“Feel it,” he commanded.
“What?”
“Push the knife in and out. Feel what it’s like to cut through flesh.” I pushed and pulled on the knife, and the tip hit something hard. I rammed the knife in harder and harder, until something snapped. I whipped my head to Rabbit. “Your first bone.” He nodded. “Snapped successfully. Watch out for those when we get to our kills.”
I nodded and pulled out the knife. I plunged it into the pig again. And again and again, until only scraps of the pig remained on the strange hook. Sweat fell from my brow. I brushed my hair back from my face with my forearm and turned. Rabbit was watching me, his pupils blown. Something about the way he was looking at me—intensely and . . . maybe proud?—brought strange feelings to my chest. “Was that good, Rabbit?” I gasped, as I caught my breath.
Rabbit’s fingers tightened around the cane’s head. He shifted on his feet, bringing the cane closer to his body. Like he was hiding something. His skin was flushed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “You liked that?” he asked in a raspy voice.
I looked back at the massacred flesh on the floor and felt a spike in my pulse. “Yes.” I smiled.
It was a big smile.
Rabbit edged closer, never taking his eyes from me. He stopped right before me. His head tipped back and he hissed through his teeth, before lowering his gaze back to me. “Born to kill,” he announced in a low, graveled voice. “To kill by my side.” He lifted one of his hands from his cane. He tried to reach out for my face, but at the last minute he curled his fingers into a fist and pulled back his hand with a low snarl. “Thirsty for blood. Little Dolly. My champion of Wonderland.”
“I want more,” I said, closing my eyes, imagining the feel of his fingers on my face. Imagining him praising me. Petting me. Telling me I was his good little Dolly. “Teach me more,” I begged.
I opened my eyes. Rabbit reached up and loosened his black cravat, exposing more inked markings on his neck. Clocks and clocks and even more clocks. He threw the cravat into his back pocket, leaving his black shirt collar open, his waistcoat buttoned, still pristine.
“Gun,” he ordered. I held it up. Rabbit looked along the pigs. “That one.” He pointed to one at the back and moved behind me. My eyes closed, his close presence holding me in its thrall. “Raise the gun.” I did as directed, my hands trembling a little. “Push away the fear,” he said, his lips a fraction of an inch from the shell of my ear. I focused on what he said and imagined Ellis in my head.
Rabbit breathed in and out, warm air heating my face from the chill. His fingers touched the parts of the gun I wasn’t touching. “Safety.” He clicked off a white part on the top of the gun. “Trigger,” he said, ghosting over the blue latch where my finger rested. “Now squeeze.” I did as he said and jerked back as a loud bang echoed around the room. A small cry left my throat as I saw the bullet burrow through the pig.
“Hit,” Rabbit said, directly into my ear. I froze, and then let out a giggle when I saw what I’d done.
“Hit!” I rushed forward and looked at the bullet wound. Whipping back toward Rabbit, I held up my gun and sang, “Time for tea!” Rabbit nodded proudly, and a surge of something shot through my veins. Something exciting. Something . . . addictive . . .
“Again.” I clacked my heels against the stone floor as I made my way back to Rabbit. He stepped back to give me space. I raised my weapons again. I slashed my blade into the flesh of one pig. I sent a shaky bullet into the other.
“Again,” Rabbit said behind me. I didn’t even turn. I just struck and shot. Again and again, until my arms ached.
Breathless and hot-skinned, I lowered my weapons, still needing to use them again. Needing to feel flesh and muscle submitting to my blade, and the piercing of skin, gristle and bone by my bullet, I turned to Rabbit, who had never stopped watching. “Together.”
Rabbit’s nostrils flared, and I nodded to the empty spot beside me. His lips formed a dark smirk, and then he unsheathed the blade from his cane and lifted the head to make the gun. He moved beside me, looked down at me and said, “Tick tock.”
Laughing, I struck. I shot. He stabbed. He fired.
Side by side.
Piling up the flesh.
Over and over again, until all the ammunition was spent.
When the echoes of the final bullet had rung out, both of us breathless yet energized, I turned my head to Rabbit. He was already watching me. Lifting my blade—now dripping in blood—I brought it in front of my face and studied the filigree steel. “I like this,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest.