Splintered

The mouse sniffs again.

“What do you think, Jeb? Use the pepper to wake him up. He can be our sidekick. We’ll call him Skittles, like the candy.” The things coming out of my mouth are nonsense, but I can’t seem to stop them. Any more than I can stop the colossal stomach growl that follows.

Watching me with an uneasy frown, Jeb takes the seat next to me and drags out the bag. “Its nose must be defrosted from the tea.”

I can’t concentrate on anything but my body. My skin feels itchy, like I need to do something. I climb on top of my chair, then onto the table, kicking some dishes aside.

“Al, what the—?”

Music plays in my head … not Morpheus’s lullaby. Something with a sensual, addictive beat. I twist my hips back and forth. The rubies on my belt sparkle, and the rings jingle—belly-dancer style. I didn’t know I could move like this. Must be from all those years of hula-hooping with Jen.

Jeb’s eyes look like they might pop … so do the veins in his neck. He makes a sound—somewhere between a cough and a moan—mesmerized by my rocking hips. He stands. “Would you get down? You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“No. Come up here with me.” I raise my arms over my head and roll my pelvis seductively. “It’s a wake-up dance for Skittles. You know, like the Native Americans used to do to bring down rain.”

Jeb gawks. “I seriously doubt any Native Americans moved like that.”

Feeling the groove through every pulse of my body, I envision the chains on Jeb’s belt dancing to the music, imagine coils of energy ru

“Hey … hey, wait!” Jeb’s chains lurch, forcing him up onto the chair. He tries to grab the links with his hands, but they break free, tugging until he’s standing in front of me on the table.

I catch his hips, coaxing his body to sway with mine. Pressed against him, I nuzzle his neck, dropping kisses over his soft skin as I rake my fingers through his hair. His ponytail comes undone. “You taste good enough to eat,” I whisper.

The chains wind around his thigh, squeezing. Tensing all over, he grabs them. “H-h-how are you doing that?”

I laugh, ru

I’m concentrating too hard on how good his muscles feel, and it breaks my co

“You’re freaking me out, Al. Come on.”

“Come on where?” I break a hand loose and run a fingertip down his shirt, tracing the line of sheer black fabric over his yummy navel and stopping to clutch his waistband.

A muscle in his jaw jumps.

I purr. “Poor control-freak Jeb. Your world’s way off-kilter when little Alyssa’s not tripping over her chastity belt. Is that it, bad boy?” I tap the button at the top of his fly.

“Uhhh …”

“Why don’t you wake up Skittles, and then we’ll go home and have a real party?” I’m smiling so hard, it hurts my face—a provocative, teasing smile. For some reason, I can’t stop.

“You need to quit looking at me like that,” Jeb says, a husky rattle in his voice.

“Or else what?” My insides tickle with an unfamiliar power, knowing that he’s flustered. Knowing that I caused it.

Swallowing hard, he fishes out the bag of pepper again. “‘Home.’ Right. Maybe if we wake the mouse, the others will wake up, too.”

“Yeah! Let the tea party begin!” Then I can finally eat something. I play a drumroll on the table’s edge with my forefingers.

Jeb shoots another bewildered glance my way. It’s delicious being able to unbalance him. Like when his blood turned green over Morpheus earlier. I’ve never known any girl to be in control of Jebediah Holt. Sure would rock to be the first.

A tiny voice inside me tries to break through, tries to remind me this isn’t me … that I wouldn’t say these things, not to Jeb—that I wouldn’t take pleasure in his pain. Something’s wrong and I should tell him so he can help, or at least defend himself. But the hunger inside crushes my conscience. It’s more than just an ache for food. I’m starving for power, too. Power to bring the guy I want to his knees. To make him pay for not wanting me back.

With one eye on me and one on the bag of pepper, Jeb packs the mouse’s nostrils. The tiny creature inhales sharply. A sneeze gathers, then erupts on a hiccup. His icy shell shatters with the force of it. Clumps of frost slide from his brown fur and red jacket as he sits up to rub his nose.

The instant he sees us, he scrambles behind his teacup. Braving a peek, he blinks black dewdrop eyes our way. They look like chocolate chips. That fierce hunger rolls through me again.

Drooling, I scramble on top of the table.

“Eep!” The mouse’s voice is a high-pitched squeak as he scuttles out from his hiding place.

“Al, stop. We need his help.” Jeb tries to grab my ankles, but I’m too fast.

Shoving platters and plates aside, I crawl after the mouse as he skitters toward his friends, fuzzy tail jouncing behind him. He skids to a stop when he sees their condition. Whiskers drooping, he twists to look at me.

“Miss Alice, you must wake them!” he squeaks. Hesitant, his tiny feet patter backward. “You’re not Miss Alice.” He pats the edges of his eyes while staring at mine. “You’re much more—”

“Hungry.” Now I understand the octobenus’s preoccupation with his stomach—intimately. I smack my lips and veer to the left to escape Jeb’s attempt to snag my waist. My palm lands in a pastry, and I fling off the squished crust. I’ve got my sights set on live bait.

The mouse backs up, squeaking nervously. Tiny clawed hands reach for his whiskers, drawing them down under his chin. He’s close to tripping into the broken crust that I landed in earlier, and I’m rooting for that to happen. I could really go for a slice of mouse pie right about now.

Jeb steps onto a chair and climbs from one to the next to follow me. “Listen, little guy.” He talks softly to the mouse. “I’ll keep her from eating you if you’ll help us wake the others. Do you remember how Alice put you to sleep?”

The mouse wraps his tail around himself, hugging it. “She dropped the watch into the teacup.” He studies me warily from the middle of the table, stepping closer to the purple pie.

Sitting up on my knees, I gouge my fingernails into my kneecaps to distract myself from my stomach. Eyes shut, I concentrate on the book. The story’s details are hazy, but I remember an argument over the i

I growl and pound my fist on the table, rattling silverware and plates and sending a jolt of pain up my arm, which gets my brain back into gear. Gear! That’s it—the hare buttered the gears with a bread knife and mucked up the insides with crumbs. In the Wonderland book’s version, that’s why the March Hare dropped the watch into his tea—to rinse it off. But maybe he wasn’t the one who dunked the watch at all. He must’ve been trying to get it out. By submerging it, Alice suspended the mechanism and froze the guests in time. That’s what I have to fix. The gears. I just need to dry them off and start them up again.

I open my eyes, and Jeb’s way ahead of me, book in hand. He’s already next to March Hairless’s place setting. Jeb tilts the teacup, careful not to break off the rabbit’s frozen paw. I crawl over as tea sloshes across the pastries on the plate. The pocket watch glides out, dragging its chain behind it. Jeb flips the lid open. “It stopped on six o’clock.”

“Teatime!” the Door Mouse chirps excitedly, clapping. His enthusiasm knocks him backward into the broken pie.