I lowered the kohl liner and sat back in my seat. Staring at the reflection in the vanity’s mirror, I smiled in satisfaction. Now I looked just like him.

The sound of the bathroom door opening prompted me to turn and face Rabbit. He walked out of the door, head down. My stomach squeezed. My Rabbit had been acting strange all morning. We had traveled to another place. And the whole way, Rabbit had been quiet. In our motel room, I danced and I sang, but he didn’t smile like he usually did. Instead, he sat on the end of the bed, sharpening the blade that lived in his cane. He took the gun apart and cleaned the pieces.

I tried to think of ways to make him happy. This was the only thing I thought could work. I had played with my new makeup every single day. I wore blue on my eyes, pink on my cheeks and lots of mascara on my lashes. I stuck fake ones on top so I looked extra doll-like. Rabbit liked me as a doll. He especially liked my big pink lips. He stared at them often. He licked his lips when he did.

It made me wet between my legs. It made me want to touch myself, like I had in the bath . . . and on the bed with Rabbit. But Rabbit had kept his distance from me after that night. He hadn’t stroked my cheek. He hadn’t held me as I slept. He had slept on the floor beside the bed, if he slept at all. Most nights he just sat against the wall, staring into space. His nose would flare, his hands would fist, and my heart would break. I didn’t know what I’d done to upset him. I didn’t want to displease him. I only ever wanted to make him happy. He was the most important thing in my life.

Rabbit swung his long coat on, his back to me. He hadn’t looked at me sitting very prettily on my seat. My eyebrows pulled down when he reached for his cane, then the car keys. Everything but my makeup and doll were in the car ready to go.

I smoothed down my dress and cleared my throat. Rabbit’s shoulders bunched. I got to my feet, feeling the heat from outside kiss the bare skin on my thighs. Then Rabbit turned. As he did, I flicked the hair hanging over my left shoulder away from my face.

Stormy eyes fixed on me. My gaze dropped to his tattooed hand gripping his rabbit-headed cane. If that poor rabbit on his cane had been alive, its skull would have been cracked open like an egg. Rabbit gripped his cane so hard his knuckles turned white.

Grabbing the hem of my dress at both sides, I swung from side to side, looking up at him from under my eyelashes. “Do you like it, Rabbit?”

His nostrils flared, as did his eyes. His teeth ran over his bottom lip, and I saw his naughty parts swell under his trousers. “Mmm,” I murmured and stepped closer to Rabbit. He stayed still, yet watched my every step. As I walked, his pupils dilated and my heart began to beat fast. A tingling sprouted between my thighs; I knew I’d pleased him with what I’d done.

“Do you like it, Rabbit?” I asked again and stopped right before him. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the way he watched me. Rabbit always watched me this way. He stared and stared and stared. Then his gaze would drop, and he would stare at the throbbing pulse in my neck. “Your vein . . .” he would whisper to me when he thought I was asleep. “Your vein . . . so thick . . . so full . . .”

My breath would hitch as I kept my eyes closed, playing possum. I’d keep them shut because I knew what would come next: his mouth, hovering just above that vein. His sharp thimble, like a feather, touching my pulse. Warm breath would fan my skin, shooting shivers down my spine. Then came the tip of his tongue. Its wet tip tracing the vein so completely, never straying from its path. Rabbit groaning low in his throat as he touched his shaft between his legs. As he stroked his hand back and forth, faster and faster, lapping at my throat until he stilled and choked on his breath.

I would spy through my almost-closed eyes as he sat back against the wall, his shaft hanging from his pants, large and long, making me squirm. I’d watch his eyes close and the sharp-tipped thimble dig into his skin. Dig into the vein in his wrist . . . right on the tattooed clock that looked just like the pocket watch on his vest. Blood would sprout and he would rub it along his lips. Plump flesh, red and raw; his tongue would run slowly and gently over the blood—tasting and . . . enjoying.

I wanted that blood to be mine.

I wanted him to taste me that way.

I wanted to meld with him like that—blood and blood.

Merged.

“Fucking Dolly,” Rabbit rasped, hauling me back to the here and now. I tried to calm my flushing cheeks. But his silver stare just made them hotter. He reached out, his hand freezing just before it touched my left eye. “Roman numerals,’ he whispered. I nodded, smiling even though my legs shook at the intensity of his glare.

“I drew them on for you.” I pointed to the clocks branding his skin. “We’re the Sick Fux. Tick tock, Rabbit. Now we match. Rabbit and Dolly . . . hunting the bad men on borrowed time.” I tapped the clock drawn in black eyeliner around my left eye. “Tick tock, Rabbit. Always and forever, tick tock.”

