A/N Beta'd by the wonderful StoryWriter831. Everything belongs to JK Rowling.
...
I lay on my bed, staring numbly up at the dappled tapestry of light and shadow cast across the ceiling by a wan moon.
I was shaking and chilled, but unable to bring myself to get under the covers. My fingertips were starting to pulse and twitch: the pain-killer Lucius had administered was wearing off. I held them slightly splayed, my arms crossed at the wrists, as if I were a shadow-puppeteer producing the silhouette of a ragged-winged bird.
My head felt hot and heavy, the rest of me damp and cold. I curled to one side with a quiet groan. At some point in the evening my reality had veered off its already-twisted, shadowy path and plummeted straight down into a terrain of surreal, frightening nightmare. Now, only my battered fingers, my bruised face, and the foreign heaviness of my new robe, persuaded me that everything really had taken place—that it wasn't all just an invention of my own disturbed imagination.
Images flashed through my mind, colourlessly bright, like over-exposed photos.
—The onyx-black stare of a beautiful woman—a pale-haired man, princely-clad and handsome, smiling at his companion—an elegant dance in flickering candlelight—
Bringing my knees up to my chest, I compressed myself into a tight ball. My head was beginning to ache, and despite the chill, I could feel my body perspiring. I wondered how long I had before the pain returned—really returned. The mere thought of it made me almost retch.
More star-bursting images.
—A grotesque parody of a waltz—scorning eyes and twisted smiles—a spectrum of purified pain—a hard floor to receive me—
Despite my recent traumas, I had not come close to forgetting the horrific agony I had experienced down there in the dining room, at the hands of the Woman. Worse, far worse, than my present injuries inflicted by Lucius. At the time, such pain had seemed...incomprehensible. Almost an alien thing, something not meant for human endurance, too colossal to fit inside a mortal frame. Something unsurvivable.
But survive I had, only to be left there on the ground, discarded like a piece of rubbish. Their indifference to my distress had been almost as monstrous as the pain itself.
My teeth started chattering noisily. I wondered if my body was going into some kind of shock. ...How long before I went crawling to him, begging for relief? I clenched my teeth. No. Never.
The flashes continued to strobe in my head, faster and brighter.
—A door opening—a sumptuous bedroom—clothes scattered everywhere—a heavy cluster of emeralds—a moving photo—
A moving photo. Photos didn't move. Yet another impossibility. I felt jaded, resigned to the usual wearying doubts: was it real? Was it hallucination? I looked down at my hands. Even in the gloom I could see their crookedness, the mottled discolouration of blood and bruising—and for a moment I was actually thankful. Thankful for the evidence of reality...
Huh. So, now I was thankful for Lucius's violence against me, was I? How did he manage to do that? What kind of existence was this, with me grateful, not for small mercies, but for deliberately inflicted cruelties?
—Him, vicious and snarling like a white wolf—silver eyes, glittering with fury—gleaming with cold contempt—blazing with sudden desire—
I could feel him, still. His crushing weight, his hands in my hair, on my skin, his bruising mouth. So much of me he had bruised tonight. My lips felt chafed and swollen, and it seemed incredible that earlier in the evening I had seen him kiss that woman's hand and experienced a pang of envy: had coveted that mark of distinction and courtesy for myself... And it hadn't been the first time I'd imagined being kissed by the man, either—in my endless hours of solitude, there was very little I hadn't imagined. But imagined on my terms. In my mind, it had always been a—a reward, not a punishment; something offered, not forced in that crushing, conquering way. Not as the clincher to a violent argument, an argument he had already won with physical brutality.
He hadn't needed to frighten me like that. He hadn't needed to debase me further.
Well, at least that's out of your system now, Alice, I thought bitterly. You know what it feels like to be kissed by him...it feels like yet another insult.
I scrunched my eyes tightly, forcing away the flashing images from my mind. I could feel myself teetering at the edge of exhaustion, and all I could do was hope to fall into darkness, before impending fever and pain found me first. "Please," I whispered, "let me sleep..."
And for a while I did slip into a kind of blank doze...but at some point a fray-edged awareness infiltrated my slumber...my throat was too dry, my head too hot...my hands stippled with delicate needle-points of pain. I tried to ignore it, the pain, hoping that if I stayed still and breathed normally I might simply refute it, deny its existence altogether...
...But then the delicate points magnified and intensified, becoming deep, throbbing stabs, and I realized I was no longer breathing normally but with shallow, thirsty gasps, and that I wasn't lying still, but twisting and writhing, drenched in sweat.
Water. I needed to drink something, anything, I needed to immerse my hands, my head, my whole body...
I tried to sit up, but it seemed as if my body was weighed down by an invisible concrete slab. Somehow I managed to roll onto my front, and made a feeble attempt to push myself up with my hands—No, don't use your hands!—The thought came too late, and I choked out what should have been a shriek of agony, but which sounded like the whimper of some small injured animal.
