赤裸裸的滑稽故事

Stefan and the older girl were walking toward her from the car. It was only a few feet away now.

“Take him,” she whispered. “Get him to the car, right now.”

“Alice…” Stefan whispered to her with concern.

“Please, just do what I say,” she pleaded.

Alice let go of Wyatt.

“Alice….” He whispered. His voice was getting weaker. “We need to go… together…”

“We will,” she whispered with a smile. Then looked to the children. “Hurry, and be ready to leave, without me.”

Stefan gave her a look that said he wanted to object, but Alice turned away from him.

She turned and walked back around the watershed.

He stood there, waiting. Knowing that she would, of course, come back to him.

“Hello, Alice,” he whispered. “Where are you off to on such a lovely night?”

“Hello, Holden,” she said, clenching her jaw. “I\'m just going for a drive, you know, seeing the sights.”

Holden nodded.

“Alice,” he said. “Your place is here, with me.”

His words felt different. Normally when he spoke, when he told her who she was or where she belonged, they felt like facts. Like undeniable truths that she could never escape.

His words held power.

But now. Now, Wyatt\'s words held the power.

Alice swallowed her nerves and averted her gaze.

“Let them go,” she whispered. “Let them drive away, and I will come back.”

“It was never my wish to have them here,” he smiled. “Those were Roman\'s pets, if you set them free… what do I care.”

“Do you promise?” she asked.

Another spike in her mind, Holden promised to keep the sweet boy safe from the fiery eyed demon. He promised to let her keep her memories. He promised that Axel would be safe from Roman.

‘Axel…\' she whispered in her mind.

She saw a braid of gold and brown, she felt a familiar but far off rage around it.

“Alice?” Holden called to her.

Alice shook her head, clearing the fragments of thought.

“It\'s happening, isn\'t it?” he asked, trying to hide the soft smile. “Your mind is fracturing.”

“I don\'t know,” she replied.

“Yes, you do,” he said. “You also know that I am the only one that can stop it.”

“Promise,” she said. “To let them go.”

“Of course,” he smiled. “As soon as you take my hand, we will walk away, and they will be free to leave.”

Holden extended his hand.

Alice took a deep breath. She took a step and then another, getting closer and closer to him. Holden smiled with every step she took.

She reached her hand out, while the other reached back for the knife attached to her belt. She had picked it up in the hospital, thinking it might come in handy.

Their hands touched, and Alice\'s fingertips brushed the knife, just as Holden gripped her hand and yanked her body to his.

She felt the pressure, the separation of skin, and then came the burn.

Holden pressed harder into the knife, and she let out a soft cry. He smiled at her and tilted his head.

“Oh, Alice,” he whispered. “Did you forget? I am the one that raised you.”

Holden pulled the knife out swiftly, Alice crumpled to the ground, holding the wound as the fire from it spread over her body.

“Did you think I hadn\'t noticed the look in your eye?” he asked, with an anger under the surface of his words. “Did you think I didn\'t know that that boy has already filled you with his poison?”

Alice lifted her eyes to him; she had never seen such a look of disgust and rage on his face before. At least, never directed at her.

She may have hated him, but he had always treasured her in his sick and twisted way.

“This time…” he whispered through gritted teeth. “I will scrub every single memory you have of that creature. I will make sure that no part of your mind remains sullied by him.”

Alice didn\'t understand exactly what he meant, or who. But that part of her that was screaming, that little voice she could barely hear, it knew. It told her that she would rather die than allow him to take what was rightfully hers.

She crawled back away from him.

“Alice… don\'t be stupid.”

“I\'m rather intelligent,” she smiled, as she managed to get to her feet. “You made sure of that.”

“Come here, child.”

Alice licked her lips, her eyes glanced back toward the watershed. If they had started the car already, there was a chance she could jump in and they could get away.

“I won\'t allow you to leave,” he growled.

“You\'ll have to kill me to make me stay,” she replied with a smile.

Holden clenched his jaw and growled.

Alice began to back away.

“How doth the little crocodile,” Holden whispered. “Improve his shining tail.”

Alice felt her body freeze, triggered by the words that were imprinted somewhere in her brain.

“And pour the waters of the Nile, on every golden scale!”

A poem, by Lewis Carroll, describing the merits of the crocodile. Of his deceptions and predations.

‘How fitting,\' Alice whispered with disgust in the shadowed remains of her mind.

She held in her hand a small mirror, a looking glass. All that was left of the world she had built inside her mind to protect herself from ever being used by him again.

This was her window; this is where she watched the events of the night unfold. It was all she had left.

Even the doll was trying to stop him from taking control. Her body trembled as she fought against the command of his words.

“How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws,” Holden continued, with his ever-present Cheshire grin. “And welcomes little fishes in, with gently smiling jaws!”

The doll stopped moving, and Alice let out a resigned sigh. A tear rolled down her cheek and she closed her eyes, thinking of Axel.

Of his eyes, his smile, the warmth of his arms around her.

“Hey!” a small voice shouted. “Leave her alone!”