Ice-Cream Truck
I am standing on top of the ice-cream truck, facing one of the sides. It occurs to me that it’s a stupid move a bit too late though. Any of the Reds could just shoot me to my grave right now.
But it doesn’t happen, and it makes me think if something deep in my lost memory granted me the naive audacity to stand up like that. A faint vision strikes me, and I don’t know what it is. A vision from the past, but I am in too deep in my reality to care about an old forsaken memory.
The Reds in front of me lower their guns. Then the shooting turns to silence. I turn slowly to watch the Reds behind me. They are inanimate and silent, too.
The moment is too heavy; I think I am not breathing at all.
What is this? An ambush? A mockery?
Should I let myself drop down again into the ice-cream truck? Or should I just roar with anger, like in a superhero movie, and start killing them?
The silence is long an unwinding. All I hear is the distant sounds of killing and madness in the neighborhoods all around.
Something is very wrong.
“I think they are afraid of you,” Constance’s voice comes into my ears. I haven’t figured out the telepathy thing yet, but it’s not the time to do that.
“Why?” I say back with my mind.
“Because of the Vorpal sword, I guess.”
Looking down I see that I am gripping it so tight that my knuckles are whitening. Should I raise it up to scare them away?
“But wait,” I tell Constance. “This can’t be. I had the sword back in the warehouse. They still fought back.”
“You’re right,” she says. “Something is wrong.”
I take a reluctant step forward to test the Reds. None of them moves yet.
“Hey!” I shout at them. “What’s going on?”
No one answers me. I raise my sword, ever so slowly, in case they change their minds and decide to shoot.
Nothing.
One of the Reds takes a step forward and lowers his gun. He gestures with his head in a way that implies respect. “Please come with us.”
“What?”
“Mr. Jay wants to see you.”
“Ah,” I say. “That’s what it’s about. You don’t want to kill me.”
“We want to kill them,” he points at the truck. “But we’re instructed to bring you alive.”
Though I will never do it, I am curious. “Why does he want to see me?”
“We are only Reds. We obey orders.”
“Oh,” I lower my sword and loosen up. “So I guess I am in charge here. You can’t kill me.”
“We would love to,” the Reds mocks me. “But we can’t for now.”
“And I will not let you kill anyone in the truck,” I say. “So my advice is that you leave us be.”
“We can’t.”
I raise my sword again. “I will kill you if you don’t leave.”
“Actually, I think you will go with them, Alice.” Tom Truckle’s voice sounds somewhere.
At first, I am not sure from where, then I know. I realize what they have done. Why they’d stopped in the first place.
The truck’s rear door opens, and Tom stands with a gun pointed at the March. The son of a mushroom hadn’t left the truck. It was a trick.
Slowly he drags the poor, comatose March behind him like a sack of carrots, pointing the gun at him.
Behind him, Lewis, Fabiola, Constance and Jack stumble out with their hands bound behind their backs.
“Sorry,” Constance says telepathically. “He threatened to kill the March, so we gave in.”
Shocked at the whole situation, I send her a message, “Why didn't you tell me with your mind?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I did, but it didn’t seem to come across. I think once I am afraid and in a fearful state, I can’t do it. I was worried about the March.”
I was going to burst out and scream at her, as she has been suspecting the March a few minutes ago. But then I realize that is a seven-year-old child, no matter what she pretends to be.
“Time to get off your throne, mad girl,” Tom says.
“Why? None of you will kill me.”
“I will kill the March.”
“You won’t,” I say. “You know he has the Keys and you have probably told Mr. Jay already. Which means you don’t need me.”
“Oh, we need you,” he smirks. “Mr. Jay’s issues with you are way beyond all this Wonderland War stuff. You know he killed your family.”
Tom is provoking me. Still, what would Mr. Jay want from me? He killed my family but doesn’t want to kill me. Strange. And I think he is beyond the idea of persuading me to rejoin Black Chess.
“Come on, Alice,” Tom says. “I will shoot the March if you don’t surrender yourself to the Reds.”
“You won’t. You need him. Mr. Jay needs him. We all need him.”
“But you will not risk it,” Tom says. “Even if there is tiny possibility that I will shoot him, you will never risk it. Bear in mind that I don’t care for the whole Six Keys bonanza. I just want my pills, and money for my kids.”
I dare him, “No you won't, Tom. You’re a coward.”
“Really?” He smirks again and points the gun at Constance and shoots.