Chapter 38 Scarlett #2
The table was covered in paper, just like the others I had been on.
I climbed up, allowing the habit to take over, my mind drifting as I laid down on my back, lifted my knees, and spread them.
I imagined Azrael’s eyes, his voice, the way his hand had felt around mine when he let me hold his cane—
Blue eyes appeared above me, staring directly into my soul. “Close your legs, little sinner. You spread them only for me now.”
I blinked again, confusion filling me. “But the D.O.C.T.O.R. needs to look.”
His eyes flashed and then hardened. “Not there. Sit up.” He disappeared from above me.
I pushed myself to a sit after a moment of hesitation, scooting to the edge of the table, keeping my eyes low as I pressed my knees together.
“Sign language?” the doctor asked.
“She needs a way to communicate. Right now, that’s all she has.”
“How long have you been working with her?”
“A week,” Azrael answered evenly. “Did you hear me, Scarlett?”
Hear him? Just now? “Yes.”
“When you were on your back,” he clarified.
“No,” I answered. He hadn’t said a word.
“Disassociation,” he told the doctor. “The SSRIs wouldn’t cause that.”
“Trauma would,” he answered, his chair rolling around the floor until knees appeared in front of me.
I quickly closed my eyes, my heart skipping a beat. I almost saw his face. I almost looked him in the eye.
“You’re allowed to look at him,” Azrael told me. “We are now our true selves.”
Our true selves.
The Hatter and the Queen.
Were we in his Wonderland yet? Was this where it began?
I looked up, finding his eyes instantly.
Haunting and familiar. I studied him carefully, my heart pounding as the thoughts filled my mind.
I should ask him. He told me I had that power, to choose.
I had the power to learn to be his equal, and if I was his equal, then I deserved to know the truth, didn’t I?
I swallowed and lifted my hands, hoping he didn’t see the slight tremble in them. “Are you going to change?”
He searched my eyes, sliding his hands into his pockets, straightening. “Change?”
“I don’t have a choice in marrying you,” I explained, his eyes narrowing, “but you have a choice. Will you take your quiet rage out on me? Will the punishments begin when the doors are closed?”
He lifted his chin, his expression relaxing ever so slightly. “The only punishments you will receive are the ones you beg for. Whether they remain willing on your end the whole way through?” he shrugged. “That has yet to be determined.”
I felt the muscles around my eyes squint and relax. I never wanted to be punished.
He took a step forward and then stopped, his ocean eyes storming. “I will not turn into them, but you are right. You don’t have a choice.”
I lowered my hands, studying him, taking him in entirely. Even now, in this small doctor’s office, he looked like some sort of vengeful god. Black and red, Devil mask, the way he stood, his presence taking up every ounce of space he could.
It didn’t matter, in the long run, if I believed him or not because I had to marry him anyway. So, I let the conversation die and asked, “your W.O.N.D.E.R.L.A.N.D?”
“We’re still fighting to get there.” His eyes flicked to the doctor’s and back before he straightened. “He’s Absolem, so pay attention. Do as he says. He’s trying to see if the church was lying again.”
Absolem? Absolem was smart. He always said the right things, always tried to look after Alice. He was loyal to no one and everyone. Now he was choosing to be loyal to my Hatter, which meant he was safe.
Azrael must have seen what he wanted because he started to turn away again. “I need to call someone.”
I straightened at that. “Rose?”
He paused, his phone in his hand. “Yes.” He headed for the corner without another word.
I watched him a moment later before turning to the doctor, instinctively dropping my eyes only to shake my head slightly and force them back up. His lips were as far as I could go before the tightness in my chest became too much.
He was smiling at me, wrinkles around his mouth and neck. He was wearing a suit, just like Azrael, except his was blue, a darker blue than Absolem, but still blue. “You like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?” he asked, pulling on latex gloves.
I watched the movement, trying to control my own fear. He was good. Azrael said so. Absolem would never hurt the Queen of Hearts in our story, never. “Yes,” I signed with a shaking hand.
He must have tracked my gaze because then he said, “it’s for sanitation reasons.
To protect anything from my hands getting on your skin.
Z gave me as much information as he thought was necessary for me to do my job,” he explained.
