Текст книги "Fable of Happiness book three"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

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“What do you mean?” Gemma whispered, her voice soft but loud enough to scratch my heart.

“I mean...a few weeks ago when your live video went viral, our algorithms kicked in. The most popular videos of the day are posted on my direct feed so I can check out why a certain topic has hit the public so profoundly.” Tony shook his head at me as if he couldn’t believe it. “And that’s how I ‘met’ Kas. A long-haired, bearded bear who looked into the camera with so much pain, so much wariness, so much distrust. I remembered that look. I remembered his name and—” His tears started again. He ran both hands over his face, forcing himself to finish. “And when my daughter came home with that very same look in her eyes and the countless scars on her beautiful body, there was one scar that didn’t look like the others. It was black with lead instead of silver from age. It looked...deliberate. It made me fucking sick to think some bastard had autographed my child. That he’d hurt her then signed the very pain he’d given her. But she...” He blew out a harsh breath, glowering at the crowd and the insensitive cell phones recording such a private, agonizing moment. “She told me it was self-inflicted. That she’d sat in the dark with her older brother and dragged a sharp pencil over her forearm. He’d told her to stop. But she’d added his name instead. She said it was the only thing that gave her comfort. The name of the boy she loved, inked into her skin, a hero who did what he could to protect her.”

For a second, my mind was blank.

But then it detonated with images. Of memories. Of sitting on our beds, drawing blood with a pencil, imprinting wounds on a body already riddled with them.

“We have to stop. It’s too addictive.”

“I know, Kas. Just...one more.”

And I’d let her.

She’d drawn a K and then an A, finishing it off with an S.

I’d felt so protective of her, so in love with her, so damn afraid that I would let her down after she’d just called me her hero.

Bile rushed up my throat.

Fuck.

Fucking...

I’m going to be sick.

Motherfucking sick.

I stumbled backward, clutching onto the bar.

Tony came closer, crowding me, crushing me. “I don’t know the extent of what went on in that place, but you were there for my daughter when I couldn’t be.” Tony choked on a sob, his arms reaching for me. “You were there to hold her, soothe her. She told me that for the first part of her imprisonment, you did your very best to save her from—”

My ears roared, blocking him out.

Whiteness gathered on my vision.

My head pounded.

My knees tried to give way. “You-your daughter...” I blinked, trying to see Tony through all the fucking white. “What’s...what’s her name?”

I knew.

I fucking knew.

Jareth.

He’d done it.

He’d found one of our sisters.

He’d—

“Her name is Isabella. Isabella Creed.” He fell on me, wrapping his arms around me in a fierce embrace, making my head disintegrate, my heart annihilate, and every part of me threaten to explode. “But I think you knew her as Quell.”

Holy shit—

The room pressed in.

Panic clawed.

“God, Kas. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you did.” His arms tightened around me. His hot body pressed to mine. His clinginess. His passion. He pulled me even closer, his thigh going between mine, rubbing against my cock. “Thank you. Thank you so—”

I lost it.

I snarled.

I shoved him.

I leaped over him even as he fell to the floor.

I bulldozed through men in tuxes and women in dresses.

All of them.

So fucking naïve. So pretentious. So self-absorbed.

None of them cared that Jareth had freed someone we both loved. Someone I’d rocked to sleep after the bastards had used her. Someone who I’d wiped away her blood as she cried in my arms. Someone who’d spent eighteen goddamn miserable years being a toy to absolute cunts.

And for eleven years, I wasn’t there to save her.

Quell had always been a favorite. She’d always had an angelic grace that the bastards wanted to stamp out.

Without me there to take some of her punishments...

Oh, fuck—

I retched.

Vodka splashed on my shoes.

Eyes watched me.

Men whispered.

Women gossiped.

And I couldn’t do it anymore.

I kept running.

Running.

Motherfucking running.

Out the door, through the night, away from everything.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“I’M SO, SO SORRY, Gemma. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Tony’s millionth apology set my teeth on edge. For four hours, we’d searched for Kas, driving from the expensive hotel on the outskirts of town where the gala was held through streets, shopping districts, and parks.

An hour or so into the search, I’d found a pair of discarded dress shoes, kicked off in the middle of the street with a pair of black socks not far away, as if the man wearing them was shedding the unfamiliar and returning to what he was.

An animal who might never fit in with humans.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes, not caring about smearing my makeup at this point. My hair was a mess, and my mascara had long since run down my cheeks from all my crying. I was exhausted—mentally and physically—but I couldn’t rest until Kas was found.

