The more the words came out of my mouth, the more I wanted to tuck myself under his desk and bang my head against it. Why was I asking him this? He was a terrible person. Why was I asking for his help?
This might be the only way to find some answers. You have to do this.
I blew out a shaky breath and waited.
“Well,” Geoffrey said, crossing his arms over his chest casually. “It was just a party, right? Granted, a Royal party is much more hip to be at than any party, but it was still filled with drunken idiots and girls too out of it to say no. There was something that did pique my interest. You know the judge’s kid? Oh, what’s his name. The one with the sharp jaw and the hair that fell in his face.” He gestured at his own face to emphasize his point.
“You mean Jack?” I asked, furrowing my brow. “Jack Lupine?”
“Lupine!” Geoffrey snapped his fingers. “Yes, that’s it. He was there. He came late, though. And he looked pretty pissed off.”
At that moment, the phone rang. Geoffrey’s face tilted towards the landline, but he made no move to pick it up.
When it finished ringing, Geoffrey began to run his fingers through the space between his fingers.
“Anyway,” he said. “I saw him come in after nine. Does that help you?”
“No.”
I wasn’t trying to be rude, but that was the truth. I glanced away, shifting my weight. This didn’t look like I was going to get the information I wanted. It looked like it was going to be a dead end. I clenched my teeth together. Tears blurred my vision. The last thing I wanted was another dead end, especially since I was so close to figuring this out. I was on the precipice. I was on the edge. I just needed that moment, that part, where I stepped off completely and fell into the answers.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, looking back at him. He dropped his hands back at his sides. “Who gave you your magic?”
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“You have DreamMagic, right? You worked for Sabrina Charming. Who gave that to you?”
The corners of his lips flicked up and I knew this was some kind of game for him, something to be amused by. I hated him in that moment. He didn’t realize just what he was keeping from me. Magic burned through my blood and it took everything in me not to release it.
Before I could answer, the shrill ring of the phone filled up the silence that hung between our conversation. My eyes narrowed. Who the hell could be calling him this late? I was pretty sure it wasn’t some girl looking to score a good time with him.
“You might want to get that,” I said, nodding at the phone. “It might be, I don’t know, a client or something.”
“Maybe it’s your friend and she finally got tired of the Beast.” His smarmy smile made me want to claw his eyes out - even though they already were. “No, but thank you for your concern. Actually, I prefer this discussion with you. I didn’t know what a little spitfire you were, Alice Winter. The last time I saw you, you were on your back at that party, unable to even move right. Unable to form a coherent sentence. I thought, for sure, you had had too much to drink. The police chief’s perfect little angel, too whacked out on alcohol to really pay attention to her surroundings.”
My mouth went dry. My heart stopped beating.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice a breath, a whisper. “You said, uh, you said you saw me where?”
The phone rang a third time. Geoffrey didn’t even react to it this time. There was a curl to his lips. If he still had eyes, I was almost positive he would have had a shimmer of amusement in them. There was something he wasn’t telling me.
At that moment, my phone buzzed. My bones practically jumped out of my skin when I heard it. I shook it off and grabbed it. It was an unknown number. Either it was the police department or someone affiliated with them. I wondered if it was my father. I wondered if he was checking up on me since I left the station abruptly during the interrogation without even telling him.
“Hello?” I asked, my voice cracking.
I furrowed my brow, wishing I could erase the sound. I didn’t need to be worried or scared. And if it was Dad, I didn’t need him to know that I felt that way.
“Alice?”
The voice was low, rough, and familiar. The furrow in my brow deepened. I tilted my torso away from Geoffrey. I wasn’t sure if he could hear it or not. I supposed it didn’t matter, in the long run. I just hoped he didn’t think I was being rude and took it as an insult, especially since he was in the middle of answering my questions.
“Uh, this is Shane, Shane Wolf, over at the lab.”
“Oh.” No wonder I recognized his voice. My heart stuttered at the sound of it now. He must be calling because he had the results. Which meant there was a good chance I would finally, finally, have the answers I was looking for. “Yes. Hi. Hello.”
