Into the Madness

by A. K. Koonce

  “What’s out there?” I point to the pinprick of light standing alone in the distance.

  “That’s the Elders’ Kingdom.” Cat crosses her ankles and gets comfortable at my side. “Before there was Wanderlust, there was Wonderland. Wonderland’s a beautiful Kingdom. The land there is thriving and taking care of the Elders.” Cat’s voice is cutting, tinged with a bit of anger.

  “Why wouldn’t the King take his people back there? Work something out with the Elders somehow. They’re clearly lacking food here.”

  “Well, they make up for all their lack of food by eating the plants that relax them, makes them more accepting of their dire situation.”

  “Is he drugging them? Is Constantine drugging his Kingdom?” My lips part, my voice shaking just slightly.

  “We’re all just trying to survive,” she whispers. “Profit says an Elder made all of this possible. He wanted newcomers. The other Elders didn’t.” The more she tells me, the harder it becomes to process what I’ve actually signed up for here. “The other Elders agreed the newcomers could stay, but they didn’t want them in their Kingdom. So, they pushed us to the shore with the only two Elders who were willing to stay with us.”

  “The twins.”

  She nods quietly.

  Maybe Constantine is a good guy. Or he was. Once.

  “The one who made this all possible, he wants Alice. The King has faith that by showing a marriage between the most important newcomer and an Elder like himself will create peace and unity between the two Kingdoms.”

  That’s it. It’s that easy.

  I guess all that I have to do to help these people is be happy. It should be simple.

  I can be happy with Constantine.

  And his sister.

  And Alixx.

  I can be happy without Lighton. Or Kais.

  …Or Alixx.

  Why is this so hard?

  Preston, the Sixth Sense creeping omen that he is, pops in at my side, and I nearly fall to my death right off the beam that I never should have climbed up on.

  “Kais found the come-stained shirt he loaned you. Was it come-stained before or after he loaned it is the only thing I don’t understand. Seems rude to give a lady such a nasty gift, but it’s been a while since I dated, so I don’t know.” His eyes shine when he smiles at me, my pulse barely climbing back down from its near heart attack.

  “I don’t have money for you. Stop Profit whispering.” My arms fold, a heavy sigh slipping from my lips.

  “Rotter said he’d foot your bill from now on.” Preston leans back, settling in at my side like he’s ready to start racking up an invoice for Rotter right here, right now.

  I can’t believe Alixx would pay this kid off for me.

  It’s both sweet and…stupid.

  “That wasn’t a smart thing for him to do, was it?”

  “Nope.” The kid pops the p at the end of that word and tilts his head toward me.

  “Get on with it then. Whisper your ominous little whispers about my mother.”

  I steel my spine as he takes a deep breath and word vomits my past and future out. “Your father never looked for you after he left; you’ll never be ordinary despite how much you strive to be; you’ll be crowned Queen, but it won’t be as pleasant as the King described; the King will find out; several recklessly stupid men will fight to protect you. Oh, and you’ll lose your virginity to the least likely candidate.”

  Wait, what’s that last bit about my virginity?

  “The King will find out?” Cat shoots a look over to the boy who’s now staring aloofly at the stars.

  “I can’t expand. I tell you all that I know. I only see fragments here and there. The afterlife, that’s another story entirely. It’s an abundance of information. I can’t get some ghosts to go away, and others don’t want to be bothered. They’re odd entities.”

  My father didn’t look for me? Never? Not once?

  I can’t be told all the terrible things that await me in my future or in my past or in the afterlife. I thought I could, but I can’t. I just can’t handle it all.

  The board beneath me feels smaller when I stand on my three-inch heels and try to make my way past Preston. He looks confused when I abruptly start to climb down. The breath in my lungs shakes nearly as much as my hands, and I have to really focus on the wooden rungs that are supporting my fumbling body. Halfway down, my heel catches; I gasp when my leg slips, my hands gripping hard but ultimately slipping away from the beam entirely.

