by A. K. Koonce
Right now.
At the sight of the watchful heat in his eyes, my thoughts dissolve away.
“Don’t leave my side,” he whispers his rasping tone along my neck, his body brushing mine like he might just crawl right into me and never leave. Considering I’ve seen him literally do just that to Cat, and Lighton do it to me, I really have to keep an eye on these men sometimes.
I nod to him, his hold on me dragging along my lower back as I take a single step. But that’s as far as I get before I’m being pulled back all over again.
“Don’t take another step,” Kais says, his big palm wrapping around my upper arm completely, and I nearly snap at that gentle hand.
“The protective thing is really getting kind of out of control, guys. I know how to walk, for Wonder fuck’s sake.”
Kais’s head turns slowly to me, pinning me with his steady gaze. “That’s great to hear because one more step, and you’ll be bounced right off the barrier’s magic.”
Oh.
I swallow and pretend to smooth my jeans down as if they have some pleated wrinkles I’m just now noticing.
“We’re here, Prospect,” he says with a hint of a smile.
The cocky jerk.
When I look up, all I see are shadowed limbs and twisting vines. It’s a thick, tangled forest just as we’ve been in for nearly twenty minutes now.
I narrow my eyes at it all, at the wafting leaves and the scent of pine. And then, when I really focus on the details, I see it. A sliver of crimson lines shoots like flying particles in the air. The buzzing sound of the barrier’s every pulsing move is faint within the breeze, but if I focus all of my attention on just the magic, the idea of magic and the reality of it, it becomes a tangible thing that can be seen, heard.
And felt.
Kais is right, one more step, and who knows what those sparking flecks of magic would have done to me?
It’s old magic. Powerful. And that magic, it’s in me.
My eyes close, and I think about every instance I’ve ever used this sort of power. It’s a purring flicker within myself that mirrors the barrier. Every sound it makes, my magic makes internally.
A steady inhale quiets my nerves. A steady exhale silences my doubt.
And then I try to do something no one else has ever done in the history of Wonderland.
I try to break the chains that the Kingdom of Wonderland has on our newcomers.
Magic sweeps through me, shoving at the air itself in drowning heaps. It shakes my palms. It burns my skin. It fucking consumes me.
The electric current of the barrier becomes louder, more demanding and more powerful. It’s a reaction to my own magic trying to interfere in another’s.
The hard grinding of my teeth hurts just as much as the stinging heat along my flesh, but I keep pushing. And it pushes right back. But I force out more and more, and the barrier continues its static sound that turns growling, rumbling, groaning.
I. Will. Break. It.
Sparks scorch across my face. Power slams out in an aftershock of waves that sends me flying back. Wood cracks at the same time as that sound ricochets through my skull, and I slam into the tree trunk now at my back.
Searing pain throbs through my head, my spine, my arms. Everywhere.
When my lashes slowly open, that fucking crimson barrier flickers just as it had before. Arrogantly untouched.
Fuck!
“Maybe we should try this in the morning,” Lighton says gently, kneeling down in front of me as his hands lift to cradle my face.
I hate that I wince from the softness of his touch. My body hurts, but my determination is still intact.
“Not yet.” I meet his sweet golden eyes, and he just looks at me with so much understanding.
He knows exactly what it’s like to keep trying.
To never give up.
Then he nods and slowly steps back.
I feel their attention on me as I stand, knees shaking with a threat to give out. I stiffen against that feeling and keep my focus intently on the pulsing red stream of magic ahead of me. In the darkness, that slashing blood red color seems more ominous.
It’s a cage, a prison for the people Wonderland took in and then…forgot about.
So maybe it appears just as sinister as it should be.
I don’t close my eyes to it this time, I let that hinting crimson wash over me, and I hold it in my gaze as more power than I’ve ever imagined thrusts out of me. It’s a drilling energy that strikes out, lashing and clashing with the barrier.
And that barrier, it wavers.
The sight of it waning spirals hope within me, and it just recharges my magic, sending it out in thundering force that shudders right through me. It’s too much. It’s searing pain. It’s slicing agony.
The ruby light crackles in response. It’s a roaring groan that shakes right into my chest itself.
And then washes away like sparks of fire in the cool night breeze.
“You fucking did it, Sweetheart,” Alixx says in a voice filled with total awe.
My knees hit the dry leaves of the forest floor.
A subtle gust of wind blows my long hair across my face, but I’m too tired to brush it away. My shoulders sag, and I just sit there for a moment in a daze of exhaustion but total pride.
I did it.
The smell of smoke meets my lungs on a shaking breath, and I feel them before I ever see them. Heat burns across my arms. Inky wisps of dark clouds swirl around me. And then, an unseen voice speaks just as his grip on me tightens.
“I knew someone was screwing with the barrier. I just didn’t expect to find the missing Alice as the culprit,” a shadowy voice sneers.
My elbow comes back hard but collides into thin air. Kais, Alixx and Lighton all come crashing forward with a mixture of strength, aggression, and daunting magic.
But they’re too late.
