Winter Rabbit in Wonderland

Chapter 87

“We just need her alive.”

After ending his call with the kidnapper, Heart tried to locate the two men, Jeremy and David, whom he had kept next to Alice at all times. He pulled out a black disk from inside the cabinet.

Mad Hatter had added a GPS locator to Alice’s smartphone when he made it for her. He had given Heart one of the devices that would help locate her. When Heart activated it, a large map opened up over the disk, and a red dot indicated her location.

He moved the map with his fingers and expanded the area in Wonderland it indicated. The red dot seemed to be moving toward the slums.

“We cannot get into contact with either Jeremy or David.”

“Find them. They will be near here...What about Peter?”

Heart pointed to the map as he brought up the name of the escaped prisoner. Instead of an answer, all he heard were apologies.

Surprisingly, however, Peter’s whereabouts were easily revealed. Not far from the house, they found his corpse, along with two other men. After determining their cause of death, his men directly reported it to Heart.

“We think that Peter killed Jeremy, then another person killed David and Peter. This person was probably lying in wait for them and first killed David, then approached Alice and Peter and killed Peter...But there is one strange thing. There is no evidence that Peter fought at all with the assailant.”

“There is a high chance that it was someone he knew, then. And that must be the kidnapper.”

They wondered if there was anyone in Wonderland brave enough to threaten Heart in this way. Most wouldn’t dare because of the obvious repercussions. Because of this, Heart didn’t believe everything the kidnapper said. If the kidnapper intended to come to the promised location at the specified time, then he would have to start moving soon.

“Divide up the men and send ten to the entrance and send ten here.”

When they arrived at the place they had assumed Alice to be, however, the only thing they found was a sky blue smartphone. Heart immediately called Baby and asked to find information about where Alice was currently.

***

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Alice looked in the mirror. She saw the reflection of a girl in an old grey dress and a brown wig. She angrily pushed back the strands of stiff hair that were falling past her shoulders.

“Do I have to go on like this?”

“If you don’t want to be noticed, then you have no other choice. Just wait an hour. Oh, and give me your cellphone.”

“This, this...”

“Didn’t I tell you? You have to leave all your belongings in this place. Even if it was me, I would have put a tracking device on that phone of yours.”

Cheshire snatched the smartphone away from Alice’s hesitating hands and placed it on top of the chair. The phone contained little data and there weren’t a lot of apps on it, so it was nothing like the smartphones that she was used to. The only thing that she was attached to about it was the fact that it was one-of-a-kind.

She looked at the smartphone with a tinge of regret. She had to abandon her greed.

The two people finally went to the streets. Cheshire lead Alice to an unknown place. Other than the handful of people they passed, the back alley he took her down was very quiet. The spasms of fear that often reared up were quelled by her rising anger at the people who had betrayed her.

Heart and White Rabbit. She ground her teeth more toward the thought of the latter. She was determined to pull out all the white hairs from his head. If Cheshire’s scheme went as planned, she would have such a chance.

Finally, the two of them arrived in front of an old building. After checking his surroundings and finding no one there, Cheshire spoke to her.

“Don’t forget, you are pivotal to this plan succeeding.”

As Cheshire moved far away from the place, Alice took a deep breath and stepped inside the building. There was nobody inside. She called someone on the flip phone that Cheshire had given her.

A few hours later, a group of people arrived. A few people within the group looked at the dirty building with disapproval and complained about their surroundings. They shut their mouths once they found Alice. Alice read the contempt in their eyes and was taken aback.

A few moments later, a younger man within the group approached her.

“Are you the person who called us?”

“Oh, yes. I’m Chester’s assistant, Sarah.”

When Alice gave him her alias, the man looked her up and down.

“You can call that person for us?”

His gaze was extremely rude. Irritated, she didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled out her cellphone and made a call.

White Rabbit didn’t know that Alice knew about her. The only thing White Rabbit knew was that Alice had been kidnapped. If that was the case, SoYoon would most likely come in an attempt to hide her knowledge.

Alice opened up her cellphone and typed in SoYoon’s number.

***

After finding out what Alice was up to, SoYoon came out of Baby’s house. Just as she was about to pass through the front door, her smartphone rang. It was Heart.

“Alice got kidnapped?”

