32. 32 – Hatter
32 – Hatter
A lyss is kneeling over me when my eyes open. Her gray eyes skate over my face, tightening. Her hand squeezes mine. “Hatter? It’s over.”
Discombobulated, I blink at her.
“The game,” she says gently. “The game is finished for tonight.”
My brows crease. When I speak, my voice sounds as though my vocal chords have been dancing along broken glass. “Already?”
That’s… not right.
“Two dead,” Chess says gruffly. He’s standing beside Alyss, his arms crossed. “Bruce, and the tall one.”
“ Boom ,” one of the twins mutters. “Suppose they have to leave some for tomorrow.”
Swallowing, I push myself upright. Alyss wraps her arm around my shoulders as Chess holds out his hand. My eyebrows flick up in surprise, but I take it, allowing him to haul me to my feet. The twins are standing there, Buck beside them. We’re still in the maze.
“So only the six of us are left, then.” Buck raises an eyebrow. “I’m rather impressed at our survival instincts, team.”
Everyone pauses at that.
One night left.
Six of us remaining.
Alyss’s hand drops from my shoulder. I can feel her looking at me, but I avoid her gaze. The memories still pull at me, the ticking of that fucking clock a trigger that never fails to bring me to my knees.
Red has always been an expert at wielding my pain like it’s her own personal weapon.
“Hatter.” Alyss whispers my name, but I turn and start walking. She follows me, slipping her hand into mine. Bracing for questions, I wait.
But she doesn’t ask. She only squeezes my hand. “How do we get out of here?”
After a moment, I squeeze back, my shoulders relaxing. “No idea.”
Ahead of us, an exit slides open. I spot the glint of gun barrels, and my hand tightens around Alyss’s.
Red ended the game too quickly. The sky above us is still pitch black.
But the others – they spot them, too. The twins skirt around us, taking up a position in front of Alyss. Chess appears at her side, his face grim. And when I glance over my shoulder, Buck is following close behind. The tattered remains of his shirt sleeve are dark with dried blood.
Closing ranks.
But… nothing. The guards merely escort us to the elevator. There’s no update from Red. Nothing to announce the end of the evening.
Only silence.
None of us speak as we descend. The guards waiting below escort us back to the cell, the door closing behind us.
“That’s it?” Alyss murmurs. She’s frowning. “That… doesn’t seem right.”
“I’m not complaining.” Buck throws himself down onto his bed with a grimace. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. A really fucking big truck.”
I know how he feels. My entire body aches.
Alyss slips her hand from mine, vanishing into the bathroom. Taking a few steps toward my bed, I’m stopped by Chess. “You alright?”
The question takes me by surprise.
Instinct nearly has me nodding, brushing it off. But I hesitate. Give him a slight shrug instead. “I have to be alright. Sorry you had to see that.”
“You shouldn’t apologize for something you can’t control.” He clears his throat, turning away. I move over to my bed, my body tensing.
There’s a gift on my pillow. I look over to Alyss’s empty bed, glance at the twins behind me.
None of them have anything.
Slowly, I sit, reaching for the small glossy black bag.
“What’d you get?” Buck’s voice is quiet as he appears next to me. He stares at the bag as if a snake might pop out at any moment.
After this evening, it’s not entirely unlikely.
I reach my hand in and tug the bottle out.
“Anticlimactic,” Buck mutters. But his face darkens as I pull out the note. Even folded over, we can both see the scrawl of my name. “She still sent it to you, even though we’re in here?”
Of course, he knows what it is. I even shared some with him once, during a bad withdrawal episode.
“Who?” Both of us look up at Alyss.
I sigh. “Red.”
They all make their way over, then. Everyone stares at the bottle.
I shake it, listening to the liquid inside. “Red would give me some of this after an… episode. To make me sleep it off.”
“She still cares about you,” Buck murmurs. “I wonder if she’s fiddling with these games. If she regrets putting you in.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I shove the bottle back inside. Alyss is watching me when I look her way. I reach out for her hand. “I would choose to be here a hundred times over rather than be with her.”
Truth.
I wonder what she sees on my face. I draw her to me, my grip loose enough that she could pull away if she wanted to. But she doesn’t. She settles by my side on the bed.
The others disperse, giving us some semblance of privacy.
Her other hand traces a circle on her knee. Her dress is ruined again, ripped and tattered. “I wonder if we’ll get new clothes for tomorrow night?”
“Alyss.”
She looks up at me then. “I… I don’t want to pry. I know what it feels like when you don’t want to share, because it hurts too much.”
My throat feels tight as I swallow. “There is… a lot that I haven’t told you. This is just one thing.”
“It’s easier to start with one thing than many.” She hesitates. “If you want to tell me.”
I search her face. “I do.”
But it’s difficult – painful - to know where to start. “I… I was like Buck. I made a bargain with Red.”
Alyss waits patiently, not saying anything.
“I married Myra when we were nineteen. Thirteen years ago. We were young, and foolish, and we thought we were in love. Both of our parents had passed, and we just – we connected.”
Na?ve and innocent. “As the years passed, I think we both realized that it wasn’t going to work. We were too different. But we still cared about each other. And then Erin came along.”
I stare down at my hands. “She was… unexpected. But we loved her.”
A copper-haired little girl with deep brown eyes. The words begin to stick in my throat. “Myra and I decided to try to make it work. We were doing okay. I was training to be a carpenter and she was an English tutor. We didn’t have much, but we were… happy, for a time. And then Erin got sick.”
