Alice’s eyes snap open. She looks straight at me. At first, she must see only what I see, reflected back at her from the panes, a world of soft light and bronzed shapes. But I see her focus change, her expression move from contentedness to shock as she looks through her own image and meets my gaze. Slowly, her expression shifts to acceptance, like she always knew I would find her here.
I have only one instinct: to flee. I shuffle back down the branch, tears landing on the wood before me, and begin the mad scramble down the tree. I forget all of Ash’s advice – tumbling, scrabbling, bouncing through the boughs, a haze of twigs and leaves biting at my hands and my scalp. I lose my footing on the final branch and the ground seems to rise up from nowhere, smacking my back and knocking the wind from my lungs. I just lie there, glaring up at that bastard tree, gulping down empty, air-free mouthfuls, feeling like I’m going to suffocate, trying to get that hateful image from my brain.
I hear her before I see her. The crunch of her feet on the gravel, the soft yet frantic cry of my name. ‘Violet. Violet.’
She skids into a kneeling position beside me. ‘Did you fall badly?’
‘Yes,’ I manage to squeak.
‘Did you hit your head?’
My hand travels to my brow. ‘No.’
She helps me into a sitting position. The zingy sweetness of her perfume calms me, but then I just feel angry with myself. I study her for a moment. She wears no make-up, her hair extensions curl freely around her shoulders, and she’s wrapped a white satin sheet around her body, probably to hide her nakedness rather than protect her from the cold. She looks so natural, and for a moment, she’s just Alice again.
‘What’s going on?’ The vulnerability in my voice surprises me as much as her.
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.’
‘Don’t you want to go home?’
‘I thought I did. But then this happened.’
‘What? Willow?’
‘I guess . . . and more.’ She sweeps her hand in a dramatic circle. ‘Wonderland.’
‘Shit, Alice. You’re not doing this for love? You just want to be one of them.’ I bumble to my feet. My lungs still ache, my body’s still oxygen-starved, but the anger gains strength and I’m able to pull myself upright.
‘Why not?’ She stands too, the sheet folding around her like a carefully sculptured piece of royal icing. ‘The Gems are kind to me. The Imps treated me like a leper, they cut off my hair, tried to hang me, locked me in a tower.’
‘Yeah, they tried to hang me too, remember?’
‘So you get it then?’
‘No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. If you’d seen what I’ve seen, the way the Gems really treat the Imps, you’d soon change your tune.’
‘And maybe, if you were in my shoes, you’d change yours.’
My fists clench in frustration. ‘For God’s sake, Alice. The Gems only treat you like that because they think you’re one of them.’
‘So?’
‘So . . . what happens when you catch a cold, or you start to age like a normal person, or you, I don’t know, you go to a pub quiz and can’t answer all the questions cos your IQ isn’t stupidly high?’
I clearly hit a nerve. She takes a step back. ‘Are you saying I’m thick?’
‘Well you must be if you want to stay here.’ I sidestep her and walk towards the trees, my boots slapping the grass, my body rigid and prickling with rage.
But she runs after me, catching me by the arm. ‘Violet, please try and understand, I’ve never fitted in, not anywhere. This is the first place I haven’t felt different.’
‘Poor Alice. It must be hard being so beautiful.’ I wrench my arm from her grasp.
‘That’s not what I mean.’ She circles in front of me, blocking my path. ‘I’m happy here.’
‘Oh and it’s all about you, isn’t it? Have you even thought about Katie? About what Thorn will do to her when he realizes you’re only here to get naked with Willow?’
Something crosses her face, an expression I can’t quite read. Guilt? Regret? And that’s when I notice for the first time that she no longer wears her split-heart necklace.
The treachery deepens in my gut. ‘You’re not just sabotaging our chances of getting home. You’re risking our lives.’
‘Thorn won’t hurt Katie, he fancies her too much . . . It was clearly just a threat.’
‘You tell yourself that. And you tell Nate, next time some guard tries to hack off his hands, you tell him it was clearly just a threat.’
This unnerves her – her brow knots together. ‘Look, Violet. I know the guards were out of order, but Willow and his family, they’re actually really nice. They would never do anything like that.’