“Something doesn’t seem right about it, but as of now, yes.”

SoYoon hung up the phone and stood there for a while. Mad Hatter, who was standing next to her, asked, “What are you planning to do?”

“I’m going to find her.”

“That doesn’t seem efficient.”

SoYoon felt the same way, but she just couldn’t bring herself to stay still. Mad Hatter let out a sigh. “I’ll also try to figure out what to do.”

“...Thank you.”

After parting ways with Mad Hatter, SoYoon started to search every corner of Wonderland. A little while later, her smartphone rang with an unknown number.

This wasn’t something particularly unusual, but not wanting to get distracted by a client request, she decided to ignore the call. But the unknown caller was very persistent. The phone rang, again and again, every few seconds. Eventually, SoYoon picked up the phone after the third time it rang through.

“Hello?”

“White, White Rabbit? It’s me...”

A girlish and lovely voice rang through the receiver. It was Alice. SoYoon resisted the urge to hang up on her. Alice was not aware of who she was or how she felt about her at the moment. SoYoon wanted to make sure that she didn’t do anything that would cause Alice to run away.

“Where are you? I heard you got kidnapped.”

“Yes. I hit the kidnapper over the head and was able to run away. I’m calling you from that person’s cellphone, but I have no idea where I am. Please come get me.”

“Do you see anything noteworthy in your vicinity? Can you describe the building at all?”

“I don’t know...Oh! The building’s walls are green! And while we were coming here, I saw a yellow pole. It’s a fairly old building and the first floor is very large.”

There were not many places that fit the characteristics that Alice had just described in Wonderland. SoYoon moved towards the place that fit the description.

Meanwhile, Alice hung up the phone and observed the group of people standing in front of her. “She’ll be here soon.”

Gripping hard onto the cellphone, she kept her distance from them. Their gazes felt like they were looking at an object, not at a person, and it gave her the chills.

While Alice stayed crouched in the corner out of the way, one of the people broke away from the group and started to move around unnaturally. He started placing objects around the room here and there and drawing things on the floor with colored liquid. They moved so quickly that they were done with their tasks within 10 minutes.

And then, when another 15 minutes had passed, SoYoon stepped into the building. As arranged by Cheshire, Alice was hiding on the 1st floor, crouched in the corner of the building. Sensing her familiar presence, SoYoon moved towards her without hesitation.

“Alice, stay there...!”

The unexpected happened when SoYoon stepped foot into the center of the 1st floor. A blinding light shot up from the floor and started to curve into beautiful shapes. At the same time, SoYoon felt a wave of dizziness overcome her and she hurriedly stepped back. It was already too late.

“Ack...!”

The brand on her shoulder gravitated toward the magic insignia drawn on the ground. Trapped inside the dust-filled room, she gasped for breath as she placed her hand securely on the floor to leverage her body from colliding with it.

As if being pulled in by a strong magnet, her body and mind were being dragged down, and it took all her strength to lift her upper body back up. Suddenly, SoYoon was able to sense the presence of many more people. Someone had prepared the trap and had used stealth-magic to hide their presence.

Their only motive was to capture her. There was only one group that would pull a stunt like this.

“It’s incredible how much she can resist the power of the spell,” a young researcher said as he glanced over at SoYoon’s arm. Her arms and legs were shaking from the immense strength she was using to resist the spell. Worse, the powerful sleeping spell was causing her consciousness to become hazy.

“I can’t fall asleep.”

She scratched at the floor. As the tips of her fingers slid across the rough surface, long trails of blood followed out. Using that pain, SoYoon was able to come back to her senses and see from a distance that a doll was looking down at her. The tousled wig and old dress couldn’t hide the beauty of the girl. Alice was there.

“Idiot,” SoYoon muttered. Alice’s eyes burned in anger.

“How dare you talk to me like that...!”

“All of you, aren’t you looking for another girl other than me?” SoYoon said in a loud voice, ignoring Alice. Alice knew that this magic spell did not affect normal people, so she stepped inside.

Alice had stretched out her leg to step on SoYoon’s head when she saw the brown eyes underneath the tousled bangs. When their eyes met, she felt a sense of deja vu.

“She’s trying to stall for time. Ignore her and increase the power of the spell...”

“Alice Liddell.”