Wanton Wonderland Page 2

  “We’re looking out for you,” Melody said, squeezing my hand. “I promise, you’ll be relieved when it’s all taken care of. You just have to—”

  She kept talking, but I could hardly hear her over the renewed thumping of my heart. It pounded at a panicked rhythm behind my ears. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That was about all the coherent thought I was capable for forming for the first few seconds.

  Then my practical side, the side that had held me together through Dad’s long illness and death, through Mom’s depression and my other brother’s acting out—the side that had held our whole little family together when I’d been just eight year old—kicked in.

  She’d said they were packing up the house today. It was only about an hour’s drive from here. I could still catch them before they took away the mirror. If I was fast.

  I had to leave. To manage that, I had to get rid of Melody.

  “Okay, Mel, maybe you’re right,” I said when she paused in her explaining. “Sorry. It freaked me out a little, having it sprung on me like that.”

  “I know,” Melody said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Could you—would you mind—” I touched my belly. “I’m actually feeling kind of hungry. Would you check with the nurse if I’m allowed to eat anything, and if I am, grab me something you know I’ll like from a vending machine or whatever? That would be so awesome.”

  “Of course.” My best friend sprang up, not a hint of suspicion on her face. Because even after my various injuries, she couldn’t believe responsible, play-by-the-rules Lyssa Tenniel would ever do something as drastic as break out of a hospital against doctor’s orders.

  She slipped out of the room. I listened to her heels tapping away, and then I tugged the IV free from my arm with a wince, pressing the tape over the puncture point like a Band-aid.

  Melody had left her tote bag on the chair. My head spun as I tugged on the clothes, but I didn’t have time to take it easy. When I knew where my mirror to Wonderland was—then I’d rest some more.

  I fastened the chain around my neck and tucked the ruby ring under my shirt again. My armored vest would look way too weird in here, so I stuffed it in the tote bag for now. Discarding the hospital gown on the bed, I wobbled over to the doorway. A glance outside showed no one I recognized in view—no one who was likely to realize I wasn’t supposed to be walking around. I summoned all my strength, and then I set off on my escape.

  Chapter Two

  Lyssa

  The elevator door stood right ahead of me at the other end of the hall. I walked slowly so I could keep my balance, aiming to look leisurely rather than on the verge of collapsing. When a sharper tremor ran up my legs, I braced myself with my hand against the wall, clutching my tote bag against my side.

  Pushing myself onward, I dodged a metal cart and dragged in a ragged breath. Ten more steps. Nine. Eight…

  I was at five when a familiar voice carried down the hall. Two familiar voices. Mom and Melody were chatting with each other as they came toward me, presumably on their way back to my room.

  With a lurch of my heart, I threw myself toward the elevator. My thumb jabbed on the button, that hand holding me upright while my legs trembled. I managed to straighten up just as the car arrived with a ding!

  A couple of nurses hurried out. I darted past them and jammed my finger on the button for the ground level. The door was just sliding closed when a yell reached my ears.

  “Lyssa!”

  The elevator was already dropping. I sagged against the wall, gripping the railing. Come on, muscles. You’ve had almost four weeks of relaxing. Time to get with the program.

  I had to push my posture a little straighter and paste a smile on my face when a couple who must have just been visiting someone got on at the second floor. Sweat started to trickle down my back. The elevator whirred down one more level. I darted out the instant the door whispered to the side.

  The main lobby—I had to find it. I had no idea where my car was, but there’d have to be taxis outside. I had to get out of this building before anyone figured out how far I’d gone. I—

  I nearly barreled right into a slouched figure ambling toward the elevator. My shoulder bumped his arm, and his “Whoa!” set every nerve on high alert before he even glanced down and said, “Lyssa?”

  My older brother Cameron was staring down at me. I hadn’t seen him since our family dinner last Christmas, which he’d showed up late for and left from early after a poke through Mom’s wallet.

