WonderLand

I was abruptly woken by the White Knight gently but insistently shaking me by my shoulders. I groaned and sat up groggily, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“Aaaurgh...” I mumbled unintelligibly. “What? What time is it? The sun isn't even up yet.”

“That's the point.” The Knight smiled apologetically at me. “We've already wasted too much time; who knows how close the Cat is now. Come on, get ready. We're leaving as soon as possible.”

I wriggled out of the cozy warmth of the sleeping bag, unhappily shivering in the bitingly cold pre-dawn air. Gryphon was already awake as well, and both he and the White Knight were bustling around our tiny make-shift encampment, packing things up and generally obliterating any signs that we had been there.

I tried to help by rolling up my sleeping bag and scuffing out our footprints in the dirt, but Gryphon snapped at me that I was only making it worse and the White Knight told me to go sit down out of the way while they finished up. I obeyed, but with an air that implied I was doing it because I wanted to, not because they said so.

It only took a few minutes for them to finish strapping the last bag to the nervously pawing horses. As the White Knight graciously helped me mount my steed, the Gryphon kicked a couple of tree trunks, causing a rain of pine needles to drop out of the air, adding a final layer of cover to the tiny clearing. It now looked as untouched as it had when we had stumbled across it.

“It's like we were never here,” I said cheerfully. Gryphon only shrugged as he hoisted his leg over his horse.

“It won't make much of a difference.” He said darkly, pulling up the reigns of his horse, “The Cat's too good. This is more for... completeness' sake, it won't fool him for a minute. We can't hope to loose him or to throw him off our tracks. The best we can can do is try to out run him. And even that wouldn't normally work, if he didn't have the Queen's Men slowing him down.”

“Hm. Good thing I came ahead by myself then, huh?”

I jerked my horse's reigns so hard as I whirled around it reared and nearly threw me off.

“Hey, careful there, princess. I mean, I'm happy you're so excited to see me, but don't hurt yourself now.”

It was the Cat, of course, leaning ever so casually against a tree and flashing us a lazy, crooked smile. Half a dozen conflicting emotions flooded me—anger, hurt, betrayal, a teensy bit of gratefulness, just to name a few—but before I could open my mouth to offer the Cat a scathing comment, both the Gryphon and the White Knight had drawn their swords.

“You,” Gryphon snarled, jumping off his horse and leveling the sword with the Cat's throat.

“Me!” The Cat agreed cheerfully.

“I assume you're here for Lady Alice.” The Knight said stiffly, dismounting from his steed as well and pointing the gleaming tip of his blade at the Cat.

“Well my goodness, aren't you just the clever one?” The Cat snorted, his smile slightly strained.

“I'm sorry, but we can't let you have her.” The Knight frowned, holding his ground.

“Well, good thing I wasn't planning on asking then, hm?” The Cat replied wryly. Then his gaze slid past the Knight and Gryphon, and landed, almost guiltily, on me. “Unless, of course, Alice has changed her mind about my earlier offer and is going to come willingly?”

I refused to meet his green-eyed gaze. “Traitor.” I spat, icily. His expression darkened.

“Fine then. Make me do it the hard way. Make me do something I'll regret.”

“Cat, you don't have to do this,” the Knight quickly cut in, taking a step forwards, in front of Gryphon. “What good will giving her to the Queen do? Don't you want the Queen stopped? Don't you want her to pay for her countless crimes? We've all lost friends at her bloody hands. You can help us put and end to her reign.”

“Don't you talk to me about what I've lost,” The Cat snapped coldly, his eyes flashing. Then, calmer, but still in tones of ice, “Just hand over the girl, and I won't have to make a mess here.”

The White Knight sighed. “I don't want to have to do this. We were friends once, Cat.”

The Cat took a step forwards, cracking his knuckles, his face stony. “I'm just playing the game, old buddy,” he intoned flatly.

I don't know what happened next. The Knight flashed Gryphon a quick signal, and Gryphon was suddenly leaping back on his horse, giving mine a sharp slap on the backside as he galloped past. My horse took off in a flash, racing after Gryphon's as he galloped into the forest, weaving expertly through the dense network of tightly packed trees. I was nowhere near a good enough rider to keep up with him myself, but it didn't matter; my horse trailed Gryphons without my aid, while I simply clung on as tightly as I could.

We rode hard and fast for a few second, and for a few seconds I thought the Cat had been left far behind. But I had barely begun to worry about the White Knight's fate when Gryphon suddenly jerked on his reigns and came to a skidding halt, his horse rearing up and tossing him bodily from its back. I pulled up short, just barely avoiding trampling the sprawled Gryphon, and slid clumsily off the back of my skittering horse. I crouched down beside the Gryphon and helped haul him up to his feet.

“What happened? Why did you fall?”

