Unhinged: 2 (4 page)

It starts to feel like it used to, the two of us melting into one another while outside distractions fade.

When another song clicks on, a sultry and rhythmic number, my fingers slink along his spine in time with it, finding their way under his T-shirt’s hem. I drag my nails lightly over the toned ridges of his back and kiss his neck.

He moans, and I smile in the dimness, sensing the change in him. A change I control. He eases us down to the quilt, guiding me to my back. A tiny part of me wants to finish talking about things that feel unfinished. But even more, I want him like this, intent on nothing but me, his weight closing in, comforting and demanding at once.

Elbows propped next to my ears, he holds my head while kissing me,
so gentle and thorough, I can taste the strawberry he ate a minute ago.

I’m breathless, dizzy … floating so high I barely notice his phone buzzing with a text.

He tenses and rolls off to slip the phone from his jeans pocket. “Sorry,” he mumbles and swipes to read the text.

I groan, missing his warmth and weight.

After reading silently, he turns to me. “That was the reporter from
Picturesque Noir
. He said they have a two-page spread available if I can move up my photo shoot at the gallery to this afternoon. After that they want to take me out to dinner for the interview.” As if catching the disappointment in my eyes, Jeb adds, “I’m sorry, Al. But a two-page spread … that’s a big deal. The rest of the weekend I’m yours, from morning to night every day, okay?”

I start to point out that I haven’t seen him for a month and today was supposed to be all about us, but I bite back my tirade. “Sure.”

“You’re the best.” He gives me a peck on the cheek. “Do you mind gathering up the stuff? I have to call Mr. Piero so he can set up my work in the display room.”

I offer a curt nod, and he heads to the front of the tunnel to call his boss at the art studio where he restores old paintings when he’s not out showing his own work. Darkness spreads between us—sad, shadowy shapes outside the lantern’s reach that look as dejected as I feel.

I sit up and gather the basket and Jeb’s iPad, so busy trying to hear his conversation—something about which showroom has the best lighting for the photographer—I barely notice how the bugs’ murmurs have escalated until they unite as one:

You should’ve heeded him. He warned you in your dreams… now all your doubts will be washed away.

Drip … drip … drip.

I scramble to stand as a drizzling erupts from the dark end of the tunnel behind me. The sound lifts the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.

Drip … drip … drip.

I debate calling Jeb back to investigate, but a vivid blue tip of a wing painted on the wall catches my eye. It’s just outside the ring of light. Strange that I didn’t notice it earlier.

I inch toward the fluorescent drawings and, with a few quick yanks, drag down Jeb’s light strand. The cord coils to the ground, then trails behind me as I start to move closer to the mysterious winged image, tugging the battery pack with a scraping clunk.

Drip … drip … drip.

I peer into the pitch-blackness at the tunnel’s far end but am more interested in the graffiti now. With the cord wrapped around my fingers, I move my makeshift mitten of lights across the winged portrait to illuminate it, piece by piece, like a puzzle.

I know that face and the jewel-tipped eyes. I know that wild blue hair and those lips that taste of silk, licorice, and danger.

Eagerness and dread tangle inside my chest. The same convoluted effect he always has on me.

“Morpheus,” I whisper.

The bugs whisper back in unison:

He’s here … he rides the rain …

Their words work like a spike through my spine, nailing me in place.

“Run!” Jeb’s shout from the front of the tunnel shakes me out of my mental haze. His boots slosh toward me through water I hadn’t noticed gathering at my feet.

“Flood!” Jeb yells, stumbling into the darkness between us.

I panic and take a step toward him, only to have the strand of light come to life in my hand like a wiggling, snaky vine. It wraps around my wrists, twining them together, and then my ankles. I struggle against the cord but am tied up before I can even scream.

A gushing wave sweeps in from the dark end of the tunnel and knocks me off balance. I land flat on my stomach. Cold, dirty water sloughs into my face. I cough, trying to keep my nose above the current, but the light strand holds me paralyzed.

