Unhinged: 2 (10 page)

Instead, more flirty whispers and giggles drift my way.

I work up the nerve to look again. Taelor and the other femmes fatales are ascending the stairs.

“Remember,” Taelor says to Morpheus in her most provocative voice, “you promised to let me drive your sexy-hot car at lunch.”

The girls disappear from my view.

How could they have missed what I saw so clearly?

Morpheus faces me again, wings spread wide. No one else is in the hall, but my heart pummels my ribs as if we were on exhibition—my secret and his—to the whole world.

Backing up, I duck once more into the bathroom. Before the door can swing shut, he shoves his way over the threshold. Strands of sunlight from the window spotlight his finely lined dark eyes. They’re the only part of him that I recognize now. His face and his body, though a strikingly close match, belong to some human guy I’ve never seen.

He’s like a broken vase—delicately angular features with a thin scar that runs from his left temple to his cheek—damaged yet lovely. His skin is golden, very different from Morpheus’s alabaster complexion. There’s also a dimple in his chin similar to mine. He’s about my age and looks like he belongs in high school.

Morpheus takes off his hat, revealing short-cropped hair dyed a blue so vivid it almost glows.

“Alyssa.” The voice is his, unmistakably. Deep and sensual with an edge of malice. “You look so much better than the last time I saw you. Although I must admit, you wore those wet clothes very well.”

Every part of me wants to shake him until his insides are as jumbled as mine. Just when I thought I had a chance at normal, he comes back and ruins everything. I drop my backpack with a loud thump.

“I can’t …” My tongue stumbles over the words. “I can’t bring myself to ask.”

The right side of his mouth lifts—a roguish smirk unfamiliar on the new set of full lips, but every bit as exasperating. “Let me ask
for
you, then.” His gaze flits to the rust-stained ceiling. “What is a lovely queen like you”—his nose wrinkles—“doing in a smelly place like this?”

“Stop that.” I scowl. “There’s nothing funny about what you’ve done. The guy whose body you stole … who is he?”

Morpheus drops his hat on his head and tilts it. A line of dusty white moth corpses wiggles at the brim. “His name is Finley. He’s a loner. A failed musician. Found him drugged out of his mind in Grimsby, an old fishing town in England.”

“Out of his mind? So that’s how you convinced him to go to Wonderland?”

“It didn’t take any convincing. He was unhappy with his life here in the human realm. Look how many times he’s tried to cut out early.” He turns his inner arms. Underneath four twisted leather bracelets are two snake tattoos stretched along his skin from his elbows to his wrists. They manage to hide part of the suicide attempts and
needle tracks, but they also hide Morpheus’s netherling mark, the one part of him that still remains, even while he mimicks another guy’s form.

I think of my own mark beneath my boot on my left ankle, and how it will always be a part of me no matter how many tattoos or layers of leggings I wear to cover it.

My windpipe tightens, making it difficult to breathe. “Didn’t you learn anything with Alice? You can’t just take him away from the ones who care about him. There will be ripples, consequences.”

Morpheus taps the leather braid at his neck thoughtfully. “I chose carefully. He has no one who loves him. I did him a favor. Possibly even saved his life.”

My temples pound. “No, no, no. You don’t get to make that call. He has a life he’s supposed to live here, no matter how miserable it turns out. Something could’ve been about to change, to bring him out of his slump. You’ve taken away his chance to redeem himself …”

“One damaged soul in exchange for thousands of netherling lives. It’s a fair trade.”

My frown deepens. As much as I despise his nonchalance and underhanded tactics, I understand his loyalty to Wonderland and his friends there. So why can’t he sympathize with my loyalties to
this
world?

“Stop worrying about Fin,” he says, his voice softening. “The boy’s being well tended to. I gave him to the Ivory Queen for a plaything.”

