Page 8 of Locked in Wonderland

Beads’ frown gave away that no one had asked him that question before. “Weather?”

The question mark at the end wasn’t reassuring.

“Yeah,” Beads said, warming to the idea. “No one enjoys getting drenched on a night out, do they?”

“I suppose not.”

We fell silent after that, the island approaching with an inevitability that made my palms itch.

The excitement reached fever pitch when the boat docked. I hung back, letting the crowd of chattering people lead the way. Besides, Will was at the front, and one conversation with him had been enough to last me a lifetime. He’d already had one dig at my expense. I refused to be the butt of any more of his jokes. A short, winding path led up to the dome. Once we were at the top, I joined the end of the line queuing for access. Apparently, they had to carry out security checks before allowing you inside.

A rattle announced Beads’ presence at my side. He bent slightly to whisper in my ear. “Wrong door.”

I swung around to face him. “What do you mean?”

He gestured at the line of people in front of me. “They all have tickets. You don’t.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You said it was fine.”

A ghost of a smile graced his lips. “It is fine. But not at this door.”

“Where then?”

The smile grew wider. “Follow me.”

Chapter Five

Beads took me around the side of the dome, far enough away from the people I’d shared a boat with that the only sound was the crash of waves against the shore. The door we eventually arrived at had frosted glass that obscured whatever lay beyond it, along with a doorbell.

Beads gestured at it impatiently. “Go on,” he urged when I didn’t immediately press it.

“Where does this door go?”

He sighed, as if my question were tiresome, and pressed the doorbell himself. It opened within seconds, a man and a woman stood there. They were both short and plump, with candyfloss-pink hair—the man’s cut short, the woman’s worn long—and beauty spots above their lips that I assumed were fake, given they were perfect mirror images of each other.

The similarities didn’t stop there. Thick makeup covered both their faces, including bright pink lipstick, shimmering silver eyeshadow coating their eyelids, and rosy pink blush. Fake eyelashes and drawn-on eyebrows made them look constantly surprised. Or maybe they were surprised. Perhaps there weren’t many ticketless visitors brought to this door. Their clothes weren’t exactly standard either, both dressed in orange silk, the woman’s a dress and the man’s a suit. The explosion of color made me think of fireworks.

“Got one for you,” Beads said.

The woman clapped a hand to her chest. “And such a pretty one, too.” She shot out a hand, the action reminiscent of a striking snake. Her fingers wrapped around my wrist, the grip surprisingly strong. “Don’t you think so, Percy?”

“Very pretty,” Percy agreed. “A perfect blank canvas.”

For what? I might have asked out loud, but I was too busy trying to resist being dragged over the threshold. It wasn’t just her grip that was strong. “Oh, come now,” she said. “Don’t be shy. Let Lola take care of you.”

I turned around, searching for something from Beads. Help? Clarification? An agreement that these were two of the oddest people I’d ever met? All three, probably. But he’d already walked away. Percy’s hand closed around my other wrist, the combined force of both of them too strong to withstand.

“I just want in,” I said as the door closed.

“You are in,” they said in uncanny unison.

Lola smiled, her teeth unnaturally white. “And we’ll have you through processing in no time at all.”

“Processing?”

Neither answered. The relief as they let go of my wrists didn’t last long when they both linked arms with me and marched me down a long corridor between them.

In contrast to the color palette of Percy and Lola, the room they led me into was white. Startling so. That didn’t hold my interest for long when I registered the surgical table at its center. I tried to take a step back, intent on putting more space between me and the cold, clinical surface that screamed wrongness. Percy and Lola weren’t having it, shepherding me past the table—thank god—and over to the far side of the room and a full-length mirror.