The flashes were returning, but now without images: just blinding white knife-strokes carving up the soft matter of my brain. "Make it stop!" I begged no-one, for there no-one to hear me, there was no-one to help—only one person—he hates you, remember?—and I would not go back to him—I would not beg—never—
My whole body was burning up, I was on fire, what do you do if you're on fire? You roll over and over and over and over—I hit the floor with an audible thud, but I didn't feel it, I was burning, burning up, and I needed—I needed help—only one person could hear me—only one—
For the second time that evening, I felt myself losing consciousness to pain...but this time I wasn't relieved by the consuming darkness. I was afraid of it. I drew in a rasping lungful of breath and screamed out with all my strength. "HELP ME, LUCIUS!" ...But it was only a whisper, he couldn't hear me, and he was the only one who could help...
...no, not the only one...there was one other...someone who had reached for me through that array of earlier agony...but I couldn't see his face...and I couldn't remember...his name...
...
I awoke with the first light of morning, inside my bed, though I didn't remember getting under the covers. I remembered nothing after tumbling off the bed and blacking out.
Not for the first time, I felt mildly surprised at still being alive.
The sheets were pulled tightly and tucked firmly, almost restrainingly, around me. I felt head-achy and weak—but no longer burning or feverish. Miraculously my hands were pain-free, but heavy and immobile. Slowly I dragged them from under the coverlets and lifted them in front of my eyes, rather afraid of what I would behold—and I gasped in genuine astonishment. Sometime during the night they had been bandaged: the broken fingers splinted and tightly bound together with medical gauze.
Startled tears prickled my eyes.
So, the man did have a shred of decency in him, after all. Typical that he bestowed it on me only while I was insensible to it... I gulped away a swelling feeling of gratitude to him. Why should I be thankful? He broke my fingers in the first place, deliberately and brutally.
I tried pressing them cautiously, experimentally, against each other. There was no pain at all—in fact, it felt a little like having blocks of wood for hands. I sat up, using an arm for leverage. Despite my scathing internal monologue, I couldn't quite prevent a rogue thought from surfacing: he came for me. He helped me. Then an altogether more dangerous one: maybe he doesn't really hate me after all.
But I pushed both thoughts firmly away. Of course he helped you, Alice, I told myself. He doesn't want to be responsible for your death. Or maybe he simply needs you alive as a bargaining tool.
Nevertheless, I experienced a surge of unbidden elation, and with it, an injection of energy.
I pushed back the covers, and as I did I realised I was naked. I gritted my teeth. After everything I'd gone through last night to avoid being unclothed by the man... But of course it had been different, there, in his bedroom. I was still unsure what might have happened if he had succeeded in stripping me bare while he had me trapped helplessly beneath him on his enormous bed. At the time, I had been pretty much convinced that he intended to rape me—and I was far from certain that he hadn't been convinced of exactly the same thing...
Well, the crux of the matter was he hadn't raped me, and he had helped me. And right now that was good enough for me, naked or otherwise.
I hauled myself out of bed and headed for the bathroom. As I had hoped, but not quite dared to expect, there were now two garments hanging from the towel stand—the usual filmy silk bathrobe, and the new thick, brown robe. I was relieved. At least he hadn't decided to withdraw that concession.
Bathing and dressing was no straight-forward process, but I managed it with some difficulty. The new robe, which seemed to be made from merino or some other soft, dense wool, was heavy and awkward to don. Most frustratingly, I couldn't fasten the row of buttons down the length of the front. The best I could do was cross the panels and hold them in place with my arms.
I deliberately avoided the mirror, remembering the horrible sight that had met me there the last time I had visited it. I didn't want to know what it had to show me now. My face would certainly bear the marks of Lucius's fury...but it was the expression in my eyes that I really feared to encounter. My tenuous sense of self-recognition seemed to be dissolving little by little, each time I met those haunted eyes within the glass. Alice's eyes. Not my eyes, I thought. I'm turning into her, whoever she is. I'm turning into Alice.
I remembered Lucius commenting on the name, that very first night, which now seemed so long ago. "Alice Carroll...that rather rings of a little girl who once fell down a rabbit hole...is that what happened to you?"
...Yes, I supposed it was, in a way. I had fallen down into a bewildering, ever-distorting world, trapped by a past I couldn't remember, a present I couldn't understand, and a future I couldn't control. And he...he was the author. My fate was being written by his hand, and I didn't know how to stop him. I didn't know how to take my story back.
I squared my shoulders.
Well, there was no point wallowing in fear and self-pity. It was no good, cowering alone in this room, accepting the role of bullied victim. I was going to have to face him again sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner. As far as I could see it, my priorities were clear: Survive. Heal. Escape.
As for today, now...I decided that I was going to go down to breakfast, as if this was simply another ordinary morning.