  As kids, we’d had the same white-blond hair, but unlike mine, Cam’s had darkened to a shade closer to brown. A new scar flecked his right cheekbone, and his lips automatically curled into a sneer. I wasn’t sure his mouth had known how to make any other expression since he was twelve.

  “What the hell are you doing down here, sis?” he said.

  I could have asked him the same thing. Yes, he must be here to see me—Mom must have called him like she’d said she would—but I didn’t know why he’d bothered. It wasn’t as if he’d cared about anything other than what I could give him in ages. But in that moment my mind latched onto one small but vital fact.

  Cam liked cars. He always had a clunker he was driving around while he waited for the funds to “fix it up.”

  “I’m leaving,” I said. “You drove here?”

  His sneer wavered. “Uh, yeah. But what—”

  I grabbed his elbow and pushed him back the way he’d come. “You’re my ride. Let’s get going. There’s someplace I need to be, fast.”

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to be going anywhere, Lyssa?” he said, peering down at me as I hustled him onward.

  Old Lyssa would have tried to appeal to his better nature, or, failing that, to bargain with him. I discovered that Lyssa who was heir to the throne of Wonderland, on the other hand, had exactly zero fucks to give for my brother’s shit.

  “I’ll worry about whether it’s a good idea or not,” I said, my voice coming out with a strident, authoritative tone that was new too. “I need to get somewhere. You wanted to see me. Easy solution for both of us.”

  Cam’s eyebrows jumped up, but to my relief he didn’t argue. “All right, all right,” he said. “The parking lot is this way. I’ll just warn you, you’ll have to clear the junk off the passenger seat.”

  The junk was about a dozen McDonalds food wrappers, a broken pair of headphones, and a crumpled, empty box of cigarettes. I swept everything onto the floor and climbed in, my nose wrinkling at the greasy nicotine smell that permeated the whole car. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. I didn’t know where my purse was. Now that my whole attention wasn’t focused on staying upright, it occurred to me that I didn’t have any way of paying a taxi for an hour-long ride.

  Cam started the engine with a couple of sputters leading into a low growl. I glanced behind us as he pulled out of the parking lot, but I didn’t see any sign of pursuit. With luck, Mom and Melody and whatever nurses they alerted would spend a while checking around the hospital before deciding I must have left.

  I had the feeling that, especially after my brief outburst when Melody had told me about sending away the house’s contents, Aunt Alicia’s property was the first place they’d check when they realized I’d fled the coop.

  “Take a left,” I said. “We’re going to want to get on the highway heading north. I’ll tell you when we need to get off again.”

  Cam looked at me sideways. “You’re heading back to her house—Aunt Alicia’s.”

  “Yep.”

  I didn’t figure I owed him more answer than that. As he drove, cursing at a pedestrian who was taking too long to cross the street, I fiddled with the brace on my wrist. The bones mustn’t be broken, or I’d have gotten a full cast. When I flexed the muscles there, they didn’t ache any worse than the rest of me did. I wasn’t sure I needed the brace anymore, but what if I hurt myself all over again by taking it off?

  After another bout of swearing at the driver in front of him who he felt was taking a tur
n too cautiously, Cam aimed the car down the highway and hit the gas. My shoulders jolted against the worn seat.

  “So,” my brother said after a short silence, with a wheedling note in his voice that I could recognize in an instant. My back tensed. He’d only agreed to drive me without complaint because this ride came with strings attached. “Aunt Alicia left her entire property to you, huh. I hear it’s quite the place.”

  “It’s a nice old house,” I said cautiously. “But kind of in the middle of nowhere.”

  He nodded. “You’re unloading it and all her stuff, then?”

  I guessed Mom hadn’t mentioned her plan with Melody to him. Not surprising.

  “I haven’t totally decided yet,” I said. “I only had it for a few days before…” I gestured to myself to indicate the accident.

  “It seems pretty unbalanced, don’t you think, that she gave all that stuff just to you—and, I mean, it used to be Dad’s house too. We should both have some say what happens to it.”

