Текст книги "Fable of happiness book two"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

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CHAPTER TEN

HE STOOD BY THE window.

His silhouette menacing and dangerous in the dark. Meager moonlight etched shadows with silver, revealing the rope that had been around his ankle now lay loose and abandoned on his carpet bed.

I froze on the threshold. The plates I held trembled as fear skated down my back.

He’s untied himself.

Shit.

That shouldn’t have happened unless he was awake long enough to work the rope.

Which means...

Either he’d remembered who he was, or he’d lost himself completely to his nightmares. Either way, I was probably in trouble.

Looking over my shoulder, I debated backtracking to the kitchen. Of tiptoeing from the house and going for help now that he showed enough improvement to survive alone. But then I looked back at him. Truly looked, and my heart panged.

His shoulders rolled in the shadows, hands balled at his sides. His broken arm still bandaged with the splint. His entire aura spoke of someone who’d woken in a world he didn’t understand. Who needed a guide or at the very least...a friend.

But beneath that aura was another and another. Layers upon layers, twisting up a man who could snap at any moment.

Make a decision, Gem.

Leave or take a chance.

Each one came with consequences.

My idiotic heart couldn’t decide, but my feet chose for me. I backed up a step, taking the safe way, only to stiffen as he murmured, “I know you’re there.”

I swallowed hard, trying to read his voice—to guess which Kas I would be dealing with tonight.

Slowly, he turned from the window and faced me. His gaze pierced through the dark, trapping me in place. His stare still held power and chemistry, pebbling my nipples and increasing my heartbeat with equal parts connection and concern. “Don’t leave when you just got here.”

“I, eh—I brought dinner.” I raised the plates higher, showing off the rapidly cooling eggplant. Nervousness made me chatty. “Are you hungry? I know I am. I cooked some veggies. I felt like something warm. That’s probably why the lights went out. I used the oven and—”

“Don’t be nervous. You cooked for me. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done.”

I clamped my mouth closed, cursing myself for not leaving. This version of Kas already played with my mind. I liked this one. This one was genuine and watched me as if he’d been in love with me his entire life.

“Come here.” He held out his unbroken arm. “I want to thank you.”

I didn’t budge.

Our eyes locked and a familiar tug of war began. Somehow, his body summoned mine, but as usual, my mind was stronger. I stayed where I was, clutching my plates like a double-handed sword.

“Fine.” Biting his bottom lip, he swayed forward and crossed the room. “I’ll come to you.” His steps were laborious, aches and pains obvious from his tumble down the cliff. He moved as if he was ancient but also...youthful. Wary as well as welcoming. Jaded as well as eager.

All instincts told me to back the hell away.

To run.

But I stood like a stupid statue as he bypassed his bed on the carpet, closed the distance between us, and took the two plates from my shaking hands. “Thank you.”

His voice wasn’t one I’d heard before. Not the violent slice of the man who’d tried multiple times to strangle me. Not the heavy emptiness of a man begging for pain to prevent others from being touched. And not the beautiful timbre of an innocent asking me out on a date.

This was more.

Deeper, richer, sultry, and sweet.

“You’ve always taken such good care of me,” he whispered as he placed the food on the side table, careful to protect the meal but also discarding it for the moment. “I wouldn’t have been able to survive here without you.”

I sucked in a breath, my mind finally catching up to this new Kas.

Regardless that I hadn’t met this version yet, he felt like someone I could relax with. He glowed with kindness, trust, and affection. He made my heart do stupid things.

Stepping back toward me, he went to capture my hand with his. My body hummed for his touch, but instinct was still in control.

I’d been strangled by him one too many times.

I backed up.

He flinched as if I’d taken a dagger to his soul. “I would never hurt you. Ever. I’d rather cut out my own heart.”

I pressed my lips together, forcing myself not to speak. Not to deny that sentence. Not to risk him waking to a different personality or switching into a man I couldn’t defeat.

“You’re scared,” he breathed. “I’m so sorry you’re scared.”

I didn’t breathe or blink as he came even closer. His broken arm came up, along with his other, poised in place as if I was the damaged one—the one with triggers and torments.

“I’ll always take care of you, Quell. Just like you take care of me.”

I didn’t have a chance to deny I wasn’t one of his adopted siblings as his arms went around me. His chin went on top of my head, his body slipped flush with mine.

And in that moment of connection, something happened.

Something out of our control.

It was like coming home.

Returning to a place that I’d been searching for, time and time again, never to find. A familiar and unfamiliar acceptance, belonging, and indescribable peace.

