Free Family (Insanity Book 7) by Cameron Jace Page B

him. “You call killing innocents a great thing? What about the Wonderland Monsters? Were they innocent somehow? A part of your devious and meticulously calculated plan?”
    Tom interrupts for the fourth time, actually raising a hand in the air. “Inspector Dormouse found out the Pillar killed the drug lord in Colombia for his own needs, not to rid the world of him. Turns out he was one of the fourteen he needed to kill. So, I assume every other Wonderlander he made you kill had a similar purpose?”
    “What purpose?” I ask the Pillar. “I’m dying to know.”
    The Pillar does not speak. He stares at Tom as if he is going to kill him.
    “What purpose?” I repeat myself. “Did you want revenge because I managed to fool you? But you just said you knew from day one. Did you want to remind me of who I am? Did I find your weakness in the Six Keys and you’re not telling me?”
    “I don’t think it’s the right time to continue this conversation,” the Pillar says. “Let’s get out of this amush and I promise you I will confess all to you.”
    “Don’t believe him, Alice,” Tom says.
    “You’re goddamn right, I won’t.” I push his chest with the tip of the rifle so hard the Pillar winces with fear, then stare him in the eyes, promising my finger I will shoot this man right now. “I think I will have to shoot without knowing the rest, Pillar. Talk about fighting fire with fire.”
    Again, the March Hare calls for me from afar. “Alice” he yells. “Wait!”
     

Chapter 35
     
    I watch the March enter the cell, a few Mushroomers behind him. “What is it?”
    “I found the text that explains your story with Him.”
    “On the walls? What does it say?”
    “Yes, Alice.” The March’s eyes are moist, full of sympathy. I think he is going to cry. What in God’s name is he going to tell me? “I know all about your family now.”
    My finger loosens on the trigger for a second, but then I force it to stay strong. I tilt my head toward the March, ever so slowly, unable to ask him to elaborate, so he does by himself.
    “The Pillar, too, knows about your family,” the March says. “He lied when he denied he knew about them.”
    “Why did he lie, March? Tell me. I know I can trust you.”
    “It’s not going to be easy,” the March says. “I think you should lower you gun.”
    “Why? Because I will not control shooting him when you tell me? I will shoot him anyways, trust me.”
    “Please, Alice.”
    “Just tell me, March!”
    “You have to promise me not to shoot the Pillar first,” the March says.
    “The Pillar is my father, isn’t he?” I’m sobbing now. I can’t feel my feet, and I think I’m going to be sucked down into a Rabbit Hole.
    “No, he isn’t.”
    “Then who is my family?”
    “It’s what happened to them that matters,” the March says.
    “Don’t,” the Pillar says to March. “Don’t tell her.”
    I push the rifle against his chest, my teeth grit and my face wrinkles with irritation. “Don’t speak a word, Pillar.” Then I turn to the March. “Just tell me what happened to them. I can take it.”
    The March hesitates but then speaks up. “They were killed.”
    “All of them?”
    “That’s what the writing on the wall says.”
    “When?”
    “Back in Wonderland. Your father was the dean of Oxford University, a good friend of Carroll’s.”
    “And?”
    “One day they gathered your family in Christ Church when Carroll was still a priest,” the March says. “He used to help children sing in the choir.”
    “Children in my family?”
    “Children from all over Oxford.”
    “So?”
    “In the middle of the ceremony they were massacred. Everyone died except Lewis, who was outside picking flowers for a brief moment.”
    “Why did the Chessmaster hate my family?”
    “Your father had collaborated with Lewis many times and planned to kill him for the death he caused in Wonderland. They were so close, and the Chessmaster hated them, including you, later, of