Family (Insanity Book 7) Read online

  I N S A N I T Y 7

  Family

  by Cameron Jace

  www.CameronJace.com

  Copyright ©2016 Cameron Jace

  Cover image by: Omri Koresh

  Cover design by: Kseniia Levchenko

  Table of Contents

  Prologue Part One

  Prologue Part Two

  Prologue Part Three

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Epilogue Part One

  Epilogue Part Two

  Epilogue Part Three

  Prologue Part One

  Oxford University, Wonderland, 1889

  A seventeen-year-old Alice Wonder ran across the Tom Quad, hardly catching her breath. Her jaw had tightened and tears rolled down her cheeks. Her facial muscles froze with horror at what she was about to witness.

  She tried to wave at the man standing in the distance but her hands went numb. Her heart was about to burst out of her ribcage and splinter into a million Tiger Lilies as she struggled to keep her pace. A thought crossed her mind: He did it. The darkest villain of Wonderland really did it.

  Alice panted, stumbled and almost fell, but insisted on reaching her destination. She tried to shout but the heavy rain dissolved her words into useless droplets of water, spat out of her trembling lips. Crying was inevitable. Why not when the sky seemed to be weeping too?

  God, this couldn’t be happening? She was only seventeen years old. Alice Wonder, the girl whom Lewis Carroll based his timeless bestseller upon. The girl who inspired many, and was supposed to have a great life ahead. The girl who’d brought joy and happiness to the children of Wonderland — and the world.

  Again, she was about to stumble and fall on her way. It seemed like the slippery grass was conspiring to slow her down. The rain, too. Even the flowers rocked to the heavy wind, as if talking to her. Whispering: Don’t go, Alice. You won’t like what you will see. Just don’t do it.

  Oxford’s perpetual mist of grey blurred her vision. It shaded the Victorian architecture of the university and morphed it into the creepy sight of a haunted mansion instead.

  Don’t go in there, Alice! She thought she heard the flowers screaming at her now. What you will see will change you forever!

  But she wouldn’t stop, though she was limping now. She had to see for herself.

  “Lewis!” She managed to scream feebly.

  Lewis stood by the door leading to the university’s choir room in Christ Church. He stood in his priest’s outfit, hands laced in front of him, collected in spite of the pouring rain. Silent and wise in spite of what had just happened.

  But he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “What happened?” She asked, her hands flapping sideways, trying to help her balance on her weakening knees.

  “Don’t come in here, Alice,” Lewis pleaded, still not meeting her eyes.

  “Why?” She choked on the words, her eyes widening with morbid curiousity. “Is it real?”

  “Just go away,” he said. “I’m begging you.”

  “Why, Lewis? Why?” She knew why, but she had to ask. She had to pretend it didn’t happen. That what the March Hare had just told her was wrong. That the Inklings were wrong. It just didn’t happen.

  “I don’t see the point of you seeing it with your own eyes.” Lewis raised his head and looked at her with swollen, moist, and caring eyes. Like the rain and the grass, he was trying to protect her. But his stare unintentionally exposed her to the great pain she was about to suffer. A prelude to the madness she was about to witness.

  “No!” She shrieked, only strides away from him. “This can’t be true.”

  “Be strong.” Lewis took her into his arms. “Promise me you’ll be strong.”

  Alice sobbed so hard she thought she’d collapse and die from the lack of breathing.

  “Say it isn’t so.” Her muffled words longed for Lewis’ warm heart. She hit him feebly, but her hand was too weak. It slipped and then fell as if she were dead already. “Please, tell me it isn’t so.”

  “I’m sorry, Alice.” Lewis patted her. “He did it, Alice. I’m so sorry.”

  She lifted her head up, her eyes buried in a grave of tears. “All of them?”

  “Yes,” Lewis said.

  “The children?”

  “Them, too.” Lewis said. “He killed them all.”

  Prologue Part Two

  If birds hummed because they didn’t know how to speak words, then Alice’s silence was the same. She didn’t know what to say. What to feel. She wished she could numb herself to death right now. She didn’t want to feel this. Talking about it only stirred the pain.

  “Let me take you somewhere safe,” Lewis offered.

  “No. I want to see.”

  “God, Alice.” Lewis sighed. “No, you don’t want to see.”

  “I do,” She insisted. She decided she wouldn’t shy away from it. In fact, she wanted to engrave the morbid memory in the back of her head, so she would never forget it.

  So she would always remember to have her revenge.

  “It’s a bloodbath inside,” Lewis confessed.

