The enjoyment spread across this man’s face was unnerving and every time Robin heard his voice or saw the way he seemed to smile at their discomfort sent chills up her spine. That, paired with the terror and confusion in Alice’s voice were all enough to have her filled with fight. The second He stepped close to her again with the knife in his hand, against her skin, Robin fought. She spit at him struggled in the chains. He laughed again, drove an elbow into her abdomen, that took Robin’s wind out of her lungs.
“Alice– it’s okay,” she assured the girl hanging beside her, breathlessly. “It’s okay.” The idea of Alice drawing his attention back to herself was almost more terrifying than whatever he was planing to do to do Robin. Maybe they hadn’t known each other very long. Maybe Robin was in over her head in more ways than she understood, but she’d let him hit her a hundred more times if he kept his hands off Alice. Whatever that said.
“Is it okay?” Hansel pressed, face close to Robin, knife against her cheek again. From is pocket he pulled a bottle, a glass potion. “It seems our alice has helped me make up my mind. I have only one bottle of this, see. do you know what it does? A witch I met gave it to me. When you drink it, the person who loves you most in the world feels all of your pain, all of your fear – all of it. I was torn about who to give it to about which of your mothers would suffer more but if it is as she says and her mother doesn’t care then … i think this might be for you.”
As he went on with his next villain monologue, Robin’s fight froze, hanging where she was, listening, muscles stiff and eyes a little wider as she processed what he was saying. A heavy lump formed in her throat and she couldn’t swallow it down. “I’m not drinking that,” she answered low and quiet.
The man’s face twisted into the same wide grin as always and he tugged the chain again holding her to the ceiling. Immediately, all the metal went slack and Robin landed in a heap on the floor. The man took a few quick steps to stand beside Alice, knife in hand, for now only pointing it in her direction. Gently, he rolled the bottle on the floor so it landed at Robin’s knees where she was attempting to gather herself upright. “No no,” hansel clicked his tongue. “Stay down.” Now, he stood behind Alice, knife at her throat, his body far too close to her. Robin’s blood seemed to turn to stone for the fifth time in the last few minutes. “Drink it. Or she dies now.”
Alice struggled for a while, her eyes wide with fear even if Robin told her that it was “okay”. She knew it was far from okay, the man’s words telling her that much. He was a villain of some sort, intent on harm, and for some reason, it had to do with their mothers and Alice’s mind was still trying so desperately to put those pieces together. What had her mother--or Robin’s mother, for that matter--ever done to him?
When he pulled the chain to the point it caused Robin to fall, she cried out the other woman’s name. “Robin!” But almost no moves were made, as the man was right up against Alice, and she felt the cold brush of the steel of his knife on her skin. It urged her to tilt her head up, the way the blade sat there, scraping against her neck. Alice felt how sharp the knife was as he ran it down her neck, so tauntingly slow. Her heart beat a thousand miles a minute, it seemed, and her breathing was something Alice was trying to keep steady, calm, even as her eyes were wide and it was harder to hold back the fear settling and gripping her very soul than she wished it would be.
She wanted to shake her head. “Don’t,” she muttered, bright eyes staring at Robin. That potion wouldn’t do good things; the man had said as much. “Don’t do it, Robin.” Alice didn’t think he’d actually kill her--or maybe she was only hoping really, really hard that he wouldn’t.
But almost as soon as she spoke, the man dug the knife into her neck a little, and Alice gasped, choked the words off when she felt the sting as the blade cut just a small dig into her skin. It was so sharp, it didn’t take much, and she felt the trickle of blood well up there where it pierced through the fair skin, that thin line now showing crimson. She was silent after that, but her look still said that same thing to Robin as her words had moment’s ago--
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