Chapter 3 #3
Watchman’s frustration rattles over the speakers. “Well, sorry about this, ladies and gentlemen. Duchess is apparently taking her sweet ass time. To stay on schedule for our main event, we’ll have to cut her dance short if she doesn’t get out here right now.”
“Dear sweet baby Jesus H.F. Christ, I’m only like a minute late,” Duchess grumbles. “Whatever. See y’all out there.”
She mentions something about throwing a Pleaser at him as she slips through the door. It auto-locks behind her with an ominous click, and Mariposa groans.
“Quitting cigarettes again? His grumpy ass will scare everyone away before the night’s over.”
Tweetie snorts. “Please, he’ll be asking you to slip him Smoke by the end of our next set. Him and Dorman.”
“Oh, hell no. There’s no fucking way I’m letting Dory near my bar. I cut him off as soon as he walked in the door. I need to talk to Castle about X hiring a bouncer that shows up sober.”
Dee groans. “For real. There’s no telling who he’s already let in tonight. Why doesn’t Castle rein him in himself?”
“Nepotism, surely. There’s no way he keeps him around unless they’re related somehow,” Mariposa scoffs.
“Regardless, it’s all part of the game. I’ve been watching the lobby cams behind the bar to back X up.
Before I took my break, Dory was swindling some poor fool.
New guy’s a giant, though, so Castle’s probably accepting bets right now on how much cash Dory can get before his head’s plucked off like a grape. ”
“New guy??” I ask, voice a little too high, stomach twisting.
The Rabbit Hole is a paradox, both a legend and a secret.
Every patron is known by at least one person in the building, and Mariposa seems to know everyone.
It’s nerve-wracking to learn someone made it into The Rabbit Hole that even she doesn’t know..
It’s okay. I’m in a mask. I can run anytime I want. If anything, I need to crack him first, just in case.
“More importantly, is he hot?” Tweetie asks, making Dee snort.
“Asking the hard-hitting questions, I see.”
“As hot as men can be, I guess,” Mariposa answers with a shrug. “Little young for me, though. Early twenties? Huge, tanned, leather jacket. Dorman tricked him into buying the Hatter costume. Can’t miss him.”
“Eyy, if he’s an asshole, sounds like your type, Tweets,” Dee teases, making my pulse quicken.
No, no, no. She’s almost as good at Mirroring as I am.
I have to grab him before she does.
Tweetie snaps her approval. “Yesss. We need someone new around here. Off season has been killing my vibe. Mari-baby, any idea what my focus should be? Poker? Mirror? Something else?” She bites her tongue suggestively in a sly smile.
Mariposa taps her chin. “Not sure yet. If he comes to the bar, I’ll try to get a read on him. But if he doesn’t, one of you guys hook him before he leaves, ’kay? Castle hates when new faces go to waste.”
My curiosity piques. Everything in The Rabbit Hole is a guessing game, and our jobs are to feed the answers to Castle.
Mariposa can read people with one look, using the same methods I was taught growing up.
Their body language, where they sit at the bar, what they order, what they don’t say.
Maybe it’d feel more like a game to me, too, if I wasn’t so worried that the secrets being spilled were my own. Or worse, the Troisgarde’s.
Ugh, Tweetie will hate me for stealing him, but if anyone’s gonna crack the new guy first, it has to be me.
Tweetie’s lips twist in thought as she adjusts the red velvet bowtie around her neck in her locker mirror. “Maybe I’ll tease him first. Just one touch is enough to leave them wanting more.”
She winks at herself, smiling. I ignore my nerves, dragging my gaze away from everyone else to focus on getting ready.
The raised sections of my warped mirror act like a magnifying glass, helping me be precise in applying heavier stage makeup. Duchy’s music begins after a few swipes of my bronzer, “Babydoll” by Ella Boh, the deep bass rattling through the bones of the dressing room’s ancient plaster walls.
My mind falls into the slow pulsing beat that drags my heart rate with it, and as the others filter in and out of the dressing room, Duchess’s set finishes, Mira’s begins, and all the while I breathe slowly, trying to get in the zone I need to dance.
A different person comes to life in the reflection before me, my mind wanders back to a lifetime ago. When I was Lucy, not Alice.
Dinah curling up with me during a good book.
Brylie and me pirouetting on the Bordeaux Conservatory stage.
Luna and her twin, Nox, playing pranks on every person in New Orleans, including the cops.
Dancing with a stranger in a blue mask that made me forget the world for a night.
Benny smiling at me in an underground speakeasy, teasing me in his light Cajun accent, right after snatching my drink and downing it in one gulp.
“I take my shadow responsibilities very seriously…”
I swallow, closing my eyes against the sting. Even six months later, it hurts.
Everything still hurts.
But being there, watching our world burn in front of my eyes, Luna getting kidnapped, knowing Brylie and I were next and that more people could get hurt because of me…
I couldn’t stay.
I know they don’t understand why I left.
They never understood when I was younger, and I’m sure now is no exception.
I love my parents, and their leadership makes up one strong, solid branch of the Troisgarde crime syndicate, ruled by the blood of three families, protected by the power of many.
But there’s a soft spot in the Troisgarde’s armor. A weakness. Three of them, actually.
Their daughters.
Our families are obsessed with keeping us protected in our gilded cages. They’ll do whatever it takes, at whatever cost, to keep us safe, their logic blinded by their fear of losing us. And yet, when we need that protection most, it isn’t enough. It can never be enough.
It’s why we’re in the mess we’re in now.
History’s repeating itself, and just as it was thirteen years ago, the Troisgarde is fractured, each family protecting the soft spot in their own armor, which means it’s every family for themselves.
The Bordeauxs already fell prey to our enemies, but Brylie’s a Luciano, a mafia darling.
No one in their right mind would ever mess with them.
She left for Italy the morning I fled. She spent her twenty-second birthday at her family’s Tuscan villa, safer than any of us.
In my case? I already know how depending on someone else to save me puts everyone else in danger. So I ran. The safest place to hide? In plain sight, and The Rabbit Hole has given me the unique opportunity to learn every single thing that happens in the underworld.
The McKennons have always been in the business of secrets, so keeping, seeking, and protecting secrets comes naturally.
I’m even better at wielding them. Everyone in The Rabbit Hole is a tool to keep me and my family safe.
Whoever this stranger is tonight is no exception.
I just have to get to him before anyone else does.
Finished with my makeup, I tie on a sparkly, white lace mask and pull away to look at Alice.
Her strawberry-blond hair, green-blue eyes, and ribbon headband are reminiscent of Lucy.
But Alice’s hair looks blond under the lights, and the fan of fake lashes shrouds her eyes in sparkly darkness in the strobes.
The costume isn’t the most revealing thing I’ve worn on stage, but it’s certainly the most tantalizing, especially considering I have to take most of it off, something that feels oddly natural and empowering with this mask on.
Alice is me, I am Alice, and yet… there’s not a trace of me in sight.
The end of Mira’s set thrums through the walls, and I exhale as Watchman’s much more relaxed voice rumbles happily over the speaker, calling for the next dancer.
“Now, for the girl you’ve all been waiting for… The Rabbit Hole’s very own Alice in Wander Isle!”
In the warped mirror, Alice smiles with bright red lips. She whispers back at me in her deep, husky voice.
“Showtime.”