Alice's pulse pounded in her ears as the faceless held the knife against her throat. She knew she had to break away, had to fight back somehow, but her whole body was frozen.
"P-please let me go," she stammered. The words sounded so pathetic coming from her mouth, but they were all she could manage.
"I don't think so," muttered the woman. She almost sounded apologetic. "Now, we're going to walk back slowly, one step at a time. Any funny business and I'll decorate this lovely carpet with your blood. Understand?"
"Yes," Alice whispered. Her mind ran through all the self-defence moves Boris had taught her until she remembered with a sinking feeling that every one of those relied on fighting off the attacker before they captured you.
She thought of Boris, how her last words with him had been shouted in anger. Blood was waiting for her in his room, probably wondering why she was taking so long. She couldn't die with things as they were between them, but most of all, she couldn't die for herself. She wanted to live. And as the woman started dragging her backwards, she realised she was going to do everything she could to survive this.
They'd almost reached the stairwell when Alice brought her hand up and grabbed at the knife. Taken aback by the sudden movement, the faceless tried to slash her neck, but Alice managed to slip her fingers beneath the blade and push it away. She groaned as the razor-sharp edge dug into her fingers.
"Help!" she managed to scream before the woman wrapped her arm around her throat and forced her into the nearest wall.
Still gripping the blade, Alice struggled against her attacker. She twisted and thrust an elbow into her ribs, eliciting a grunt of pain. The woman still held her firmly by the hair. Again, she tried to drive the knife into her neck, but Alice held it back, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out.
Footsteps pounded behind them. Then someone's hand grabbed the faceless by the wrist and wrenched her back. Alice turned to see Blood with one around the woman's waist, the other gripping her knife hand, which she was waving dangerously close to his face.
"Get Elliot!" he shouted at her over the woman's enraged screams.
Alice didn't have to be asked twice. She ran to the stairwell and called the hare's name. Within half a minute, Elliot had appeared on the floor below in his nightclothes.
He didn't even have to ask whether something was wrong. One look at Alice's panicked face sent him bounding up the stairs.
By the time he reached the floor, Blood had managed to wrestle the faceless to the ground. He'd pushed her hands up behind her back and was using a knee to pin her shoulders down. Elliot ran straight over and helped to restrain her legs.
"Alice, go and get something to tie her with," Blood barked.
Returning to the bedroom, Alice scoured the area until she saw a scarf hanging up on the coat rack in the corner. She grabbed it, raced back into the corridor and handed it to Blood, who wrapped it tightly around the woman's wrists and knotted it.
"Can you take her on your own?" he asked Elliot.
"I'll be fine."
The faceless was still writhing, though her screams had quieted down. At her side lay the knife. It almost seemed like overkill to watch two grown men hold down a woman barely bigger than Alice, until she remembered how she'd almost overpowered Blood on her own just a few moments ago.
After making sure that Elliot had a firm handle on the woman, Blood stood and rushed over to Alice. He took her hand in his and turned it over. "You're bleeding."
It was probably a side-effect of the adrenaline, but Alice had almost forgotten about her hand. The base of her fingers and palm had been sliced in several areas, and though the cuts didn't seem that deep, her whole had was stained red.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Blood ran his hands frantically over her.
Alice shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Okay. Good." Visibly relieved, Blood hugged her to his bare chest. He was dressed in just the black trousers he'd been sleeping in, having obviously run straight to her from the bed when she'd screamed. She rested her head against his collar, allowing herself to relax against his warmth and the safety of his arms.
The sound of Elliot grunting made her look around. He'd managed to sling the woman over his shoulder. Since her arms were tied, her only defence was kicking him, though she seemed to have already accepted what little effect that would have on the hare and resolved to lay limp instead.
"Should I take her downstairs?" he asked.
Blood nodded before taking Alice's wounded hand in his again. "Come on. Let's get you bandaged up."
"She's not moving."
Blood peered over her shoulder into the little stone cell where the woman sat in the corner, arms wrapped around her legs, dark brown hair draped over her face. "No, I don't suppose she is."
Alice had never been in the mansion basement before. It reminded her of the area below Heart Castle where Blood had once been imprisoned, but with just two cells side by side. The single lamp on the wall was the only source of light, casting a dim glow across the space they were standing in and each of the cells.
"Has anything like this ever happened to one of the faceless before?" Alice asked.
"You mean, 'have they ever gone feral and tried to kill one of us'?" said Elliot. "Never."
"I've heard stories."
Alice and Elliot looked at Blood at the same time.
"Stories?" she asked.
"Mm. It's rare, but some faceless have turned on role-holders before. Usually, it's due to a personal grudge." Blood rubbed his chin. "It's never happened to my own staff, though."
Alice frowned. The way he said 'happened to' made it seem like some kind of disease that made you crazy when you caught it, though she doubted that very much. And yet the alternate explanation made no sense at all.
"I haven't done anything to spite the faceless here," she said. "At least, I don't think so."
"You haven't been here long enough to do so," Blood answered with a humourless chuckle.
Alice turned her eyes back to the cell and let them linger on the faceless for a few seconds. Even now, she sat eerily still, like some kind of ghost suspended in time. Hadn't Blood been attacked by a group of faceless, too? She'd assumed when he'd told her that it had been an attack sent by another of the role-holders, as often happened in this world, but now she suspected that it was something more. She made a note to ask him about it the moment they were out of this room.
"Shall I escort Alice back upstairs?" asked Elliot.
Why would I need to be escorted... A chill trickled down her spine as she realised what he meant.
"Blood, you can't." She placed her hands on his shoulders in an attempt to get him to look at her, but he was avoiding her eyes.
"I have to," he mumbled. "You know that."
Alice had walked in on Blood interrogating a faceless before, just before they'd started seeing each other seriously. The image was still burned in her mind. She'd always known the hands that touched her so gently were capable of utter violence, but the thought of him torturing this woman, despite what she'd done to her, made her sick to her stomach.
Elliot sighed. "Alice, if she won't talk—"
"Give it a day. Please." Alice moved her bandaged hand to Blood's neck, finally forcing him to face her. "If she doesn't give anything up in the next few time periods, then you can do what you want to her. But give her a chance."
Blood pulled his lips into a hard line. Then he closed his eyes and exhaled loudly through his nose. "Fine."
Two sharp knocks punctured the air as Elliot rapped on the cell bars. "You hear that? You've got three time periods to decide whether or not you want to come clean or not."
The woman remained absolutely still, leading Alice to wonder whether or not she'd even heard their words.
Three time periods. It seemed like such a short time. She could only pray the woman gathered her senses by then, for her sake as much as Alice's.