Page 24 of Maddie

Ferris came back into the living room, chest heaving, pupils blown wide. “They’re missing,” he concluded.

“No shit,” Noah shouted. “Where could they be?”

Ferris paced the living room, hands clutching the sides of his head. “I don’t know. Maddie offered to watch her tonight. I could tell she was upset about Mouse. It felt like she was up to something but—oh fuck.”

“What?” Noah demanded. “What?”

“It’s just…” He swallowed hard. “No. Maddie wouldn’t …”

Noah’s hands balled into fists. He was no expert, but he’d guess there wasn’t much Maddie was incapable of doing. Between hiding Alice, dragging him to Wonderland, turning him into a vampire, and jerking him off in the bathtub,kidnapping Alicedidn’t seem too outlandish. “She wouldn’t what?”

“Ah, hell,” Ferris snapped, and left Noah standing alone in the sitting room.

“Ferris?” he called, his voice rising along with his anger. “What’s going on?”

The vampire stormed back into the room fully dressed in a black knit jumper and boots to match his trousers. “Get your trainers on. We have to stop them before they reach the palace.”

“The palace?” Noah quickly collected his gym trainers from his room. They were hiding from Imogen and Rav so why the hell would she be going there?

Ferris stared at him. “Maddie had said Imogen offered her a reward to bring Alice back.”

And she thinks the reward will be Mouse’s release, Noah pieced together as he finished putting his trainers on.

Ferris grabbed the key off the hook on the wall and peered outside before opening the door wide. “Let’s go.”

Noah followed Ferris outside, trying to even his breaths. Ferris strolled through the street at a leisurely pace, fartooleisurely for Noah’s liking. Then, without warning, he vanished down a side alley. Noah’s new vampire reflexes managed to follow the movement and he rushed after him.

The city smelled the same as it had when he’d followed Maddie to Osanna’s. Like blood and decay. Only now, it didn’t bother him so much. The metallic scent was pleasant while the decay was more of a nuisance than stomach-churning. They avoided the red lanterns as they navigated isolated side streets, but he could see perfectly fine without the lights. The claw marks and blood spattered on the sides of buildings were as clear as day.

A discarded pair of lace gloves beside a large blood stain doubled his concern for Alice’s fate. They weren’thergloves, but she would’ve worn them. And the blood smelled stale which, he assumed, meant it was too old to belong to his sister. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t bleeding somewhere in the palace.

It was obvious what had happened now—Maddie had taken Alice from the safe house with the intent of delivering her to Imogen and Rav. How long ago had they left? Alice could be withering away in the royal dungeons already. Or worse... He felt the blood drain from his face.

“Why would she do this?” Noah whispered. “I mean, I know why, but…”

Ferris held up an arm to stop Noah in the shadows as two vampires appeared on the street ahead, laughing hard. “Alice is dying, yeah? I’m certain Maddie wouldn’t have done this otherwise,” he said once they passed, leaning forward to scan one side of the street and then the other.

Noah rubbed at his chest, his heart beating out of control. She was going to turn Alice over to those two arseholes? What did it matter if his sister was dying? Noah had been planning to get the cure before that happened and then they would’ve been fine. “Does she really think they’ll trade her sister?”

“Obviously,” Ferris muttered.

After nearly fifteen minutes of walking, Noah followed him around another corner, out of the alleyways, and across the main street into a different alley on the other side. In those brief seconds when they weren’t between homes or shops with slate roofs and enormous windows, he spotted a castle, aglow in red lights, perched on a cliff. Tall spires rose from the red stone structure and black stone parapets speared the sky. Light shone in the windows and shadows moved along the footbridge.

How had he never noticed it when away from the safe house? Though, he supposed he’d been preoccupied with everything going on—been distracted by Maddie on the way back to the safe house … after she’d touched him in the bathtub.

Such a beautiful fucking deceiver.

“They won’t give Mouse up, will they?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Depends.” Ferris glared at the palace for a moment. “But my guess is they’ll throw Alice in the dungeons to die alone and keep Mouse exactly where she is now.”

“And Maddie?” He hated himself for asking—for caring, given the circumstances—but he didn’t want to imagine her suffering. Maddie had done a despicable thing, yet no one deserved torture.

Ferris clenched his jaw shut. “It’s better not to think about it.”

Noah scanned every side street they passed, hoping to catch a glimpse of purple hair, but the closer they got to the looming palace, the more panic squeezed his insides.

“You’re being too conspicuous,” Ferris warned. “Try to move your head less when you—damn.There she is.”

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