“Quite.” I grinned. Our eyes caught, my insides fluttering.
Bullets broke through the table right between Scrooge and me, widening my eyes.
“Now!” I screamed, jumped up, and crashed my blade into the post closest to me, Hare and Scrooge doing the same. A loud groan from the structure quaked the ground and wailed out into the night sky, stopping the soldiers in their tracks. For a moment they stared up, watching the angel wobble, and the stale cookie, which was probably the consistency of a brick, tipped forward.
The screech whirred in my ears, filling the silent shock as we all stared at the trellis crumbling. I waited for my moment, the last bullet sitting in my gun.
“Retreat,” the general shouted, but it was too late.
The chandelier plunged to the ground, just as my finger hit the trigger.
Boom!
The bullet whizzed through the glass, hitting the electric outlet, the piece of coal sparking against the electricity running through the wires. Glass and fire exploded out toward our opponents, producing shrill screams as the flames found their targets. The pergola crashed down on top of the front line, burying them in debris and fire.
“Holy shit!” Hare’s head jerked to me; his mouth parted. “Dammnnn... I think you and I need to hang out.”
“Maybe after we get out of here.” I dropped the gun, turning to the back of the garden. “We need to go.”
“Come on!” Scrooge grabbed my hand, pulling me with him. “We have to go through there.” Scrooge pointed at the hedges framing the garden, holly reaching high into the sky. Hare, Penguin, and the twins were quick to shove through the hedge, their small bodies easily disappearing.
“Yummy. That one looks delicious. Come closer, girl,” a voice came from the bush.
I blinked, staring closer at the holly. It wasn’t your normal holly. The jagged leaves shined in the moonlight like a thousand razors; black dots on the red berries stared at me like eyeballs.
Holy crap! The holly is alive. Not sure why this surprised me.
“Are you kidding me?” I tugged out of Scrooge’s grip. “Don’t you even have normal bushes here?”
“What do you consider normal, Ms. Liddell? Normal could be abnormal, and abnormal could be quite ordinary.”
“Vampire holly is common here. Awesome.”
“We have no time.” Scrooge pointed behind me. The flames gobbling up the wooden soldiers worked its way to us, already consuming the table as the fire burned the trellis. “Hurry.”
As I took a step, something made a clinking noise, forcing me to look down. The vial with “Drink Me” lay at my feet. Wood snapped and creaked behind me, the flames licking at my back. Swiftly, I bent down, swiping the vial into my hand and shoving it into my pocket.
“Alice!” Scrooge screamed for me, reaching for my fingers. His large, warm hand wrapped around mine, and I leaped.
A cry belted from my throat as we moved deeper into the hedge, sharp, jagged leaves slicing into my skin.
“This one tastes unusual.”
“Oh, I want more. Come back, girl.”
“Juicy red blood.”
One limb leaped out, cutting me deep.
“Damn! Ow!” I swiped my hand at the branch, but it was no use. They pressed into me on all sides, wrapping around my legs and arms.
“Back off, you bloodsuckers,” Scrooge growled, pulling me faster through the shrubbery. How thick was this hedge anyway?
“You know the rules, Mr. Scrooge. There’s a fee for coming through here,” they said in unison.
For a place so nonsensical, it sure had a lot of rules.
“Plus, she tastes like you used to.” The black eyes on the red berries watched us, blood dripping off their leaves. “But you have grown as unpleasant and cheap in your blood as the rest here.”
“Shut up before I blowtorch you all to the ground,” Scrooge snarled.
A collective gasp came from the bushes. “But it’s illegal.”
“I know the laws here.”
“Your body will lose a head if you do it. You wouldn’t dare.”
“Watch me.” He glared over my shoulder at the carnivorous holly. “Now you have taken enough from Ms. Liddell as payment. Wound her again, and I’m snapping you into tiny pieces and squashing your beady eyes under my boot.”
“But she’s sooooo good. Come on. We’ve been starving. It’s been too long since we tasted her kind of sweetness. We might die before the next time someone comes through,” they whined together.
