Текст книги "Fable of happiness book two"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

“Stop.” Drawing himself up to his full height, his hands balled and eyes etched with anger. Behind his anger lurked emotional carnage. A sacking of his soul as he howled for help, all while incapable of asking for it. “I-I’ve heard enough. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” He shook his head. “Even if what you said was real, how do you expect me to believe that you willingly wanted me?” He paced in front of me, wobbling a little as he turned. “It’s a trick. It has to be.”

“There is no trick.” I kept my voice low, forcing myself not to meet his temper. “Everything I just said was true. Everything we did affected me. It affected you too. And that’s why you can’t accept it. Give your mind a chance to replace what you’ve forgotten. Deep down inside yourself, you know what I’m saying is real. That you feel something for me. That you’re afraid because things are changing between us. They’ve already changed—”

“I’m not afraid.”

I smiled sadly, my heart bleeding all over my ribs. “You’re so afraid, you’re willing to deny every incredible thing we experienced. You’re consumed with darkness. You’ve repressed so much evil that it’s killing you. It’s stopping you from living, Kas. It’s stopping you from loving—”

“Careful.” His tone was pure ice. “I’d be very, very careful. I’m hanging on by a thread. Push me any harder, and I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

He sounded like the man from a few days ago. The man who’d woken from a concussion with so many facets inside him. A man lost to me, to himself, to any love we might have shared.

It hurt.

God, it hurt.

I was in love with him.

And he wasn’t ready.

He might never be ready.

And that was the heartbreaking reality of what I’d signed up for.

Nodding once, I swallowed past the thick lump in my throat. I tried one last time to fight for us. “Please, Kas. Stop being such a bastard for one measly second and think. Just one second, ask yourself why you left last night. Why you headed to that dorm without me after the best sex we’d ever had. You did it to protect me. You knew, didn’t you? You knew you’d forget. You’ve been keeping things from me. Those moments you space...they’re getting worse, aren’t they?”

He scowled, tripping back at my sudden shift in mood. “I already told you—”

“And I told you that this is real. What I feel is real. What you feel is real. Just search your mind and—”

“If you know anything about me, you already know that’s never going to happen. I just told you, I will never go rifling through my past.”

“In that case, you’re doomed to always be lost and alone.” My chest burst with pain. “The only way you’re ever going to heal, the only way you’re ever going to find happiness, is if you face what you’ve buried inside you.”

“I’m...I’m tired.” He suddenly stumbled, tripping to the large wingback and falling into it. Cradling his head in his palms, he muttered, “Just stop, Gemma. I need you to stop.”

“All I’m asking is for you to drop your walls,” I murmured. “To see the mess and the magic of what happened between us last night. I’m asking you to do it...for me.”

He stiffened in the chair, his long hair quivering on his shoulders. “Don’t try to twist this. Don’t make it seem as if you care.”

My temper flashed. “You made me care. You made me believe—” I cut myself off, glaring at the carpet, unable to look at him. “You did some awful things last night, Kas, but you were also...kind and sweet, and...I wanted you. I wanted you so damn much.” I dared look up. “I still want you, even while you’re hurting me.”

He sucked in a breath, his eyes meeting mine.

That all-encompassing chemistry between us sparked and hissed. I felt a physical pull to go to him. A clench in my core. A tingle in my lips. I wanted to crawl into his lap, to kiss him, to claw my way inside that broken head of his and yank out the memories he was too afraid to analyze.

“You want me?” he breathed.

For a second, we hovered on a precipice that could fall either way. Fall right, and we could fall into each other. We could kiss and fondle, and tumble to the floor to repeat the rough ravaging of last night. Or we could fall left, and trip even farther apart. We could stay enemies; stay trapped in this terrible carousel.

I’ll lose him.

Lose the Kas who had the power to make me love, all while leaving me with a version of the man I hated.

The agony of that hurt me more than I could stand.

My anger sprang hot again, choosing war instead of words. “Last night, when your body was deep in mine, I let myself dream. I dreamed that I was always meant to find you. That I would help you, heal you, and eventually take you home with me. I was willing to turn my back on my own life in order to save yours. I was ready to give it all up.” I laughed with utter exhaustion. “Now, you’re making me feel stupid. I get that you’re not well. I get that your concussion is still a factor and can cause mood swings. And I get that medically, you have every right to be afraid if you truly can’t remember. But what you don’t have the right to do is make me feel like an idiot. Your denial—your stark refusal to even listen to me—goes to show how incredibly naïve I was to think one night of affection would fix a decade of your problems.” I swiped at a lone tear. “But you know what? You’ve just proved that regardless of your amnesia and all the stuff you’ve repressed, what’s really going on here is your inability to fight for something that could save you. I’m trying to fight for you, Kas. But you...you’re not ready to fight for me.”