God, please let him be okay.

Tony sat beside me on the curb outside the hotel where the gala had been dispersed. We were the only ones left. Others had offered to help search. Those who’d recorded the interaction between Tony and Kas tried to offer opinions on what’d happened. While others lurked around for the hell of it.

Tony had been the one to get rid of them all, and he’d not left my side since, patrolling the hotel grounds before taking me around town in his SUV, unsuccessfully hunting Kas.

We’d gone everywhere we could think of. We’d estimated how far Kas could’ve run.

And now, we had no other plans. Slumped and weary, we were left wondering how the night had gone so wrong.

Slouching over his knees, Tony sank his hands through his salt and pepper hair. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I hugged him. I know how flighty recovering victims are. I’ve tried to hug Isabella, only to understand that having a man in her personal space is the last thing she needs—even if I am her father.”

Tony irked me using the words flighty and victims.

They weren’t flighty—they were wary. And they weren’t victims—they’re survivors.

But I appreciated his heart was in the right place, and he’d had a rough time the past month, too. Patting his knee, I smiled sadly as his tears came again. “I’m truly so sorry, Gemma. I’ve made this so much worse.”

“Enough apologies, Tony. Go home to your wife and daughter.”

He shook his head quickly. “No way. I’ll help you find Kas. It’s my fault he ran off. I should never have opened my big mouth. I hadn’t planned on saying any of that. It just...” He shrugged with a heartbreaking sniff. “I wasn’t prepared for the level of gratitude I’d feel when I met him. Knowing he looked after my little girl. Hearing from her own lips that Kas took most of the rapes—” He choked and wiped his mouth. “Fucking hell, I want to kill them all.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll get what’s coming to them.” My voice was icy with knowledge and pride. I couldn’t tell Tony that the men and women who’d hurt Quell—I mean Isabella—when she was with Kas were now just a pile of forgotten bones, and I definitely couldn’t tell him that the more recent perpetrators were most likely strewn across some expensive carpet with their throats slit and entrails yanked out if Jareth had been the one to save her.

Just how much bloodshed had Jareth rained since we last saw him, painted in flame and tobacco smoke?

I shivered as the night chill settled over me. I peered into the darkness of the trees just past the hotel parking lot. I’d been grateful when we’d first pulled up here tonight. I figured it was an almost serendipitous location that the gala was being hosted outside the city, on the border where civilization met trees. I’d hoped it would help Kas feel less trapped. That we could go for a walk in the forest if it became too much for him before returning to the crowds and impressing enough key players to support a channel that would bring awareness and help to those who needed it.

But that was all over now.

Everyone had seen how Kas shoved Tony down. For a split second, I’d believed he was going to kill him. It honestly wouldn’t have surprised me if Kas had reached down and strangled him after the hug Tony had so stupidly given him. A hug while telling him about Quell, her trauma, and the real reasons we’d ended up invited to such a ritzy gala.

It’d been too much, too soon.

I was at fault for this too.

Ah, Kas. Where are you?

I looked at the clear sky, twinkling stars, and almost full moon.

It was cold tonight. If he slept outside, would he be warm enough in his tux? Was he even still wearing it? Or had he stripped naked, turned his back on his own species, and vanished?

Tears threatened again, but I swallowed them back.

I’d cried enough.

My tears hadn’t brought Kas back before, and they wouldn’t bring him back now.

With a bone-weary sigh, I stood and offered my hand to pull Tony to his feet. He took it, swaying a little as he righted.

“It’s almost midnight.” I cleared my throat. “Go home to your family, Tony.”

He shook his head again. “I won’t leave you. This is my mess—”

“I want you to go.” I crossed my arms, hugging myself against the cold. “Truly. I need you to go because he might not approach me if you’re still here. I have no idea what state of mind he’s in. It’s best for everyone if you’re not around me when he returns.”

“Will he return?”

I straightened my spine, lying, “Of course. I have no doubt he’ll seek me out once he’s in a better headspace.”

If only that were true.

If only I could trust in that.

But even after everything that’d happened between us, I wasn’t entirely sure Kas had the faculties to even want this life. A life with people who had once so wronged him.

Fear crushed me, but I held my chin high. “Goodnight, Tony.”

Searching my eyes and finding only resolution, he finally nodded. Shrugging out of his blazer, he placed it over my shoulders. “So you don’t catch a cold.” His unfamiliar smell and body heat settled into me. “Goodnight, Gemma. Stay safe.” He stepped off the curb, glancing toward his SUV in the distance. “You’ll...you’ll call me the moment you find him?”