“I have your results, Alice,” he said. “The magic left on your body matches the same magic that paralyzed Mary Stone.”
I swallowed. I swallowed again.
That meant...
Geoffrey Hunter.
I blinked, looking at him as though I was seeing him for the first time. Really seeing him.
Geoffrey Hunter raped me at that party a year ago, the same night Anna died. Geoffrey Hunter was my rapist.
23
I turned and wretched all over the floor. It was disgusting. I knew it was disgusting, but there was nothing I could do about it.
Everything stopped.
Everything in me froze.
I needed to release everything inside of me. It was like my stomach had been knotted up for the last year, and ever so slowly I was starting to undo the knot. But with that undoing came vomit. I was releasing everything that held me back - and it showed.
I left myself vulnerable. Geoffrey could come at me right now. He could do a lot more to me, though I wasn’t sure why he would want to. Judging from the sneer on his face as he looked at me, I knew that he wouldn’t touch me. At least, not right away.
When I finally finished, I tried to stand up straight but I couldn’t. My stomach was still sensitive, so I gripped the back of the old, leather armchair in order to steady myself. I fixed my gaze on Geoffrey, on trying to remember anything about him that would prove to me my body’s response wasn’t a farce. I knew he raped me, but I didn’t actually have the proof. I had nothing concrete except a gut reaction. Except the disgusting mess I made on the floor.
“I…” I tried to catch my breath, but now my heart was pounding more furiously in my ears. My fingers shook, even as they clutched the faded leather. “I know.”
“Know what?” Geoffrey asked.
He leaned towards me and I jerked back. His head seemed to follow my every move, even the ones that didn’t make a sound. I wasn’t sure how it was possible. I wasn’t sure how he was able to hear me so well. I knew taking away one sense only heightened the others, but to actually experience it was something I was unprepared for.
Though, the truth of the whole situation was, I was unprepared completely.
“I know.” I couldn’t seem to get any other words out of my mouth. They dried up before my tongue could push them out. “You...you raped me. You raped me a year ago. I know you did it. I know you did it. You helped Sabrina kill Mary Stone. You-you used the DreamMagic you have and you paralyzed her, and Sabrina Charming killed her.”
I kept my mouth shut about Tom’s DreamMagic and how the two traces didn’t match. Which meant Tom didn’t rape me and didn’t help with Mary Stone - which made sense since he wasn’t even born yet.
“And I know you raped me at Stephen Charming’s party on August thirteenth,” I finished. My words sounded slurred, like I was trying to rush them out of my mouth before I chickened out and they didn’t come out at all. I needed to say them. I needed him to know that I knew.
Geoffrey stilled. He was still a good distance away from me in front of the desk. If he was going to come after me, I could just run in the opposite direction. I could see him coming for
me, but he couldn’t see me, so I would have to use that to my advantage. It didn’t feel very fair - trying to outwit a blind man - but at the same time, this blind man raped me, paralyzed Mary Stone so Sabrina Charming could kill her, and assaulted Belle. It was hard to muster up the appropriate level of sympathy at all.
“So,” he said. “You finally figured it out. What gave it away?”
I wasn’t going to tell him that it was my magic. It was the dreams. It was the pieces falling together. I wasn’t even going to tell him that I had Shane run a very specific test for me and based on the results, the only person who could have raped me was Geoffrey.
“Who gave you your DreamMagic?” I asked instead. “I know you’re not a Fae. And DreamMagic come from the Fae. Someone had to give it to you, and I need to know who.”
“Who says anyone gave it to me?” Geoffrey spread his arms out. “How do you know I just didn’t take it?”
“Because you’re not old,” I pointed out. “Magic has a price, especially if you take it. And DreamMagic ages someone way faster. Someone could be my age and look like they’re in their sixties if they opted to take magic that wasn’t freely given.” I took a step forward even though my hands still shook, even though my knees were ready to collapse. I thought finding out what happened to me would free me. Instead, the weight on my shoulder just got heavier and heavier. It wouldn’t be long until I drowned. “Who gave you DreamMagic?”