He didn’t speak after that, just stared. I wanted him to say something. Wanted him to touch my cheek, my lips, the clock around my eye. But when he didn’t, I felt my heart deflate.

“We need to go,” he said as he walked past me. I fought back tears as I gathered my makeup from the vanity. I placed my lipstick in my pocket and took hold of Alice’s hair. I closed the door to the motel and stepped into the bright sun, keeping my head down as I walked to the car. Alice’s cracked china face knocked into my leg with each step.

I climbed into the car. As Rabbit pulled out of the car park, I pressed play on the tape player. Just as one of my eighties songs began to play, Rabbit snapped his hand forward and slammed the music to silence. “No music today,” he said coldly, and I felt the icy chill from his dark tone seep into my bones. Even though the hot sun blazed down on my painted pink cheeks, I felt as though I had been plunged into a freezer.

Rabbit made me warm.

He was the only thing that ever did.

I didn’t like this side of Rabbit. He made my heart hurt.

Fighting the tears in my eyes, I took out my lipstick, pulled down the mirror in my visor and began to draw. I circled my lips, and then pulled the lipstick down at the corners.

I sat back and studied my reflection.

Dolly now had a sad face.

I didn’t know if Rabbit saw. He didn’t say anything as we drove along the empty roads. No cars passed us as we chased the sun across the sky. I hugged Alice to my chest, sniffing back my sadness when it became too much for me to take.

As more and more time passed, with Rabbit still not looking my way, I took my blade from the teapot-shaped white purse Rabbit had bought for me. “We’re the Sick Fux,” I whispered, practicing for the kill. “You, the Cheshire Cat, will never smile again . . .” My lip hooked at the corner, proud of what I had said. Suddenly, Rabbit yanked the car to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. I was flung forward, my blade slipping from my hands and landing beside my boots.

“He’s mine,” Rabbit growled, his hands gripping the wheel so tightly I feared it would break.

“W-what?” I whispered, feeling my heart pound as Rabbit’s tattooed neck corded and bulged with venomous veins.

My eyebrows pulled down, and a fire flared in my stomach. I turned, Rabbit’s face only an inch from mine. Gritting my teeth, I met his eyes and said, “I am the champion of Wonderland. Charged with destroying the bad men.” I narrowed my gaze. “The Cheshire Cat is mine.”

A sound like a groan mixed with a vicious snarl poured from Rabbit’s mouth, and I saw his lip flick up at the corner. He shifted in his seat. When I looked down, the bulge in his trousers was back. But he was harder than ever before. The shape of his shaft was visible through his black pants. Rabbit shook his head slowly. He tutted at me. “My sweet little Dolly,” he said quietly . . . menacingly . . . lovingly. “You just tread carefully, pushing me this way.” He raised his left hand, and I felt the tip of the long, sharp-nailed thimble creep up my neck, along my vein. The vein he liked to lick when I was asleep.

The tip of the thimble traveled up my neck and over my chin until it reached my mouth. Rabbit’s eyes flared as he concentrated on my lipstick, a frame to the frown that now curved my bright pink lips. His head tipped to the side, and his eyes followed the path of the lipstick. He sucked in a quick breath. “You will do as I command, little Dolly. I am the White Rabbit. I lead you . . .” His head straightened. “I control you in Wonderland.”

I was breathless, my eyes fluttering slowly to a close, as if his words, his commands, were a string on my heart. Plucking and pulling, holding me in its grip. His thimble traveled downward as his heavy breath played across my face. It traveled down until it ran over the swell of my breasts. Dancing with the top of my corseted blue dress, back and forth . . . back and forth . . .

“You will obey, darlin’,” he ordered curtly, and I shifted on my seat. I cupped myself between my legs and arched toward him; a magnet, a pull of need as my moan traveled into the balmy air. A bird up above caught it and it rode away on its feathered back. I rocked forward and back as Rabbit’s thimble held me in its thrall. “Today, you will stand back and watch.”

“Yes,” I said, breathlessly, passively.

“Today, you will watch your master at work.”

“Yes . . .” My fingers moved faster.

Tingling. Heat. Pressure . . . so much pressure . . . building . . . building . . . building . . .

“Today you will watch me. You will watch the killer you belong to. You will watch as he takes back what he lost to the Cheshire Cat.” He leaned forward, and my mouth parted as a crest, a high wave, began to surge through my body.

“Yes!” I shouted.

