Disclaimer: I own Abby, Cillian, Griffin, Samuel, Samantha, and Weiss and nothing else.
Abby and the suits arrived at the city about an hour after they left from the castle. Abby was anxious as they made their way through the city. There was one point where she thought she caught a glimpse of the woman who had taken Samuel and her to Dodo, but she was gone within moments. Abby realized quickly that following her wasn't an option especially since she didn't even know for sure that it had been her. She eventually found her way to the building that Dodo was hiding in and pointed to it.
"That's where they have him. There's an elevator that will take you down. He's in a cell." Abby said. The suits nodded and instantly went up to the door. They didn't bother knocking, just broke the door down. Abby waited outside of the building, but she still heard the gunshots and became alarmed. She did try to find her way down to where the suits and Dodo were, but could not figure out how to recall the elevator. She paced in front of the door anxiously until she heard a click from behind her.
"Turn around slowly." Weiss said. Abby raised her hands, figuring that Weiss's large gun was aimed at her, and turned on the spot. She was right about the gun. "Didn't figure I would find you so easily." She said. "And without anyone to guard you, too." She added with a smirk.
"What are you going to do to me?" Abby asked.
"Well, seeing as I can't exactly deliver you to Dodo, I'll have to settle for trying to get some sort of deal worked out with someone else for you." Weiss said. "Really, though, I doubt that anyone will pay that much for you. I don't even know who you are, but Dodo obviously did. I'll hope that means that you're worth something to someone." She said.
"Take me to Samantha…she'll probably pay you." Abby said.
"Samantha? You mean the Red Queen? I'm rather fond of my head and am not in any rush to lose it." Weiss replied. "Put your arms behind your back and come over here." She then said. Abby put her hands on the back of her head before Weiss instructed her to lower them to behind her hips. Abby clenched her fists for a moment before following the order. Once Abby complied, she felt rope being knotted around her wrists.
"She won't kill you. I promise." Abby said.
Weiss just laughed. "Yeah, I'm sure that once Prince Charming there is reunited with her that they'll throw me a party." She said sarcastically. "I may not be that old, but I'm not stupid. Now, come on, before those suits get back." She said.
Hatter seemed uneasy as he and Griffin were walking early the next day. "Did you see the Scarab last night?" he asked.
Griffin shook his head.
"What about yesterday…when Cillian and Sam would have taken it?" he asked.
Griffin shook his head again. "Why?" he asked.
"They were supposed to check the lake…" Hatter said slowly. "I just can't shake the feeling that something happened to them."
"Well, obviously that tracker followed them instead of us otherwise she'd be on our tails by now." Griffin said. Then he realized what probably happened. "She probably caught them…" he said, looking behind them. He looked ahead of them and then behind a few times. "One of us needs to go back…" he said.
Hatter sighed. "You go, I'll keep looking for Abby." He said.
"No, I know the forest better than you do." Griffin replied.
"If they've been captured again, they're going to need someone that can break them out. I'm not that someone. But I should be able to find Abby." Hatter replied. "Go." He said. Griffin knew that he was right, but he didn't want to stop looking for Abby. Finally, he nodded.
"Make sure she's safe." He said before turning and running back the way they came.
"Well what did you think I was going to do?" Hatter shouted after him before turning and continuing to make his way around the lake.
Griffin made his way back to the city as quickly as he could. It was around noon when he arrived and he immediately worked his way back to the Great Library. Something didn't seem right, though. He went to knock on the door, but saw that it was broken in. He rushed inside and took the elevator down to the level that Dodo was normally on. However, when he got there, he was surprised to find the place empty. There were some small pools of blood on the floor, but not a soul was in sight. He rushed through Dodo's office and down the hallways that led to the jail to find the cell open and empty. On his way back, he grabbed some of the stuff that Dodo had taken from him the previous day and stuffed it into his pockets.
He then snooped through some of the drawers in the desk to see where Dodo might have retreated to, but all he found was a loaded gun. He gulped as he looked at the weapon. He had never carried a gun before in his life, but he couldn't stop himself from grabbing the item and stuffing it into another pocket.