“Why does it matter?” Geoffrey asked.
I thought back to Rumple, to what he told me about the Never Glass and the Fae realm. “Well,” I said, “it matters a great deal, especially if Wonderland and the Fae realm are going to go to war at some point. Was it a Fae? Or was it someone from here with ties to the Fae?” I swallowed. “Did...did Pan give you DreamMagic?”
Without warning, Geoffrey tilted his head back and laughed. “You think that little runt gave me DreamMagic?” he asked. “That’s hilarious. No, like I told you, Pan is responsible for carving out my eyeballs all because I assaulted Belle. You know what? Belle wanted it. She could pretend otherwise but she wanted it and we both knew it. She thought she was some bigshot because she was beautiful, but her old man is crazy and she loves a guy who isn’t even rich anymore. His house is falling apart and he just got out of jail. Fuck that. She wanted a real man.”
“A real man?” My body tingled as I snarled out the words. It was like my magic recognized this person who violated me in the worst way and wanted to punish him for it. “You think a real man has to essentially put someone to sleep in order to have sex with them?” I snorted.
His words began to sink in, and my dream became vivid in my mind.
“I don’t understand why, though,” I said. “Why would you do that? To me? You don’t even know me.”
A grin broke out onto Geoffrey’s chiseled face, and he placed both hands on the surface of his desk, leaning forward. “Can I tell you a secret?” he whispered. “There’s something that just gets me going about having what no one else has had, you know? You were the unmagicked daughter of the police chief. Claiming you is like claiming the most untouchable thing in Wonderland. And guess what? I touched you. And you liked it.”
Magic poured out of me, shooting straight at Geoffrey. Golden tendrils wrapped around his throat, lifting him into the sky. Some pushed into his nostrils, his mouth, even his eye sockets. At some point, I realized I was shouting, though I didn’t know why. My face was scrunched up, cheeks hot and pinched. I was suddenly breathless.
I couldn’t control my rage. I didn’t want to. Instead of holding my magic back, instead of being afraid of what I could do, I released it all. I wanted it out of me. I wanted it rushing through Geoffrey. I wanted to leave him just as helpless as I felt. I wanted him weak, vulnerable, and begging me to stop. But I wanted him to know that I wouldn’t.
Not until -
A loud pop filled the room, and Pan appeared. He wore a white collared shirt tucked into black slacks, his hair brushing his broad shoulders. His pale green eyes flickered with surprise, but it disappeared just as quickly as it came.
“Ah,” he said. “Now I see why Geoffrey hasn’t been answering my calls.” He shifted his attention over to me. His eyes scanned my body. I shifted my weight, discomfited by the intensity of his stare, but there was nothing lecherous about it. I would almost say that he was ensuring I wasn’t harmed, but that didn’t sound like Pan. Pan wasn’t concerned about anyone except himself.
“As you can see, Imp Junior, I’ve been a little distracted,” Geoffrey said lazily.
My eyebrows shot up my forehead and I looked over at Pan, waiting for his reaction. I knew insulting Pan so bluntly, in front of other people, was practically suicide. Granted, I had never heard of him killing anyone before, but Pan had pride and arrogance in spades. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took what Geoffrey said as a personal attack.
“I beg your pardon?” Pan asked, his tone cold. “What did you just call me?”
“Imp Junior,” Geoffrey said. “Seeing as how you’re a little brother, it’s a way for me to distinguish between the two of you.”
Pan flicked his wrist, and suddenly, Geoffrey was bound in one of his chairs, unable to free himself. My heart skipped a beat. I knew Pan was powerful, I just wasn’t expecting something like that. I looked over at Rumple’s brother, holding my breath, wondering what he was going to do.
The strange thing was, I wasn’t scared or fearful for Rumple and definitely not for myself. I was...intrigued.