The anger fills every part of me. I think of that boy floating in a tank, hacked in two, and that promise I made Ash seems so very far away. ‘Is that right? So why don’t you ask Willow what he keeps in that bunker at the bottom of the estate?’
She doesn’t look confused, as I anticipated. Her eyebrows don’t pull together, her inky gaze doesn’t falter – she looks sheepish, ashamed.
‘But you already know, don’t you?’ I say.
She looks away, adjusts her sheet. ‘I saw the scars on Willow’s legs, and when I asked him what happened, he told me.’
‘About his dismembered relatives?’ My voice rises.
‘The Duplicates? Yeah.’
I glower at her, daring her to meet my gaze. ‘Calling them Duplicates doesn’t stop them being people.’ I pause, momentarily thrown. ‘Wait. Willow told you? So Willow knows too?’
‘Yeah, course he does. They’re his legs.’
I could punch her right now. I clasp my hands together – a desperate prayer. ‘No. That’s the point, Alice. They’re not his legs.’ I spit out every word to try and make her understand. ‘He. Stole. Them. From. His. Brother.’
‘You’re being melodramatic.’
‘Oh really?’ I’m shrieking now, but I feel so full of rage, so incensed, I’ve lost all volume control. ‘Well maybe you shouldn’t have stopped them amputating Nate’s hands after all. You and your new mates could have had a spare parts coffee morning.’
She steps towards me, her voice calm, like I’m the unreasonable one. ‘Look, Violet. It’s not as bad as it sounds. All of the Dupes are in comas, it’s not like they’re in pain, or even aware they exist.’
‘Oh well, that’s OK then, so long as they can’t look you in the eye when you carve out their vital organs.’
She ignores me, continuing in her balanced tone. ‘And the Harpers built their Dupes a special hiding place to keep them safe.’
‘Yeah, I know. I found it. And believe me, they’re anything but safe.’
‘Calm down, Vi.’ Only Alice could look so collected, so poised, wearing a sheet from my pseudo-boyfriend’s bed, while discussing organ theft. ‘After they heard those rumours about the guards at the warehouses . . . you know . . . fiddling with the Dupes, they built them a special hiding place to keep them safe.’
‘Fiddling . . . as in . . .?’ I slip over my words.
‘God you’re naive. As in sexual stuff.’
I shove my hands over my ears, unable to process this extra information, trying to hold my brain together. ‘Holy crap, Alice. This just gets worse and worse.’ My voice sounds funny, like it’s inside my head. ‘I don’t want to hear anything else you have to say. I don’t know you any more.’ I drop my voice to a low snarl. ‘You disgust me.’ I’ve never spoken to Alice like this, not even when she stuffed my favourite T-shirt down the toilet cos Alfie Peach asked me to the Year Eight disco. Not even when she stole my algebra homework and pretended it was hers and I got detention. I expect her to crumple, to burst into tears.
But she just laughs. She actually laughs. ‘You’re just jealous.’
‘Of what exactly?’
‘Of me. Of the Gems . . . we’re perfect.’
‘Well if being perfect means losing your humanity, you can bloody well keep it.’ The silver heart rests in my fingers and I suddenly notice how sharp and cold it feels. I tighten my grip around the chain and yank it with all my might. Either the buckle warps and breaks, or the weakest link gives way, but it falls from my neck with disappointing ease. I hold it out for her to see.
Her fingers brush her naked throat. ‘Violet . . .’ Her voice tails off and we stare at each other for a moment.
‘I’m sorry,’ she finally says.
‘Don’t bother.’ I jab an angry finger towards the manor house. ‘Better take the toga party back to lover boy.’ I sound so bitter I hardly recognize myself.
She winces at my tone. ‘I’m doing this for both of us.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I don’t want to watch you . . .’ The word sticks in her throat.
‘Say it.’ My head feels swollen and about to pop. ‘Say it.’
‘Hang,’ she shouts. ‘I don’t want to watch you hang.’
‘Bollocks! You just don’t want to go home.’
I turn and run towards the trees, the chain hanging limply from my palm, and this time, she doesn’t follow.