  She nodded
, her tears threatening to drown her in a pool of eternal grief. But she rose above it somehow. She never knew she could. “Did He hurt them badly?”

  Lewis looked away, saying nothing.

  “Talk to me!”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “How bad did he hurt them before he killed them?”

  Lewis opened his mouth but said nothing. He was about to say his name. But the Wonderland Monster who’d killed the children had scared everyone so much, even Lewis preferred not to taste his name on his tongue.

  “He…” Lewis felt the weight of the moment pressing against the back of his skull. He’d not been a man to stutter at this point. In fact, he’d been the most eloquent when he taught mathematics at the university. But this was too much to handle. “He chopped off their heads.”

  The image flashed like lightning before Alice’s eyes. “What else?”

  “Poked out their eyes.” Lewis felt dizzy reciting what he’d seen inside the dean’s room. “Then burned them. Please, Alice. I can’t go on with this.”

  “I can.” She slid her hands from under his arms and turned to walk inside.

  “Whatever you see inside will stay with you forever,” Lewis warned her.

  “I want it to stay with me forever,” She said, not turning to face him. “I want this, Lewis.”

  Alice entered the room and witnessed the gore fest with teary eyes. She fisted her hands and gritted her teeth, so she’d stop crying.

  She took it all in.

  Every last detail.

  And for the rest of her life – until she later lost her memory in the real world – she would have nightmares, thinking about Him. He whom Lewis, and everyone else, feared the most.

  Prologue Part Three

  A few minutes later, Lewis watched Alice come out into the rain. She nodded briefly but continued walking away. Many years later Lewis would swear the Alice who came out was someone else entirely than the girl who’d entered.

  “Where are you going, Alice?” He called from behind her.

  “I’m going to kill Him,” She said, not looking back.

  “You know He is indestructible,” Lewis said. “You can’t kill him.”

  “Sure I can,” she said, talking louder. “I just have to find his weakness.”

  “He has no weaknesses,” Lewis argued. “You know I’ve tried.”

  “Everyone has a weakness, Lewis,” She said. “All I need is to get close enough to find it.”

  “He will burn you, Alice. He will smoke you and puff you into the wind.”

  “Not if he thinks I’m a friend, not a foe,” She said, turning back, raindrops distorting the beauty of her adolescent face.

  The look in her eyes intimidated Lewis. “What do you have in mind, Alice?”

  “From this day on you have to forget about me being an Inkling,” She said. “I’m going to befriend Him. I’m going to spill blood with Him. I’m going to be his apprentice. I’m going to make him trust me. Hell, I’m going to make him need me. From this day on you will always see me by His side.”

  “What?” Lewis grimaced, his migraines slowly returning.

  “Please forget about me, Lewis. You, Fabiola, Jack, the March, and the little girl,” Alice said. “I’m not one of you anymore. No more Good Alice. From this day on, I’m Black Chess.”

  “W-why?” Lewis said. “A-Alice, th-this can’t be t-t-true.”

  Alice turned around, took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and walked away, slowly disappearing into the mist. “I can only know His weakness and kill Him if I’m on his side. And knowing how devilish he is, it’s not easy to gain his trust. I have to become a Bad Alice.”

  Lewis stood paralyzed, not sure what to say. He couldn’t speak. Alice’s decision broke his heart, and for the first time in his life he began stuttering.

  It never went away.

  Chapter 1

  Somewhere in the streets of Oxford, Present day

  I'm back in Oxford, walking the streets all alone. I’m in a haze, unable to forget the Chessmaster’s words. What secret about my family did he keep for himself before he died?

  Oxford, though cold, is much better than the bitter, stinging freeze I experienced in Russia. It feels like home after all. A word I’m not sure I fully know the meaning of. The closest home to my heart is still the asylum. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I miss my solitary confinement in that darkened room with my Tiger Lily and the writing on the wall.

  I sit on a bench and try to collect myself underneath the drizzling afternoon rain. The sky above is a veil of grey, the color of my life, the color of all the mysteries I haven't been able to solve.

  I look around and see everyone else is tucked under the safety of their umbrellas. I used to own one. It shot Bandersnatch teeth for bullets and assisted me in jumping from the top of a tower once. I killed the Muffin Man with it. Not sure where it is now, but I’m sure it never protected me against the rain – or my madness.

  I lift my head up and let the raindrops tickle my face. A good feeling. It helps me think I’m not a figment of my own imagination – or Lewis Carroll’s.