“Today,” Rabbit whispered directly into my ear, moving forward until I felt the smoothness of his cravat slip against the tops of my breasts. “Today you will watch your master shred a man. You will watch me stab and cut and bathe in his tarnished blood . . . over and over and over and . . .”

“Yes!” I screamed, my legs parting as I was swept away by bliss, a heat so intense I was incinerated, only to return to a pile of pathetic bones and skin and flesh. “Yes . . .” I slumped against the seat. “Yes . . . Rabbit . . . yes . . .”

The thimble that had stilled on my breasts retreated, but his masterly hand patted my head. I opened my eyes to see black eyes watching me, only a sliver of gray coating their edges. “Good Dolly.”

I smiled. I had pleased my Rabbit.

I caught my breath as Rabbit pulled the car back onto the road. It wasn’t long before we made a right turn to travel down a dirt road. Rabbit stopped at an old wooden house and tucked the car out of sight. Bushes hid us, just like with the Caterpillar. I turned to Rabbit, about to speak, but he held his hand in the air. I slammed my mouth shut and looked through the gap in the bushes. A man came out of the wooden home.

My eyes narrowed—the Cheshire Cat.

Rabbit’s gaze followed him as he walked to a barn at the back of his property. Rabbit reached for his cane and flicked the trigger of his rabbit’s head over and over. The Cheshire Cat disappeared into the barn.

The air thickened around us. “Rabbit?”

“He’s mine,” he hissed, glaring me into submission.

I nodded dutifully. “Yes, Rabbit.”

So vicious a veil of darkness descended over Rabbit’s face that I waited a long second before exiting the car. Rabbit never took his eyes from that barn.

Then we were moving.

I followed Rabbit, Alice in hand, gun tucked into my waist belt, blade in my right hand. As Rabbit picked up speed, so did I.

Then we were at the doors of the barn.

Rabbit stopped. I watched his back as it froze, solid and tense. He rolled his neck from side to side. It cracked, the crunching sound ricocheting off the walls of the wooden barn.

Rabbit split his cane in two, one weapon in each hand. I stayed behind, waiting for him to lead the way. My heart swelled with anticipation.

Rabbit lunged forward and slid the barn doors open. He charged in. I followed behind. But all that greeted us was . . . an empty barn.

Rabbit’s head whipped from side to side. I felt the rage pulsing off him in waves. I scoured the barn, but there was nothing. Rabbit took off, searching the walls. I did too. Then he stopped. I ran to where he crouched and looked down at a door in the floor.

“Another rabbit hole?” I whispered.

Rabbit glanced up at me through his fallen hair. “Not a good one,” he said, and then paused. “Or maybe it is . . .” He smiled a dangerous smile. “It depends. If ripping someone apart can be classed as good . . .”

I smiled, turning my lipstick-painted frown upside down.

“It’s good,” I replied. “Really, very, very good.” I bent down. “Maybe even as good as a strawberry tart.”

Rabbit glanced down, and the smile fell from his lips. He quietly lifted the heavy wood and climbed down the ladder underneath. I followed, my palms twitching as the call for blood lured us further down.

When we reached the bottom, a sliver of light shone from the end of a narrow hallway. Rabbit placed his finger over his lips. “Shh,” he whispered. I nodded obediently. My pulse was aflame as I followed Rabbit further down the hole.

Suddenly Rabbit stopped. An ice-cold feeling shot down my spine when I heard a familiar sound seeping from the room at the end of the hallway. My eyes slammed shut.

Echoes of Ellis’s tales of the bad men came back to taunt me . . .

He would take me by my hand and lead me to his room. I would be forced to stand before a bed, Dolly. He would turn me around and touch me between my legs. He would play with me, Dolly . . . and then he would put himself inside me. And I would scream . . . I would scream and scream and scream . . . and I’d want Heathan. I would cry and scream for Heathan . . . over and over and over again . . . but he never stopped . . .

I shook my head, body shivering, as I blinked myself back into the hallway. I was sweating, Ellis’s story making me feel sick . . . making me feel rage . . . making me feel . . . There! That sound. The sound coming from the room . . . it was the same. It sounded the same as Ellis had described, it was—

Rabbit roared and ran forward. He burst into the room. With a shrill cry, I followed. A bare lightbulb hanging above bathed us in brightness as we took in the scene.

The Cheshire Cat . . . the Cheshire Cat over . . . a boy. My body vibrated with rage as I saw a boy, no more than ten, bending over a dirty old cot at the side of the room. His dark, sunken eyes snapped around and fixed on mine.

I heard a whimper from behind me. When I turned, I saw a cage. I took a step forward, my blade readied to draw blood, and I saw a pair of blue eyes. A young girl with long blond hair looked back at me.

