“Mark?” I blink. “Who’s Mark?”
“No.” The boy waves his forefinger. “Slave. Mark.”
My hands reach for my mouth to cup a shriek. “It’s a mark? Like a tattoo? You’re a salve?”
“Executioner slave.” The boy taps his chest and then points to the rest of the children. “Travel. Drug. Sell.”
“Not anymore.” I hug him closer. “I will take care of you.”
The boy smiles broadly, as if I have bought him a gift. I mean, God, he doesn’t even know what they are doing to him, trapped within the walls of mushroom all around.
Before he gets in the Jeep, he turns around and touches my hair. “Alice,” he whispers. “Mother say Alice come. Alice save us.”
Chapter 26
Inside the Jeep, lights still out, I try to think of a plan.
So what? I am going to ignite the vehicle with the kids inside and just try to escape Mushroomland?
It doesn’t really sound like a plan, and now that I’ve given the children hope, it really doesn’t sound like a plan.
“Think, Alice.” I bang my hands on the wheel, staring at the machine gun men in the distance. It’ll only be minutes before they come back.
My hatred for the Pillar increases. Or maybe I should blame myself for counting too much on him. Who was I fooling? I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I learned he was a drug lord. I bet he marked children like the Executioner does. That bastard.
I fiddle with my umbrella, realizing it only has a few bullets. I can go back to put one in the Executioner and then another in the Pillar, but what good will that do for the children?
Suddenly, one of the machine gun men sees us and blows red fireworks in the sky, exposing the Jeep for everyone to see.
It’s too late now for a plan. Survival instinct at its core.
I push the pedal and bump into every hedge and mushroom in my way, trying to chug my way out of here.
Jeeps start following me, shooting at us.
Now I’m worried one of the kids will get hurt. I ask them to duck, but for how long?
Farther I drive, my hands gripping the wheel, my brain still foggy.
Alice save us. Had the boy’s mother predicted my arrival, like Constance believed in me?
What do you do when everyone believes in you, and deep down inside you know you’re insane?
I take a left onto an even muddier road. The Jeep slows down. But I am not stopping. I grip the wheel harder, grit my teeth as I push the pedal against its capacity.
But it’s not the chasing that stops me. It’s the flaring white light someone directs in my face.
I end up seeing nothing, only feeling the weight of the Jeep rolling on its side. My head bumps into something, and all I end up with is the aching sound of the wheels circling the air.
Are the children hurt?
It’s only a minute before I see the Executioner looking down on me. “I should have killed you once I saw you.” He pulls his gun out again.
Next to him, the Pillar’s face comes into focus. His face is inanimate. And for the first time, I can see his real intentions. His eyes are so dead I don’t think he ever cared for me one bit.
He tucks his cigar back in his mouth and says, “Love that look on someone’s face, just before they die.”
Chapter 27
Westminster Palace, Margaret Kent’s Office
Margaret stood in front of her favorite mirror in her office, checking out her face. She wanted to see if her surgeons, who’d cost her a fortune, had messed up anything in her operation.
But on the contrary, everything was just fine.
The face she’d asked for to cover up her ugliness, and put her Duchess days behind, was like nothing she’d ever seen. In fact, she loved how she looked. It suited her prestige and made people trust her—which was most crucial to her title in the Parliament.
Then why did the Queen of Hearts keep calling her ugly?
Margaret looked away from the mirror and out at the River Thames. She knew why the Queen treated her this way. Because she couldn’t forget how ugly she was in Wonderland. Because the Queen envied her for being able to pull such a trick in the real world.
The Queen herself had asked the same doctors to make her taller—the Queen’s biggest setback. But science in this world only knew how to make extreme makeovers with faces. Making someone taller wasn’t an option yet.
How Margaret wished to kill this obnoxious Queen. How she wished to rip her to pieces.
But none of that was feasible before they collected the Six Impossible Keys.
It just had to be done. And now she had to find someone to send after that madman, the Pillar who seemed to be looking for a cure in Columbia.
Never mind that Columbia was the best place to look for those who created this plague, but it was also where Margaret had made most of her fortune.
Margaret had been one of the first to arrive from Wonderland. With her political position, she was able to make millions of pounds by endorsing drug trafficking and child slavery in Columbia.