Donovan had been missing for two months when Alice was kidnapped. No one on Scotland Yard's investigative team could explain his disappearance (not that they could solve any sort of criminal case, the numbskulls , or give any clues as to who might have taken him. But then, my family couldn't shed any light on it either. My brother had no enemies-he didn't bet on the turf, play high-stakes card games, or take opium. My family was fairly well-to-do with no stain on our family name or old debts to repay. I didn't really have any enemies either-I didn't talk to people much to begin with.

Alice was my only true friend besides Don. As he once said, she was the sweet to my sour. I had laughingly agreed with him-I'm not the most pleasant of young women (I refuse to call myself a lady), even I'll admit that. I've often heard of a 'good cop, bad cop' routine down at the Yard and it describes our friendship perfectly. I'm the rough, tough cop that isn't afraid to get in your face to get the information I want. Alice tends to be more gentle about that kind of thing and beats around the bush a tiny bit. But when she gets straight to the point, she can be just as blunt as I am.

The day she was taken, I was sitting with her and her older sister in their family's garden. Alice had dropped off to sleep under the tree we were sitting by-well, I was sitting in the tree, leaning against the trunk with my hat over my eyes. I could feel the pins in my hair coming loose, but I didn't bother to fix them. I was feeling too lazy to do anything about it and, besides, I was getting a rare headache from all the pins I needed to give my long red hair the appearance of being cut like a boy's.

Glancing back down, I saw Alice's sister stand up. Alice, who had woken up, was protesting loudly to her as she walked away, but was being waved into silence as she disappeared in the direction of the house. "Where's Lorina going?" I called down to her as I began carefully making my descent from my perch. I was wearing Don's old clothing (again), which were much too big for me, and I didn't want to tear them up.

"She's getting a card game," Alice responded, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "I told her about an odd dream I had about some sort of game," she went on, "And she thought it meant that I wanted to play one." She sighed and hugged her knees into her chest as she gazed off in the direction her sister had gone. "I wish I was as pretty as her," she mumbled to herself. It had nothing to do with what she had just said to me, but I could tell that it had been on her mind as she talked with her sister.

"But you are pretty, Al," I protested, using the boy nickname I had given her. "You just can't see it because you have no one but your sister to compare with."

"And you," she said. "You're pretty as well-I'm sure you'd be drop-dead gorgeous if you dressed like a girl more often. I've only seen you dress like that a couple times." She had met with me when I was 12, which was about the time I realized that I could pull off looking like a boy pretty well. Seven years have passed since then, and she really had only seen me dress like my gender a few times.

"Four, actually," I said, releasing more pins with a shake of my head. "And you know that I hate wearing the stupid dresses women my age wear." I took out the rest of the pins and began restarting the process of hiding my hair. "I can hardly breathe in those stupid corsets, and I can barely move in the blasted skirts!" I complained.

Alice giggled at my vehement expression of disgust. "I don't think you're supposed to move, Ron." The nickname was a super-shortened version of Veronica, which I had shortened to Ronnie when I was about eight and then to Ron when I was 12. She went quiet for a moment, settling down to take another nap. I followed suit-I hadn't been sleeping well at all for the past few weeks, and a nap sounded perfect right now.

I didn't get the rest I wanted, however. As soon as I closed my eyes I dreamt about Donovan, kneeling in front of a cot with his hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer. His back was to me, but I could practically see the anguish and worry in his face just by the way his body was trembling. I tried to reach out to him to comfort him, but found that I had no arms to touch him with. I heard him choking back sobs as he screamed for me to wake up. He screamed his plea to me, not knowing that I was there. "Please, God," he cried, "awaken her from her slumber! Alice is-"

Another scream cut through the dream, shattering it into millions of fragmented pieces. My eyes flew open in horror when I realized that the screamer was Alice. Frantically looking around, I saw that she wasn't sitting next to me anymore. I jumped to feet, pulling out my miniature pistol from my pocket. I glanced left and saw Alice being thrown over the shoulder of a tall man in an overcoat-and he was running with her.

"Alice!" I screeched, my pelting towards them. The man glanced over his shoulder (the one not currently being occupied by my struggling friend) at me and I saw his lips form a curse. I personally would have chosen a stronger one if I was seeing an angry me charging towards myself, but that's just me. His spectacles glinted in the late afternoon sun as he ran faster. If he's going to run as if the devil's on his heels, I thought through gritted teeth, then I'll be more than happy to be the devil he runs from.

I fired at my friend's kidnapper, drawing another bullet from my vest pocket. To my dismay he merely dodged it, though how I couldn't say. He ran directly into the Liddell's garden, which seemed pretty stupid to me. I mean, why would you take your kidnapping victim into the middle of an open clearing where people could see you? I had loaded the other bullet by the time I had realized where he was going and fired off the new round. Again, he danced around the bullet, spinning around to face me with a rather pleased smirk.

As he did so, my brain finally made the bizarre connection that my eyes were trying to tell me-Alice's kidnapper had snow-white hair and rabbit ears on top of his head of the same my shock, I hesitated for a brief moment. This pause cost me a precious moment that I could have spent noticing that he was pulling out his own, much larger, pistol. Before I could move he fired his gun, and it was only because of old instincts telling me to move that I managed to avoid dying. He still clipped my left shoulder-okay, by clipped I mean shot. I screamed in anguish, sinking to my knees as the pain exploded through my entire body.