“Then do it and decrease the surplus population of weeds like you.” Scrooge grabbed my elbow and jerked me to hurry up, pushing through the thick brush.
“Weeds,” they hollered in indignation. “We are not weeds.”
I could feel their anger growing. Branches and foliage sprouted, weaving and tightening the space around us. Scrooge yanked me roughly, picking up the pace.
“Get them!” Aggravated, they sliced and nipped at us with a renewed vengeance. I yelped as their bites moved up and down my limbs, easily chomping through my thin tights. We continued to sprint through, my arms taking the brunt as I tried to guard my face and neck.
At one point I began to hallucinate when I imagined seeing a clearing over Scrooge’s shoulder, but we remained in the labyrinth of shrubbery, curving and zigzagging for what felt like hours. My head spun as blood drained from me, my legs stumbling over the roots underfoot. Scrooge had slowed down a lot, his feet staggering as mine were. We had both lost so much blood.
“Not this time,” I heard Scrooge mutter, his breath labored.
I blinked, seeing moonlight shimmering off a patch of snow ahead of us. An exit. A way out.
“Don’t let them pass,” the holly yelled forward.
“Noooo!” Scrooge boomed. His shoulders bent forward, his muscles coiling under his jacket. Similar to a bull, he charged forward, but the branches knitted together, blocking our exit.
“Oh no.” I shook my head. The thought of being in here any longer caused my heart to thump in my throat, my essence leaking out faster. The exit narrowed to almost nothing. My legs trembled under me, my body sagging. I never thought of myself as the quitter as my family did, more like I lost interest in things. I knew when it came down to really important things, I would fight. With a battle cry, I rushed forward, batting and shoving at the limbs as they came down around us. My fingers tore at the plaiting limbs, the snapping branches echoing loudly, like tiny bones.
“Go!” Scrooge shoved me through the tight pocket we had created; deep incisions hacked into my flesh. I screamed, toppling forward, breaking through the thick brush. My knees crashed into the snow, my blood smearing starkly through the pure white substance.
I made it. I was free. But not hearing Scrooge behind me had me twisting my head to look back. His face disappeared behind the foliage as it consumed him like a giant mouth.
“No!” I leaped up. With energy I didn’t know I had, I stomped my boot at the lower branches and with all my strength I yanked up. The leaves scored into my palms, but their pained screams crowded my ear. With a deafening grunt, Scrooge rammed through the evil shrubbery, slamming into me.
We toppled over, crashing into the ankle-deep snow, his body covering mine. We laid there for a moment, our lungs knocking against each other as we grappled for air.
“Are you all right, Ms. Liddell?” His voice was low and rumbling, making me highly aware his body pressed into mine.
“Y-Y-Yes.” My head still whirled, and I wanted to close my eyes and sleep for the next month. “I think so.”
Scrooge stared down at me intensely, but his emotion was unreadable.
“What?” I whispered, trying to ignore how amazing he felt on me. The heat and hardness of his physique demanded mine to respond.
“You saved me.”
“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I?”
“Why would you?”
“I couldn’t leave you.”
“You should have, Ms. Liddell. As I told you, y
ou should not trust anyone here.”
A frown turned my mouth, drawing his attention, which hitched my breath. “That is no way to live. You didn’t leave me behind with the soldiers. I don’t abandon people either.” I gulped, feeling his face inching closer to mine. “I don’t know why, but I trust you.”
His gaze went from my lips to my eyes, his warm breath skating down my low-cut costume, between my breasts. “You really shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because.” His deep voice lit my nerves like a match. He didn’t finish his sentence. Clearly, it was reason enough.
I stared up at him, my heart slamming into my chest. Hundreds of cuts sliced his face and hands, blood trickling down his cheeks. I longed to reach out and wipe the blood away, to lick it off my fingers and taste him myself.
Uhhh. What the holy fuck?
The thought startled me, jerking my frame under his weight. Like a needle popped a bubble, the hazy little world around us fell away. He blinked and lurched back off me like I had the plague, his mouth curling up in a snarl. I sat up, feeling dizzy, the tense silence sitting soberly in my gut.