“Al!” Jeb’s terrified shout is the last thing I hear before the water swirls around my trussed-up limbs and whisks me away.

The string of lights around my ankles and wrists drags me against the current, farther into the tunnel, where the water is black. It’s like being submerged in cold ink. I fight to get my head above water but can’t. The chill leaves me numb, desperate to breathe.

Jeb finds me. Gripping my underarms, he draws me out enough that I get one swallow of air, but another surge of water tumbles him toward the pipe’s opening and the vinyl cord jerks me in the opposite direction. I can tell by his distant shouts that he can’t follow. I’m glad he’s caught in the current. He’ll be safer once the rush of water deposits him outside.

Things I learned in Wonderland a year ago … powers I practice
alone in my room so Mom won’t catch me and freak out … come back, as forceful as the cord dragging me underneath the gushing waves.

I relax my muscles and concentrate on the strand of lights, envisioning them alive. In my mind, the electricity that pulses through their wires becomes plasma and nutrients. They respond like living creatures. Their lights brighten enough for me to see underwater as the wires animate. Problem is, I haven’t been consistent with my magical exercises, so even though I’m giving the strand life, I have no control. It’s as if the lights have minds of their own.

Or maybe they’re under someone else’s influence.

Convulsing against the need to inhale, I force my eyes to stay open under the water. The cold makes them ache. I’m shuttled into the deep end of the tunnel, as if riding an aquatic chariot harnessed to electric eels. The cord hauls me toward a door—small and ancient—embedded in the concrete wall. It’s covered with moss and out of place here in the human realm, but I’ve seen it before. I have the key to open it around my neck.

It doesn’t make any sense that it would be here, so far from the rabbit hole in London, which is the only entrance into Wonderland from this world.

I jerk against my binds. I’m not sleeping, so this can’t be a dream. I don’t want to go inside that door while I’m awake. I’m still trying to get over the last time.

My lungs draw tight inside me, ravenous, until I have no choice. Going inside is my only way out, my only way to breathe and live. Straining against the bindings on my wrists, I bend my elbows to reach for my chest. With both hands, I snag the key on my necklace, shoving Jeb’s heart locket out of the way. The current pounds my
head against the concrete wall. Pain shoots from my temple to my neck.

I sweep my bound legs like a mermaid’s tail in order to reposition myself in front of the door. I thrust the key into the keyhole. With a twist of my wrists, the latch gives and water funnels out. At first I’m too big to breach the opening, but then either the doorway grows or I shrink, because somehow, I fit perfectly.

I ride the waves through the door, lifting my face to gulp air. A hillock stops me, hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. I’m left coughing in the mud, my throat and lungs sore, my wrists and ankles chafed from their struggle against the string of lights.

I flip to my back and kick my legs, trying to loosen my binds. A shadow of large black wings crawls across me, a shield from the storm brewing overhead.

Streaks of neon lightning slash across the sky, casting the landscape in fluorescent hues and releasing an acrid, charred scent. Morpheus’s porcelain complexion—from his smooth face to his toned chest peering out of a half-buttoned shirt—looks as luminous as moonlight beneath the electric flashes.

He towers over me. His impressive height is the only thing he and Jeb have in common. The hem of his black duster whips around his boots. He opens a hand, a lacy cuff slipping out from his jacket.

“Like I’ve been telling you, luv”—his deep accent rolls through my ears—“if you relax, your magic will respond. Or perhaps you’d rather stay tied up. I could place you on a platter for my next banquet. You know my guests prefer their entrees thrashing and raw.”

I cover my burning eyes and groan. Sometimes when I’m upset or nervous, I forget that there’s a trick to my netherling powers. Inhaling through my nose, I think of the sun glistening on the ocean’s
lapping waves to calm my heartbeat, then breathe out through my mouth. Within seconds, the light strand relaxes and falls away from me.