  I fall the several feet, my eyes clenching closed hard, and I suddenly hope it hurts. I hope I’m knocked unconscious. I hope all of this fades away to blackness just long enough for me to catch my breath again.

  Strong arms wrap around me, pulling me against a warm chest. I refuse to open my eyes, but I know who it is just by the adamant way he keeps me flush against him. His breath fans along the column of my neck, his lips coming closer by the second.

  “I’ve never been a savior in my entire life until I met you, Alice. Stop painting me in such a good light, or people will start to think I’m a nice guy,” Alixx whispers in a low rasping tone against my ear.

  I swallow the thick lump in my throat, and I push away from him on stumbling legs. My dress has ridden up against my thighs, my hair tangled, my palms stinging from the climb.

  The assassin and the traitor stand side by side watching the mess that I make everywhere I go.

  It’s then that I realize, I’ve made friends with the deadliest men of Wanderlust; a spy, a traitor, and a murderer.

  And I might be worse than they are.

  Because at least they know they’re bad. I’m the good one. The sweet one.

  The fucking fake.

  When I look up, I meet those tragically beautiful eyes of Kais’s. I can’t bring myself to believe he’s as dangerous as Alixx says he is. I admired the honesty in his eyes when we first met. I thought he’d tell me anything as long as I asked. I thought everything would turn out alright with him guiding me.

  I don’t know if that’s true anymore.

  “You can do this, Madison,” he says so quietly I barely hear him.

  “Things are already more peaceful, just by you being here,” Lighton comes forward from the darkness, coming close and making me feel just slightly like I’m among friends instead of colleagues. “Over the years, the King’s assassin, who I won’t name directly,” he pauses to glare over at Alixx. Alixx smirks at him, and it just fuels the tension between the three men. “The King’s assassin has been hired to eliminate the rebels. But also, over the years, more and more commoners have become rebels. They’re tired of waiting. Simply by being here, by being Alice, you’re saving them. How many people have you killed since Madison arrived?” Lighton looks to Rotter, and the man folds his arms over his chest as his eerie smile grows.

  “That’s confidential information. It doesn’t get shared with men who hold no value in this world.”

  The tension between them snaps.

  Lighton’s strike is so fast I barely see it. His fist lands with a heavy cracking sound against Alixx’s jaw. Every muscle in his body is tight, his chest rising and falling at a rapid pace as he watches Alixx shake the blow away. A smile curves his bloody lips, revealing crimson-stained teeth and humming laughter. It’s like he enjoys the pain.

  “Still confidential,” Alixx says through that manic amusement.

  “There’s only been the one on that first night she arrived.” Kais shoves himself between the two men, but their hatred toward each other is still right there on the surface. “The King used to dispose of rebels by the dozens. Every day. A peace has settled. The people, the rebels, the King, they all believe what Profit said. Even if you’re not the actual person he said it about. You can amend the two Kingdoms.”

  A sigh slips from my lips, and I wrap my arms around myself harder.

  “In my defense, I give the rebels a choice. They can stop rebelling at any time.”

  “Or die,” I finish for him.
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  “Exactly.” Alixx nods happily, not noticing the disgust in my voice.

  They’re all terrible. Including the King. All of these men I’m surrounding myself with, they’re terrible men making terrible choices in a terrible situation.

  And I’m going to marry one of them.

  Twenty-Six

  Kais

  She’s thrown herself into a mess of fabric, hiding away in the attic for the last three days. Tomorrow is her engagement party. And this weekend is her wedding.

  And the woman pretending to be the soon-to-be happy bride is hiding away from all of it.

  I stand quietly watching her from the doorway, studying the focus in her gaze. The little light of the machine shines against her pale green eyes, and she narrows them intently on her work, her hands moving the shimmering fabric quickly beneath the drilling pace of the needle.

