“Not every shattered mind is gone, dear boy. Your wild rose is proof that some minds need to be shattered in order to find themselves. How is it, by the way?” I asked, angling my chin. “Fucking me.”
His eyes dried.
“It’s great,” the fox put in. “I mean, I fucked herbeforeshe went all ‘psycho agent’ but it was still the best sex I’ve ever had.”
The mountain’s jaw feathered.
The rose rolled her eyes. “I know that taking down this thing is the most important thing on your mind right now, but I also know that some part of you likes protecting people.”
“Our minds may have broken the same, rose, but don’t mistake your parasitic empathy for something I too possess,” I sang.
She shook her head, a slight smile drifting across her lips. “Never. I’m only going off of what I just learned. You saved as many of those kids as you could, however you managed to do it, but before you make your choice on whether or not to save her, ask her if saving is what she actually wants.”
My brows lifted in slight surprise. “Why, dear rose, are you suggesting Ikillthe captive?”
Her expression hardened. “I’m suggesting you ask her,” she repeated. “In whatever way she can understand. Maybe Wonderland isn’t where she wants to stay.”
I studied her carefully. Being out and about when the episodes wore off wasn’t generally how I did things. I usually stayed locked away in my cave, meditating on my own mind to try and right myself for a few days before returning to the world. I wasn’t my best Me in this state, and I was worried it was starting to show.
“Perhaps she just needs to be shown a better one, but I make no promises about the lives I will or will not save. Don’t you worry your pretty little head, if she wants to die, I have no problem filling the rivers with her blood too. Until next time, deary.”
I turned away from them, walking the opposite way they had all come. I was done with conversations, done with questions, done with looks andfeelings. I said what I had to say, if they chose to go against it, then we were in for a war we were not yet prepared to fight.
All I could do wastrustthat this family actually cared enough about the innocents to let me work.
29
Scarlett
March 12th, 2023
He hadn’t come to church these last two Sundays, and I think I might have been more disappointed if I had had the time to feel anything at all.
He was gone, and Thomas’ solution to that was to convince his father to allow the sons in the Back Hall. Leading up to my wedding day, he said it would be kind of him to share me a little more, as the months leading up to that day are holy.
While most Favorite’s were off-limits in the six months leading up to the wedding, I was the blessing that they needed to cast upon themselves.
Had he told them that he planned on sharing me? It didn’t feel like it. I felt as if they wouldn’t have been acting so greedy had they known that they would still get me after I gave Thomas his children.
Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe they didn’t care.
The Leaders still got me first, followed by their sons. The sons weren’t allowed a one-on-one session, unless Thomas brought them to my house, but Mr. Bastrom and Mr. Alascer still requested theirs every chance they got, speaking the same things Pastor Masters had about how excited they were to feel me wrapped around their cock.
But today, I felt those warm eyes on me again, watching, waiting. I wondered if he ever watched Pastor Masters preach.It didn’t seem like it. It only ever felt as if he were watching me. It made me feel special. Even now, after the last two weeks. The first thing he did when he returned was watch me.
And why wouldn’t he? I was his Queen of Hearts, and he was my Hatter.
“Thorin is back, does that mean we’ve lost our time with her?” I heard L.J. ask under his breath from where he sat on the other side of Thomas.
L.J. was the son of Louis Nelson. He was still considered a ‘son of a Leader’, giving him all the rights the other sons had, only he held such a dark, incessant rage to him that I felt a boulder form in my stomach every time I heard his voice or smelled that cologne lingering on his skin.
“You’re below him, L.J.”
Everyone was below him, they just didn’t know it yet.
“Talk to your father about it, I want a round before that bitch gets her.”
The muscles around my eyes and mouth twitched, a soft ember burning under my skin. What a crude word, and towards my Hatter? I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that at all.
