She surveys me steadily. “You let her run. Why?”
I smile, showing my teeth. There’s no lie in my next words.
“I fucking detest Knave. Any excuse to brawl with him is one worth taking.”
Knave’s boot meets my back with a solid kick. Turning, I take in the state of his face, clicking my tongue. “Don’t be sour, sweetheart. The bend is avastimprovement, I assure you.”
He scowls around the broken nose I gave him, lunging for me, but Red snaps her fingers at him. “Enough.”
Between us, Alyss coughs. I pray that she’ll stay silent, stay unaware, and maybe Hatter and I can talk us all out of our current shitty predicament.
He’s watching me with a frown.
Lie, you fucker. Lie your ass off, for once in your damn life.
Red slowly unfurls herself from her throne, the deep green dress she’s chosen this evening flowing out and down the small set of steps.
She pauses next to Hatter. He says nothing as Red curls her fingers under his chin, tilting it as she examines him. She runs a finger across the fucking collar she’s put him in.
Her face softens, as it always seems to for him.
Not that I’m jealous. Far fucking from it.
“Is that true, Hatter?” Her words are gentle. Far more so for him than they ever have been for me. “Is Buck telling me the truth?”
We’re so fucked.
But… he nods in her grip, although he says nothing. And surprise holds me in place for a second – surprise that he would lie at all, when to my knowledge he’s never lied to Red aboutanything.
And Red knows exactly how much he hates her, thanks to that honesty. She revels in it, in her ownership of him. Taunts him, even as it breaks him a little more every day. But his refusal to give her what she wants, to say the words she wants to hear – that has been a battle between them for far longer than I’ve been trapped in this world.
And that’s been… I stare down at the floor.
Shit.Three years.
Hatter clears his throat. “He’s telling the truth.”
It’s important to tell the truth, he told me once,when everything around you is a lie.
Alyss, it appears, is the exception.
It works. Red’s full, plump lips turn up, and she bends down to press them against his mouth, tapping his cheek in silent remonstration when he doesn’t move. We watch as her tongue slides between his lips, Knave practically vibrating with fury behind me.
When she finally releases him, deep crescent welts are embedded in the skin of Hatter’s cheek and neck. A bead of blood wells up, and I turn my face away.
My gaze drops to Alyss. With Red focusing on Hatter, she looks awake now, her eyes on the floor. I expected her to panic, to flail, but she’s curiously quiet as she listens.
Her eyes, still a little hazy, flick up to mine and away.
Tilting my head, I run my eyes over her again. There’s something off about her posture, now that the chloroform seems to have worn off. It’s too… perfect.
She kneels there like a damn soldier, shoulders back as she grips her arms. Not at all how I might have expected her to react after stumbling into this nest.
Curiouser and curiouser.
All three of us tense as Red moves to stand in front of her. Scarlet nails embedded with Hatter’s blood tip Alyss’s face up, twisting it from side to side.
“Ah. You’re awake,” Red says, almost pleasantly. But her tone is frigid. “Now, who exactlyareyou?”