“Ellis?” I whispered Her eyes darted behind me . . . so I turned too.

“Guess who?” Rabbit taunted as he grabbed hold of the Cheshire Cat’s hair and yanked him off the boy. The boy fell forward, hands in the dirt, his pants around his ankles. Rabbit spun the Cheshire Cat around and slammed him into the nearest wall.

The little boy ran to the cage. I opened the door. The girl and the boy watched me with huge eyes. “Run. Run, little ones,” I urged. The boy reached inside for the girl, dragging her to her feet. As they ran past, I stood in the girl’s way and asked, “Ellis? Are you Ellis?” My head cocked to the side. I thought she looked familiar, perhaps someone I knew long ago, with her long blond hair and her big blue eyes. She could only have been about ten years old.

She shook her head, folding her arms around her stomach. “She’s called Helena,” the boy said.

“Helena,” I repeated. Such a nice name. “Run.” I smiled and waved my blade. “Unless, of course, you want to see some blood spilled?” I added in excitement. I knew it would be such fun to watch.

The children ran. I laughed. The little ones had no idea what a show they would be missing! “Run, run, little ones. The little kitty-cat is about to purr and purr!”

Spinning, I gripped the Alice doll-head at my side by her hair.

“Impossible,” the kitty-cat hissed at Rabbit, who was holding him by the neck, glaring.

Rabbit ran his blade down the kitty-cat’s face. “Possible.” Then the kitty-cat looked my way.

His eyes squinted. “Ellis? Ellis Earnshaw?” He blinked. “You’re better?”

I shook my head and tapped my skull with my blade. That name cut through me. “Ellis, Ellis, Ellis. Why does everyone keep calling me Ellis?” I walked forward, but stopped when Rabbit turned his furious face to me. I nodded, then peeking from around Rabbit’s shoulder, I said, “What’s new, pussycat?”

Kitty-cat’s eyes widened. I smiled and hummed a teasing tune under my breath. “Poor, poor kitty-cat. My rabid Rabbit has come for you.” I skipped to the edge of the room and sat on the edge one of the tables there. Kitty’s eyes tracked me the entire way. “Naughty, naughty kitty—time to pay the price.”

“What the fuck?” Kitty-cat asked, just as Rabbit lifted his blade and sliced it across his mouth. Kitty screamed. I giggled, clapping my hands. Rabbit grabbed Kitty’s hair and wrenched him back up. Kitty’s flesh was cut, his cheeks. I screwed my eyes up to see better, and I suddenly realized what Rabbit had done.

“The Cheshire Cat!” I danced my bottom on the table in happiness. “You gave him a smile, Rabbit, a wide Cheshire Cat smile!”

But my happiness evaporated when I looked to the wall behind me and saw lots and lots of pictures. I jumped up as Rabbit dragged Kitty to a table in the corner of the room. Rabbit grabbed some ropes that were hanging on the wall beside him.

I focused my attention on the pictures. I didn’t like them. In fact, I hated them. Hated them so much I shook my head and closed my eyes to block out the images. “Rabbit!” I shouted as a sob escaped my throat.

I felt him beside me in moments. When I looked around, I saw Kitty tied to the table by the rope. I pointed to the wall. “The pictures, Rabbit.”

Rabbit faced the wall and studied the nasty pictures. I saw him squirm at the sight of the Cheshire Cat putting himself inside all the children of Wonderland, defenseless girls and helpless boys. He looked at them crying, screaming . . . and bad Kitty just laughing. Laughing, laughing for the camera . . . nasty, smiling Cheshire Cat.

A harsh cry thundered from Rabbit’s throat. Slowly, he put his cane back together. He rested it against the table I had been sitting at. I sat on a seat next to it. I looked on, blinking the sad tears from my eyes, as Rabbit unbuttoned his coat and slipped it from his shoulders. He placed it carefully on the table beside me. He undid his cufflinks and rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. He reached for his cane once more and walked over to naughty Kitty, who was staring at him with big eyes.

I didn’t like those eyes.

“Dolly darlin’,” Rabbit said as he stood behind the kitty.

“Yes, Rabbit?”

“Come here.”

I stood up from the chair and skipped over to my Rabbit. I looked up at him, waiting for him to speak. Rabbit ran his lips over his teeth, then ordered, “Pull his pants down.”

Kitty made a sound in his throat. But he didn’t speak. I wasn’t sure he could now that Rabbit had given him such a pretty smile—new, bloody, and wide. I looked at the Kitty’s trousers. They were already open from when he had bent over the little boy.