Peace?

In his arms?

You’ve gone mad.

Two weeks in this valley and I was as messed up as him.

“Christ, I’ve missed you.” His arms banded tighter, trying to meld our bodies into one. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

His hug tightened even more, aggressive with desperation to hold me. His body enveloped mine as if I’d always belonged to him.

We fit together perfectly.

I struggled to stay stiff in his embrace.

I’d never had such a visceral reaction to a hug.

A hug that started off soft and innocently platonic but quickly deepened into need.

He trembled as he hugged me harder, burying his nose into my hair and heating my skin with his breath. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop them. I tried. I wish I could have borne it all for you. For all of you.”

Tears came to my eyes.

I wasn’t hurt that he thought I was someone else. I wasn’t jealous or envious of this girl called Quell. I was grateful. Wonderfully thankful that buried beneath all his trauma, there was still a good person inside him. A person who treated others with gentleness.

Who cared.

A few of his prior episodes, I’d gone along with his begs and threats, giving him the lines his mind needed to believe in a fantasy. But this time, I didn’t think I could pretend to be Quell.

I couldn’t hug him as her. I might not be jealous of a girl he’d been tortured with, but I was tired and exhausted and every other word that described crippling weariness. I just wanted to eat, sleep, and figure out how to help both of us.

And that doesn’t include falling in love with a fractured man.

His arms loosened around me, pulling away so he could see my face.

I winced as he looked at me. Fear creeping back that any moment the gentleness between us would evaporate.

“Wait...” His dark eyes absorbed the night, becoming blacker and depthless. He did a double take, shaking his head as if the overlay of his dreams flickered, deleting Quell and delivering me.

My palm itched to get my knife. To protect myself.

But in a breath, his hands swooped to my cheeks, his thumbs grazing over my cheekbones as he stared harder into me. “You...”

I shivered as his eyes devoured me. His hips pressed against mine, his body heat making my blood bubble and race.

“You...” he breathed again. “I recognize you.”

My entire body locked down. I prepared to fight for my life.

Stupid, Gem. Stupid!

Pulling back, I brought up my hands to latch around his wrists—one good, one broken—and gathered the courage to shove him away from me.

Only...

His nose brushed against mine as he leaned in and bowed over me. “You came back.” His mouth brushed mine, reverent and whisper-soft. “You didn’t forget me.”

I shivered.

Who did he think I was now?

“Thank you,” he murmured against my lips. “Thank you so fucking much for making my wishes come true.”

I froze as he kissed me.

His lips crashed on mine, his hands slipping from my cheeks to my nape before cascading down my back to my hips. Pulling me into him, he gave me nowhere to run as his tongue parted my mouth and poured yet more tangled emotion down my throat.

A second kiss and it was just as explosive as the first.

Just as wrong because he kissed me under false pretenses.

And just like the first, I couldn’t stop my reaction to him.

I kissed him back.

Our tongues touched and retreated. Our heat matching. Our desire igniting.

I could no longer make sense of anything.

His feet tripped backward, pulling me with him. His hands kneaded my ass, his fingers strong and demanding. With his mouth on mine, he guided me away from the door and toward his carpet bed.

Common sense tried to make me stop him. The sane part of my mind screamed warnings and strategy, but with his tongue dancing with mine and his fingers massaging me as if he’d never felt anything as exquisite, I was lost.

The soft lumpiness of blankets appeared beneath my bare feet.

He stopped pulling me and dropped to his knees, yanking me down with him.

His lips were on mine a second later. His breath hot on my cheek, his dark taste making me drunk with each sweep of his tongue.

“Wait—” I tried to break the kiss. To breathe.

“No.” He grabbed my chin and captured my mouth again, deepening the kiss, pushing me backward until I lay beside him.

He continued corrupting me, kissing his way along my jaw before dropping to bite my neck.

I shivered.

I grew wet.

I had to put a stop to this before it was too late.

Planting a hand on his naked chest, I pushed. “Stop.”

I anticipated a fight, but he pulled away, his lips red and scruff almost as wild as his long, knotted hair. He paused, a question in his stare. A question that seemed to hurt him—hurt him enough that he wasn’t prepared to voice it. He looked as nervous as I felt.

That nervousness made me want to kiss him again. To give him some assurance that his past was over and whatever happened in the future, he would never be subjected to things outside his control again. However, something else burned my tongue, and I had to ask.

