'm not imagining this.
“The same queen that slaughtered your people?” I ask, and I wonder if I've said too much, if he might shut down and shut me out. But no, Dee just shakes his head and releases me, stepping back and whipping out an arm to point at the river, his blue coat flapping in the wind.
“Aim this way,” he says as I turn and point the gun out at the water and the strange, creeping woods on either side of it, “and I'll tell you a little story.”
Allison's Adventures in Underland Page 5