I walked behind him and pulled down his black slacks. They fell to the floor and pooled at his ankles. My hands covered my mouth as a laugh escaped me. I shook my head and stuck out my tongue in disgust. “Eww!” I said as I stared at his ugly, hairy bottom and the limp shaft hanging between his legs.

I looked at Rabbit, and my hands fell from my mouth. My stomach turned and my heart sank at the look on Rabbit’s face as he stared at Kitty’s bare bottom. His hand tightened on his cane.

“Take it, boy,” Rabbit said, so low that I almost didn’t catch it. But naughty Kitty did. His face went white. Rabbit lifted his cane and unsheathed his blade and gun. “Suck it, boy.” He began to circle Kitty. My stomach swam. But I didn’t dare move. I couldn’t take my eyes from Rabbit’s face. I wasn’t laughing anymore.

He was hurting.

My Rabbit . . . he was hurting so badly.

My Rabbit was feeling intense pain.

“Feel my cock.” Rabbit lifted his blade into the air. He studied the blade as his rough voice got even rougher . . . as it began to break. His hand shook. “Take my big fat cock, little boy,” he said, choking on the words.

Then he stopped dead. He closed his eyes, and in a high voice, like a child’s, he called out, “Don’t touch me. No one touches me but Dolly . . .” He hissed, and then cried out as if he was in agony. “You made it so I can’t be touched . . . I CAN’T FUCKING BE TOUCHED!” Rabbit spun around, blade held high, and sliced down hard between Kitty’s legs. The Cheshire Cat howled as his shaft dropped from between his legs to the floor.

But Rabbit wasn’t done. As though nothing had just happened, Rabbit began to pace back and forth. “Your scent. Your touch. Your fingers. Your cock. Your cum. Your fucking spit. Your fucking breath! Your breath on my face, on my neck, my body, my dick . . . all fucking over me!” Rabbit slashed and slashed again at Kitty’s back. Kitty screamed, but it was drowned out by Rabbit’s roars.

Rabbit lurched forward and cut the ropes that held Kitty down. Rabbit grabbed him by the neck and threw him down hard to the dirt-strewn floor. Rabbit glanced around the room. He darted to the back of the cellar and grabbed something in his hand. As he came back into the light, I saw it was a big spade. Rabbit turned and dropped on top of Kitty, one leg on either side of his torso. He glared at Kitty and held up the spade in his hands. He rose on one knee. Gripping the spade tightly, he slammed it down over his strong thigh. The spade snapped in two, leaving a long stick, jagged and sharp. Rabbit threw the half with the metal to the side. I watched it skid past me as I sat on the table, entranced by the master at work.

He was magnificent.

“You took me when I was a kid,” he hissed and held the stick in the air. Kitty stared, eyes wide, waiting for the inevitable. He tried to speak, but his cheeks flapped too much. Blood from his back leaked into the dirt beneath him. But my Rabbit wasn’t done. His wide back was taut, his shirt and vest pulled tight. My heart beat so fast.

My Rabbit was so handsome.

My Rabbit was such a beautiful, pretty, pretty killer.

“You fucked me. Fucked me so hard I couldn’t walk.” Rabbit’s head tipped back. I couldn’t see his face, but I imagined his eyes were closed. Imagined his red lips pulled over his teeth. Imagined his black hair fallen over his eyes.

I squirmed on the table.

My Rabbit was formidable.

Rabbit crouched down and ran the edge of the stick down Kitty’s face. Kitty tried to scream, but he choked on his blood. Rabbit sliced down Kitty’s chest and stomach with the sharp end of the stick.

Rabbit’s head twitched. “Tick tock . . .” he muttered under his breath. “Tick tock.” His hand tightened on the stick.

“Kill him,” I whispered to myself. “Kill the bad Kitty.” My hands gripped the edge of the table. “Kill him, Rabbit,” I said quietly. “Make the pussycat pay for his sins.”

My eyes were fixed on Rabbit as he straightened, silently. He reached into his vest pocket with his free hand and pulled out his pocket watch. He fisted it in his hand, and then placed it back in his vest for safekeeping.

I knew my Rabbit so well.

He was ready to play.

“I would stare at my watch,” he informed the Cheshire Cat. “I would watch the hands ticking by, waiting for you to finish. Fighting the whiskey you poured down my throat so I couldn’t fight back.” He rolled his neck and the bones cracked. “But the hands just kept on turning as you kept on spreading your scent all over me. Thrusting your putrid cock into my ass, time and time again.” Rabbit growled. I could see by the set of his shoulders that he was losing patience.