  In my silence I pray to the rain that it would help me cleanse myself from whatever evil I’ve committed in the past, when I worked for Black Chess. It’s a mystery how those who seek good in life always ask for forgiveness, while it hardly crosses the mind of the purely evil.

  What puzzles me more is the fact that I’d ever joined Black Chess. How did that happen? Was it after the Circus? What was I thinking?

  Lowering my head, I realize I’m gripping a phone in my hand – I think it’s the Chessmaster’s, but I can’t seem to remember for sure. Like I said, everything is still a haze after he mentioned my family.

  The phone beeps. I’ve been dialing the Pillar’s number for some time, but he hasn’t answered.

  Where is he? I need to ask him about my family.

  It crossed my mind earlier to ask others. I could have asked Fabiola, but she is still wounded in the hospital from the events in Russia. And the March Hare would be useless, lost in a childhood he failed to outgrow. Jack came to mind, too, but I don’t know where he is.

  How come I’m so alone? I’m Alice Wonder, goddammit.

  The phone still beeps. No answer.

  If there is a puzzle of all puzzles, then it’d be how the Pillar is still my only friend. Such an evil manipulative man who, according to the Chessmaster, taught me everything bad I did back in Wonderland.

  Do I really want to ask the Pillar about my family? I doubt he will tell me anything. If he does, it will be all riddles. I’m fed up with riddles. I’m fed up with killing Wonderland Monsters and chasing lost keys, most of the time not really knowing why.

  I want to have a normal life, like a normal hormonally-imbalanced, tantrum-throwing, mad nineteen-year-old.

  The phone stops beeping. No one picks up. I dial again.

  Why isn’t he picking up?

  Sometimes I think of him like a puppet master. The Pillar knows everything. He only tells enough to keep his mysterious plan going. He plays me like marionette. Plays everyone. He knows everything, probably more than Lewis Carroll himself.

  But why does he fight for me?

  Maybe it’s nothing admirable and noble. What if I’m just his apprentice from the days back in Wonderland, and all he wants is to get me back on my feet, so I’ll assist him in more killing and wars?

  An inner feeling tells me that’s not it. The moment the Chessmaster told me about my family, an idea flickered in my head. A frightening idea, yet so beautiful – in a wicked way.

  Come on, Alice, spit it out. Don’t keep it inside.

  It’s a silly thought, but it would explain so much. A thought I shouldn’t be thinking. A haunting revelation that needs confirmation: Could the Pillar be my father?

  Chapter 2

  White Hearts Hospital, London

  Lying on her back and all alone, Fabiola fixed her stare toward the ceiling. The speed with wh
ich her wounds healed exceeded her expectations. Some of her Wonderland powers must have crossed over with her into this world – though the healing wasn’t fast enough to cure her wounds within a day or two.

  It’s been three days and no one but the March Hare has visited her. Not even the women who used to confess to her in the Vatican. They were embarrassed of her, she’d heard. None of them loved her anymore. The White Queen who'd denounced the Church and walked away with the devil, they said about her.

  At times, she wished she had died in Kalmykia. It’d have been an honorable goodbye, all in the name of protecting Wonderland. All her life, she had trusted in Lewis Carroll's legacy and fought a noble war, not sure what it was all about – as if any warrior or soldier ever knew.

  But soon, when she remembered Him, that wish of dying disappeared. She had waited for so long to kill the man who'd once killed the children. She had to see him suffer before she died.

  “Him?” A voice echoed in her room, interrupting her thoughts.

  She edged on the bed and squinted against the yellow light coming from a dim lamp near the window. Someone was sitting on the couch nearby. Someone in a priest’s outfit.

  “Lewis?”

  “Yes!” A rabbit peeked its head out of the priest’s pocket. “Lewis and me!”

  “You scared me.” She eased her head back onto the pillow. “You seriously need to make up your mind whether you’re dead or alive.”

  “Somewhere in b-b-between.” His voice was warm, calm, but stuttering.

  “A terrible answer. I mean Carolus wants you dead, but you’re already dead?”

  “I’m dead, Fabiola.” Lewis nodded, patting the rabbit, which showed a saddened face. “But my spirit still lives on; thanks to the children reading my book each day, or I’d have vanished forever.”

  “So it’s true, you’re alive as long as the Alice books aren't out of print?”

  “Not alive. Just there. My spirit.”

  “And Carolus wants to kill even that?”

  “Correct.” Lewis crossed one leg over the other. “But I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here to talk about you – and Him.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Him.”

  “None of us wants to, but we have no choice.”

  “Of course we have.”