He left the library with a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. The only explanation that he could think of for the state of the library was that Samantha had somehow figured out where Sam had been being held and sent her suits to decimate the place. He didn't have a clue as to where he could go to figure out what happened unless he went back to the castle. He was about to leave to try to catch up with Hatter when he noticed something on the ground.
He reached down and picked up the small hairpin and stared at it. It looked exactly like the one he had found in the cell the other day, Abby's hairpin. "She must have dropped it when she and Sam were brought here…" he trailed off, but then he started to look around, just in case. He saw another one a short way down the sidewalk. He picked that one up as well. He quickly realized that this wasn't something that Abby accidentally left behind. She had purposely dropped her hairpins. It was a trail.
He followed it as quickly as he could, but soon he was holding around 15 hairpins and he couldn't find the next one. "There has to be something else…she wouldn't have left a trail like this without making sure that someone could follow it to the end." He said aloud, looking around. That was when he noticed something red. "B-blood?" he said, suddenly becoming worried. There wasn't a lot of it, but there was definitely blood on the ground. It was just a few drops every few feet, but it was enough for him to follow. He pocketed Abby's hairpins and continued walking.
He followed the trail all the way to a run-down building near to the Looking Glass Hall. Griffin slowly worked his way inside and through the building, following the drops of blood to a door. He hesitated for a moment before grabbing the gun out of his pocket and turning the door knob. He eased the door open and looked into the room.
"Griffin!" Abby said in a hushed voice when she looked over at the door. I put the gun back in his pocket and rushed to her. Her hair had obviously been put up, but was now only held up in a few places. She didn't look hurt, but Griffin looked her over a few times just to make sure. She was tied to a handle that was attached to the wall. Griffin quickly cut the rope off of her wrists without a word and Abby flung her arms around him. "Where were you? Cillian said he hadn't seen you since the night I left." She said.
"Not now, we need to get out of here." Griffin said, gently pushing her off of him. "We need to get to the forest." He added. Abby nodded and followed him out of the building. It was starting to get dark. Griffin hadn't even realized that he had taken that long to follow the trail.
"Weiss is probably going to be coming back soon. We need to get out of here." She said.
"I know where we can go where no one will look for us." Griffin said. He took Abby's hand and rushed through the streets with her right behind him. Finally, he made his way up to a building and opened the door with ease. "Get inside, quickly." He said. Soon both of them were inside and Griffin had barricaded the door with some tables.
"Where are we?" Abby asked.
"Well, let's just say it used to be a tea shop." Griffin said. "Come on, I used to hide out here sometimes." He said, motioning for her to follow him.
"A tea shop? You mean the emotion tea that my father used to sell?" Abby asked.
"Yeah. This was his." He said as he made his way to what used to be Hatter's office. While the main room had been full of overturned tables and broken glass bottles, the office was in almost pristine condition. "Had to clean it up a bit, but it was worth it. No one comes here anymore." Griffin said. He then turned to Abby. "Where are you hurt?" he asked.
"What?" Abby asked.
"The blood. The trail of blood that led me the rest of the way to where you were. Where did it come from?" Griffin asked. Abby held up her hands slowly. Griffin grabbed them gently and examined them. He could see scabs in the palms of her hands. Abby had apparently clenched her fists so hard that she was able to cut them with her nails. He shook his head and then looked up into her eyes. "You shouldn't have hurt yourself." He said before looking back down at her hands.
"I didn't have much of an option." She replied. "I was hoping that the suits would realize what had happened and would follow the trail, but they didn't come." She said. "What happened to you?" she asked.
"Huh?" Griffin asked, looking back up into her eyes.
"You were missing for a month. That's what they said when I went to Heart Castle." She said. Griffin opened his mouth and then closed it again. "Cillian assumed that you'd gone through one of the rabbit holes before they destroyed them, but if you had then you couldn't be here now." Abby continued.
"I did go to your world, Abby." Griffin started slowly, looking away from her face. "I tried to find you." He added.