My pulse began to race.

“You tattooed your smell and touch all over me. Your grunts were branded onto my mind.” He shuddered. “When I close my eyes I feel you. I see you. I taste you. Salt and sweat and grime.” Rabbit raised the stick into the air. I held my breath, waiting for what he would do next. “I would imagine you dead. I would imagine what I would do to you when I found you again. I have waited eleven long years for this moment.” Kitty’s eyes clashed with Rabbit’s. “Tick tock.” Rabbit slammed the stick down, sending the jagged, sharp edge straight into Kitty’s torso. The Cheshire Cat meowed loudly, and then screamed as the wood drove through flesh and fat and flaccid muscles and bone, right into his vital organs.

My nostrils flared in excitement as bloodlust darted through my veins. “Get him, Rabbit!” I cheered from my place at the table. But I didn’t move. Rabbit had ordered me not to move.

Kitty began spluttering, and I leaned to the side to watch as lots and lots of blood spilled from his wounds. It was bright red, contrasting and then mixing with the brown dirt beneath him.

Rabbit didn’t move. He stood above him, watching. My Rabbit watched as Kitty tried to beg for help, as he bled from his back, his face, his chopped-off shaft and the stick in his torso.

But it wasn’t enough. The naughty Kitty needed more.

“More,” I called quietly. I wasn’t sure if Rabbit heard me, so I shouted, “More, Rabbit. More!”

Rabbit stayed as still as a statue. Suddenly he turned his head my way. I froze as our gazes clashed . . . then a slow grin pulled on his lips. A flutter batted in my chest, and my corset suddenly felt too tight under his watchful eye.

Rabbit bowed and placed a hand on his chest. “As my lady wishes.” I squeezed my thighs together as Rabbit faced Kitty again. I stilled. His hands clenched and unclenched into fists. I wondered why . . . but I didn’t have to wait too long to find out. Rabbit bent down and gripped one of Kitty’s arms. The Cheshire Cat uttered a low pained sound, but Rabbit didn’t care. Rabbit shuddered as he held Kitty’s arm. He lifted it into the air, then snapped the bone in two. The Cheshire Cat screamed. He screamed so loudly that it echoed off the walls. I clapped as Rabbit moved to his other arm and did exactly the same.

Rabbit jumped up and moved to the back of the cellar, where he’d found the spade. He returned a second later holding a paintbrush. He dipped the brush into the pooling blood and began to draw a circle around Kitty. Kitty’s eyes were closed now, his face losing its color.

The naughty Kitty was dying.

Rabbit dipped and dipped and dipped his brush again and again into the blood. He painted a big pocket watch on the floor. Roman numerals, like the ones I’d drawn on my face, surrounded Kitty. The stick in his torso became the center of the watch. Rabbit stood, his hands and arms coated in Kitty’s blood. He walked back to Kitty and took hold of one of his arms. “Dolly,” he said without looking my way. “My cane, please.”

I grabbed the cane at my side and jumped off the table, rushing to where he stood. “Yuck!” I shook my head in disgust when my pretty black boots stood in Kitty’s gooey blood.

I handed Rabbit the cane, and obeyed the silent flick of his head that told me to go back to the table. Rabbit unsheathed the blade and struck down. I gasped as one of Kitty’s arms came free from his body. Rabbit did the same to the other, then put his cane back together and tossed it aside. He stared down at Kitty, whose eyes had long since stopped blinking. At Kitty, whose lungs had stopped breathing.

At the Cheshire Cat, whose heart had stopped beating.

Rabbit took the severed arms and placed them on the opposite sides to where they belonged. He placed them at the numbers, the clock reading a time. I didn’t know what; I was never taught to read the time.

When Rabbit stepped back from Kitty, from the watch he had created on the cellar’s dirt floor, he was drenched in Kitty’s blood. Only his face was showing any clean skin. Even then it was splattered with bloody drops, on his cheeks, forehead and chin.

“Tick tock.” Rabbit stared down at his handiwork. His fists were clenched at his sides again. “Tick tock.” His body started shaking, and he dove for the discarded paintbrush. My heart was in my mouth, a lump in my throat, as I watched him screaming “Tick tock” as he painted something at the base of the clock.

I didn’t know what to do.

He shook his head. “No,” he whispered, his voice cracking. His hand ran up his opposite arm, over the blood that had coated him. “No!” He clawed at his skin. At all the skin that was bare. That had been splattered with blood. “Get off me! Get the fuck off me! I can’t have you on me!”

