Present: Warehouse Location, London
T he bullets shower the warehouse.
The Mushroomers hide behind stacks of boxes full of roses. Not the best hideout. Jack is courageous and shoots back. He is so fearless. He might be dead, so that would explain it.
Lewis is a sword’s man. Guns aren’t his thing. He joins Constance. They wait for whoever wants in near the door to kill him. Lewis is also a fearless warrior. Constance is just heartless with the enemy.
Tom hides behind me, looking for protection.
But I am busy. I am cutting myself while Fabiola protects me with her guns. If there is anyone who is truly heartless, then it’s her. Constance may be brave. Lewis is honorable. Jack is young and powerful. But boy, Fabiola is a bitch of war.
Before I cut myself, even once, I can’t take my eyes away from her. She has so much pain inside. So much. She kills with punishment and execution. When she shoots someone, it’s never a clean cut. She doesn’t shoot a man in the heart or the brain. She shoots in the jaw — though it’s hard to see the Red’s jaw under their hoods — on the side of the waist, in their private areas. She does it on purpose. She wants her victims to suffer. Not because she has darkness in her. No. Darkness makes one confused and hard to live with, conflicted and weakened by the lack of decisiveness. Fabiola doesn’t have darkness. She has pain.
“Are you going to cut yourself?” Tom’s eyes are wide with terror.
“Duck somewhere and try to stay alive,” I say.
“You’re mad,” he watches me cut the first cut across my hands.
“If I had a mushroom every time I heard that,” I tell him. “I have a Certificate of Insanity, so be it.”
“You’re all nuts!” he shouts, but no one hears him. No one cares about him. There is killing going on here. “I want a phone.”
I am not sure why he always wants a phone. Probably he needs to call his children.
The cuts hurt. They run deep. In the beginning, they are tolerable, but then they began to sting. I don’t care for the sight of the blood anymore — thanks to the Pillar for traumatizing me with blood in Russia when we were after the Checkmaster.
The stings turn into bolts of electric pain. Then when the wounds are many, the skin begins to heal. This makes it contract. The pain intensifies. The pain of the wound and the pain the healing. The intensity is so much that I can’t take it. The only way to counter it is to go mad.
“I can’t cut myself anymore,” I tell Fabiola as she shoots Reds.
“Toughen up,” she says over her shoulder. “It will heal once you cross over from pain to pure madness.”
“Madness?” Tom is about to pull out his hair. “Listen, I promise if you get me out of here alive, I will turn myself into an asylum, wear a straightjacket for the rest of my life. But please, save me!”
I keep cutting, “Am I not going to faint?” I ask Fabiola.
“Not if you’re the Real Alice,” she says, mocking me, encouraging me to become a beast, not a beauty.
“Why didn't you say so when I first met you? It would have solved everything,” I roll my eyes.
“How does the sword feel in your hand?”
“Heavy,” I reply. “It’s strange. As if it doesn’t want me to hold it. I can’t explain it.”
“It means you’re not ready. Once you cross over with the pain, it will work. You will be so strong. Trust me.”
I take a deeper breath, ashamed it’s taking me so long, and that I am not fighting with the rest.
“Look at all this blood on the floor,” I say. “Do I come from Wonderland or a Halloween movie set?”
The pain is too much. I am drowsy. I am going to fall dead, being stupid, and trusting the troubled Fabiola. I am waiting for the madness to arrive. Waiting for the sword to lighten up in my hand.
Instead, I am awakened from my drowsiness by a scream.
Who is it?
Constance?
Jack?
Lewis?
No, it’s Fabiola. She’s been shot. She turns and looks at me with frozen eyes as if she didn’t expect it. As if someone had told her she’d be invincible for life. She tries to touch me, but before she does, she falls on the floor.