"Forgive me, boy," the man said coolly, "but I can't have you chasing after me, now, can I?" I was hurting too much to argue that I was actually a girl, but even if I hadn't been I still wouldn't have been able to answer, seeing as he turned and jumped down a massive hole that I hadn't noticed behind him. Alice had frozen in terror when his gun had gone off but when I had screamed she had gone back to thrashing and screaming. When he jumped her scream reached an even higher pitch than I had ever thought she could ever reach.

"No!" I cried, scrambling forward and thrusting out the hand that just a minute ago been covering my bleeding shoulder. A painful throb reminded me just why I had been covering it, but I ignored it. All I cared about was grabbing Alice's hand. She had flung her hands up and I grabbed at them-but I only managed to grab her fingertips, which quickly slid out of my hand. "ALICE!" I screeched.

"RON!" she wailed as she and her kidnapper fell further and further from sight. My arm slowly went back to cradling my wounded shoulder, but my eyes were still fixed on the abyss in front of me. I tried to breathe slowly and steadily to slow my racing heart. The bullet wound was bleeding badly, but the only thing on my mind had been the last few minutes-had they really only been minutes? It had felt like hours. Questions, half-formed and disorganized, churned inside of me like a soup of rage and confusion.

Who was the rabbit-man? What did he want with Alice? Why did he take her? And where did he take her?

By this time, Alice's family had come into the garden. The sounds of gunshots and screaming had drawn Lorina's attention, who had run back into the house to alert the staff and her parents. Seeing me bloody and ghostly-white kneeling next to an enormous hole seemed to confirm their fears that something terrible had happened. A doctor and Scotland Yard were called to investigate, while a pair of officers escorted me home. Normally I would have argued my way out of an escort but I was still in shock from the events that had just happened.

I was ordered bed rest for a month by my family's doctor, much to my chagrin. I did argue with him about that, but I won't bore you with the details. Needless to say, I lost that argument. Well, sort of-can you see the smirk I'm wearing right now? I bet you can. I managed to sneak out of my bedroom after I thought that my arm was sufficiently healed (note: when I thought that my arm was healed). I spent the next few weeks retraining my left arm so that it was up to its old strength. When I was finally declared healed, the doctor gave me a very annoyed look-he could tell that I hadn't followed his orders.

Honestly-when have I ever listened to orders like that?

As soon as I was given the go-ahead, I immediately ordered the servants to prepare a horse for me. I changed out of my bedclothes into Don's clothing and pinned up my hair, jamming my cap on my head. By the time I had skidded out front a horse had been prepared, as well as a saddlebag. I did a quick inspection-a change of clothes, some food, and a case of bullets. I smiled. The household knew me too well. The only thing left for me to do was retrieve some firepower.

I jumped on the horse and we bolted off, making a pit stop at the shed I had built with Donovan when we were little. Inside was an assortment of weapons that a proper English nobleman's son had to learn to use-and taught his little sister to use. I snatched up my fighting knives and slipped them into the sheaths in my boots. They were my favorite set, but I usually used my second-favorite to fight with. They weren't as decorative, or as sharp, but they were still very dangerous. I usually saved my favorites for when I really wanted to scare someone.

I pulled my crossbow down from the hooks mounting it on the wall and strapped it on behind me. I put the quarrels in my vest pocket where they would be within easy reach. And to complete my 'armed and dangerous' ensemble, I retrieved my pistol from the gun rack. If you're thinking about my pathetic miniature one, then stop those thoughts in their tracks. This was a Gustave Young Navy Percussion Revolver with a mother of pearl handle and engravings on the gun itself. It's a beautiful weapon, and very dangerous. It would do just as much damage as rabbit-boy's, I was quite confident of that.

I jumped back on the rather impatient horse (Can horses be impatient, you ask? Well, this one certainly can.) and we rode hard to the Liddell's garden. My heart was pounding in my chest, nervous tremors making my teeth chatter. What if the hole wasn't there? What if it was, and the rabbit man was waiting there to finish me off? And what if he wasn't -what was waiting for me at the bottom of that hole? Did I want to know? Was I even going to take the plunge? Would I even be ready to face whatever was down there?

The answer, by the way, to the last three questions was "Heck yes."

When we reached the clearing, I pulled the horse up short so I could get a better look at the hole. Yes, it was still there, as ominous as ever. Despite my fears, somehow I had known that it would be there. I jumped down off of the horse and ran over to its edge. Scotland Yard had abandoned it after not finding any evidence or clues to work with. Staring down into the gaping abyss, I briefly questioned my sanity. I waved the question away-I already knew that it was a stupid idea, which was why I was going through with it (story of my life).

I went back to the horse and snatched up the saddlebag, slipping the strap around my shoulders. After a brief consideration, I took a piece of paper and a pencil stub out of the bag and scrawled a quick note to my family. They'll understand, I thought to myself as I looked over my handiwork. It was a short letter, informing my parents that I was going to find Alice and that I didn't know when I'd be back. It included instructions for them to not go near the shed in the garden and a sentimental sentence about how I loved them and I would miss them. They won't like it, but they'll understand-I hope.

I stuffed it under the saddle and slapped the horse's rump, sending it galloping off back home. I watched it retreat for a moment before turning back to the hole. I stared down into it for another minute or so before I jumped off the edge into the darkness. As I fell, I made a silent promise. I would rescue Alice and bring her back home-if I couldn't do it for Donovan, I could do it for her.