Rabbit backed away from the Cheshire Cat. He ripped the buttons off his vest. He yanked it off him and threw it to the ground. His shirt was next, uncovering his tattooed chest and rock-like stomach beneath. But the blood had soaked through.

An agonized cry ripped from his throat. “Can’t have his scent. Can’t have his blood. Can’t have his cum. Can’t have him on me. Get off me. Get the fuck off me!”

I rushed forward. I had no plan in my mind as I crossed the dirt floor in a manic rush to save him. To save my Rabbit, just like he had saved me.

I didn’t think as I stood in his path and slammed my hands on his cheeks. I didn’t think as I stood on my tiptoes and stared him in the eyes. And I didn’t think as I leaned forward and captured his mouth with my own.

I froze, my lips sealed on his, as I ate his cries and swallowed his pain. Rabbit was soft under my lips. His skin was hot. Rabbit groaned. His lips moved, as if they were fighting my touch. But then they gave in. He made a tortured noise in the back of his throat and gave himself to my mouth. Gave himself to my touch.

My heart seemed to swell in my chest as his mouth began to work against mine. Images from the back of my mind flashed through me. Me, as a child in my bedroom. Rabbit on the floor, hurting, crying . . . against my bedroom wall.

And I was kissing him. I kissed him to take away his pain. My eyes flew open in confusion at the vision. I didn’t know when it was from. I didn’t know if it was real. But before I could think any more about it, Rabbit snarled, “Dolly,” against my mouth and pushed me backward. My hands slipped from his cheeks and ran down the muscles on his chest as his lips devoured my mouth.

“Rabbit,” I whispered, and my eyes collided with his. His pupils were dilated and wide.

“His smell,” he said as his arms caged me against the wall. “His fucking smell . . . his breath. It’s all over me. It’s fucking all over me!” He pushed a hand through his hair and down through the blood on his neck. “I need it gone. I need to get it off me. Need his smell and breath to get the fuck off my body and my head.”

More tears fled from my eyes. I ran my hands down his chest. “Dolly,” he growled. He bared his teeth, and his wild eyes slammed on mine. “Get the fuck off me. Get the motherfuck off me!” But I didn’t. I tipped my chin and stared him down. I worked my hands faster. Running my scent, breathing my breath, over his skin.

“Mine,” I spat as my hands moved to his hips. As my hands dipped lower and brushed over his crotch. “My smell,” I said, tearing at the button on his pants. Rabbit moved closer to me, his left hand dropping to my throat. His sharp-tipped thimble ran over my skin as his breath floated over my ear. His teeth scraped against my shoulder. I slammed my hand on the back of his head and pulled him closer. “My breath on your neck.”

I parted his pants and pushed them to the floor. Rabbit snapped his head back and pressed his forehead against mine.

I reached forward, gripped his shaft in my hand and placed my mouth at his ear. “My cock,” I said. Rabbit smacked his fist against the wall above me and burrowed his face into my neck. “Rub my scent all over you.” He thrust against my hand, his cock swollen and hard. “Take my breath. Take my touch.” I bit my lip and said, “Take my pussy.”

Rabbit snapped. On a low growl, he reached down and yanked up my skirt. His searching hands found my lace knickers, sodden from watching the beauty of his kill. He rubbed his cheek and his lips all over my neck, my face, the tops of my breasts, as he pushed the panties down and dropped them to the floor. His fingers ran along my folds, and I tipped my head back against the wall. “Rabbit,” I moaned as I ran my hands through his black hair and gripped the strands.

I smiled when his breath hitched against my skin. “You’re touching me.” He groaned loudly and thrust his crotch against me. “You’re taking away his smell and breath.”

Rabbit reared back his head, and his eyes clashed with mine. He froze. I froze. Kitty’s blood was smeared across his face. When his eyes flared, I knew that the blood was now on my face too. Then he was on me. He reached forward and split apart the laces of my corset. My breasts spilled out, and he let out a roar and wrapped his strong arms around my thighs. With a strength only my Rabbit could possess, he lifted me off the floor and pulled my legs around his waist. I cried out as he pushed the skirt of my dress away and put himself at my entrance. He looked me in the face, and his jaw clenched. I shook my head when I heard Ellis’s voice inside my mind. They would tie me down. They would push into me when I didn’t want to be pushed into. Between my legs would hurt. I can’t stop feeling them between my thighs . . .

“Be gone,” I whispered and clenched my eyes shut. I didn’t like hearing Ellis’s voice in my head. I wanted to take away the bad men’s touch for her. I wanted Rabbit to take away the bad men between my thighs. “Your smell,” I said and felt Rabbit still. “Your breath, Rabbit. Give me your touch . . . take them from my skin . . . Ellis’s,” I corrected. “Take them from Ellis’s body.”