I swiped at another tear. “You’re still too conditioned. Too trapped by this place.”

He went deathly still. “You’re saying I want to be conditioned. That I’m choosing to be a worthless slave, still chained to this place? That I stayed because I was too fucking weak to run when I had the chance?”

I froze. “What? No, I’m not saying that at all.”

He swooped to his feet, stabilizing his balance by grabbing onto the chair arm for a second. His eyes met mine beneath drawn eyebrows. Rage I hadn’t seen since the first few days of our acquaintance glowed obsidian in his gaze. “You think I don’t want this shit to stop? That I don’t want to be free? Of course, I want to be fucking free! I tried to run. And I would’ve succeeded if they hadn’t shackled me to the bed night and day. I would’ve died trying to escape. But then they brought the others here.”

He wiped his mouth with horror, seeing a past I didn’t want to know. “They arrived and they were so scared and lost and...and I tried to protect them. I got to know them. I loved them, and then running wasn’t an option anymore.” His voice dropped to a harrowed breath. “If I’d run, they would’ve paid the price. They would’ve been beaten, starved, sliced, burned, raped—the list goes on and fucking on. I stayed for them. I stayed because I loved them. So don’t fucking talk to me as if I’m too afraid to fight for love, Gemma Ashford. I’ve been doing it my entire godforsaken life!”

He stormed into me, his chest almost colliding with mine. “You stand there and think it’s so easy for me to remember. That I’m weak because I refuse to go rifling in my past. To you, with your mind full of safety and privilege, of course it’s damn well easy. But what you don’t understand is, I don’t just have my own pain trapped inside my head, I have theirs too. I have all of it. Every fucking tear. Every fucking bruise. Do you want me to admit that I don’t have the stomach to recall their screams? That I’d rather be alone in this valley than live a life knowing I failed them? That I couldn’t protect them? All the nights when a guest wanted them over me, I curse myself. No matter what I did to take their place, sometimes, it wasn’t enough.”

Sweat glittered on his upper lip as he spat, “It’s not just my own torture I can’t face—it’s theirs. I won’t. I can’t. I can never remember how Quell sounded when she was taken by three men. I fucking refuse to recall what Jareth looked like after two weeks of punishments. I would rather die than relive watching Wes be sodomized with the handle of a—”

“Stop.” I tripped backward. “Please stop.”

Breathing hard, he flinched as if he saw his family and not me. His gaze refocused on mine, despair gleaming inside him.

Silence fell for a thick second, clogging up the library.

Finally, he raked both hands through his hair and sighed. “Having you tell me things I desperately want to be true is the cruelest sort of trick. Hearing you say you feel something for me? That something happened between us? Christ...” He licked his lips, shaking his head. “I would kill for that. I would get on my knees and be whatever you wanted me to be if I believed for one second that I deserved it. But you have to understand, I don’t have a fucking heart to give you. You say you have feelings for me? Well, don’t. I didn’t ask for you to care for me, just like my family didn’t ask me to care for them. Love was the one thing we couldn’t get free of. It kept us all trapped here because none of us were willing to hurt the others by leaving. Storymaker knew that. That was why he never needed locks or cages. Love kept us trapped. Love kept us suffering. Love was the most agonizing thing I’ve ever endured, so, my suggestion to you, Gemma Ashford, is to forget about whatever happened last night. Don’t shackle yourself to a memory. Don’t believe in something that will only make you a prisoner. Be like me and erase it because it will only bring you more pain than you can imagine.”

I-I couldn’t—

I couldn’t breathe around the agony that’d replaced my heart.

All my hopes.

All my silly fantasies.

They all writhed and died on the library’s carpet by Kas’s feet.

Not because he didn’t believe me. Not because he didn’t remember.

But because he’d just shared a singular, soul-slicing clue into his psyche.

He wasn’t afraid of what they’d done to him. He wasn’t afraid of his memories of torture.

He was afraid of failing his family.

Afraid of love itself.

Oh, God.

It was suddenly horrendously, horribly clear.

He’d chained me because he needed something to bind me to him that wasn’t love.

