Page 19 of Locked in Wonderland

The guy stared fixedly at the floor, cheeks growing redder by the second. Kellan glanced back at his parents. “I want this one!”

What the fuck! “He can’t—”

“He can,” Omar said flatly. “He’s Kellan Hart. I already told you he gets whatever he wants.”

“Objects maybe. Not people. People are different.”

Omar looked at me with something akin to pity. “In Wonderland,” he said, “everything is fair game.”

I watched in stunned silence as two bodyguards immediately stepped forward, wrenching the man away from his girlfriend.

She immediately burst into tears.

He said nothing at all. Shock, maybe. Or fear. Possibly both.

I scanned the rest of the faces in the room. All the people who had said nothing. Done nothing. Who were still doing nothing even as the bodyguards frog-marched him from the room. The overwhelming emotion from the crowd wasn’t outrage. It was relief. Relief that Kellan hadn’t chosen them. Something about that was infinitely more disturbing than the abduction itself.

“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked quietly, not sure if I wanted an answer.

“He’ll be Kellan’s plaything until he tires of him.”

I didn’t need elaboration on what Omar meant by “plaything.” I’d seen the way Kellan looked at the man. I shoved down the uncomfortable realization that it was the same way Nico had looked at me. “He has a girlfriend,” I said. “What if he doesn’t swing both ways?”

Omar shrugged. “Then I guess he’ll learn fast.”

Ice formed in my gut. “And afterward?”

“After what?”

“Kellan strikes me as the type of guy who gets bored quickly. What happens once he does?”

Another shrug. “You’d have to ask Kellan.”

Something in Omar’s face said he knew more than he was letting on. I pushed for an answer. “Does he get to go home?”

“I expect so.”

“What’s to stop him from going to the police?”

The question hung there while the Hart family procession moved toward the exit. The girlfriend was still crying, another woman comforting her. It wasn’t clear if they knew each other. Nico was the last to exit. My pulse kicked into a higher gear as he reached the doorway. For one irrational second, I thought he might look back. Might look directly at me.

He didn’t.

Then he disappeared through the door.

Less than five seconds later, the lights cut out again, and the music blared back to life mid-song. People resumed dancing, drinking, and laughing, as if nothing had happened. Like a man hadn’t just been dragged away in front of everyone. Did they think it was some sort of prank? It was possible.

I turned toward Omar, who’d already resumed wiping down the bar.

“Do you think Kellan has Warren?” I asked. “Is that why you told me to stop looking for him?” I knew that thinking I’d seen Warren blew that narrative out of the water, but there was always the possibility that it really hadn’t been him. He wasn’t the only tall platinum blond in the world.

The pity in Omar’s eyes was immediate. “You should never ask too many questions in Wonderland.”

“Why not?”

“The Harts don’t like it.”

I gestured toward where the abducted man had stood only a few minutes ago, his girlfriend no longer anywhere to be seen. “If things like that happen here, why does anyone come?”