“Dolly.” Rabbit pushed inside me. I screamed out, clawing at Rabbit’s bare back as he filled me with his erect shaft. He pounded the wall with one hand and squeezed the flesh of my thigh with his other. “Dolly . . .” he shouted again as he thrust all the way inside.

I screamed. I screamed as I shut my eyes and fought away the touch of that man . . . the man who would always take Ellis. The man who would always hurt her. The one who would always say—

“Fuck me,” I commanded, taking back that bad man’s demand as my own. “Fuck me, Rabbit. Take away their scents.” I licked along the side of his neck. “Take back the power.”

Rabbit pressed his chest against me with a pained roar. He pressed his skin against my skin as his cock moved inside me. He rubbed his cheek against my cheek, his lips against my lips. He breathed me in as I breathed him in, and then he began to thrust. He snapped his hips back and forth and filled me with his shaft. Ellis’s bad man’s shaft being replaced.

My nails dug into his back. “Rabbit,” I murmured as the flutters of bliss that took over my body whenever I touched between my legs began to accost my arms and legs.

“Dolly,” Rabbit said into my neck. “My Dolly . . . mine. Her smell. Her taste. Her breath. Her pussy.” He increased his speed. Increased his speed so much that my eyes rolled back into my head as I broke apart, my limbs so light I felt like I was floating.

Rabbit growled long and deep and rough, then he spilled inside me, filling me with himself. All Rabbit. My Rabbit. My Rabbit; his Dolly.

Rabbit held me tightly, sandwiched against his body and the wall. I clung to his slick skin, a smile pulling on my lips. He pulled back his head and looked right into my eyes. “My cum,” he said in a whisper. Shivers ran down my spine as he reached between us and pulled his shaft from within me. I moaned at the loss. His fingers ran along the space he’d just occupied. “Your cum.”

“Rabbit,” I said softly and shuffled my legs until my unsteady feet hit the floor. As slowly as possible, I ran my hands up his blood-and-sweat-slicked chest. “I’m touching you.”

Rabbit exhaled a long, pained breath. “I’m touching you, little Dolly,” he said, reaching out and cupping my breasts.

Tears welled up in my eyes. Touching me. My Rabbit was finally touching me. I had waited a very long time for this, trapped in the room of doors, too big to enter Wonderland, to be with him. To follow his lead.

“We need to go,” Rabbit said, but he never stopped running his hands over my flesh. I couldn’t keep my hands off him either. He placed a kiss in the center of my palm. When he pulled back, he said firmly, “We must go.” He raised his eyebrow. “We have more kills to make. More bad men to destroy.”

Heat swirled in my stomach and darted to the apex of my thighs. “Yes.” I slid my hand up to his pocket and pulled out the pack of cards he kept there. “Ah-ha!” I called when I found the pencil-drawn face of the Cheshire Cat.

I stepped back from Rabbit. I reached into the pocket of my dress with my free hand, sliding the Cheshire Cat’s card across Rabbit’s cheeks as he watched me with transfixed eyes. Uncapping my lipstick with my teeth, I walked over to the kitty on the floor and stepped into the mess of blood.

I wiped away the blood from Kitty’s forehead and positioned my lipstick against his graying skin. Tongue at the side of my mouth in concentration, I wrote “SICK FUX” right on his face.

“Bad, bad pussycat,” I chided. Admiring the smile Rabbit had carved on Kitty’s face, I slid the card between his teeth. “The Four of Hearts.” I straightened to see Rabbit watching me. He had gathered his clothes, but I knew his eyes had been on me the entire time.

They always were.

Just like I needed.

I turned to face him. “I liked touching you, Rabbit.”

His eyes grazed down my now bloodstained body, then crept back up to my eyes. “I liked touching you too, Dolly darlin’.”

I smiled and walked toward him. I ran my hand down his arm until my fingers entwined with his. I stared at our joined hands, as did he.

“I think we should always touch, Rabbit.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, his voice broken and graveled.

“This way neither of us will get lost in Wonderland.”

Slowly, he brought our joined hands to his lips, kissed my fingers, and said, “As my lady commands.”

A laugh bubbled up my throat and sailed into the stale air of the cellar. He released my hand and tied up the ribbons on my corset. When they were taut, he took hold of my chin and brought his mouth to mine for a kiss. He winced as our lips joined, but then he relaxed.

He broke away and tapped the roman numerals still painted on my face. “Time to go. We don’t want to be late.”