“Who...who do you think I am?” The question fell heavy and solid between us, a rock in the night.

He frowned as if I’d asked a stupid thing, then scowled deeper as if he couldn’t put a finger on an answer. Slowly, his face fell, his eyes darting to the left as if the knowledge was just out of reach.

Letting me go, he exhaled and rolled onto his back. He flinched as if his bruises and cuts from his fall only made themselves known now. Cradling his broken arm, he stared at the ceiling.

I was grateful to the scant moonlight; without it, I wouldn’t see the carousel of thoughts on his face.

For a long while, he was quiet. He stayed on his back, and I propped myself up on my elbows, watching him from my stomach. Finally, finally, he whispered, “I don’t know who you are.”

I sucked in a breath, even though I’d expected such an answer. “Who did you think I was...before.”

He half-smiled, self-deprecating and frustrated. “When I realized you weren’t Quell, I thought you were my fable.”

I reared upright. “Your fable? What does that mean?”

My mind shot back to the dorm upstairs. To the identical books on each pillow. To the fable each kid was named after.

Kas had chosen one based on a genie and giving his wishes to others. How could he think I was—

“You look like the genie who visited me when I was out-of-my-mind drunk.” He snorted. “I should’ve known I was drunk when I started seeing beautiful women.” He scoffed harder than he snorted. “A beautiful woman who wasn’t trying to rape me, that is.”

I didn’t know what the hell to say to that, so I stayed quiet.

Another few minutes passed before he added, “She said it was my turn. That the wishes I’d given others were now mine, and all I had to do was ask for what I wanted.”

He didn’t continue, forcing me to ask, “And did you?”

“Wish?” He turned his head, his tangled hair splaying around his head on the pillow. “Yes. I had nothing else. No one else left to gift the wishes to. I was free to be selfish and think of myself.”

“Thinking of yourself doesn’t make you selfish, Kas.”

He shrugged, looking away. “I asked for three things. Two of which she granted me.”

“Can you tell me?”

He kept his eyes downcast, murmuring, “I wished for this place to be forgotten. That all the people associated with it would die.”

“And?”

“And that my family would be kept safe.” He looked up, almost shy as if I’d mock him for such a noble wish. Didn’t he see that even though he’d used his wishes, he’d still used them to benefit others? There was nothing in those requests about him personally. Nothing to help—

“My third wish never came true, though.” Running his fingers down the splint binding his broken arm, he shrugged again. “I understand why. I’ve done too much. Caused too much damage.”

Kneeling beside him, I couldn’t fight the urge not to reach out. Resting my hand on the top of his, I asked quietly, “What was your third wish?”

I already knew.

I knew the fable.

I’d read the book.

And I saw the wish in his eyes. The haunting need to believe he was worthy of it someday, even though he still believed he didn’t.

“Happiness,” he breathed. “I wished for happiness.”

And once again, I found myself playing along with his hallucinations. “Well, you’re in luck, Kassen Sands.” I bent over him, whispering in his ear. “I am who you think I am. And your third wish will come true. I’ll make sure of it.”

He sucked in a breath. His entire body vibrated. Then he grabbed me, spun me, and tucked my back against his front. Spooning me with his body, he threw his leg over mine, trapping me better than any rope or chain.

“I’ll be yours forever if you grant it.” He nuzzled the back of my neck. “Completely yours. Eternally in your debt. If you make me happy? God, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you in return.” He placed a delicate kiss on my nape, inhaling me as if he couldn’t bear to let me go.

So many pieces of me screamed to run, hating how vulnerable I was. I’d permitted him to once again disarm me, bind me, and place me entirely at his mercy.

I couldn’t keep doing this. Couldn’t continue letting a damn kiss scramble my mind.

You can’t forget he isn’t normal, Gem.

He was unstable, violent, and had an abusive history—all perfect ingredients in creating a mass murderer with mental issues.

I didn’t stand a chance against him physically. I knew that.

My only hope was to stay immune to him. To ignore my moronic heart and guard myself against the multiple pieces of him all scrambling for salvation.

I stiffened in his arms, calculating how best to untangle myself from his hot embrace.

Only, he felt me shift. He groaned sleepily, nuzzling into my hair again. “You want to leave me, too?”

I swallowed hard. If he was falling asleep again, I ran the risk of a different Kas waking up. “We left dinner across the room...I’ll-I’ll go fetch it.”

“I’m not hungry.” He kissed my neck, sending shivers down my spine. “Stay. Please...don’t go.”