I nodded.

“Okay then...” Grabbing his keys from his pants pocket, he shrugged. “I’m sorry again.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.” He spread his hands, the keys dangling from his fingers. “See, this is why I still believe he’d be great on a recovery channel. It’s not just the people who are found that struggle but the people who were left behind. The ones who hope they can heal the victims who come home.” He gave me a watery smile. “I’ve searched online. Ever since Isabella returned, I’ve done everything in my power to be exactly what she needs, but...that’s the thing. I don’t know what she needs. I want to give her space but not feel like she doesn’t have someone to turn to. I want to shower her in affection but not make her relive what happened.” He glanced at the dark forest as if Kas was out there, listening. “I need someone who has lived it. Who put their own life on the line to protect those he loved. I need to learn how to be better, to be more empathetic, to know how to repair my baby girl so she can be happy. God, I only want her to be happy.”

Tears I couldn’t stop rolled down my cheeks, stinging my eyes. “That’s what Kas wants too. His only purpose in life is to save those who’ve been preyed on the most.”

“In that case...when you find him. Tell him I’ll personally back any venture he wants to do. I’ll finance whatever he needs. He could be the hero for many, not just for my daughter.”

I sucked in a shaky breath.

Thanks to Tony, I’d now seen how trafficking affected everyone. I’d seen the very location where such defilement took place. I’d witnessed the healing from a boy who might never be whole, and now I stood before a father who was broken because of something he couldn’t have foreseen or prevented.

Kas was right.

They did need him.

The survivors needed him, their families needed him, I need him.

“Goodnight.” Tony gave me one last wave, climbed into his SUV, and drove away.

Leaving me alone in the dark.

Barefoot on the curb.

Worry all around me, despair deep within me, but absolute patience in my heart.

The fear that Kas would run and never stop running faded.

I knew him.

He was stronger than that.

Braver than that.

He would return.

He would find me.

Because that was who he was.

A hero to us all, even at the cost of himself.

I sat back down on the curb and waited.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I’D STOPPED RUNNING HOURS ago.

I’d kicked off my shoes and socks, torn off my blazer and waistcoat, and let my mind go. I couldn’t fully remember what’d happened or how I’d ended up this far in the forest. I didn’t want to relive how I’d bolted from the gala and now walked barefoot, with pants torn from thorns, and a shirt that was stained and sweaty.

I’d reverted from a man in a tux into a feral creature once again.

But I felt saner in this attire than I had all evening.

Twigs cracked quietly beneath my bare feet as I strolled deeper into the woods. When I’d left the gala, I’d ended up on the road before spying the heavy curtain of trunks and foliage. Their autumn colors had whispered to me, their crinkly, shivery leaves welcoming me as they swallowed me whole. I’d leaped from civilization and back into the wild because I needed some time.

I needed to run.

To find space to breathe.

I hadn’t understood just how cooped up I’d felt at Gemma’s house. It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful to her for sheltering me, feeding me, and paying for every goddamn thing I needed, but I missed this. I missed the open sky, the towering trees, and the absolute acceptance of bark-hushed solitude.

She’ll be worried about you.

I cringed.

I knew that.

Gemma had been nothing but good to me. Too good. And once again, I was hurting her. But... I couldn’t go back to her until my head was on straight. I didn’t want to worry her anymore. When I returned, I wanted to have reached that level of surrender again—knowing that I could cope with whatever came my way.

If I went back too soon, I might have a nightmare.

I might end up killing her.

I shuddered.

I kept walking.

And I would keep walking until I was better.

Because in reality, the only person who could fix me was...me.

I’d made the choice countless times to be better. But I hadn’t accepted that I would continue to slip and fumble. I’d thought it would be like a switch where I choose to be better, and that was it.

Done.

Cured.

But it didn’t work like that.

It would take time.

But it would happen.

I could feel it within me.

If I’d gone to the gala a few months ago, I would probably still be running. I would probably have killed someone—if not the entire crowd.

So...this is progress.

I was human enough to analyze what I’d done wrong.

One step closer to being healthy, happy...and that was the scariest thing of all. The thing that layered me in guilt because how could I enjoy all the blessings I’d been given when my family was still out there, alone and hurting?

They’re not alone.

They have Jareth.

My hands balled.

They should have me too.