“Normally, I would be authorized to report what was found, but my contract with him states that anything, no matter what it is, is confidential.
Even if my oath as a doctor say otherwise.
“We are here today, Scarlett, to make sure that you are healthy. To make sure that the medication you are taking is the right thing for you.”
He must have been talking about the pills in my cabinet. I’ve been taking them for as long as I could remember. They were dropped off with my groceries once a month. I was to always take them or else I would be punished.
“But we are also going to test other things like reflexes, lungs, and heart. We will even do what’s called a ‘sonogram’. Have you ever heard of a sonogram?”
I glanced to Azrael. His back was to me, his phone to his ear. “No,” I signed, turning back to the doctor.
“It’s a kind of flashlight that allows us to see inside of you.
It’s my job to make sure that the doctors who have worked on you in the past didn’t mess anything up in a way that might need to be fixed, okay?
Now, you said you liked Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
What do you like most about it?” he asked, turning to his tray of tools.
I glanced at the tray. I felt the fear tighten my chest as my hand found my head. “Hatter.”
He glanced up when I didn’t respond, catching the tail end of what I had done. “Hatter?” he asked, his smile widening. “He’s a lovely character. Have you seen the movie? Not the cartoon one, but the one that came out in 2010?”
My eyes widened, my heart skipping a beat for an entirely different reason. There was a movie? No, I never watched it. I wasn’t allowed to watch anything.
I looked over to Azrael, his back was still to me. I wanted to watch that movie. I wanted to see it. I wanted to see how they brought my favorite world to life.
I stared at him, willing him to turn around as the doctor stood. I could see his shoulders tensing. He knew I was watching him, I knew he knew.
Irritation filled me. Why wasn’t he turning around?
I glared at his back, but he still ignored me. He even straightened, as if telling me he was ignoring me.
I frowned deeply and turned back to the tools, looking over them until I found the one that looked the heaviest.
I picked it up and flung it at his head.
It hit him in the neck and fell with a ‘tink’ to the floor.
Azrael paused, said another word, and lowered his phone as he turned to me, his eyes bright, his brow slightly raised.
“M.O.V.I.E,” I signed.
His eyes narrowed. “Use your words, little sinner,” he said almost threateningly.
My jaw tightened. I signed out the title and gestured towards the doctor.
Azrael’s eyes didn’t move from mine. He watched me for three heartbeats before he lifted his chin. “A movie it is. Soon.” He turned away from me again to finish his conversation, and I felt the muscles around my mouth twitch again, one corner lifting for half a second before it dropped.
I was going to watch a movie.
A real movie.
The doctor put a hard round thing against my back and chest, asking me to breathe.
He knocked things against my knees and elbows, making them move like magic.
He squeezed my hands gently, touched my throat with his fingers, and finally stepped back, taking off his gloves only to put on new ones as if those had been contaminated already.
“Everything looks good so far,” he told Azrael, who was finally done with his phone call and now stood directly in front of me across the room, leaned back against the counter.
“Next the sonogram and then drawing blood.”
Drawing blood? I had looked around this room during the other tests, there were no pencils or paper here to draw with.
Azrael finally pushed away from the counter, leaned his cane back against it, and took off his jacket. He held his jacket in both hands as he walked over to me. “You need to lift up your dress to your waist,” he explained. “He needs to put jelly on your stomach in order to see what’s inside.”
I glanced at the doctor and back. He trusted him, and I didn’t know what trust felt like, but if he trusted him, then I should let him do what he needed to do, right?
After a moment, I nodded and stood. I crouched down, grabbed the hem of my dress in both hands, and pulled it up as I stood.
The second my knees straightened, Azrael had his jacket up, spread in front of me, keeping the doctor from seeing my bare legs.
I felt the tightness leave my chest when my eyes found his.
“Lay back,” he instructed me.
Without hesitation, I hopped back onto the table, trying to keep my dress bunched around my waist, and slid back, laying on my back. He kept his jacket above me until I was settled before laying it over my legs and pussy.
He stepped up onto my left side, the doctor rolling over to my right with a machine right beside him.
He angled the screen towards us before turning to me and holding up a bottle. “This is petroleum jelly. It’s cold and thick, but we need to put it on your skin in order for the sonogram to work.”