Scrooge took a deep breath, rubbing his face and rising to his feet. “We need to get going. Get away from here.”
“Where is here exactly?” I pushed to stand, my body swaying. Scrooge grabbed my arm, keeping me from falling over, but this time he stood as far as he could from me.
“If you don’t know where you are, what does it matter where here is? Here is merely relative to knowing where you are.”
I groaned, pinching my nose. I kept forgetting Scrooge, the same as the rest, was mad. Sexy as hell, but looney as a cartoon. Speaking of the rest… “Where are the others? Shouldn’t they be around here?”
Scrooge chuckled ruthlessly, annoyance seeping into his face. “When will you learn, Ms. Liddell? Nothing here is what it seems. The hedge is a vast maze, inside and out of it. All connected to the other and can drop you out anywhere it wants to.”
I peered back at the shrubberies, most still calling vulgar names at us. I swore one flipped us off.
“The others could be anywhere in Winterland. But they know where to go.”
“Where?” My stomach churned, feeling the answer wouldn’t be good.
“Tulgey Woods.”
“Why there?” I wiped trickling blood from my temple.
“Because…” Scrooge tugged off his hat, yanked the green scarf from around it, and stepped up to me. He pressed the cloth to my face gently, his nearness stealing my breath. “Even the Queen won’t venture there.” He dabbed at my face, cleaning off the crimson liquid.
Again, I felt I was being laid across a firepit, my skin and insides bubbling with heat. For once, I longed for the snow to be cold, needing to even out the heat crawling up my spine. I didn’t like how his nearness fluttered my heart. He was right. I needed to be more on guard. I had no idea who he was or where he was leading me. For all I knew, he was the real monster looming in the dark disguised by a rugged, sexy exterior. He could be the Ted Bundy of Winterland, ready to boil me up and eat me.
Eat me. My mind went in a totally different way, my thighs clenching.
“I’m fine.” I stepped back. “Thank you.”
“They drained a lot of essence out of you, and their poison is potent. We’ll need to get you food, medicine, and sleep soon or you’ll go into shock.”
“Go into shock?” My lids burst open, and I felt heavier on my legs. “Will you go into shock too?”
“No. I’m used to it now. But I’ll feel nauseous for a while. You don’t have a rare allergy to holly plants, do you?”
“Uh, n-no. I don’t think so.” Not something I’d been faced with before being here.
“Good. Then death is highly unlikely, but you will certainly wish you could die after puking your guts up for hours.”
“Sounds fun.” I shook my head. This place was definitely no happy Christmas fantasy.
“I know someone we can stay with. He will help us.”
“You have a friend? Someone you trust?” I lifted my eyebrows.
“I said someone. Not a friend. And by no means do I trust him, but the reindeer is the best we’ve got right now.” He placed his hat back on his head, set his scarf in my hand, and started to trudge through the snow.
“Reindeer?” I sputtered after him, feeling the fluffy snow gluing to the bottom of my boots, my legs like weights. “Do you mean Rudolph?”
“You know Rudolph?” Scrooge stopped, spinning back to look at me.
“Sort of.” I stumbled back, not ready for his quick movement. “He is kind of the reason I’m here. I followed him. Fell down a hole and found myself in this fucked-up world, or this dream is way too real.”
“Rudy was on Earth, and you saw him?”
“Yeah.” I scrunched up my nose. “Leave it to me to follow a man because he had a smokin’ hot body and then fall down a hole because I’m not paying attention to anything but rock-hard abs.”
“Smokin’ hot body?” Scrooge’s eyebrows crunched together. “You find him attractive?”
“Minus the whole antler thing… actually… forget it. Yeah. He’s hot.”
A nerve in Scrooge’s jaw twitched. Gritting his teeth, he spun back around, tromping through the snow, almost reaching the tree line. “You shouldn’t have been able to see him.”
“What do you mean?”
“What he means, Ms. Alice,” a familiar voice traveled out from the woods in front of us. Scrooge came to an abrupt halt, his arms going out like he was trying to hide me behind him. His entire form went rigid as Frosty rolled out from the trees. “Only two before you were ever rare enough to see one of our kind. And since then, there has been a spell securing us from any human entering this realm again.”
