Chapter 25
Hatter opened his eyes to find Jack inches from his face. He jumped up in alarm.
"Whaa? Where are we? What happened?" he gasped.
"Dungeon. You took a bullet in the abdomen, but fortunately you were wearing body armor. You also hit your head when you fell backwards. You've been out for about 20 minutes now," Jack replied, sitting back on the prison bench.
"Where's Alice? Did they get out?" Hatter said, panic filling his chest even as his head throbbed.
"As far as I know, Alice, Carol and Bernard made it away from my mother and her subjects, but I have no knowledge of their current whereabouts," Jack said flatly.
"What do we do? How do we get out of here?" Hatter said, tenderly pulling himself up to stand, examining the dark cell. He groaned at the pain but moved around to shake it off.
"We don't," Jack shrugged, sounded deflated. "My mother won. She's going to execute us. Wonderland is lost."
"No, I refuse to believe that. How did she turn the Resistance in the first place?" Hatter said, pacing.
"Because, you sniveling fools, you allowed her to divide and conquer. Did you really believe I was plotting some sort of ridiculous coup against you already, Jack? You always were quite gullible," the voice of Dodo came through the wall. Although they could not see him, he was in the cell next to theirs, divided by a concrete wall.
"Then she had loyalists within the Resistance the entire time. There is no other way she would have infiltrated their ranks so quickly," Jack replied.
"Now you're catching on. And who exactly tipped you off that I was some sort of traitor?" Dodo prompted.
Jack looked at Hatter. "It was Dormie. He brought me a coded book," Hatter said, shaking his head.
"And your hatred of me blinded you to the fact that my undoing was just handed to you, wrapped neatly in a bow, is that right?" Dodo asked snidely.
"Look, this isn't helping. I should have known better, and I might have if I hadn't been drugged. We were both drugged. There has to be a way out of this place," Hatter said, tugging on the metal bars of the prison cell.
The door to the dungeon opened, and a guard walked in. Hatter recognized him as one of the Suits. Three, he thinks.
"Your last meal, Majesty," he said, sliding a tray under the bars of the cell. He turned and walked out without another word.
"Cheerful bloke. Where's my last meal? Don't I get fed?" Hatter grumbled, going back to examining all of the cell bars for any weaknesses.
"Why am I?" Jack asked, examining the tray. "It's a courtesy Mother would never bother to show."
Hatter nodded and they searched the tray together. Finally, Hatter picked up the ceramic tea pot. Something felt off about it. After looking it over thoroughly, he let the tea pot fall to the floor. From the tea pot remains fell a golden key.
"Brilliant," Hatter sighed with relief.
"Perhaps all is not lost just yet," Jack said, giving Hatter a slap on the back.
"Okay, but once we're out of here, then what? Who do we trust?" Hatter asked, clutching the key in his palm.
"We go to Caterpillar, of course," Dodo said.
"He's right. Caterpillar is the only member of the Resistance we can absolutely trust," Jack agreed.
Hatter raised his eyebrows and gestured towards Dodo's cell. And we trust Dodo? he silently asked. Jack merely shrugged. We have no other choice.