“Okay,” he said. “I will send someone to Columbia.”
“You know what kind of someone that is, right? The Executioner will kill anyone who enters his territory.”
“Trust me, I know. That’s why I can’t go there myself. Whatever person I use as a disguise, the Executioner will recognize me. We didn’t all stay away from him for nothing in Wonderland. I will send someone.”
“Do you mean...?”
“Yes,” he said. “Only if I can find them. Because no one’s been able to since we left Wonderland.”
Chapter 32
Mushroomland, Columbia
“My turn,” the Executioner says.
Looking at guards all around us, I wonder what I’m going to do now. I have no way out of this, unless I shoot him and risk being killed one second later.
But why would I shoot him without freeing the children or knowing who cooked the plague?
This is some paradox I’m trapped in.
“So tell me, Alice,” the Executioner says. “Do you think you’re getting out of here alive today?”
“Hookah Hookah.” In my mind, the answer is ‘Hell yeah!’ I just have no idea how.
“Impressive,” the Executioner says. “Even though I know you will die in a few minutes, I still believe you. You know why? Because you definitely believe it. Now ask me.”
“Who cooked the plague?” I shoot.
The Executioner laughs. “Hookah Hookah,” he says. And I realize that in his mind he just answered, but I am not going to know it, not in a million years. Some silly game.
But wait, he doesn’t look like he is telling the truth. What am I supposed to do?
My hand grips my gun. A wide smile forms on the Executioner’s face.
That’s when I realize how tricky this game is. He deliberately gave me the wrong answer. At least he made sure I’d sense it, so I’d try to shoot him and then have his guards finish me off.
Chapter 33
Never have I been so much on the edge of my seat.
The Executioner’s sly grin cuts through me. My hand gripping the gun starts shivering in the nonsensical game played in a nonsensical world. The one thought that is on my brain is: am I still under the mushrooms’ influence, unable to make the right decision?
“It’s the perfect paradox!” the Pillar compliments the Executioner. “Now, that you’re lying—and it shows on your face—she is obliged to pull the trigger and shoot you, but your guards wouldn’t let her.” He leans forward, looking very amused by the situation. “It’s like playing cards with the lion in his den. You winning isn’t really going to prevent him from having you for lunch.”
An inner voice tells me to pick up the gun and shoot the Pillar instead. I have tolerated many of his crazy actions in the past, but I can’t anymore. I should have listened to everyone who warned me of him.
“I applaud you, Executioner.” The Pillar stands up, raising his glass. “I mean, shouldn’t we toast for this before the girl dies? I totally think we should have this on video.”
The Executioner seems puzzled for a moment, shifting his focus from me to the Pillar. Or is it something else that has been going on between them that I am not picking up?
“I didn’t think you’d like my trick, Senor Pillardo,” the Executioner says. “You really have nothing against killing her?”
“I don’t give a Jub Jub about her.” The Pillar sips his own drink and let’s out a big ah. “Frankly, I brought her here as a gift to you. I mean, all your slave boys are, let’s face it, boys. I thought, why not get the Executioner a girl. She’s very feisty and can be of pretty good use to you.”
I’m tired of gritting my teeth. Who invented it anyways? It doesn’t do any good when your anger hurts so much inside.
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” the Executioner says. “Why would you bring her to me? We both know this isn’t true.”
I don’t know what the Executioner means, but I sense the underlined tension between them.
“Of course it’s true.” The Pillar asks the guards for one of their hunting knives. “And here is proof.” He pulls my hand violently toward him and plasters it on the table, then does the one thing that never crossed my mind. The Pillar raises his knife. “I will cut her two fingers myself. Isn’t that how you like your slaves marked? Isn’t that what the war beyond Mushroomland is about? All you drug cartels fighting over the kids, so you get the most labor in your business?”
The realization sends surges of lightning into my body. Even though the Pillar is about to mark me, I can’t seem to fathom the cruel world, the real world, outside my asylum walls.
“Interesting.” The Executioner stands up. “So I suppose you want to know who cooked the plague now in exchange?”