I flinch as Morpheus forces me to my feet. Weary from their battle with the water, my legs start to give, but he offers no other assistance. So typical of him, expecting me to stand on my own.

“I really hate you sometimes,” I say, propping myself against a giant leafy stem for support. The daisy surrenders to my weight without a word, triggering a curious twinge in my gut. I can’t imagine why it’s not pushing me off or complaining.

“Sometimes.”
Morpheus drops a black velvet cowboy hat over his blue hair. “A few weeks ago it was a definitive
always
. In a matter of days, you’ll be professing your undying lo—”

“Loathing?” I interrupt.

Smiling provocatively, he adjusts his hat to a cocky angle, and the garland of dead moths across the brim trembles. “Either way, I’m under your skin. Either way, I win.” He taps long, elegant fingers on his red suede pants.

I fight the annoying impulse to return his smile, hyperaware of what his body language does to the darker side of me: how it curls and stretches warily, like a cat basking on a sunny ledge, drawn to the heat but guarded against slipping off.

“You’re not supposed to bring me here in the daytime.” I wring out my soaked skirt’s hem before moving to the tangles on my head. Gusts catch my hair, slapping slimy strands across my neck and face. Goose bumps cover my skin beneath my clothes. I shiver and cross my arms. “And how did you manage it, anyway? There’s only one entrance into Wonderland … you can’t just move the rabbit hole wherever you like. What’s going on?”

Morpheus wraps a wing halfway around me, blocking the wind. His expression teeters between antagonism and amusement. “A magician never gives away his secrets.”

I growl.

“And I don’t recall agreeing to any particular time of day for our meetings,” he continues, unfazed by my grumpiness. “You should be able to visit anytime you please. You have a home here, too, after all.”

“So you keep insisting.” I break our stare before he can draw me into his mesmerizing gaze. I focus instead on the chaos around us. This is the worst I’ve ever seen Wonderland look.

Deep purple clouds scud across the sky like fat, gauzy spiders. They leave dark trails, as if spinning webs in the air. The mud beneath my shoes groans and sputters. Brown bubbles pop and rise. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear something was breathing under there.

Even the wind has found a voice, loud and melancholy, whistling through the zombie-flower forest that once stood as proud as elms. The flowers used to greet me with snarky attitudes and snooty conversation. Now each and every one cowers, bent at the stems, their wilted arms hiding petals that are studded with hundreds of shuttered eyes.

The multi-eyed netherlings have lost their fight … their soul.

Morpheus slides his hands into a pair of slick red gloves. “If you think this is tragic, you should see what’s happening in the heart of Wonderland.”

My own heart sinks. Wonderland used to be so beautiful and alive, garish and creepy though it was. Still, seeing the land crumble shouldn’t affect me so strongly. I’ve witnessed the gradual decay in my dreams over the past few weeks.

Thing is, I’d hoped it was only imaginary. Maybe this
is
just a dream. But on the chance it’s real and Morpheus is telling the truth, I have to step up. It’s my place.

Problem is, Morpheus rarely tells the truth. And he always has a hidden agenda. Except for one time when he actually performed an unselfish and uncalculated act for me …

My attention wanders back to catch his jaw muscle twitch. A telltale sign that he’s lost in thought. It should bother me that I know so much about his mannerisms. Instead, it bothers me that I
like
knowing.

His familiarity is unavoidable. Up until I was five, he visited my dreams as an innocent child every night. When a netherling takes on a child’s form in such a way, their mind becomes childlike, too. So we practically grew up together. After I saw him again last summer, we parted ways for a while. He gave me the space I requested. But now he’s taken up residence in my REM once more. He’s here every time Jeb is gone, keeping me company—even though I don’t ask him to.

Sharing that much of your subconscious with someone, you tend to learn things about him. Sometimes you even develop feelings for him, no matter how you try to fight it.