"How would you be here, then?" she asked. "They destroyed all ways in and out of Wonderland. Well, at least I thought they destroyed all of the ways." She said. Griffin shook his head. Without saying a word, he lifted the string from under his shirt which had the Stone of Wonderland hanging from it. "You…you stole the Stone of Wonderland?" she asked in amazement.
Griffin nodded. "Yeah. I…well, when Samantha decided to execute most of the prisoners that first night, I decided it would be best to get out of there. The only other place I wanted to be was with you, so that's where I went. I couldn't find you, though. I only just found where you lived after you'd already come back here." He said. "How did you come back here?" he asked.
"I still have no idea. At first I thought it was these shoes, but I can't seem to get them to work again." Abby said. Griffin thought for a moment.
"How would shoes have brought you here?" He asked.
"Well, in my world another popular story about a girl who goes to another world is called the Wizard of Oz. In it, the girl has these shoes which allow her to travel back to her home. I was standing in front of my mirror and tapped my heels together, wishing to be back in Wonderland. It got really windy and the room started spinning. Within moments, I was on the floor of the Looking Glass Hall." She said.
"Why would you want to come back to Wonderland?" Griffin asked, almost angry with her. "It's dangerous here!" he added before she had a chance to say anything.
"I missed being here…" Abby trailed off. She hadn't expected Griffin to be angry with her for coming back. When he noticed her expression, Griffin's face softened. He pulled Abby into a hug and she wrapped her arms around him. She closed her eyes never wanting to let him go.
"You have had me so worried." Griffin said, just holding her gently. Abby didn't know how to respond, so she just buried her face into the crook of his neck and tightened her arms around him. Griffin held her for another moment before reluctantly pushing her away slowly. "We need to find your father and get the two of you home." He said.
"My father?" she asked.
"He came with me when we realized you were here. He's out in the forest looking for you right now." Griffin said. "He's going to try to follow your trail from that boat you took." He said. "Where will it lead him?" he asked.
"The Kingdom of the Knights." Abby said. "After I got there, Charlie took me on horseback to the castle. There was this contraption attached to the back of the horses, though that took care of the trail for us." She said.
"Okay then, tomorrow morning we're going to make our way as quickly as we can to the Kingdom of the Knights and hope that we haven't missed him." Griffin said. Abby nodded slowly. "We'll sleep here for the night. You can have the couch. It's really quite comfy." Griffin said, gesturing to the piece of furniture. It had obviously been slashed with a knife at one point and some stuffing was poking out of it, but Abby nodded.
"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked.
"Don't worry about me. Just get some rest." Griffin responded. The truth was that he wasn't going to sleep. He was going to keep watch and make sure that Weiss wasn't able to follow them. He had a feeling that she was a much better tracker than he had originally thought and he wasn't going to risk Abby's safety by letting his guard down.
Hatter found the boat that Abby had taken around noon and tried to follow her trail. He was very successful in this task until he reached the Kingdom of the Knights.
"Charlie" he called out as he made his way into the old knight's home. The only thing he heard in return was a bird squawking in a cage. He put his hands around his mouth and shouted again with no answer. He then sat down next to the fire pit to think. That was when he realized that the horses were gone. "He took her to the castle." He said with a smile, knowing that the old man would have likely kept Abby away from danger on her journey. He immediately ran back into the forest and started on his way to the castle. Right then he wished he had a horse as it was going to take so much longer on foot to reach the castle than it would be on horseback even though he was rushing as quickly as he could.
The suits had found Cillian after retrieving Samuel from Dodo's hideout. In the scuffle that had occurred in the library, Dodo had been shot and wounded. After that, the suits found retrieving Samuel to be quite an easy task as Duck hadn't put up much of a fight and the refugees were in no shape to fight. They ended up taking Dodo back with them to be imprisoned. After getting Samuel, Cillian, and Dodo to the Scarab, a small group of suits was left to search for Abby, but they could not find her and left that evening when the Scarab came back for them.
Author's Note: Sorry for the choppiness. I just wanted to get this chapter out. Please leave a review to tell me what you like/don't like about the story so far.
Kelleyj: I sincerely hope that I didn't disappoint you with Abby and Griffin's reunion. I don't want their relationship to move too fast.