He’d hurt me because any sign of affection reminded him of the family he couldn’t protect.

He’d wiped his memory clean of something that had the power to free both of us because it was the scariest thing of all.

Love.

An everlasting connection that would have made him become my everything and me to become his...sole responsibility to keep safe from unknown monsters, to protect me from himself, to sacrifice his pain over and over again. Forever the martyr. Always the abused. All because his heart commanded he shelter and guard those he cared for with every breath he had.

We could’ve become everything.

This could’ve become everything.

But in reality, nothing was further from the truth.

Love for Kas was just another prison he couldn’t survive.

I backed away, slapping a hand over my mouth as a sob crawled up my chest.

It wasn’t just his broken mind I had to repair.

It was the fact that even in this hellish place with rapists and abusers, he’d learned the cost of love. Yet he’d only felt the weight of obligation instead of the freedom of being loved in return.

I would always be a threat to him. Never a cure.

I would always tempt him and remind him of what falling in love demanded.

Pain.

Unsurmountable pain that no one should ever have to endure.

Tears tracked down my cheeks as I choked on the overwhelming pressure inside me. I was bruised with it, trembling and shaking, hurting right to my bones.

I didn’t know what to do anymore.

I wanted to tell him I loved him even though he could never love me in return.

I loved him despite the hurt that would come from it.

I loved him regardless of the hurt I felt right now, the pain that crushed me into dust and scattered me in every corner of this godforsaken valley.

I loved him.

But I didn’t think it would give him peace of mind to know that.

Not now.

Especially not now.

“Kas, I—” I swiped at my tears, doing my best to stop my agony. But it wasn’t just my agony that bled me dry. It was also his. God, I felt for him. I cried for him. I ached for him. I wanted to pull him close and tell him I would never hurt him like those monsters had. That he could fall for me and not be afraid that he’d have to die in order to protect me.

Loving me would be gift enough.

Caring for me and finding happiness in my arms would’ve given my entire life purpose. It would’ve fulfilled my destiny. Completed fate and all the other star-crossed prophecies that’d led me to trespass in his valley.

I’d hoped we’d turned a corner last night.

But we hadn’t.

Instead, we’d just run headfirst into a brick wall that’d broken both of us.

Backing away, I nodded, accepting what he’d told me, needing some space, some time, some self-reflection on how I could possibly have the strength to repeat this entire thing again.

He held up his palms in surrender, discomfort rippling down his back from the awkward silence that’d descended. “Look, I’m sorry for exploding like that—”

“I-I’m not feeling well.” I forced myself to make eye contact, bracing myself against the swirling torment in his stare. “I need...I need to be alone for a while.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m...” I sighed, not knowing how to tell him I needed space before my heart popped like a balloon and I wilted to the floor with nothing but dead dreams in my hands. “I’ll come find you in a bit, okay?”

“No, not okay.” He frowned. “I said I was sorry. I didn’t mean to say what I did. I told you I wouldn’t be responsible if you kept pushing me. Let’s just forget what happened, okay?” He sighed. “I don’t like fighting with you. And I...I don’t want you to go.”

Starbursts exploded in my stomach. I wanted so much to read into that sentence. To pick it apart and reorder the words to deliver what I wanted to hear.

I was wrong.

Last night was incredible, and I do remember it. I remember every wonderful detail.

Instead of asking him why he didn’t want me to go, I shrugged again.

I didn’t have the strength to hear whatever answer he’d give me.

Hopefully by this afternoon, my heart wouldn’t be so bruised, and my bones wouldn’t be so brittle. I could firmly put on a mask that hid my true feelings and figure out our new normal.

His eyes burned into mine. Still full of shadows. Still buried beneath trauma. It would be so easy to cup his cheek and kiss him. To seek that electricity of last night.

But I was done.

Overwhelmed.

I had to come to terms with the fact there was no permanent progress with Kas. There would only be setbacks and fuck-ups and a stupid, stupid hope that would slowly chip away into nothing.

I moved toward him, skirting past with a weary smile. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

His hand lashed out, locking around my wrist. “Don’t go.”

I glanced at his fingers.

My skin heated beneath his touch.

And it hurt all over again.

It hurt so much I needed to run, to hide, just until I was strong enough. “Let me go.” I blinked back my sadness. “Please...let me go.”

Something in my tone must’ve terrified him because his fingers snapped open, and he dropped his broken arm with a hiss.