“I’m surprised you possess such arrogance after our little meeting,” Pan said, taking a step towards me. “Perhaps removing your tongue will teach you another lesson? Might I suggest actually learning it?”
“I don’t have any other information for you, sir,” Geoffrey bit out. It was the first time this evening where I could detect clear annoyance in his tone rather than casual dismissal. “Other than what I told you before.”
“Do not lie to me,” Pan said, his voice suddenly turning dark and dangerous. “Considering your employer sits in an interrogation room at the Wonderland Police Department, I would wager you have a lot to tell me. Everyone knows Mary Stone was not killed by the Mad Mage now, thanks to her arrest. I am aware of the bonds of magic that kept certain people unable to discuss such things. But now that that magic has been broken, I demand that you tell me everything you know...and everything you were ordered to do.”
Geoffrey clenched his teeth together. For a second, I was positive he wasn’t going to answer. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t. Pan was not someone I wanted to mess with, especially knowing he was the reason behind Geoffrey’s eyes - or lack thereof.
He must have realized the same thing because he sucked in a breath and breathed it out. “You know the deal, then?” he asked. “If anyone reveals the truth, the weakness will be exploited.”
“Something like that, but not exactly,” Pan said. “Magic is exact. If someone broke their deal, the magic would have made them pay the price directly. Since Sabrina Charming herself admitted as much, the bond broke and now those bound are free to do as they please. But Sabrina wasn’t satisfied with that, was she?” He took a step forward. I couldn’t be sure, but it almost felt like Pan was placing his body in front of mine, almost like he was trying to protect me. Which made no sense, since there was no way Pan would care about a mortal life like mine. Unless there was something in it for him. “You’re here to kill her, aren’t you? At the behest of your employer.”
Geoffrey’s lips quirked up again, and there was that dark amusement written all over his face. “And what makes you say that?” he asked.
“Sabrina Charming is a prideful fool, and since my brother is an idiot who found himself chained to this mortal as his weakness, she sent you after her.” Pan’s voice brokered no room for argument. “More importantly, she also happens to be the weakness of Paul Winter, someone else bound in this little magical game. Tell me, did Anna Skaarsgard know? Is that why she died?”
&nbs
p; Geoffrey’s brow furrowed and genuine confusion flickered across his face. “Who?” he asked.
I blinked. It made perfect sense. If Anna figured out what happened to Mary Stone, and that Sabrina was the killer, Sabrina would send Geoffrey after her...wouldn’t he? It seemed right. Everything added up on paper. There was even magic on her. But...then why did it seem as though Geoffrey had no idea who Pan was talking about.
Pan clicked the back of his teeth with his tongue. “Oh well,” he said. “I thought that would have been put to rest. I shall take my leave -”
“Wait, what?” I asked. “You just said he was here to kill me.”
“Not just kill,” Geoffrey put in. He didn’t seem to care that Pan hadn’t left yet. Then again, maybe he didn’t realize it. Maybe he thought Pan had gone, even though there wasn’t that pop that indicated as such. “I want to have fun with you. I want to see if you want it just like you wanted it then. Did you know how wet you were when I entered that tight little cunt of yours?”
I clenched my teeth together. My entire body flared. My face pinched with shame. I knew he was just trying to goad me, trying to piss me off so I would react. I knew this. And yet, it didn’t stop me from reacting.
“I’m sorry,” Pan said, squaring his shoulders. “Did he...is he implying what I think he’s implying? Did he...did he hurt you?”
The hold I had on my jaw was so tight, my temples popped. I barely even heard Pan’s question. Magic buzzed through me, around me, and my gaze was locked on Geoffrey.
“I bet you want it again, don’t you?” Geoffrey said. He didn’t seem to care that Pan was right there. He knew what I could do. He knew I had magic. “You can pretend you don’t, but I know the truth. You need someone to fuck you like they mean it, don’t you? And that Imp isn’t doing it the way you want.”
“The Imp has my permission to do whatever he wants to my body,” I said. “You are nothing. You’re not even a bad memory. You are so insignificant that I don’t remember a thing.”
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