  He couldn’t have been more predictable. I’d be willing to bet this was the whole reason he’d hurried over to the hospital when he’d found out I was awake. He’d probably hoped I’d be more suggestable in my weakened state. He hadn’t even asked me how I was feeling after I’d just woken up from an awful accident, and he was already angling for a cut of the money from selling the house, or for me to pay him off to keep the peace if I didn’t sell.

  Which, yeah, maybe would have been more “balanced”—if our family had ever been balanced. If he’d ever done more than take, take, take, when he wasn’t breaking other people’s things and leaving me and Mom to pick up the pieces, both figuratively and sometimes literally.

  The last time Aunt Alicia had visited us, he’d dented her car jumping around on the hood and then cursed her out for telling him to get off. He hadn’t exactly been on his best behavior most of the visits before then either. Why the hell did he think he deserved one cent from her?

  “Aunt Alicia left it to me,” I said, still trying to be diplomatic. “I haven’t seen much of anything around that would have been Dad’s except some old toys and books, if you’re interested in those. If I find anything else, something it’d make sense for you to have, I’ll let you know.”

  Cam scoffed at the idea of taking childhood bits and pieces. It wasn’t memories he wanted; it was only cash. “There’ve got to be a few pieces you could sell off quickly. You can see this car needs work. I’m living paycheck to paycheck here. We’re family. You’re not going to give me a hand when you got this huge gift dropped into your lap?”

  “Cam, I just got out of the hospital. You want to give me a break?”

  “Well, when am I going to get to ask you again? You hardly talk to me anymore. Like you’re so much better than me.”

  A flare of anger went off in my chest. I didn’t have the energy to put up with his bullshit right now on top of everything else. Why did I even bother trying to keep the peace anymore? My brother had shown time and time again that he couldn’t care less about Mom or me.

  “I don’t talk to you because every time I do, you’re either insulting me or looking to get something out of me, like right now,” I said. “Since when have you ever cared about family? When you were getting yourself suspended from school and nearly sent to juvie, while Mom was working her ass off just to put food on the table? When you wrecked her car driving around high? When she had to empty her savings account bailing you out for the fifteenth time last year?”

  Cam’s face flushed red. “If you don’t think I’m worth being around, I can let you out right now. Find some other schmuck to drive you.” He craned his neck, looking for the next turn-off.

  My hands balled into fists in my lap. The authoritative energy that had filled me earlier rose up again.

  A queen’s blood ran through my veins. I’d freed all of Time and challenged a mad tyrant to her face. If Cam thought I was still the same old careful, dependable Lyssa, he was in for a big fucking surprise.

  “No,” I said, my voice ringing from my throat. “You are going to keep driving, and we’ll talk about balance. For the ten years from when Dad died to when I left for college, I was the one holding the family together, making sure Mom didn’t go off the deep end, doing everything I could to see that we kept the house and had something to eat, while you ran around acting like an asshole.”

  Cam sucked in his breath to speak, but I cut him off. “I know. You lost your dad. Guess what—so did I. I was freaked out too. But I didn’t get to go crazy, not even a little, because you took up all the space for that. So I think you owe me a hell of a lot more than I owe you. All I’m asking is for you to drive me an hour outside of town. You can do that, or you can forget it if you think we’re ever talking again.”

  For a few minutes, Cam couldn’t seem to speak. We drove past an exit, but he stayed in his lane. Finally, he swallowed audibly and gave a little cough as if to find his voice.

  “What the hell happened to you in that coma, Lyssa? You don’t sound like… you.”

  “It wasn’t the coma,” I said. “I’ve been figuring out a lot of things lately.”

  He hesitated a little longer. Then he said, “You did take care of a lot when we were kids. I was doing my best too, you know.”

  Because of the acknowledgment and because he was still on the highway, I didn’t argue with that statement. I wasn’t going to praise his efforts either, though. “Okay,” I said.