  “Wear something white to the party. Cast yourself in that innocent image.”

  “It’ll definitely be white.” Her voice clips the words out in a sort of mocking tone.

  Sometimes I think she hates speaking to me. She trusts me. I can tell she does. But we just don’t fit together. It shouldn’t be this hard to talk to the most beautiful, frustrating, ridiculous woman I’ve ever met.

  And if it’s so painful to simply talk to her, why do I torture myself by always wanting to be around her?

  I can’t help but come closer to her. There are warning tones blazing through her voice, telling me to fuck off, and here I am creeping closer.

  I didn’t expect her to be thanking me. We’ve all thrown ourselves into this dangerous, shitty situation. But she’s the one giving up the most.

  She’s giving up what her life could have been. Just to save these people she doesn’t know.

  “Why did you say yes? When I asked you to be Alice, why’d you say yes?”

  The steady rhythm of the needle halts, stealing the sound away from the room until only tense silence settles in its place. She considers the question, the corners of her lips pulling down little by little until a real frown is in place.

  “I said yes because it sounded like a dream compared to my old life.” She glances back at me, and it hurts me to look at her lately. Her long red hair hangs down the center of her back, big green eyes trusting me so damn much when she and I both know she shouldn’t. She’s beautiful and pure. And all that perfection is going to rot away over the years from being married to a man who won’t love her like she should be.

  But I understand her answer. Wanderlust feels that way for everyone. Compared to the battlefield I’d left, Wanderlust felt like an absolute fucking dream.

  Until it turned dark.

  I was here when we left the original Kingdom to come closer to In Trance Island. This realm really was a dream.

  At one time.

  “What was your life like before?” I lean my hip against her chair, watching her closely, wanting to know everything I can about her before the light in her eyes vanishes.

  The King will steal all the beauty of this woman away.

  And I hate myself for arranging all of this.

  “I had cancer. Twice.”

  A pain shoots through my heart, and I don’t even consciously notice when my hand pushes through her hair. I don’t notice until I’m kneeling down in front of her, letting her soft hair tangle through my fingers, forcing her big eyes to look at me.

  “How old are you, Madison?”

  “Twenty.” She breathes out the single word, and her breath skims over my lips.

  More guilt washes over me, drowning my thoughts. She’s barely even lived.

  “What was your life like before you came here?” she asks.

  I can’t look away from her, and I can see she’s taking the focus away from herself and pinning it on me.

  Or maybe she truly wants to know who I was.

  “I was a soldier.”

  “And?”

  “And that was it. I didn’t know how to cope when the war ended. I’m apparently not very good at just being a regular person.”

  Now she’s searching my eyes, and I’m suddenly trying to avoid her gaze. I’m terrified she’ll look through me. If she looks inside and finds out I’m just a recovering addict living in a drug addicted world and trying to survive it all, will her trust in me fade?

  At first the drugs were meant to help me, heal my broken leg after the war.

  It’s strange how something so innocent can turn so dark sometimes.

  “Sometimes I have to go to the surface to find the newcomers who are reluctant to find Wanderlust. They’re the ones who belong here but keep being deterred. Some come blindly like Lighton, and some, like you, get lost without guidance. So, I go to the surface world to guide them here. No matter how many times I go back, I never feel like I belong there.”

  Several tension building seconds pass, and I think I said too much. I shouldn’t have said all that. Why the fuck did I just tell her that?

  “Me neither,” she finally says with a small smile that confuses my heartbeat into this stuttering pounding. It hurts when I make her happy even. How twisted is that? “I didn’t fit in when I wasn’t the Sick Girl. And then I didn’t fit in when I was again. I took some time off. I traveled around a lot after high school, but I was still the same. I guess I just felt lost before Wanderlust.”

  She turns to me, brushing her knee against my arm, making me realize I’m still cupping her face and now her thighs are open to me, and I’m inches away from making another mistake again.