“Don’t follow me.” I shrugged, not knowing if that was what I really wanted or not.

His eyes flared, locking onto my shoulders.

Something tingled in the air between us.

I didn’t have the strength to acknowledge it. I stepped toward the door, then paused in the threshold. “I’ll come find you...when I’m ready.”

I left before he could command me otherwise.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“BUT IF YOU RUN, Kas, you could bring help. I know you could.” Nyx coughed in the dark, her voice barely a whisper. “You’re fast. You could run and find someone before they—”

“Kill you?” I muttered, slinging my arm over my eyes. My bed creaked as I shook my head. “No chance. We tried it before, and it didn’t work.” I raised my head, peeking through the dark to Zanik, one bed over. He’d borne the brunt of our punishment that time. He’d been kept in a different room for a week, unconscious with a thousand stitches down his back, sewing his muscles back into place from where they’d flayed him alive.

Even now, his back spasmed with nerve damage, and the ugliest scars I’d ever seen zigzagged down his spine. He said it didn’t hurt these days, but I watched him. I watched all of them. And the way he moved when he thought he was alone said otherwise. He was hurt because of me. I’d gone because they’d assured me that they’d run with me.

That was before Nyx tripped, and Quell tried to carry her, and Wes decided to steal a gun from the guard’s room, only to wake them—letting them know in explicit detail that the Fable slaves were making a run for it.

We’d all made a pact that whoever got to the cave first would keep going, no matter what.

But that was before I heard Zanik screaming. Before I watched Storymaker hurling a whip as though he was some devil reincarnate, lashing everyone I loved until they were crisscrossed with blood.

I shuddered and pushed that day away. “We tried, and we failed. No way are we putting any of us at risk again.”

“But we have to do something,” Saraz whispered. “I don’t care if they hurt us. If one of us gets out, then at least—”

“I said no,” I hissed.

“Kas is right.” Quell turned onto her stomach, hugging her pillow. The dorm was stagnantly hot with no air but all of us had blankets covering our collection of scars and scabs. “Even if we took a vote and agreed on a person to run, the chances of them getting far isn’t high.”

“Even if they did get through the cave, it would be a week’s hike minimum,” Jareth piped up, his voice gravelly from sleep. “They’d catch us before we got near civilization.”

“How do you know it’s a week’s hike?” I asked, staying quiet and keeping my eyes trained on the door.

“I wasn’t drugged enough. I woke up. I don’t remember the route, but I do know it took a long time, even by car.”

Everyone gasped, digesting this information.

“And besides,” Jareth added. “Kas is right. Sure, one of us might get out, but then what? Who the fuck is gonna believe a kid that there’s a house of horrors hidden in some valley where men and women have a secret society?”

“Police?” Nyx squeaked. “The police would believe us.”

“The police are probably in on it.” Jareth sniffed, rolling over to face the wall, signaling his end to this conversation.

Quietness fell for a while, and the creak of bedsprings faded as we all stopped moving. I closed my eyes, waiting for sleep to whisk me away, but Zanik murmured, “I feel as if I earned the right to say this. After all, it was me who paid the price when we tried to run last time. And you know what I think?”

“What?”

“Tell us.”

“Go on.”

A babble of voices, all threading together.

“I think we fucked ourselves by getting close. I love you. I know you love me. And I would rather stay in hell with you than take a chance at freedom, knowing it will kill one of you in return.”

A grumble of arguments.

A thread of anarchy.

I had to squash that.

The only way we were getting out of this place is if we all turned on each other, or if we were smart and stuck it out.

Swallowing, I glanced at the door again, wishing I could see through the wood to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

“We need to kill Storymaker,” Maliki whisper-hissed. “Then we could all be free.”

I sat up in bed, staring at each of my family, imprinting their small, dark shapes into my heart. “Zan is right. We love each other. Therefore, we’re stuck with each other. But I promise you, I will get us free. I...I have a plan. I just need to wait for the right time.”

“What are you planning?” Wes asked.

I shook my head. “The less you know, the better. But Mal is right, too. Storymaker has to die.”

He had to die because if he didn’t, then we all would. And the thought of watching my family be butchered after being subjected to sexual fucking servitude was enough to make my hands ball and heart smoke with everlasting hate.

I would never leave them.

I would die doing whatever I could to protect them.

I would do that because I loved them.

And love was the cruelest prison of all.

