Page 118 of Locked in Wonderland

Nico brushed some dirt from the lapel of his suit jacket—the only sign he’d just jumped from a moving vehicle. The gesture made me want to laugh, but I was fairly certain if I started, I wouldn’t stop.

“I couldn’t take the risk,” he said.

My gaze remained fixed on Hargreaves, or more specifically, on the vehicle parked beside him. “There’s two of us. We could probably take him. A car would get us there much faster.”

“Hargreaves has a black belt in jujitsu.”

“Oh.” That put a different spin on things. “Maybe not then.”

After one last glance at the car, Nico headed toward a side street. I jogged to catch up with him, everything intact but aching. “See, I did what you said,” I pointed out. “Even though it involved jumping out of a moving vehicle.”

No response.

“And I’ll continue to do what you say.”

Still nothing.

“You had me convinced back in the courtroom that you didn’t give a damn about me. You wouldn’t even look at me. And Kellan said some stuff about you.”

That got a reaction, Nico throwing a sharp look my way. “I bet he did. And you believed him, of course.”

“I didn’t know what to believe.”

Nico took a sharp right turn, nearly leaving me behind.

I hurried after him. Again. “So you think they’ll send people after us?”

“I don’t know.”

“But it’s possible.”

“People don’t walk away from Queenie and Henry.”

“But you’re not just people. You’re family.” The word felt wrong the moment it left my mouth. The problem with categorizing him as family was that it could work both ways. Maybe they’d let him go because of it. Or maybe they’d be even more determined to make sure he stayed.

I went to check the time, my bare wrist reminding me I no longer owned a watch. “How close are we to the boat arriving?”

Nico checked his own watch. “An hour and a half.”

I grimaced. “That sounds too long.”

“We still have to get there.”

Someone stepped out from beneath the overhang of a building and planted himself directly in our path.

Tom Cheshire.

Still grinning.

“Now where would you two be going in such a hurry?” he asked.

“Not now, Tom,” Nico said.

“If not now, when? If not me, who?”

I pitied anyone who ever tried speaking in riddles around me once I got off this godforsaken island, because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold myself back. What did he do to deserve such an attack? Made deliberately ambiguous statements.

“Later,” Nico said. “And someone else.”