This sets my teeth on edge. “Ivory wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t she? Have you forgotten how she yearns for a companion? I told her his situation—that he was dying of loneliness in the human realm. That he needed love to heal him. Once you know
someone’s weakness, they’re easy to manipulate. You’re intimately familiar with this strategy, are you not?”

Remembering my dream in the hospital—Jeb’s screams ringing in my head—I wince.

Morpheus steps closer. “One does what one has to do to protect what they love.” His expression is sincere, and something unreadable lurks behind his inky gaze. There’s more to that statement than a Wonderland reference. Unfortunately I’m too distracted by his looming presence to analyze it.

I brace my hand against his chest: a barrier. “Look, if you’re going to be in my world, there are social guidelines you need to follow. First, there’s a thing called personal space. So everyone you encounter, including me, you need to imagine them in an impenetrable box.” I gesture invisible lines around me with my free hand. “You don’t get any closer than the box’s boundaries. Are we clear?”

His chest muscles twitch under my palm; then he steps back, his cowboy boots scraping on the gritty floor. “Apparently, your giggly friends forgot to wear their boxes today.”

I shoot him a disgusted glare. “They aren’t my friends. And that stunt you pulled out there? Showing your true form for the whole world to see? That is
not
okay. I don’t know how they missed it, but you can’t do that again!”

He huffs. “Aw, bless, Alyssa. Only you could see that side of me.” He catches the strap of my backpack on the floor with his toe and drags it closer. I try to snatch it back, but he’s too fast. Unzipping the bag, Morpheus digs through my books and papers. “Had you been studying the fundamentals of Wonderland instead of this pointless mortal brain-rot, you would know how a glamour works.” He slides my AP biology book out and flips through several pages, coming to
a diagram of the human body. He turns it to face me. “In order for me to become Fin, I had to imprint his form over my own before stepping through the portal into this world. It takes most of my power to hold this mask in place. Were I to let go of the glamour, even for an instant, it would be gone until I could visit Fin again for another imprint.” He snaps the book shut with one hand. “But you? There are moments
you
can make out glimpses of truth, penetrate the chinks in my mask and see me for what I am. Because you have learned to look through netherling lenses.”

I wish it was that easy to see him for what he is, instead of constantly wondering what he’s up to. “Let’s just get this over with. I’m tired of the games.”

He tilts his head, like a puppy trying to understand its master’s wishes. “I haven’t been playing any games.”

“Right.” I consider bringing up the clown, but there’s no point in wasting time with his denials. Better to get him off my back by pretending to cooperate. “How, exactly, am I supposed to help with Queen Red so you can return Finley”—I stare him up and down—“back to his life?”

The bell rings, rattling through my bones. Chatter and laughter filter through the window. Moving shadows blink at the bottom of the door as people pass by.

Morpheus tucks away my book and closes the backpack. “I have a lunch date. We’ll talk tomorrow. Same place, same time. You have until then to gather your wits and your mosaics. There is something they’re trying to tell you, and, with a little magical aid, I can help you decipher it. Then after that we’re off to Wonderland.”

Twenty-four hours to say good-bye to everyone and everything I love? Not happening. “Wait, Morpheus. We need to talk about this.”

“M,” he corrects. “And there’s nothing to talk about.”

I shake my head, annoyed not only with his dismissiveness but with the stupid name he insists on using. “Why didn’t you use Fin’s name?”

“And chance someone knowing him?”

“Aha!” I point at his nose. “So he does have family.”

He snatches my wrist. “Everyone has family in your world, Alyssa. Unfortunately for Fin, his no longer cares where he is. But a fellow like him is bound to have enemies. I don’t need trouble. So I took only his image. Not his identity.”

“I don’t need trouble, either.” I jerk out of his hold, grab my bag, and head for the door. “I’m not ready to go back to Wonderland. I have things here to do.”

Unconcerned, he turns to adjust his hat in the mirror. “Ah, so you’re busy. Perhaps whilst you find time for Wonderland, I shall entertain myself with the lovely little Jen of the pink hair and sparkling green eyes.” His voice is low and suggestive. “Eyes so like her brother’s.”