I grimaced grimly at that, as I worked the handle of my bedroom door with my benumbed, bandaged hands. Just another "ordinary" morning in the life of the helpless, lost, crippled, amnesiac prisoner.
Good luck with that, Alice.
...
He was there, waiting for me at the table, as if he too had decided to play the "just an ordinary morning" card.
I had made my way down the long stone corridors imagining all kinds of reproving things I could say to him: ("How's your morning going, Lucius? Beaten up any more helpless females?"—"Sleep well, Lucius? Or did you accidentally grow a conscience?") —but they all disappeared as soon as our eyes met. There was a warning glint in the silver of his irises, and I thought I saw a flicker of self-consciousness—inflexibly unapologetic though it was—as he took in my bruised and battered appearance.
He stood up as I approached, advancing towards me with his usual languid, lynx-like grace, his expression both watchful and inscrutable.
I stopped in my tracks, glaring at him as he neared. I was determined to stand my ground, but none-the-less I braced myself for an onslaught of insults or mocking jibes. Lucius halted within touching distance, and I forced myself not to shrink back from him, although my body was shaking in reflexive response to his violence last night.
His gaze swept over me again, and I drew in a small fearful breath as he brought up both hands—those damaging hands—to the neckline of my robe. For one agonising moment I thought he was intending to pick up from where he had left off, on his bed...but then wordlessly, purposefully, he began to fasten up the buttons which I had not been able to manage with my broken fingers.
The gesture was so diametrically opposed to what I expected, to what he had taught me to expect, that I felt my eyes prickling with grateful relief.
When he had secured all of the buttons, Lucius took up both of my bundled hands in his and turned them over, inspecting them. "Is there any pain?" The softness of his tone spun me even further off-kilter.
"No," I replied in a faltering voice. "I can't feel anything."
"Good." The word was brief, almost inaudible. Taking my chin in his hand, he tilted my face towards the light, lightly tracing the bruises on my cheek and lips with his fingers. "I will give you a salve for these," he murmured.
I nodded, though I couldn't help frowning with sudden doubt and suspicion. What was his game? Could he be simply...sorry? He didn't look sorry. I detected nothing remotely related to regret in his face—in fact, it was severe in its blankness: as angular and expressionless as a porcelain mask. And although I was not about to reject something so rare as consideration from him, I simply couldn't reconcile it to what I knew of his hatred and contempt of me, to what I had so recently tasted of his brutality and malice. It made me jittery, alarmed. I might be relieved by his altered manner, but I certainly wasn't relaxed by it.
I gave an involuntary shiver, which Lucius evidently perceived. He half-turned, gesturing to the spread of food. "You should eat something, Alice," he said. "You are weak."
Yes, and who's fault is that? I didn't give voice to the thought, but I was certain he could read the accusation in my eyes, for I saw a muscle tighten in his jaw. However, he merely led me over to my usual place at the table, and helped me to be seated. The formal courteousness of him holding my chair for me was so foreign, so astounding, that I felt even more disoriented.
That woman sat here yesterday, I thought. My stomach lurched at the memory of her glittering black eyes. I wondered how regular a guest she was to be here. Was this, perhaps, just an intermission to the second act in some dreadful, twisted game of theirs? Was Lucius deliberately toying with me, putting me at ease, in order to intensify some future misery or suffering?
I would simply have to wait and see. And not let my guard down for one second.
As I surveyed the food before me, a sudden tide of mortified anger surged within me. "How exactly am I supposed to do this?" I demanded, my voice quivering with fury. Did he expect me to eat directly from the plate like a dog? Or to use my bandaged hands like shovels?
But then I realised that Lucius was drawing his chair around the table and stationing it next to mine.
I stared, utterly shocked, as he deftly selected and proceeded to dice my usual choice of breakfast foods. Then, without the slightest crack of composure in his mask of sharp features, he brought up a laden forkful to hover near my mouth.
I froze, transfixed by panic and confusion. I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to—to actually open my mouth and receive food from his hand. The absolute capitulation of power, the admission of helplessness, the acceptance of aid—the very intimacy it entailed—it was all too much for me—all too—
...and yet, what choice did I have?
Flushing deeply, I leaned forward and quickly snapped the proffered food off its silver utensil. I kept my eyes firmly cast downwards, avoiding his gaze at all costs, although at this proximity I couldn't help but notice how close his long leg was to mine, and how large the jeweled hand which rested upon it.
I swallowed the morsel with difficulty, acutely self-conscious, but even more conscious of him. I had no way of knowing if his actions were an indication of tacit respect, or a declaration of supreme dominance. Or were they meant to lull and deceive? I almost didn't want to know.
Why, oh why did everything have to revolve so completely around him? Just when I had been on the brink of asserting my independence from him, of rejecting his control over me, I was suddenly thrown into an even more dependent, subordinate position.
The man had me literally spoon-feeding from his hand.
It won't be forever, Alice, I told myself. Remember your priorities. Survive. Heal. Escape.