Chapel stood too and brushed the long blond hair from his face. “Yes, young Dapper Dan. I can only imagine the beautiful, poetic deaths our local blood enthusiast will conjure up.” He pointed his finger in the air and smiled. “You must write down these adventures for the sake of your friends.” He placed his hand over his chest. “I do quite enjoy a good murderous novel, my fine young sir. One such as this violent tea party would be quite the spectacle.”
He walked away, leaving me to stare at the photographs, imagining Dolly’s face lighting up at the fare of cakes and tea.
Imagining her bathing in their blood, a lightly toasted buttered crumpet in her delicate little hand . . .
Dolly stirred, pulling me from my reverie. I glanced over just as her eyes opened. Her makeup was perfectly in place. I got hard just seeing the clock drawn around her left eye. But not as hard as I got seeing the vial of my blood dangle from the ribbon around her neck. The label “Drink Me” had never been so apt.
Dolly gasped and sat up. I turned my head to see what she was looking at. Bright lights lay ahead. Parked limousines lined a road that led to a large building, from which music was blaring. Kids, no older than seventeen or eighteen, were scattered around the grounds.
“What’s happening, Rabbit?” she asked as I slowed to a stop, allowing her to see more. Kids stared in at Dolly as they passed the Mustang. “Wow,” she murmured as she watched girls dressed in big poufy dresses and thick makeup to rival her own—except for the clock around her eye—linking arms with boys in tuxes.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Dolly as she watched them, wide eyed. Her leg bounced up and down in excitement. She turned to me and asked, “What is it, Rabbit? Why are all the girls dressed so prettily? Why are the boys dressed so handsomely?”
I looked at the banner above the building: “Senior Prom.” Dolly was gazing at the kids entering the school grounds. But I only watched her. I watched as she was mesmerized by the girls in dresses. Long, fancy dresses.
As if reading my mind, she said, “Their dresses, Rabbit . . .” Her voice was laced with awe. She glanced down at her own bare thighs. “Mine is nothing like theirs.” She gave me the saddest fucking smile I had ever seen. “But where would I wear one so pretty? Surely not to destroy the bad men. I wouldn’t waste something so beautiful on people so ugly.”
My heart—if I even had one—cracked right down the fucking middle. She was right. She never did anything. Even as a kid she lived most of her life in her head, imagination fueling her tea parties, her adventures around the property. She danced every minute she got. Imagined a life outside the walls of the estate. I never danced, much to her chagrin. I was happy to watch. But fuck . . . Dolly deserved something fucking better in her life.
“It’s a prom,” I said. Dolly’s brow creased in confusion. I knew she wouldn’t have been able to read the banner above the doors. “The kids of . . . Wonderland go to one when they finish school.” I shrugged. “They dance or some shit. Dress like this and dance.”
“They dance . . . ?” she whispered as more limos pulled into the drive. “What fun they must have.” She smiled at two more girls walking past. They looked inside the car, and their eyes fell on Dolly. They paused, then laughed. Right in her fucking face.
My lip curled. As if hearing the growl that rumbled under my breath, they snapped their eyes my way. I causally lifted the throat-slitting thimble on my finger and motioned across my neck. By the paling of their faces, I knew they had gotten the message to shut their fucking slut mouths. If not, I’d slit their fucking slut throats right here, right now.
No one slighted my Dolly.
“You both look so pretty!” Dolly said to the ungrateful bitches, oblivious to the fact that they had dared to sneer at her. Laugh at her clothes and makeup. They had no idea she could end their pathetic lives with one graceful sweep of her knife.
I wished she would teach these stuck-up whores a lesson.
I narrowed my eyes, staring at them, daring the sluts to ignore her. “Th-thank you,” one of them eventually blurted out, and they scurried across the road.
Dolly turned to me, a huge smile upon her face. “They spoke to me, Rabbit! The pretty princesses spoke to me!”
I nodded, but Dolly was already lost to the music coming from the school. “I do not know these songs. They are not on my tape.” Dolly frowned. “What else happens at proms, Rabbit?”