Apprehension knots at the base of my throat, and I whip around, casting my backpack to the side. “You stay away from the people I love. Do you hear me?”

When he doesn’t answer, I grip his elbow to force him to face me.

Before I can react, he catches my waist and sets my butt on the cold edge of the sink. Face-to-face with his chest, I squirm. He pins me in place with his body, gripping the porcelain behind me—entirely too close for comfort.

“Look at that,” he taunts. “Your box seems to have shrunk.”

I look behind me but can’t back up without falling into the sink’s basin.

“If you truly wish to protect those you love,” he continues in the same taunting tone, “you will pay heed to what I’m saying. Is your comfort worth more than their safety?”

A realization slams into me, harsh and bitter. “You weren’t talking about Finley, were you?
I’m
the soul you’re willing to sacrifice for Wonderland. Right?” My eyes meet his, and the resolution there validates my fear.

Playing with the scarf at my neck, he pouts. “War is never pretty, Alyssa.”

I suppress a sob. Mom’s warning from the flowers and bugs was right. Morpheus is hanging me out to dry. “So, you know I don’t have a prayer, and you’re still sending me after her!” I shove him, but he won’t budge.

“Either you go to her or she’ll come to you. Better you contain the fight in Wonderland, where you have the advantage of keeping your family and friends out of the line of fire.” He studies my neck where Jeb’s heart locket and the key rest atop my scarf. “Remember what almost happened to your boyfriend the last time he got involved, how close he came to—”

“Don’t say it,” I plead.

Morpheus shrugs. “Simply making a point. Were he to face Wonderland again, he mightn’t be so lucky this time.”

The sink’s edge bites into my hips. “Let me down.” Though soft and even, my voice echoes in the hollowness of the bathroom.

Expression serious and intense, he pulls me off the sink, then spins me around, lifts my backpack, and arranges the straps over my shoulders like a mother prepping her child for kindergarten.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us to prepare you for your confrontation with Red,” he says, his breath warm against the back of
my head. “You are not equipped to fight her yet. But you will be. You’re the best of both worlds, lest you forget. All you need is to have faith in yourself.”

Without another word, he steps out. The door swings shut behind him.

I look at the waving cobwebs in the window. Considering the less-than-stellar parlor trick I did with my hair earlier, I know he’s right. I’m unprepared for any sort of magical battle.

But what if he’s wrong, too? How can being half of something be better than being whole? No amount of work or faith can prepare me for facing Queen Red and her heightened powers.

Foreboding creeps into my heart: This trip to Wonderland will be the end of me. By sticking out my neck again, I’ll lose more than my normal, everyday life.

This time I
will
lose my head, along with everything attached.

Dad says I can have whatever I want for dinner as a reward for acing my two tests today. Considering this could be our last meal as a family, I request his famous maple pancakes and a tall glass of ice-cold milk.

After changing into comfier clothes—navy checkered leggings and a silver tunic sweater—I sneak into the living room to watch from around the corner as my parents cook together, just like they do every evening. Mom sneezes while holding a cup of flour. White dust ends up all over Dad’s face, and a food fight breaks out. Before it’s over, they’re both laughing and covered in pancake ingredients. Dad draws her close and tenderly wipes her lips with a damp washcloth before kissing her.

I ease back into hiding, wanting to smile so much it hurts. Seeing them flirt like kids in love breaks my heart into so many different pieces. They’ve earned it after all the years they missed together. I just don’t want this to be the last time I see them so happy.

When we sit down to eat, the pancakes are light, spongy, and dripping with syrup. They taste like home and comfort and security. I swallow it all down, drowning in the sweetness.

While my parents do the dishes, I escape to my bedroom and feed my pet eels some chopped boiled eggs. Aphrodite and Adonis perform a graceful dance, entwining their bodies, capturing the food as it floats down like they’re lovers catching snowflakes on their tongues.