I’m swept away in a chaotic mess of darkness that presses in on me, lifts me, and steals me away into the dark skies above like a fading wisp of smoke. Alixx flies up with vengeance, but the shadows beat him right back down.
Wonderland. I always forget this place isn’t a fairytale.
Not one bit.
Nine
Kais
I will fucking kill Liddell and every one of those fucking shadow men he created. I spin on my heels, and my shaking anger is pinned on Lighton as if this is his fault because he’s guilty by association.
He fucking is.
“Where are they taking her?”
“Shadow men aren’t the Justice League. They don’t have a headquarters.”
“The Justice League?” My brow lowers, and it just makes the anger in me rise. “Never mind.”
“Isn’t it obvious? They’re taking her to Liddell.” Alixx is staring up at the shining moonlight that’s cutting in from the leaves above.
His angled face is tilted up, spotlighting that strange scar along his neck and jawline. It makes it hard to look at him, but he’s right.
I hate that he’s right.
We just escaped that castle, and now we’re going to go right back. No one says it. None of us vote on it or give direction. The three of us simply start walking as if this reckless woman who fell into our lives is a magnet and we’re all drawn to her in a way she might never realize.
In silence we trudge through the dark forest.
A barrier that’s been in place for over a century disappeared just minutes ago. And running in to rescue the people I’ve wanted to save for so long is now the farthest thing from my mind.
Because Madison Torrent is all I care about.
As much as I can’t stand him, Alixx is exceptional at slithering under the radar of the Kingdom’s residents. He doesn’t even need magic, he just blends, melds into the shadows of the quiet night.
In no time, we’re pressed right up against Liddell’s castle.
His lithe body doesn’t ever pull away from the wall as the assassin peers around the corner to the fro
nt door. I try to mimic him, but I can’t stop myself from looking around him and nearly walking right out into the moonlight to get a view of what it is we’re dealing with.
“All right, Light, you’re up.” Alixx turns back to us and looks right at the man at my side. “Where do we go from here? How do we get inside? Where do you think they’ll be keeping her?” He fires those questions off one after the other, and when I glance at Lighton, he’s a vacant fucking wall.
“Well?” I urge, refraining from tapping the side of his empty head to remind him what we’re fucking doing here.
“I don’t know what you think I am, but I wasn’t fucking BFFs with Liddell. When I came here as a spy, I never made it three steps past the front door. I reported and I left. That was the relationship. I wasn’t his pet that he led around on a leash.”
“Oh, but weren’t you?” Alixx sneers, and the glare Lighton gives him just goes to show how easily distracted these two can get.
“We don’t have time for name calling.” The sigh that pushes from my lungs is loud enough to give us away if anyone is lingering tonight.
But it seems we’re the only creeps lurking on this side of the towering building.
“When I was friends with Liddell, and I was friends with him…” I pause and meet their stares without shame. Life changes. If you live long enough, your friends become your enemies and sometimes, your enemies become your friends. Like the Rotter and me. “When I was friends with Liddell, he liked to arrange disciplinary meetings on the roof, overlooking the Kingdom.”
“The roof? At night? He’s a fucking lunatic at night.” Lighton’s whiskey eyes are wide and as worried as I feel.
“Then I guess we’d better hurry,” Alixx says over his shoulder as he begins to…climb.
“Why wouldn’t you just fly or vanish up to the roof?” My hands plant on my hips as I look up at him, and I hate to admit how unnaturally fast he is, spider crawling along the side of the brick building with ease.
“And leave poor Lighton to climb up on his own? What kind of friend are you, Mr. St. Croix?”
Right…Lighton.
What is the Wonderland world coming to if Alixx The Rotter Stone is a better fucking person than I am?
“Ready?” I glance at the aloof man at my side only to find him scaling his way up as well. He’s at Alixx’s side in a matter of seconds, and the two share a drifting laugh that sings through the night.
It’s like they’re actually friends.
This is the screwed-up life that Madison created for us.
We’re friends. Because of her.
And I’ll be damned if Liddell is going to take her away from us.
Ten
Madison
Drifting firelight floats above me like twinkling stars shining down on the Kingdom of Wonderland. I stand overlooking every drifting wave and every winding grassy walkway and even the shadowy peaks of mountains that kiss the skies in the distance.
It’d be beautiful if I weren’t being held up by two eerie dark figures on either side of me. Their grip beneath my arms is a scorching pain, but I’m too tired to lift my head fully, let alone pull away from them. So I slouch between them, and when I do glance around at my surroundings on the high rooftop, I come face to ridiculously happy face with the one person I’m too fucking exhausted to even glare at.
“Oh my gosh, Madison. I missed you!” Gwen coos, her arms wrapping around me in a hug that I just simply have no choice but to endure. “I’m so happy you came back!”
I clearly had a choice in that matter.
Why is she like this? Why?
She’s that girl in the slasher movie that calls out to the creepy sound of metal dragging along concrete through the dark abandoned slaughter house.
She’s the one who dies first.
Or maybe that’s me.
“Pawpaw John will be right up.”
