赤裸裸的滑稽故事

Alice turned back to the computer. She pulled open a black screen and began typing things that made no sense to Ashleigh. But shortly after, there were sounds from the monitors attached to the children. She didn’t understand what was happening, but understood that Alice was the cause.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m waking them up,” Alice said.

“What? But you said….” Ashleigh hesitated. “If they are like you, won’t it be too dangerous to wake them all at once?”

“Do you plan on carrying fifty children out and up all those stairs? Even the elevator would still be difficult to get them all out safely.” Alice sighed.

Ashleigh sighed but didn’t respond.

“They are not monsters,” she said softly. “They are victims.”

“You’re the one that described yourself as a weapon,” Ashleigh sighed as she looked back at the children.

“None of them have been programmed. They’re in the early stages,” Alice said. “Their bodies are being trained to accept the Bitter Night without their brains getting fried immediately.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Ashleigh asked gently.

Alice paused her actions.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked.

Ashleigh turned back and considered it.

Her mother, Caleb, Galen, Bell, Axel, and even her father. All these people she trusted had already found a way to accept and trust Alice.

“Will you tell me the truth?” Ashleigh asked.

Alice chuckled.

“Anything I say, you won’t believe,” she said.

Alice finished her last command, opened the [Alice] folder back up, and stood from the desk.

“Here,” she said, motioning to the chair.

Ashleigh furrowed her brows.

“You won’t believe what I tell you, Ashleigh,” Alice said. “But you can look through these files with your own eyes. It’s going to take at least an hour for the drugs to wear off enough for the kids to wake up.”

“What if someone else comes down before then?”

“They won’t,” Alice said. Then a little quieter and to herself, “Not before then.”

Ashleigh hesitated but found herself sitting down at the computer.

She opened reports that chronicled Alice’s reactions throughout the years. The Bitter Night had made her violently ill in the first few months, and she had almost died multiple times. But eventually, with repeated exposure, her body adapted to it.

They discovered she could take it in smaller doses as frequently as once a month. This would not reset her entirely, just bring her back to a predetermined mental state. The Doll, they called it.

But when things got complicated, or memories began to leak through, she would need a complete memory wipe, a reset. This was something they could only safely do twice a year. If more than that, they would risk irreversible brain damage.

Ashleigh noticed that this year, Alice had been reset four times.

She couldn’t help but notice that the third time it happened was right after Axel was made Alpha, and the fourth was not long after Ashleigh had been found and brought home from the kidnapping.

Corrine and Axel had mentioned that Alice was the reason she was found, but Ashleigh had refused to listen.

“Tell me what happened with Granger….” Ashleigh spoke but didn’t turn to look at Alice.

“Which time,” Alice replied.

Ashleigh turned around.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Alice lifted herself onto one of the lab tables and tilted her head.

“I mean, what do you want to know? His dealings with Holden, the things I was assigned to help him with, his involvement with the lesser packs, or when he enslaved me?”

Ashleigh wasn’t sure how to respond. She wanted to know it all, but at the same time, it terrified her.

“But before you answer,” Alice said. “Make sure you are ready to listen. What is the point in asking if you won’t believe what I tell you?”

Ashleigh clenched her jaw and turned back to the computer.

She scrolled through picture after picture of Alice as a child, an adolescent, and a teenager. Some images had her dressed up. For others, she wore a basic hospital gown. Still others, she was bruised and bleeding.

There was one, in particular, that caught Ashleigh’s attention.

Alice’s eyes were cast down, away from the camera. Her hair was the color of copper in the sunlight. It was long and straight. But it was disheveled, bruising on her face, and her makeup was smeared on her lips and eyes. She held her hands to her chest. The dress she wore was torn and barely hanging on her tiny shoulders.

Ashleigh guessed that Alice couldn’t have been much older than Ashleigh was now. Maybe nineteen at most.

By looking at the spreadsheet of all the roles she played, Ashleigh could tell that most of the pictures had been labeled with the name of the part followed by a date or something that identified its purpose.

But this one was labeled as [Alice].

“What is this?” Ashleigh asked aloud.

Alice did not hesitate to come over. She leaned forward and scoffed.

“That was a very special role,” she said.

“But it’s your name,” Ashleigh countered.

“Exactly,” Alice smiled. “That day, I got to be myself. Of course, I was dressed up, and my hair was not its natural color, but my personality, even my memories… they were mine.”

“Why do you look like this?” Ashleigh asked.

“Because there is no such thing as an act of kindness with my father,” Alice sighed. “Did you see Laura yet?”

Ashleigh looked back at the screen. Then, she scrolled back up through the pictures, found one labeled [Laura], and opened it.

Her hair and makeup were the same colors, and even the dress was the same. She looked just like the previous picture, except that this image was happy. She was smiling, her hair was pinned up nicely, and her makeup was flawless.

“This is Laura,” Alice said. “She was sent to Tomas to be his comfort. Her mission was to get close to him and earn his trust. And she did. She even got him to love her, and then she was ordered to abandon him without a word and return to this lab to be reset.”

Ashleigh chewed her bottom lip as she listened.

“Sometime later, I was dressed in Laura’s costume and sent to enjoy a day of freedom in Autumn,” Alice paused and swallowed before continuing. “Tomas found me. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy, and he didn’t believe me when I claimed not to know who Laura was or what he was talking about. So, he got angry and did what angry, dysfunctional monsters do to young women that don’t have their defense programs activated.”

“Goddess…” Ashleigh whispered, bringing her hand to her mouth. “Why? What was the point of doing this to you!”

Alice shrugged nonchalantly, but Ashleigh saw the brief clenching of her jaw. She saw that it bothered her to remember.

“Because he was filled with shame and regret after he did that. Which was used against him for years after.”

“These people are monsters….”

“I told you, my father had high expectations of me,” Alice sighed.

Ashleigh’s eyes widened.

Alice nodded.

“Holden,” she said. “He is both my handler and my father.”

Ashleigh looked away.

Her eyes moved back to the computer screen, and another picture was pulled up. This one was of a small Alice, her hair was braided back in two french braids, and the smile on her face was unlike any other picture in the folder.

“That,” Alice said quietly, “is the only picture that exists from before my mother died.”

Ashleigh swallowed and then licked her lips. So this was who Axel saw when he looked at Alice. This was the person that he trusted.

She turned to face Alice.

“Ok,” she said. “Tell me what happened with Granger.”