My stomach knotted in pain. “I’m not leaving. I’ll just—”

“I’m happy with you in my arms. I’ve never felt so...calm. Stay. Just a little longer.”

The knot in my belly twisted into barbwire. Once again, he imprisoned me with brutal honesty and a voice layered with loss.

Closing my eyes, I squeezed back tears.

“Say you won’t go. Not yet.” He inched closer, flushing our bodies tight together. “I don’t want this to end.”

I thought of my brother and how distraught I’d be if Josh ever suffered what Kas had. I thought of Kas’s family, none the wiser to his torture—most likely thinking their son was dead after so many years.

I thought of the decade he’d been alone with no one to speak to, to touch, to hold.

And it was no longer a choice to stay or to go.

My body relaxed in his comforting cocoon. Exhaustion crept over me, gleefully sucking me into darkness now that I’d finally stopped fighting. Clouds entered my mind, foggy delirium from the past nine days of doing my best to keep him alive, all while surviving the madness of this forgotten house, popping like iridescent bubbles.

“I’ll stay.” I yawned. “I’ll grant whatever happiness I can.”

He didn’t reply.

His breathing leveled with sleep, soft and even. His arms loosened around me.

I stupidly snuggled closer.

I felt safe.

Protected.

Wanted.

For one night only, we were friends who fell into happy dreams together.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

COMING BACK TO LIFE had a strange texture.

Awareness came over me gradually. The return of sight as I blinked and looked around the dawn-glowing library. A chair that looked big enough to be a throne pushed against the many shelves housing fictional classics and non-fictional manuals. Blankets strewn on the thick carpet, creating mayhem in orderly perfection.

The room was familiar.

The scent of leather and pages not jarring or foreign. I recognized it. Ghosts flittered in my mind’s eye. Girls and boys scurrying in the dark to borrow books. A man standing guard at all times with his whip.

I tried to focus on those ghosts, only for them to dissolve into dust.

I blinked again, the visions fading, leaving only a familiar room curtained with secrets.

Movement came next, the urge to sit up sending shockwaves of pain, bruises, and bone-deep agony through every part of me.

Christ.

I sat upright slowly, swaying as my nervous system assessed why my body hurt so much. I scanned the splint bracing my arm, the blackened bruises along my legs, the bandage around my shin, the countless scrapes and cuts on my chest.

What the hell happened to me?

My heart suddenly raced, remembering things my mind refused to share. Panic hissed in my blood. Something about this room. This house. This place.

Raising my good arm, I ran fingers through my long hair, finding it combed and tended instead of the usual knotty mess. Come to think of it, my body was clean—despite the obvious trauma it’d been through.

Who had looked after me?

There’s no one here.

My mind unlocked that fact as certainty. Eleven years. Just me.

Unfortunately, with that memory came a cascade of sickness and images.

I choked and buckled over my knees, tumbling into chaos.

The fractures inside me were widening, sucking giant pieces of me, erasing all my valuable parts, my worthy, positive, and honorable parts, leaving me with gaping holes of excrement.

I needed my family.

I needed their light to keep me from the dark.

I didn’t care that it was late afternoon. I didn’t worry that it’d been weeks since I’d said goodbye and had no clue how to find them.

I couldn’t stay in this place for another moment.

I’d done what I needed. I’d memorized the files Storymaker had on us. I’d burned them to ash so no one could follow, and I’d buried the guests who would never hurt another person.

I’d waited as long as I could to see if anyone would arrive. If any of Storymaker’s contacts would investigate why Fables had gone so quiet.

But no one had ventured here in over a month.

I’d been patient. I’d been wise.

But now? Now, I was being eaten alive by this monstrous house, and I had to go.

Packing a bag with some food and water, I stepped out of Fables for the last time.

And, in some serendipitous, ironic, cruel-as-fuck timing, three men smiled from the front garden.

A man with a groomed white beard and expensive suit glittered in the sunlight, flanked by two fierce guards, their hands resting on the holsters of their guns.

“Well, well.” The man tipped his head. “And just who the fuck do we have here?”

Stop.

I rocked with my fingers digging into my skull.

Just stop.

I didn’t want to see this. Didn’t want to remem—

I ran.

I was weak.

I dropped my bag and bolted back into Fables with its bleached carpets, disinfected air, and spotless bedrooms hiding all signs of a massacre.

“Get him!”

A shot rang out as one of the guards fired at me. All concepts of tackling the new guest and killing him like I’d killed Storymaker fled.

I’d lived with demons for too long not to recognize one.

