“Transmission!” The queen called out from below and Alice gasped when something flickered across the room against the black wall, a faint glow growing in the dimness. She stared as a picture began to take shape and when she recognized it, she whimpered in response.

“Alice, you have been chosen.” Wade’s words were spoken with a smile. “If you pass this test, you and I will be together. Forever.” The words made her belly clench, her heart race. She knew very well how phobic Wade was about commitment. At the beginning, Alice had talked about marriage and children and houses in the suburbs, but Wade’s silence on the subject had quieted her too. She’d learned to let him go at his own pace. You couldn’t push a man like Wade.

So she had waited and hoped. There had been times, especially with Maddie’s voice in her head, that she’d considered breaking it off. But Wade had a way of keeping her coming back for more, yet always leaving her wanting, just a little.

“Kitten…” His pet name for her. She melted at the word, at the almost shy look on his handsome face. “All you have to do is say yes.” If this was it-well, it was a hell of a marriage proposal. Strange and distant and yet sweet and exciting, just like Wade. Alice felt tears stinging her eyes.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

Behind her, the Red King chuckled.

Then the picture went back to black, and the Red Queen cried out, “Consent! We have consent!”

“Wait-” Alice struggled. She’d almost forgotten her restraints, that the king was still holding her in the bulk of his arms.

“No time for that now.” The king stomped hard on the floor with one foot and Alice felt things began to change beneath her. The floor itself was moving. No, it was softening, melting, turning into some other substance. She expected to look down and see herself covered in some sort of goo, but the stuff was solid and it cushioned her feet. It was strange, impossible, but true.