  I swallow hard and pull my hands away from her. I stay knelt there, keeping a safe sort of distance between us.

  “What was it like before everyone came here? When you were the first, what was it like?”

  “Before I came here, things were mundane. Quiet. That’s how Constantine described it. The night I arrived, he said that’s when it all happened. Time stopped. At first, they didn’t notice it. No one did, but their aging process halted, and they noticed after a good long while. More people like me came through In Trance Island every day. It was as if I set something off, but no one ever directly blamed me. They just didn’t want me or anyone else messing up their perfect little Kingdom. So they exiled us.”

  Her eyebrows arch, and I note the red tint to them, making me wonder if the King has noticed as well.

  Doubtful. He’d have to glance at her from time to time to notice.

  I swallow back the guilt that constantly rises in me when I think of Madison and the fucking relationship I threw her into.

  “You’re not the white rabbit,” is all she finally says.

  “What?”

  “You’re Time. As in a person. The one who halts time because of the Hatter. Oh my God, I trusted you because you were the humble rabbit, and you were Time all along? In some stories, you’re the villain. I trusted the villain.” Her voice raises, and I have absolutely no idea what’s causing the terrified look in her eyes or what the hell she’s talking about.

  I go to speak, but she stands abruptly and starts pacing around the room, letting the fabric hanging from the ceiling brush over her shoulders as she walks a long line from one side of the room to the other.

  “If I’m the Hatter—the Hattress—I’m going to anger you.”

  “What do you mean, Madison?” I stand, but she doesn’t stop her back and forth walking, barely looking my way at all while she seems to think all this through.

  “In the book, time halts in Wonderland because the Hatter angers Time. As in a person. As in you. I’m going to do something that angers you. Like the wrath of Time. It all makes sense now. You make sense. Time is dependable but uncontrollable. Very touchy.” She eyes me up and down with a knowing nod and I feel insulted from the look alone but I have no idea why.

  Lighton walks up the stairs, and it just seems to set her rambling off even more.

  “And you…no, you’re definitely the March Hare. Never mind.” She nods her head, but none of it makes any more sense to me than it d
id before.

  Trying to understand Madison Torrent is like trying to read a book.

  In Latin.

  During the middle of a hurricane.

  On a life raft.

  That’s sinking.

  “Who’s Alixx?” she asks as if she hasn’t met the assassin a dozen times.

  “What the hell is going on right now?” I grind out the question, but neither one of them even notices.

  “He’s probably one of those mindless cards running around following orders without a head of their own to think with,” Lighton says, and my gaze narrows on him when he walks right up to Madison, his hand drifting absently to her hip, stopping her in her tracks until she’s forced to look up to him. He grounds her with a single touch.

  What. The. Fuck.

  “Stop touching her like a lover would.” That little statement seems to get their attention.

  “Stop trying to make ship happen.” Madison slips away from Lighton, but his eyes follow her every move.

  Literally the more she speaks, the more I don’t understand.

  “Ship? Is that like a millennial thing I hear when I’m in the surface world? Is this like ratchet? Or fleek. Tea. Is this one of those weird word things again, because I can’t. I can’t do another word that’s not a real word. Sorry. Not sorry.” I add the last little part, and it makes her smile.

  “You sound like the cool grandpa at the retirement center right now.” Lighton smirks at me.

  “And stop bunching several generations into the millennial category every time something new happens that you don’t like, Grandpa.” Madison rolls her eyes, and now I’m definitely insulted.

  Lighton finally shows the smallest hint of seriousness and explains. “She’s talking about Wonderland the book. And ship is a book thing meaning you’re trying to make a relationship with two people who don’t actually have a relationship. Like me and Cupcake over here. No relationship for us. Two completely separate people. You know she’s engaged even? To the King. You’d have to be an idiot to try something with the King’s betrothed.” He lifts his hands at his sides like he’s an open fucking book, and the subtle glance Madison gives him tells me he’s lying.