I knew my Rabbit so well.
He was ready to play.
“I would stare at my watch,” he informed the Cheshire Cat. “I would watch the hands ticking by, waiting for you to finish. Fighting the whiskey you poured down my throat so I couldn’t fight back.” He rolled his neck and the bones cracked. “But the hands just kept on turning as you kept on spreading your scent all over me. Thrusting your putrid cock into my ass, time and time again.” Rabbit growled. I could see by the set of his shoulders that he was losing patience.
My pulse began to race.
“You tattooed your smell and touch all over me. Your grunts were branded onto my mind.” He shuddered. “When I close my eyes I feel you. I see you. I taste you. Salt and sweat and grime.” Rabbit raised the stick into the air. I held my breath, waiting for what he would do next. “I would imagine you dead. I would imagine what I would do to you when I found you again. I have waited eleven long years for this moment.” Kitty’s eyes clashed with Rabbit’s. “Tick tock.” Rabbit slammed the stick down, sending the jagged, sharp edge straight into Kitty’s torso. The Cheshire Cat meowed loudly, and then screamed as the wood drove through flesh and fat and flaccid muscles and bone, right into his vital organs.
My nostrils flared in excitement as bloodlust darted through my veins. “Get him, Rabbit!” I cheered from my place at the table. But I didn’t move. Rabbit had ordered me not to move.
Kitty began spluttering, and I leaned to the side to watch as lots and lots of blood spilled from his wounds. It was bright red, contrasting and then mixing with the brown dirt beneath him.
Rabbit didn’t move. He stood above him, watching. My Rabbit watched as Kitty tried to beg for help, as he bled from his back, his face, his chopped-off shaft and the stick in his torso.
But it wasn’t enough. The naughty Kitty needed more.
“More,” I called quietly. I wasn’t sure if Rabbit heard me, so I shouted, “More, Rabbit. More!”
Rabbit stayed as still as a statue. Suddenly he turned his head my way. I froze as our gazes clashed . . . then a slow grin pulled on his lips. A flutter batted in my chest, and my corset suddenly felt too tight under his watchful eye.
Rabbit bowed and placed a hand on his chest. “As my lady wishes.” I squeezed my thighs together as Rabbit faced Kitty again. I stilled. His hands clenched and unclenched into fists. I wondered why . . . but I didn’t have to wait too long to find out. Rabbit bent down and gripped one of Kitty’s arms. The Cheshire Cat uttered a low pained sound, but Rabbit didn’t care. Rabbit shuddered as he held Kitty’s arm. He lifted it into the air, then snapped the bone in two. The Cheshire Cat screamed. He screamed so loudly that it echoed off the walls. I clapped as Rabbit moved to his other arm and did exactly the same.
Rabbit jumped up and moved to the back of the cellar, where he’d found the spade. He returned a second later holding a paintbrush. He dipped the brush into the pooling blood and began to draw a circle around Kitty. Kitty’s eyes were closed now, his face losing its color.
The naughty Kitty was dying.
Rabbit dipped and dipped and dipped his brush again and again into the blood. He painted a big pocket watch on the floor. Roman numerals, like the ones I’d drawn on my face, surrounded Kitty. The stick in his torso became the center of the watch. Rabbit stood, his hands and arms coated in Kitty’s blood. He walked back to Kitty and took hold of one of his arms. “Dolly,” he said without looking my way. “My cane, please.”
I grabbed the cane at my side and jumped off the table, rushing to where he stood. “Yuck!” I shook my head in disgust when my pretty black boots stood in Kitty’s gooey blood.
I handed Rabbit the cane, and obeyed the silent flick of his head that told me to go back to the table. Rabbit unsheathed the blade and struck down. I gasped as one of Kitty’s arms came free from his body. Rabbit did the same to the other, then put his cane back together and tossed it aside. He stared down at Kitty, whose eyes had long since stopped blinking. At Kitty, whose lungs had stopped breathing.
At the Cheshire Cat, whose heart had stopped beating.
Rabbit took the severed arms and placed them on the opposite sides to where they belonged. He placed them at the numbers, the clock reading a time. I didn’t know what; I was never taught to read the time.