For pawpaw’s fucking sake. God, why couldn’t I just black out and not suffer through her politeness?
I close my eyes as she rambles on like it’s a casual family reunion, just me, her, and our two shadow friends here.
“Madison, m-m-m-my dear,” a voice greets from somewhere behind me.
My spine tenses, and I instinctively jerk my arm free from one of my captors, but before I fall face first to the rooftop, he kindly digs his fingers right back into my skin and pulls me back up.
“I was so very s-s-s-sad to see you go. And in such p-p-p-poor company. Tell me, why did you turn on me that day?” His image passes in front of me, his shoes shining in the golden lighting while his hat atop his head is tattered and tilted.
He never loved her at all. He loved her magic. He used her magic. Just like he would have done to me.
And just like I know he’ll do to Gwen.
“I left because you’re not at all who you say you are.” My voice is a weak whisper, but I focus my gaze on Gwen, trying to urge her to listen to the quietness of my warning.
“I’m not who I say I am? What about you, Miss Torrent? You shouldn’t be here, should you?” His steady tone accuses me; it rings out with a clarity my voice just didn’t hold the way his does. “You were a fake. Gwen here, she’s the real Alice. Is your name even Torrent at all, or are you deceiving us the way you did from the very start?”
Gwen’s bright eyes are big and innocent, staring at me with confusion.
And distrust.
I try to straighten my pathetic stance, but I only square my shoulders for half of a second before I’m folding in on myself all over again.
“He’s going to use you,” I call out to her. “He’s going to use up all your magic just like he did Maisie’s, and when it’s gone, he’ll use every magical thing he can get his hands on until this fucking world is even worse than it is now.”
“That is enough!” he screams.
Dry palms push across my upper arms, and he slowly takes ahold of my body, pulling me away from what I now realize was the safety of my captors. Because the gleaming chaos I see in his eyes, it’s far more terrifying than any shadow men.
“You took a prisoner from me, M-M-M-Madison.” Steady steps drag me across the flat rooftop. “You took someone I intended to punish. And I enjoy a well-deserved punishment.” Closer and closer we come to the teetering edge of the building.
I search for the spark of magic that lives inside of me, but it’s just as weak as I am. It’s a flicker of a flame instead of a roaring fire like it had been just an hour ago.
I struggle in his big hands, but it’s a pathetic attempt at pushing him away.
What is there to do?
I can only distract him…
“You think I deserve punishment?”
His pace never dwindles, it’s a slow and steady torment that pounds fear into my heart with every step he takes.
“You, m-m-m-my dear, deceived us all. Wasted our time and flat out assisted in the escape of Alixx Stone.” Wilder his gaze shines, like scattered happiness and permanent pain both live in his mind.
Violent wind pulls at my hair, my shirt, even my palms as they hang at my sides. The toes of my boots scratch along the edge as he holds me up to meet that crazed attention of his. And just inches away is the drop off. The darkness of the ground is several stories below.
He’s going to punish me. He’s going to kill me.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Except…
My palm fists into his white button-down; my foot meets the verge of the rooftop fully.
Then I kick off hard from the side of the building.
And take him down with me.
Cool wind slices through my locks, and my screams intertwine with his, but fuck if this crazy asshole is who I’m going to cling to as I die. I release my tight hold on him and kick away from his flailing body, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am, without a doubt, going to die.
A million racing things fly through my mind. So many, so fast that I can’t register a single one of them.
You’d rather fight for everyone around you rather than yourself!
Oh my God. Preston was right.
I’ll die in every realm I’m in. Because I won’t fight for myself!
My eyes flash open, and the plummeting ground is within brushing distance. Its dark shadows are now defined with deep green grass and jagged rocks that lead to a violent sea.
Ground and rocks that I’m about to slam right into.
Warm hands grip my arm and then my leg seconds before my skull meets the hard ground. I hang there suspended upside down, and pure ocean blue eyes look straight into mine. His features are tragically handsome even from my awkward angle.
“We were just on our way up to get you. Sweet of you to save us some time, Prospect.” Kais’s rasping words wash over me, but even his sexy voice can’t calm my jarring heartbeat.
His strong arms wrap around me, and whoever is holding me just above slowly releases their tight grip on my straining limbs. Kais’s chest brushes my head, and I don’t have the strength to lift it. My hands feel numb, and yet I can still feel every distinguished muscle of his shoulders as I wrap myself around him and let this gentle man cradle me against him.
“Alixx, Lighton, stop high fiving and making secret handshakes, and let’s get the fuck out of here,” he calls up to two men I hadn’t even seen just a few feet above me.
“As if I’d sloppily high five someone,” Alixx mumbles.
They’re so stealthy I can’t really make out their images until the moonlight hits Lighton’s golden hair just right. I watch them climb down with ease.
“You okay?” Lighton asks, his fingers brushing back my hair with the lightest touch.
“I’m—” My head lifts, my eyes widening to their full extent. “Where’s Liddell?” I scan the area, but everything is just as it was. There’s no satisfying blood splatter.