  “It’s just easier for you,” he went on. “You always seem to know what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it, where you’re supposed to be. I… don’t really ever feel that way.” His voice dropped with the last sentence as if he didn’t totally want to say it.

  I almost laughed. Easier? But I could see how my life might have looked that way to him. He had no idea.

  Maybe I hadn’t really had a clue either. As I gazed at the regular fields dappled with regular trees along the side of the highway, an uncomfortable pressure wound around my heart. Had I really known where I was supposed to be any time since I was a kid? I’d spent so much time in Wonderland thinking about how I had to get back here, but what did I have here, really?

  I had Mom and Melody, sure. But they were other people with their own lives. Beyond that… How much had I really been living, and how much had I been waiting for things to fall into place? For this boyfriend or that job to turn into the one I really wanted?

  When had I let myself dream about anything other than just having a regular existence? What would I dream about if I did?

  The answer was obvious now. I’d felt more alive in Wonderland than I ever had here. I wanted to see just how wonderful it could be without the Hearts crushing everyone’s spirits. Wonderland needed me more than anyone in the Otherland ever had… and I needed it more than I’d ever needed anything here. That was where I was supposed to be. I felt it with every fiber of my being.

  “I didn’t really feel like I knew what I was doing either,” I admitted. “I just kept going, kept following the path I thought I was supposed to, because I was too scared of what would happen if I didn’t.”

  Cam sat with that comment for a while. I didn’t expect him to apologize for anything from our past or even the conversation that had just happened, but at least he didn’t snark about it.

  “Are you going to be okay?” he asked, like maybe he actually wanted to know.

  The start of a smile touched my lips despite the knot of tension inside me. “I think so.”

  We didn’t talk much after that other than me giving directions when it was time to get off the highway, but the air in the car tasted at least a little clearer. To give Cam credit, he didn’t bring up his interest in the inheritance again. My nerves had almost settled when Aunt Alicia’s house came into view up ahead—with a big white moving truck parked out front.

  I jerked forward in my seat as if that motion would propel the car faster. “Come on,” I said. A couple of guys were walking from the house to the truck carryi
ng what looked like the dining room table. Fuck. How much had they already packed up?

  “What’s going on?” Cam said, but he revved the engine at the same time. We sped down the driveway and jolted to a halt beside the truck. I opened the door the second the wheels stopped moving, slinging Melody’s tote bag with the armored vest over my shoulder.

  “Stop!” I shouted at the movers. “This is my house. I didn’t give permission for anyone to move this stuff. You’ve got to put it all back.”

  The guys with the table paused and set it down on the pavement. The one with the bushy beard gave me a puzzled frown. “Look, we’ve got clear instructions—there was a woman here earlier who opened up the house for us—”

  “She went behind my back while I was in the hospital,” I said. “It’s my house. Isn’t it?”

  I glanced at Cam for back-up where he was stepping out of the car. He looked a little bewildered, but he nodded automatically. The movers glanced at each other.

  “Just—don’t take anything else until we get it all sorted out,” I said. “I have to see what’s already gone.”

  I’d recovered a little strength during the drive, but my legs were trembling again by the time I reached the front door. I soldiered on, gripping the railing tight as I hauled myself up the stairs, freezing through a wave of nausea on the third floor, wobbling up the spiral staircase to the attic.

  My head emerged into the little room at the top of the house, and my whole body stiffened.

  It was empty. Everything was gone—the bookcases, the chest… My mirror to Wonderland.

  I scrambled back to the ground floor as quickly as I could. I’d just reached the doorway when a car engine thrummed in the distance. When I stumbled out, Melody’s bright blue Nissan raced into view along the country road heading toward us.

  My stomach flipped over. After the stunt I’d just pulled running away from the hospital, she and Mom might have grounds to get me committed. They sure as hell weren’t going to stand around while I had the movers haul all Aunt Alicia’s stuff back into the house.