I gasped, sucking in air as my mind returned to the library, and my body jerked in the wingback. I flopped over my legs, inhaling hard as the room spun with books and pages, all blurring together in mockery.

Books that I’d read, cover to cover, countless times over. Stories of bravery, fantasies of dragons and shapeshifters, romances where the hero always saved the girl.

I bared my teeth and growled at them all. Useless tales. Utter bullshit. The real stories of love and sacrifice were far less pretty and very rarely tied up with a happily fucking ever after.

Gemma.

Flinching, I groaned and shook my head. I didn’t want to think about her either. About the way her eyes glowed with pain. The way her voice caught with misery.

She’d argued with me, she’d pushed me, and she’d almost made me snap. But then she’d given in. She’d shrugged as if she was as lost as I was.

And then, she left me.

My breath hitched, replaying the way she’d shrugged before heading out the door. My heart had folded in on itself, burning to ash.

It still hurt—throbbing as if she’d ripped it free from my chest.

Who’d have guessed I’d be defeated by a simple, sad little shrug?

A shrug that said I’d hurt her more this morning by not even touching her than I had in any other interaction.

Christ, I didn’t even understand what she was shrugging about!

And why did something so innocuous as that punch me right in the heart and leave me empty and bereft and so many other complicated things?

That shrug had felt monumental. Familiar. It felt like a weapon that’d already successfully annihilated me before.

Yet...I can’t remember if that’s true.

I collapsed deeper into Storymaker’s wingback, wedging my elbows onto my knees and cradling my pounding head in my hands. My broken arm throbbed and the cuts on my hands that I couldn’t recall earning stung as I dug fingernails into my scalp.

Every part of me hurt.

I’d woken this morning, shivering my ass off in damp clothes with stairs cutting into my body, and for a flicker of a moment, I pictured a bath. A star-studded sky. A kiss...

But then, it’d vanished.

Just a dream.

Nothing important.

Until I’d found her in the library, and she told me otherwise.

She’d looked different.

There’d been a light in her eyes. A welcome. A warmth. When I’d first stepped into the room, she’d blushed and given me a smile that summoned me to her. The overwhelming sensation of affection tugged me forward, promising comfort after the disastrous sleep I’d had on the stairs.

I’d wanted her.

Her smile said she could soothe my aches, stitch my wounds, and grant me peace that I couldn’t seem to find anywhere else but with her. She looked as if she was excited to see me. As if she wanted to hug me, kiss me, touch all my scars and share pleasure with someone who’d trapped her.

How was that even possible?

The last interaction we’d had was...

It was...

Wait, it must’ve been...

No, it was when...

Ah, hell.

I groaned under my breath, tugging at my hair, raging at my crippling headache.

Why can’t I remember?

This wasn’t like before.

This wasn’t like all my other memories, skulking and slithering behind armored doors, just waiting for sleep or distraction to punish me.

This was...blank.

A blank emptiness that spread like cancer, chewing up pieces of my day, my night, and everything in-between.

Think!

I grunted as my head throbbed harder, and my balance believed I lived on the bow of a ship and not in an ivy-smothered mansion.

I’d been cruel to her, I knew that. I’d been nasty, purely because having her say things like “making love” and “friendship” had fucking terrified me. I’d spewed all that shit about my past. I’d given her pieces of me that no one should ever know.

Why?

What had driven me to confess things I’d so firmly locked away? Things I’d trained myself to forget?

It’d been her. Her softness. Her empathy even while I denied her.

The way she spoke of pleasure and togetherness—she made it seem as if we’d changed our path last night and had committed to one another.

Committed what exactly?

Had she said she wanted me?

Had she said she loved me?

Because she’d looked at me as if she did love me...and that can’t possibly be true.

I choked, stumbling upright and swaying on the spot. Loving another person would destroy me. I wasn’t prepared to let someone have that much power over me again.

Never again.

I’d learned that lesson, and I can’t fucking do it again!

But you feel something.

“Fuck!” Breathing hard, I collapsed back into the chair.

Despite not remembering last night, I knew I was lying to myself. What I felt for Gemma had transcended just the need for a sexual release a while ago. I knew that. That conclusion was written in black and white. But the difference was, those memories were real. They hadn’t been planted there by her words. Those memories came with feelings and knowledge, not blank and empty.

She’d fought to convince me pretty hard that what she said truly happened last night.

But what if something completely different had occurred?

