All Wrong - C18 - Blood

A Lot of Blood

Alice

Alice cried as they speed away from the rooftop. Charlie was yelling at them to go and Hatter was reasoning aloud why they were leaving Charlie behind. She had a feeling he didn't realise he was talking his internal monologue aloud. Sobbing she held onto Hatter and buried her face in his shoulder.
What would they do to Charlie? Poor, sweet, innocent, mostly scared Charlie! He had sacrificed himself for them! She'd never seen him ever do something so brave. Not even his army of the dead knights could compare.
Hatter stopped talking to himself and began talking to her, trying to tell her that Charlie would be okay. That they'd probably only put him through the Looking Glass or take him to the castle. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself too. And the options didn't sound very comforting either. But she managed to wipe away the tears and put on a brave face as we landed on the roof of the castle.
"What do we do now?" Duchess asked. They hadn't planned this far ahead… because frankly none of them thought they'd even get this far!
"We're going to have to kill the Queen," Hatter said roughly. "I guess I could do it…"
"We all know you can," Duchess retorted bitterly. Hatter glared at her.
"I meant because of what she's done. I could kill the whole bloody lot of them, but… I really don't want to kill anymore." Hearing the sadness in his voice Alice put her hand comfortingly on his arm.
"How about we just wing it," she suggested. "It's been my experience that plans just fall apart and go wrong... all of them! The only time anything has ever gone right was when we did it on the spur of the moment." Both Hatter and Duchess nodded in agreement.
Duchess led them to trap door that she would never had known was there, even if she stood staring at it forever.
"This used to be my family's castle, only we know the hidden passageways," she said before she slipped down. Hatter held his hand out and Alice used it to lower herself down. He jumped in lightly after her. After that they walked on for agonising minutes in darkness and silence down passages and stairways. No one wanted to breathe a word from fear of being heard through the walls.
It was cold in the tunnels and Alice was glad when Duchess finally stopped and opened a small door. It was painful walking from the darkness of the passages to the bright white of the castle walls. By the looks of it they weren't too far from the throne room.
But over by the door stood two Suits. A few more seconds and the Suits would see them.
"Alice do you trust me?" Hatter suddenly asked.
"Completely," she replied.
"Good, Duchess, hide." With a resentful look at him she complied, sneaking back into the tunnels.
Hatter grabbed her roughly and held her hands behind her back, loosely tying them with some rope he had in his pocket. When she looked up at him he was wearing a hard cold mask. His eyes full of sarcasm, malice and hatred. The side of his mouth was curled up in a scary maniacal half smile. It made her shudder.
He pushed her forward towards the door of the throne room. The Suits looked startled at the sight of him.
"Well, what are you blooding waiting for? Tea time?" Hatter snapped at them. Hurriedly the opened the doors and he continued to drag her through. There was a startled cry as the Queen of Hearts, seeing them, stood up.
"Hatter, you're back! We thought something bad had happened to you," she said with false relief.
"Me, are you kidding," he replied reminding her eerily of when she had asked him what he would do when she left with Jack.
"Then where have you been?" Knave demanded coming forward to his mother's side.
"This little bitch," he gave a rough jerk on her 'bonds', "drugged me and kidnapped me! But as you can see I'm back, and better yet, I have her." he looked at Knave. "And you really need to get a better wife because as I've said a dozen times, this one was psychotic!!! "
"I have to agree with you there," Knave laughed. "But, it's been a whole day Hatter, what took you so long?"
"I wasn't exactly able to turn the tables on my captors very easily. But the tables turned when they were too distracted trying to steel this," he held out the ring for them to see.
"My ring!!!" the Queen cried.
"Relax Mary, don't get your panties in a bunch. It's all sorted," he said walking over to her. "Alice of legend is captured, Duchess is dead and the ring is once again yours." He held it out to her and as her chubby fingers reached for it Hatter's right hand few out and punched her. There was a crunch as it connected with her face and in less than a second Alice heard gun shots.
Already having anticipated this Hatter ducked down and the bullets found an entirely different target. The Queen stood, her eyes wide in shock, patches of dark red were seeping out and blotching on her already red dress. With a last gasp she fell to the ground dead.
Knave roared in fury and pulling out his gun aimed at Alice.
But at that very moment Duchess came out of hiding. She ran at Knave, screaming and wielding a metal bar in the air. With a screech she brought in down on his head just as he turned around. He crumpled to the floor, a long bloody gash in his head. But Duchess didn't stop, she kept bludgeoning his lifeless body with the bar yelling hateful words. But hysteria made her cries incoherent.
Panicked Alice shrugged out of her bonds and ran over to her. She dragged her back and prised the bar from her hands. The fight all out of her, Duchess now sat numbly on the floor. Tears ran wildly down her cheeks, her hands and dress stained with blood.
It was then that Alice noticed something was horribly wrong. Hatter hadn't come to help after he punched the Queen. Looking over at him she realised with a heart stopping jolt that he hadn't even moved.
"Hatter!" she screamed running over to him. He lay on the ground gasping, holding his side. He was white as a sheet and she could see blood running through his fingers.
"You're not wearing body armour!" she cried in surprise and alarm.
"I haven't exactly needed to the past year," he winced. "I'm fine," he told her seeing her panicked face. "Just get this blimmen bullet out and bandage me up and I'll be fine. It's just a flesh wound." She helped him sit up, his face contorted in pain.
Surprisingly one of the Suits came to their aid.
"Someone help the Queen," he said to the others. "And clear away the bodies." The Suits nodded and set to work. Some pulling cloths over the body of the Queen and Knave until they could be taken away. Some of them helped a shell shocked Duchess to her feet and led her away to be cleaned up.
The Suit helped Hatter to his feet and supported him as they made their way to the infirmary, then proceeded to bandage him up.
It appeared that Wonderland was once again in the right hands.
It would never cease to amaze her how fast the balance of power could change.