“What are you saying?” I looked back and forth between Scrooge and Frosty. Frosty’s coal mouth curled up in a huge smile, but this time he looked creepy, not like an innocent snowman. Scrooge’s expression went to stone, showing no emotion. “I’m not human?”
“No, you are very much human, my dear.” Frosty glided nearer, and Scrooge countered, stepping closer to me. “But you have extra muchness.” Frosty’s grin arched up higher. “Just like you, Mr. Scrooge. Isn’t that right?”
“What is he talking about?” I touched Scrooge’s arm.
“He hasn’t told you?” Frosty chuckled. “But I guess once you start down that rabbit hole, the secrets he keeps are endless.”
“How is being the Queen’s lap cat working out for you?” Scrooge’s voice twisted with condemnation. “Curl into a ball at her feet in front of the fire… oh wait… you’d melt.” Scrooge sighed with false compassion. “Guess you have to stare through the window like a lost puppy as she takes another to her bed.”
“You’d probably know what it’s like there, wouldn’t you?” The snowman sneered, all jubilance slipping from his smile. “You warmed it for a long time.”
“What?” My mouth parted, stepping back from Scrooge. “You slept with her?”
“No—” He reached for me, the snowman’s howl cutting off his words.
“Oh, that’s another thing you didn’t know.” Frosty’s huge grin was back, his branch hands clapping in excitement. “Let me introduce you, my dear. Scrooge is his name now, but it wasn’t always.”
“Fuck. You.” Scrooge growled.
“Meet the Queen’s previous knave. Her general of black hearts… on and off duty. He is the last person you should trust.”
My heart jumped up into my throat, his words coming back to me with force.
“I couldn’t leave you.”
“You should have, Ms. Liddell. As I told you, you should not trust anyone here.”
“I don’t know why, but I trust you.”
“You really shouldn’t.”
“Alice.” He grasped for me, but I jerked away. The one thing I learned in this upside-down world was the Queen was evil. She killed and destroyed everything good about Christmas
. Someone I thought he was against. I believed I was on the Rebel Alliance side. The good side. But I couldn’t fight alongside someone who disgusted me. It made me look differently at him. He had been not only her soldier, but her lover.
“Alice, you don’t under—”
“No. You don’t get to call me Alice now.” I sneered, glancing around. My energy was low, but I had to get away. From both of them. “You were right. I shouldn’t have trusted you. Lesson learned.” I turned to sprint away, hoping they’d let me go. But after only five steps, my feet stopped in their track, panic fizzing up my throat.
Hundreds of toy soldiers dashed out of the forest, circling around us, herding me back toward the snowman and Scrooge.
“Same ol’ Frosty. Some things never change. Once a traitor, always a traitor.”
“You are the one who was the traitor. I stupidly trusted you, called you a friend. You are the deceiver and deserter.”
“You are such a righteous fool.” Scrooge glared at Frosty. “You think yourself so wise, but you see nothing.” I hadn’t been here long, but it was clear these two had history going way back.
“We’ll see who’s smart enough to keep their head. This time I will not save yours.” Frosty turned into the forest, and the soldiers packed in around us, cuffing our wrists and pushing us down a path which might end with me losing my head.
And not just metaphorically speaking.
Chapter 7
“Hey, snowflake!” Scrooge’s voice bounded forward, causing sprays of snow to drop from the trees around us.
I could feel the trees watching us, but none of them spoke. An eerie glow from the windup lanterns a few soldiers carried cast light on the trail and forest, making everything feel alive.
“She needs medicine and rest,” Scrooge continued yelling at Frosty. “Do you want her to go into shock before we even get there?”
“I don’t need your help,” I hissed, though I couldn’t deny my lids grew heavier with each step, my stomach rolling. Sweat trickled down my face as heat boiled inside my body, pounding against my ribs.
“Your benefactor would not be pleased.” Scrooge snarled at Frosty as he struggled against the handful of soldiers pushing him forward. Their blank faces and dead eyes were creepy, the shadows creating monstrous images on their painted heads.
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