What if I’d caught her running and fucked her on all fours in the forest as punishment? What if she’d tried to kill me with the dinner she’d made, and I’d smelled the poison, only to smash the food all over the carpet? What if she’d begged me to let her go, and I’d said yes? Wouldn’t that make her look at me as if she cared? Only to hate me when I woke and reneged on such a promise?

So many scenarios.

So many stories, just like all the paper ones glowering at me from their bookshelves.

I trembled as I closed my eyes, commanding my thoughts to stop playing hide and seek. Instantly, walls soared into place, chains clunked tight, and rusty padlocks loomed in my mind’s eye.

No.

I didn’t want to wade through the shit shackled behind those doors, I just wanted to know what the hell happened last night for Gemma Ashford to look at me as if I was good.

As if I’d shown pieces of myself that made her fall.

“I’m not yours forever, Kas. I’ll never be.”

Her voice came and went.

A phrase that sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember when.

I scrubbed my face with my hands, itching at the hair on my cheeks.

A whiff of papaya crawled up my nose—

Bubbles.

Bath.

Breasts.

I gasped, rocking backward, inhaling my fingers, doing my best to trigger whatever recollection just came and went.

Oh, God, what if she was telling the truth?

What if I had given her a bath last night?

What if we slept together?

What if I’d actually earned her heart?

Me!

The kid who was worthless. The boy who was abused. The man who was forgotten.

Me!

Ah fuck, why can’t I remember?

Panic coated my palms with sweat as I rifled through my thoughts.

The valley.

The seasons changing.

The river glowing blue.

I could remember all of that with perfect clarity.

Gemma nursing me.

Gemma cursing me.

Gemma promising to teach me the pain of heartbreak.

I dug deeper.

I kept digging.

Nothing.

I can’t remember what happened next.

There were...pieces.

Flickers of arguments. Feelings of desire, frustration, and fear. All interspersed with missing blankness. My mind had become a book with torn out pages, erased paragraphs, scribbled sentences. Vital information hadn’t just been stolen; it’d been deleted as if it never existed.

Wh-what’s happening to me?

I bent over and rocked, groaning with nausea, with pain, with rapidly building fear that I was getting worse.

Schizophrenic!

The word blasted through my skull with familiarity, just like her shrug.

But why?

Was I schizophrenic?

Was having Swiss cheese for a brain a symptom of such a thing?

Wrenching my head up, I glared at the bookcases and the many tomes, novels, and texts I’d devoured over the years.

See...I remembered that.

I remembered my solitude and loneliness. I remembered my Fable family. I remembered dark and disgusting things. And I also remembered those memories were locked up tight for a reason. So why couldn’t I remember something nice for once?

“Goddammit!” Swooping upright, I stumbled to the side with vertigo and tripped to the bookcases.

I had to know.

I couldn’t live like this.

I couldn’t take her looking at me as if we’d shared so much, only for her to tell me things that couldn’t possibly be true.

If we actually slept together last night?

If something impossible because possible, then I’m more fucked than I thought.

I was lost because if I could forget something like that. If I could sleep with the girl I wanted more than anything and not have a shred of remembrance of how she felt, how she moved, how she tasted then...

I might as well drown myself in the river.

I might as well end this goddamn struggle because what sort of cruel, sadistic joke was life playing on me when I finally had someone to call my own and I couldn’t fucking remember her!

You can’t afford to call her your own, remember?

Oh, God.

I didn’t know who I was anymore.

I had no strength or desire to love.

Yet I wanted to love more than anything.

My hands reached for the medical texts, my fingers running down spines, my eyes squinting past haze, struggling to read. My broken arm throbbed from whatever I’d done to it last night. The fresh cuts on my knuckles oozed, and the scent of papaya kept teasing my memories.

The smell hissed as if it was stark evidence, collaborating Gemma’s claim that we’d lain beneath the stars together.

I froze, doing my best to imagine it. Two of us in the bath. My hands on her body. My cock pulsing inside her.

I hardened.

I choked.

Come on.

There had to be something in this godforsaken place that could help me.

Ripping out a medical journal, I carried the heavy book back to the chair and collapsed.

Sinking into the leather, I skimmed the contents until I stopped on concussion.

Holding my breath, I flipped to the right chapter and shook my head, trying to be free of the rocks and fog that’d never left me alone since falling off that awful cliff.

Given the absence of a diagnostic test or biomarker for concussion, the current concussion diagnosis is confirming the presence of symptoms after an individual has experienced a hit to the head or body.