Page 10 of Locked in Wonderland

I brought the glass to my nose and sniffed it. It didn’t smell like anything I recognized. “What is it?”

“A Wonderland special,” Lola said.

I tried a different tack. “What’s in it?”

“All the best things,” Percy said. “Try it.”

“Why is it blue?”

Percy blinked. “Why is anything blue? You may as well ask why it’s wet.”

Giving up on getting a straight answer from either of these strange people, I took an experimental sip. Slightly fruity. Definitely refreshing. A slight sharpness. “Is it alcoholic?”

Percy’s answer was to push on the bottom of my glass and make me drink more. “There you go,” he said, apparently pleased by how much I’d managed. “Good boy.”

Good boy. Jesus! “I think,” I said—or at least that was what I tried to say. In reality, it came out as one word that all blended together. I closed my eyes, fighting a wave of dizziness. When I opened them, there were two Percys and two Lolas. I laughed and tried to tell them that one of them had been more than enough, but it sounded even worse than my first attempt at speaking.

Lola peeled my fingers away from the glass. Or glasses. There were two of them as well. She hadn’t touched her drink. Neither had Percy. “Yoooooudrrruggedmmmee.”

The two Lolas both smiled. “Of course we did, dear. You were being difficult, and we’re busy people. We don’t have time for difficult. You’re not the only person we need to process today.”

I tried to tell them I didn’t want to be processed, but as whatever they’d given me really dug its claws in, it was all I could do to stay standing. Seeing me sway, Percy grabbed my arm and steered me toward the surgical table. “Have a lie down. Bruises aren’t pretty.”

There wasn’t a place in the world I wanted to be less, but I had a feeling that if I tried to stand, I’d throw up. Maybe if I lay down for a moment and closed my eyes. Just a few seconds. No longer. Then I’d get the hell out of here.

“Some bruises are pretty,” Lola argued. “If they’re done right. Like the ones left behind by a whip.”

“Only if it doesn’t break the skin,” Percy said.

“Well, of course. Blood ruins the aesthetic.”

The turn their conversation had taken made me even more determined to fight off the effects of the drug and stay conscious. But the nausea, the sweat on my brow, and the way the floor had started spinning every time I tried to open my eyes said it was a battle I didn’t have any chance of winning. And that was before gentle fingers started combing through my hair and making soft shushing sounds. Percy? Lola? Both of them? I didn’t have a clue.

I remembered nothing more.

Chapter Six

I awoke thinking what a strange fucking dream it had been. I had to stop eating whatever it was I’d eaten. Had I had cheese? That was supposed to give people fucked-up dreams, right? I couldn’t say it had ever had that effect on me before, but it was the only thing I could think of. Percy and Lola were nothing but figments of my imagination. Thank fuck for that.

“He’s awake,” a familiar, shrill voice trumpeted.

Lola. Fuck. Not a dream.

I opened my eyes and sat up. They both stood there, smiling at me. They’d changed clothes, deep purple replacing the orange. How long had passed that they needed a change of outfit? I shifted, the squeak of leather telling me they weren’t the only ones dressed differently. I slid unsteadily off the surgical table, my legs taking a second to remember what they were for. I did not want to think about having woken up there and what it might imply. Instead, I headed to the mirror.

A stranger stared back at me. Well, not quite a stranger. But the differences were stark enough that it may as well have been. My black hair was shorter. I couldn’t deny that the more severe cut accentuated my cheekbones and jawline. I stepped closer to the mirror, blue eyes narrowing instead of the brown I was used to. They’d given me contacts. My eyebrows were plucked too. Thankfully, not to the extent theirs were. More shaped. It wasn’t something I’d ever have chosen to get done.

The biggest difference, though, was the clothes. I’d arrived here in baggy blue jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days. Head-to-toe leather had replaced them. I started at my feet because they were the least alarming part of the transformation. Boots. Surprisingly soft and comfortable.

The boots led to leather trousers that fitted like a second skin. The trousers had a low cut, which revealed the sharp jut of my hipbones, and I could tell just from looking that my underwear had gone the same way as the rest of my clothes. My top was leather too—or at least what little there was of it. To call it a vest would be generous. A better description was two short pieces of leather attached with threaded laces at the side, leaving my midriff completely bare. There were buttons at the front, but they only started once a deep V had finished. The word that sprang to mind was fuckboy. I looked as if I should have been on a street corner. Or failing that, in a club looking to get railed by half of its clientele.

“Well?” Percy prompted, painted-on eyebrows raised quizzically.

What did he expect me to say? Did he want praise for turning me into this?

“I can’t wear this.”

“Yes, you can,” Lola said.