“Get behind me!” He snarled, pushing me away and trying to grab for his sword. I looked up, past the Gryphon, and past his pawing horse, and saw the Cat standing there, directly blocking the path before us we had been so furiously riding.

“How did you-” I gasped, but the Gryphon interrupted me.

“Alice, run. Just pick a direction and go, you'll hit the Chess Board eventually. You'll find friends there, tell them the Hatter and Hare sent you. I'll hold off the Cat. Go!”

The Cat snorted. “Hold me off? Don't be stupid.” He frowned, and brushed his windblown hair back out of his eyes. “Look, must we do this again? I really don't like having to be the bad guy here. It doesn't have to be this way.”

“Alice, go!”

I wavered. I didn't know what to do; I didn't want to leave Gryphon, and I hated the idea of running from the Cat. Besides, I didn't much relish the idea of running blindly through the Forest alone, hoping I'd be lucky enough to stumble my way into safety.

The Cat took another step forwards, closing the distance between himself and the Gryphon.

“I don't want to hurt you, Gryph.” The Cat said, his usually grinning mouth a thin, hard line. The Gryphon snorted. “Well, okay, I do, but not in front of the Lady, and not when I don't have to. Can't we talk this out?” He spread his arms wide, in a gesture of peace.

Gryphon hefted his blade into the air, gave a snarl, and charged at the Cat.

It was over so quickly I didn't have time to run. In a single fluid motion the Cat dipped and ducked beneath the tight swing of Gryphon's sword, before popping back up and unleashing a right hook that sent Gryphon careening to the forest floor like a bag of bricks. He didn't get back up.

I couldn't help the strangled scream that escaped my lips, and I half ran, half stumbled over to Gyphon's motionless body.

“What did you do to him?” I gasped, dropping to the ground beside him and trying to hoist him up by his shoulders. His head lolled encouragingly.

“Don't worry, he's not dead.” The Cat said, bitterly.

“And what did you do to the Knight?” I shrieked, while I frantically shook the Gryphon, trying to force him back to consciousness by sheer force of will.

“Honestly. I simply tied him up is all. Don't worry, he's quite safe, and fit as a fiddle. What type of person do you think I am?”

“The type of person who betrays his friends and wants me dead!”

The Cat seemed honestly shocked by my words. “What? I don't want you dead! Where did you get a crazy idea like that?”

“You're trying to take me to the Queen. I'm not stupid, Cat, I know what she wants with me, I know what will happen if you take me there. You practically said it yourself back at the Hatter's.” I spat.

The Cat grimaced, and ran his hand through his hair again in agitation. “It's not... you just... you don't understand, Alex. It's complicated.”

“No, I understand completely.” I stood up, my hands clenched into fists at my side. “I'm just the stupid girl, who was too naive to listen to what everyone said about you.”

The Cat winced, hearing his own words echoed back at him. “I'm—I'm sorry I said that. I didn't mean it. Look Alice, please, I'm sure I could get the Queen to allow you to go back to your world. She doesn't want you here, and I have huge sway in court back at her Castle.” He was speaking quickly now, as if he knew he was running out of time to say everything he wanted to. “Alex, there is a lot going on here that you don't understand. I don't... I'm not explaining myself well! Everything is going wrong, it wasn't supposed to turn out like this!” He glanced over his shoulder, suddenly looking very anxious. He kept running his hand through his hair. The once cool, composed Cat from mere minutes before had completely dissolved. “Just trust me, Alice. Can you do that?”

I looked up at him, my gaze hard as flint. But within, I weakened. Trust the Cat again? That was stupid. He had already sold me out once. But what if he was right? What if there was something more that what I saw, what if there was something going on I didn't understand at all?
At my scuffed, dirty feet, the Gryphon groaned. I was running out of time to decide.

But then, suddenly, the choice was taken out of my hands. There was a rustle, the snap of a twig from behind the Cat. He whirled around in a flash, searching blindly for the invisible culprit of the noise.

“Well. It looks like that matter is being taken out of my hands.” He said in a clipped tone. He half turned back to me, his green eyes questing. “Be careful, Alice. There's a lot worse than me out there.”

“So you've told me.” I intoned coldly. The Cat turned away, started to disappear into the forest again.

“Wait!” I called out after him. “Where are you going? After all that and you're just ditching me here?”

“Someone else has been sent to collect you.” The Cat said without turning to face me. “Apparently the Queen didn't trust me to do the job.”

I was suddenly, inexplicably very anxious to keep him from leaving, from deserting me in the forest with only the unconscious Gryphon for company and whoever was slowly approaching through the thicket out of sight. “Don't... you can't leave! I... I still have your hat...”

“Didn't I tell you to keep it? Besides. It's a promise. A promise that I'll be back later. Watch your back.”

And he was gone, yet again.