<div class="floatleft">(http://www.youknowyoulovefashion.com/storage/gossipgirl/season4/0404/0404blair2.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Alice Beaumont<br/><strong>Age:</strong>35<br/><strong>Crime:</strong>Stabbing her husband 47 times<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Seemingly trapped by flames in the reading room<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Winter & Co<br/><hr/><br/>Still completely transfixed by the horror that the therapy session had become, Alice barely noticed that Winter had left her side.  She was still vaguely fuzzy, thanks to the unusually large number of mints she'd had since first entering the building, and the way the flames danced was just so delightfully intoxicating that she didn't want to drag her eyes away.  In some peripheral part of her brain, Alice knew there was a flurry of activity going on around her.  Several people were attempting to find an escape route.  But right at that moment, escape didn't seem all that important.<br/><br/>The sudden increase in the size of the flames snapped Alice out of her trance as she felt the searing heat of the fire on the exposed flesh of her face and neck.  The fire was so hungry it seemed to steal the oxygen right out of Alice's lungs, and finally a sense of self preservation started to kick in.  What was she doing, standing here staring at the inferno? She should be trying to get out! Trying to get Winter out!  With that thought, she realised that the troubled teen was no longer at her side.  Her maternal instincts kicked in again, and she looked around wildly for the girl she had vowed to herself that she would help.<br/><br/><strong><em>“Fire can be so pretty, don’t you think.  Winter says to be good.  She doesn’t think I can be good.  If you take my hand, I will help you drop over the side.  It is not a long drop, just a short one…I promise. Coming, hmmmm?”</em></strong><br/><br/>Alice jumped a little at the sound of Winter's voice at her shoulder.  Even in her half-oblivious state, she could tell that there was something very different about the white haired girl.  The way she held herself, the tone of her voice, the look in her eyes, the way she referred to herself in the third person...they were all vastly different than they'd been just a few minutes ago.  But then, Alice thought, everyone reacts to stress differently.  Not thinking for even the slightest second that Winter would deliberately cause her harm, she took the offered hand and squeezed it gently.<br/><br/>"It should be me helping you, Winter, not the other way around," the middle aged woman responded. "After all, I'm the grown up here."  But Winter seemed to be more in control of her faculties that Alice was, and it was easier just to follow her younger companion's lead than it was to try to think for herself.<br/>