Run!

Gasping, I shoved away the memory, recalling the discipline required to shut the doors and turn the keys, reinforcing the walls between my past and present.

I wasn’t strong enough.

I fell back into nightmares.

The interrogation lasted days.

I lost track of time. I lost too much blood. They broke my bones, my mind, my hope. I lived in a never-ending merry-go-round of questions, abuse, and torment.

The silver lining in being tortured was my sanity finally snapped.

I drifted into a place they couldn’t reach.

“Tell me what happened here!”

“Where is Stuart Page?”

“Where are the guests, the guards, the slaves?”

“Tell me!”

Each question came with pain.

Pain that would never be strong enough to make me give up my family.

I swallowed down answers until they were so far inside me, they’d have to kill me, resurrect me, then murder me all over again to access.

Time flickered.

The shouting and torture stopped.

Silence was my friend until the door opened and light entered and the man with a white beard squatted by my broken face. “Unfortunately, our time together has come to an end. I have a pressing engagement that requires swift attention.” He patted my cheek, grimacing as my blood stained his fingers. “I was going to kill you like you killed everyone here, but...I have a worse punishment for you.”

Standing, he braced himself over me. His heavy boot pressed against my throat. “I’m going to give you a parting gift. And you’re going to die slowly, painfully, all fucking alone in this valley. If I ever hear that you’ve survived or that you climbed out of here like a sewer rat, then I will slice you apart and feed your pieces to my dogs.” He laughed. “You think you stopped us? You think this place is the only one?” He ground his boot harder into my neck. “Stupid boy. No one, especially not you, can stop the lucrative peddling of flesh. Ponder on that while you die. Know that there are others, children, obedient little possessions all kneeling for their masters.”

In a burst of suicidal rage, I fought him. “You fucking son of a—”

And that was the last thing I remembered.

His boot crunching against my head.

Over and over and over...

Fuck, stop!

Throwing myself forward, I didn’t care about the shooting pain up my broken arm or the many aches and stiffness. I crawled out of the blankets and tripped to my feet. I stumbled across the room and slammed into the wall, my breathing shallow and quick.

Clutching a bookshelf, I swallowed hard, doing my best to calm my galloping heart and forget.

Forget.

You’ve done it before. Do it again.

Forget!

Slowly, the sharp horror in my head faded, transforming into grimy water that swirled down a drain and vanished. Only once my breathing leveled out, and I no longer shook with nausea did I turn around and face the room.

I sighed gratefully.

Just a room.

Nothing more.

No ghosts. No memories. Nothing but a—

What the fuck?

I stalked forward, noticing for the first time I hadn’t been alone in the blankets on the floor. A girl lay on her side, blond hair tangled on the pillow, exhaustion creating deep shadows beneath her closed eyes.

She slept heavily. Her forehead furrowed as if she suffered bad dreams. Her body curled up protectively.

Just as the library was familiar, so was she. I didn’t know her name, and I didn’t know where she’d come from, but she wasn’t a stranger.

Was she friend or foe?

I moved closer, my hands balled, violence simmering in my blood.

Who are you?

Whoever she was, this house was mine. Mine.

I would never have given her permission to stay—

A savage kiss in a storm.

A soul-altering moment as I sank inside her, her body welcoming me, her heart granting me peace, her kindness giving me a sliver of happiness.

I reeled backward.

Fuck.

Fuck!

Her.

Gemma goddamn Ashford.

I shook my head as more images poured through me. Recent ones instead of tarnished with history. These fresh recollections couldn’t be shoved behind rusty doors. These were far too vibrant.

Trespasser.

Seducer.

A witch sent here to ensure I found my way to hell after living so long in purgatory.

She twitched in the blankets as if she could sense my growing animosity.

She’d been my prisoner. Mine to do whatever the hell I wanted.

Yet...somehow, she’d overthrown me. She’d fought me. Cut me.

She threw me off the goddamn cliff!

I snarled in the dawn.

Who would’ve thought that the closest I would come to dying was at the hands of a woman half my size? A woman who was meant to obey me. My own twisted version of a slave.

Who was she to be so pious and grandiose to think she had the right to sleep in my house? Why was she not in the basement where she belonged? How long had she been free? Rooting through my things. Touching my books. Walking through the dirty archives that this house held.

How dare she!

I bared my teeth.

My naked feet took another step toward her. Pink-gold light from the new sun peeked through the windows, dancing over my body.

My clean body.

