Chapter 48 #4
Boots and claws thud over sandy earth, weapons draw. The card-playing creatures scatter toward the tree line. The rat scrambles inside a drum shaped like a cup, and the bright phone screen shines through the holes.
“That the boat?” The beast asks. “It has to be.”
The ruins go quiet. Just the fire, the wind, the engine getting closer. And my heart, hammering so hard I can feel it in my bound wrists.
But then it leaves, taking my hope with it, and the island grumbles back to life.
“False alarm.” Dorman calls out, lifting his head out of the drum and holding his phone up. “Boat should be in here in ten!”
“Must’ve been a trawler,” the beast suggests then drinks his poison and tosses it to one of the others. “Come on, Jabber. Let’s go check it out.”
I sag against the gravestone, praying I’m left alone.
But footsteps pad the soft ground, loud in my warped senses.
A shadow fills a doorway next to me, stretched and warped by the firelight.
It’s one of them, I think. He’s come to finish it.
A low, deep whisper washes over me, and I shiver.
“Lucy.”
My heart leaps.
“I’m here, baby. I’ve got you.”
I hear murmurs and a curse before a rustling of clothing. A hand gently covers my mouth from behind, then a sharp pinch makes me cry out, and I suck in a breath as heat fills my veins.
“I know, baby, I know. I’m sorry. But X said with as much as you’ve had, it’s the only way.”
Then it’s over, and big, warm, careful hands brush the hair off my cheek, touch the side of my jaw, trace the edge of my mouth. I hum at the contact, melting into it, greedy for the warmth. I want to curl into those hands like a cat, press closer, sink into the dream and never come out.
But I’ve dreamed him before. I dreamed him ten minutes ago, or an hour, or a lifetime. The drug keeps giving him to me and taking him away.
Through the Wonderland I see him, my blue-masked prince—no, my Hatter—both? Ocean waves roll in his gaze behind the mask, the look is feral, and his top hat is askew. His roses sway with the breeze.
He flickers, and it’s Hatton underneath.
Dark blue eyes, split knuckles, backward cap, the rose tattoos catching firelight instead of the breeze.
Real. Please be real. Please.
“Please be real,” I breathe.
"I'm real, bunny. I promise. Everything about you and me is so goddamn real.”
I hope so, I think, but my mind is fading in and out, unable to catch the conversations around me.
“Fuck.” His voice breaks, and the fracture there is too vulnerable to be all in my head, right?
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m going to kill every one of them,” he rasps. “Who did this to you? Whose head do you want to roll, Lucy? Tell me who did this and I'll give it to you.”
The beast…
“Grady Wilde, my cousin,” a woman murmurs, and the Hatter’s hand tighten around the nape of my neck, protective and sure.
“... Your cousin is a dead man,” the Hatter answers, though I think there was more between them I might’ve missed.
“Good.”
Then warm, calloused hands cup my face with a soft roughness I wish I could memorize.
“Don’t run from me when this is over, bunny. Okay? I gave you the first dose I ever took. Hopefully it’s enough.”
My mouth moves but nothing comes out. The Hatter and Hatton overlap, both of them looking at me, both of them terrified and furious but here. Right?
I can’t tell which one is real, though. Maybe it’s neither.
I slam my eyes shut because I’ve been fooled into wishful thinking before. I can’t survive losing this hope again. I won’t survive losing my hope in Hatton.
“Hey, baby. Eyes on me, Lucy. It’s just me.”
The world stills.
Those words. That voice. I know them. I’ve felt them. They’re real. They’re his.
“Hatton?”
The Wonderland peels back in slow breaths.
Not completely, but enough to finally get some of my bearings.
The blue-masked prince, the Hatter, it all dissolves, and underneath is Hatton Fury, crouched in front of me in the ruins of Old Stone Church, his backward cap and enraged scowl, every scar and tattoo exactly where they should be, and a look on his face that promises to burn this island to the waterline.
“There you are,” he whispers. And presses his forehead to mine. One breath. Two. “Hold on for me, baby. I’m going to save you.”
Then he’s gone. Pulled back into the dark, my mind unable to follow.
Time passes quick and slow. Was he even real? I’m afraid I got lost in hope when, in Hatton’s place, my nightmare seep back in.
Grubby paws grab my thighs. “Now. Where were—”
A sharp crack splits the night, echoing off the stone walls.
The beast screams and staggers backward, clutching his shoulder as it blooms red, his own gun spinning from his clawed hand into the sand.
One of the card-playing men drops behind a headstone.
The rat screams and scurries deeper into the ruin, phone still clutched to his chest.
And Hatton rises from behind a gravestone, rage radiating from him in waves, every muscle coiled to attack as he glares at the man on the ground.
“Get your fucking hands off my wife.”