The thorns only dug deeper into Alice's arm as she tried to break free of her vine chains. She had been alone in the room for nearly 30 minutes. The scratches on her arms were slowly bleeding as roses seemed to bloom from nowhere. Eventually, the door opened and in walked the blond rabbit man, Elliot, from before. He looked over Alice before pulling up a chair and sitting right in front of her. He cleared his throat.
"The more you resist, the tighter the grip the vines will have on you." Alice wanted to talk, but the gag in her mouth prevented her from saying anything except muffled words that nobody could ever understand. Although that didn't stop her from trying.
"Why am I here?" She attempted to ask. The rabbit man obviously couldn't understand. He frowned and his ears drooped.
"I'm afraid I cannot take off that gag until the Boss gets here." He sighed. "I really hope you don't think of me as a bad person… or a rabbit." Alice's eyebrows furrowed. Of course he was a rabbit, right? "I never asked for this. I was dying. I was bleeding out and had passed out from the loss of blood. When I woke up, that idiot doctor, Mary Gowland, had changed me. I never asked for this and if I had the choice, I would have rather died than have become one of his experiments." He paused and studied Alice's face. "Blood rescued me. He went there and recruited as many of the experiments as possible. He promised a better, more free life. I took it." Suddenly the door opened and in walked the twins and the Boss.
"Hey! Why does the stupid rabbit get to spend time with the pretty lady?" one of the twins gasped.
"Hush you two." The man muttered. "It's time for grown-up talk now." He then nodded to Elliot who nodded in return and removed the gag from Alice's mouth. She coughed slightly.
"Who… Who are you?" Alice asked. She swallowed heavily.
"We should be the one asking you the questions." He said bitterly. "What do you know of the Mind Reader?"
"Who?"
"Girl, I don't have time for this." He sighed angrily. "Nightmare Gottschalk. What do you know of him?"
"I-I only just met him." Alice replied quickly. "I've known him for not even a week now."
"How did you meet him?" he questioned, looking curiously at the girl.
"A-Ace." She answered.
"Ace is-…?"
"The experiment of Doctor Gowland." Elliot pointed out.
"Shut up, Elliot!" the man growled.
"Yes, Blood…" the rabbit man muttered.
"Let's get to the point. Do you have any powers?"
"P-powers, sir?" Alice asked, confused. She thought to herself for a brief moment. Ace had powers, and yet they weren't powers at all. He was an experiment. Nightmare… Nightmare had powers? And so did Julius and Gray? She couldn't seem to remember. Everything had happened so fast. And if Nightmare really did have mind reading powers, why didn't it ever show? Surely he would have reacted to many of her thoughts.
"Yes, yes! Powers! Like the Mind Reader, Time Lord, and Sensor? Anything like that?"
"I-I don't understand. What is a Sensor?" his face dropped. Blood, the man with the top hat and black hair, just looked at her.
"This is getting us nowhere." He muttered, pulling out a phone. Her phone. He looked up the contacts and found a number. After a moment he put the phone on speaker and held it out as the phone rang.
"Alice?" Nightmare croaked from the other end of the phone when he answered. "Alice is that you?"
"Nightmare!" Alice cried out. Blood then looked at Elliot and nodded. "I- umph!" in an instant, Elliot had covered her mouth to keep her from talking.
"Alice?" The man on the phone gasped.
"Mr. Gottschalk," the raven haired man greeted.
"Hatter?"
"Oh, so you know who I am and I bet you know what I want. If you want this girl back, ALIVE, then I suggest we meet. I shall contact you later with more details." And with that, he hung up and tossed the phone down onto the ground and smashed it with the heel of his shoe.
"Wait-NO! ALICE!" Nightmare yelled into the phone. The call was, however, dead. He hung up the phone and cursed under his breath.
"Is something wrong?" Julius asked, his head popping into the room.
"We have good news and we have bad news." The eye patched man sighed. "The bad news is that the hatters do have Alice."
"And the good news?"
"They do not realize that she is the Fountain." He paused. "They want to set up an exchange for information."
"I wouldn't exactly call that good news. It means that they will prolong her life for a few more hours."
"I-" he paused and looked at the door. "Ace!" The brunet was going to listen in to the conversation but was, unfortunately, detected.
"Ack! Eh- Hey there, Nightmare!" he quickly slipped into the room and leaned against the wall. "How's it-"
"Ace, this isn't something you should be concerned about." Nightmare said. "This isn't your fight. You-"
"Isn't my fight?" Ace interrupted. He clenched his fist. "What do you mean by that? It is too my fight! I-"
"This is the mafia we are talking about! You shouldn't-"
"I love her, Nightmare." He said, sternly. "I have to do something."
"Ace, you-" Julius began.
"Julius, you should understand. When you lost Lorina, how many times did you try to go back and save her?"
"This has nothing to do with-"
"It's the same thing!" he paused then sighed. "I can't just let her get killed by these jerks."
"And we won't let her die." Nightmare reassured. "You do not need to worry about that. Now. Go play one of your little games while I discuss a plan with Julius."