A body that only wore a pair of navy boxer briefs. Skin that’d been washed. Wounds that’d been tended to. Hints of her handiwork. Blatant signs she’d dressed me like a child, nursed me like an invalid, and had been there for every fissure of my heavily fractured psyche.

Soft fingers in my hair.

Gentle whispers in the dark.

Female strength half guiding, half carrying me to the bathroom.

I choked.

Fuck.

This girl had seen me at my absolute weakest.

She’d been witness to whatever hallucinations I’d endured. She’d stood over me while I was unconscious...touched me without my permission.

Christ.

I wanted to be sick.

No one.

Not even Quell, Zanik, or Wes had ever seen me so weak.

I’d always been the strong one—the one who screamed in his sleep but never shed a single fucking tear while awake.

I couldn’t—

My mind swam, black filth blending with fists and kicks and blood.

I was alone when I finally decided to live instead of die.

My eyes opened painfully, eyelashes sticky and struggling to lift as dried blood cracked and crumbled. I was cold, lying in a puddle of piss and other unmentionable waste.

I didn’t move to begin with. I hovered in a space of existing and fading, trying to gather the will to survive.

It was a while before I finally managed to crawl on my hands and knees, every piece of me bellowing in pain. Time splintered again, slipping into nothing until I had the strength to crawl up the basement steps and into the kitchen.

My hollow stomach howled for food, but when I raided the pantry, I vomited it all back up again. I lived in a vicious cycle of eat, vomit, pass out, try again.

Days after days of agonizing sameness.

One foot in death and one in life, unable to find the strength to move forward.

I had no clock or calendar to know how much time had passed.

I had no one to ask who I was or why I was all alone.

I couldn’t remember anything.

Not a single, tiny thing.

I was a stranger.

A mystery.

Alone.

I pinched the brow of my nose with my good hand, no longer willing to be a little puppet for my scrambled mind.

Goddammit, no more.

With a heavy exhale, I gathered up the slithers of memories, snatched up recollections, and erased all emotion from the past. They all went into a box. And that box went into the sea. And that sea held monsters that devoured them until I had nothing in my head but her.

Gemma.

My prisoner who thought she could manipulate and control me.

I had to admit. She’d done a better job than any of the mistresses in my past. No one else had made me feel. No one else made my heart kick or body harden for her touch.

She was my enemy.

It was time she relearned her place.

Turning on the ball of my foot, I ordered my wobbly, bruised legs to walk out of the library, up the stairs (breathing hard and condemned to multiple breaks to gather strength), and into the bedroom where my trespasser had demanded a toilet and shower.

There, on the bed, was the leather cuff I’d stolen from Storymaker’s closet.

A leash that’d been used on all of us more than once.

A leash that would now be hers.

Snatching it from the covers, I dragged it over the carpet, the leather hissing behind me. My strength rapidly dwindled. My eyelids threatened to shut. My mind held autumn leaves and bracken.

I just wanted to sleep.

The ringing in my ears upset my balance. The fuzziness of my vision made me tired. The throbbing in the back of my skull hinted my broken arm wasn’t the worst of my injuries.

Touching the bump on my forehead from where she’d hit me with the shovel, I stiffened when I found none. No bump. No cut.

How much time had passed since that day and this?

What did it mean that I still suffered a concussion? One that seemed to have the power to steal, not just hours but days from me.

Gritting my teeth, I shoved away my questions, commanded my body to stay lucid for just a little longer, and tripped my way down the stairs to the library.

My steps were no longer coordinated as I stumbled over the threshold, back into a room full of paper words and fictional worlds. I crashed against the doorframe, the bookshelves spinning, my mouth turning sour with sickness.

I kept my swirling attention on the girl still sleeping on the floor.

Had she heard me buckle against the door? Was she still unconscious or just faking? If I went over there, would she pounce on me again? Would she use my weakness against me like she’d done ever since she’d pushed me off the fucking cliff?

Bits and pieces came back to me.

Her tying a rope around my wrists.

Her apologizing but still trapping me like all the others.

It didn’t matter that she’d tended to me. Storymaker himself had given me drugs and overseen my healing when a guest had grown particularly cruel.

My health was valuable to him. I had to stay alive to do his bidding. We all did.

She’s the same.

I didn’t think she’d found my valley by accident after all. I bet it was all planned. Her trespassing on my home, her running so I’d follow, her skills at climbing and knots and ropes, giving her the chance to push me into the sky.

Had I foiled her plans by surviving, or had I only played into her hands?