Her hand slips into mine. “Oh, Hatter.”
“Leukaemia,” I force out around the lump in my throat. “It was aggressive, and our insurance… it barely covered anything of what we needed. There were things the doctors said we could try, but it all cost so much money . Myra earned more money than I did, so I quit my apprenticeship and stayed home. I picked up any jobs I could around the neighborhood in between.”
I shake my head. “That was the worst part, almost. To know there were treatments out there she could try, but we were barred from them because of the amount sitting in our bank accounts.”
“So you went to Red,” Alyss says softly.
“I’d heard rumors. I spent every night for months trying to find this place before they packed up and left. And every day, Erin was getting worse.”
Those memories threaten to push their way in. I close the door, slam it, press down on it as I try to get the words out. “And one night, I just… found it. They’d set up in this huge storage facility by the river. The security guards were going to kill me and dump my body in the water. But I told them I had an urgent message for Red, and she needed to hear it directly. She actually came outside. Said she was curious.”
She’d examined me like a prize. Walked all around me, her gown dragging in the muck from the riverbank.
Swallowing, I blink. “I begged her. Told her I’d pay any price. Give her whatever she wanted. She found me interesting enough that she offered me money to cover everything we needed. Everything Erin would need. Enough to clear the loans, get her into some trials and more besides. A nest egg, for her future care.”
Poison in a pretty package.
“I don’t blame you for taking it,” Alyss murmurs. “I would have done the same. You had to stay?”
When I shake my head, I half-smile at her surprise. “I said… I said no. I knew Myra wouldn’t be able to cope. And I would never have left Erin. At that point I had no idea what was happening behind the scenes. So Red offered me a contract. When Erin was better, I would come and work for her. I signed it on the spot, and the money appeared in my account that evening.”
I can’t look at her. I stare straight ahead, the walls blurring. “The next day, I paid all of the bills. Everything.”
Cold. I feel so fucking cold. “And that afternoon, when I was on my way back from the hospital, they were killed in a hit and run outside our house. The driver ran from the scene and left them there.”
Beside me, Alyss stills. “Oh god. Was it—.”
“I don’t know ,” I whisper. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
But I know what she’s saying. “I’d promised them I would be home and we would drive to the park, but I stopped off at a toy store on the way back. There was this tea set that Erin looked at every time we walked past, and we’d never been able to afford it. They left without me. It was a summer evening, and Erin didn’t often have the strength to walk longer distances, so I told Myra I would catch them up and take them the rest of the way.”
My cheeks are wet. “I got home thirty seconds after it happened, and they were still… they were trapped. I couldn’t get them out. They took them both to the hospital, worked on them, but neither of them stood a chance.”
Get them out.
Screaming, my hands burning. People rushing to help, crying.
She grips my hand.
“I waited in this small, sterile room for hours,” I whisper. “And this clock – the clock was stuck on the wall, and it made this ticking noise. I listened to it over and over again, until I couldn’t get that sound out of my head. I even tried to yank it off, but it was bolted on.”
“Six fifteen,” Alyss whispers.
I swipe my hand across my eyes. “That’s what time it was when they told me they were gone. I… I lost it. I don’t even remember what happened next. But Red did something. She got me out and brought me to Wonder. Told me I had to fulfill my side of the bargain.”
Trapped. Grief-stricken. Numb.
“I did everything she asked of me,” I say quietly. “But I refused to lie to her. I told her every day what I thought of her. That I hated her. I even told her that one day I would kill her, just to provoke a response. None of it seemed to matter to her. She wouldn’t let me go.”
I shake my head. “I don’t even know where they’re buried , Alyss. I never went to their funerals. Wonder closed its doors, and I was locked inside.”
“You never left?” When I shake my head, I hear the confusion. “But that night—,”
The night that I met Alyss Lidell in a crappy downtown bar.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I left that night. But I had to go back.”
I didn’t think Red would ever let me go.
But if Wonderland is the only freedom I get from her, I’ll grab onto it with both hands.
“I’m not afraid of death, Alyss.” I press my lips to her palm, folding her fingers over. “I have too many I love waiting for me. But… I never wanted you to be here with me.”
She leans her head on my shoulder. “I would prefer not to die. But… I don’t know. Maybe I’m losing my mind. But I feel like I’m coming back to life here. Does that sound crazy?”
My mouth twitches up. “Maybe. You may have noticed that I’m not all there myself.”
She jabs me in the ribs, but gently. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. Grief is… there is no clear path. No cure.”
I stare down at her, as she sighs. “I am… very glad I met you, Alyss Lidell.”
She turns her face to mine. “If I hadn’t been in the bar that night, we would never have met at all.”
I hesitate. Something flickers in her eyes, and I force a smile. “Funny how these things work out.”
Not now.
There will be time.
“We’re running out of time, Hatter.” She whispers those words as if she can read my mind. And her eyes – they search my face, as if she’s searching for something. “Tomorrow—.”
“You’re going to be fine.” My voice is non-negotiable. “I’ll make sure of it, Alyss.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I never do.”
She shifts up, then, turning to me. Alyss Lidell brushes her lips against mine in a silent question.
And in response, I draw her to me, cupping her cheek. She’s flushed when I pull away. “My teeth—.”
“Trust me,” I murmur. “I don’t care.”
I watch as she tucks her hair behind her ear. “She’ll get what she deserves one day. Red, I mean.”
I shrug. “Maybe. But the world is not a fair place.”
It’s easier to expect disappointment.
This isn’t a fairytale.