If I hadn’t made such a fucking idiot of myself tonight—if I’d hidden my issues and smiled like a puppet—I could’ve started something that would’ve been a safe space for survivors. I could’ve taught them through my own experiences of what it was like to step back into the light and still carry around the darkness inside you. To sometimes retreat into that darkness because you weren’t ready to be seen. Because you didn’t know how to be seen. Because every fucking thing made you doubt, crave, and question.

I sighed and raked both hands through my short hair, once again jolting at the lack of length.

The run had done me good.

I was calmer now.

I could think now.

And the sensations of Tony’s unwanted arms around me, his leg between mine, and the dampness of his tears on my shirt faded. He’d come at me too fast, too emotionally. If I’d only had some warning, some time to prepare, I would gladly have hugged him back.

He was Quell’s father, for fuck’s sake.

He was the one who’d lost his little girl, all while I did my best to keep his daughter with as few scars as possible.

Fuck.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I kept walking.

Poor Quell...Isabella.

I’d been rather successful in protecting her at Fables. Sure, there were times I couldn’t prevent Storymaker from taking her, and some guests overlooked my offer to do whatever the hell they wanted to me if they stopped picking on her, but overall, I’d done what I could.

But the past eleven years?

The decade when I’d been wallowing in self-pity, she’d been serving.

She’d been chained, bruised, whipped, raped—

I choked.

Utter violence ran through my veins.

Thick, black, and monstrous rage.

Grabbing a pine cone from the forest floor, I hurled it at the nearest tree. “Fuck you! Fuck all of you!”

The words sounded eerily familiar, granting a whisper of a memory when I’d taken Gem against her will and attacked the library wall until my knuckles bled.

I’d cursed Storymaker and everyone from Fables for my pain that night. But now, I cursed them for my family’s. I raged at them for all the days and all the nights I hadn’t been able to save my loved ones.

I wished I’d gone with them that night. I wished I’d left the guests to rot, stepped through the cave, and been caught with them all over again.

At least I could’ve held them. Cried with them. Served with them.

I might have been able to redeem myself for all the things I’d done wrong.

“FUCK!” I threw another pine cone.

It smashed against a trunk, skittering into the undergrowth.

Something whimpered.

I froze.

Creeping forward, I peered into the darkness. “Who’s there?” Instincts commanded I bend and pick up a heavy stick, brandishing it as a weapon.

Something growled.

Goosebumps ran down my arms.

I crept toward the bush where the pine cone had landed. Grabbing another by my feet, I tossed it into the dense foliage.

Another growl; this one louder with a savage snarl.

A wolf? A bear foraging before hibernation?

Did bears whimper?

Striding forward, needing to know my enemy, I stopped by the bush, sucked in a breath, and ripped back the leaf-full branches.

Teeth snapped at my leg.

Fur lashed left and right as a tail whipped in fury.

I leaped back, letting the bush go, swatting the creature in the face with the ricochet of leaves.

Another whimper, followed by a more threatening growl.

A growl I’d heard on myself.

A growl that promised pain but only because it couldn’t stomach enduring pain itself.

I waited for the animal to launch itself out of the bush and attack me. I raised my stick, prepared to fight.

My heart galloped with anticipation.

...

But nothing.

Nothing jumped out.

Nothing tried to kill me.

Advancing again, I risked losing a hand as I pushed the branches away, locking eyes with a teeth snapping...dog.

“You’re not a wolf.”

The thing snarled and tried to launch itself at me, only to be yanked back by a thick rope around his neck. A rope that’d cut into his flesh, leaving it oozing and bloody. Parts of the rope were frayed from where the animal had obviously tried to chew its way to freedom, only to give up in defeat.

Shit.

Dropping my stick, I studied where the other end of the rope disappeared to. It snaked around a tree, looking as if it’d been there a while. Pawprints churned up the ground, the reek of defecation covered the dog’s matted fur, and beneath its shaggy gray and white coat, it was nothing but skin and bones.

My heart cracked.

Every protective part of me sat up, noticed, and needed to help. Stepping over the bush into its small prison, I did my best to avoid piles of crap. The dog scooted back, snarling with spit dripping off its lower lip.

“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

How many times had I seen that face on myself, on Jareth, on Wes, Maliki, and Neo? It looked manic and ferocious but beneath its show of violence was nothing but gut-churning fear.

“Who the hell tied you up out here, huh?” My hands curled. “Someone left you to die.”

The dog sneezed with its gums curled high over its teeth. Its snarling increased with warning.

I ducked to my haunches, holding out my hand for it to sniff. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

It growled louder, its claws digging into the dirt as its body twisted and coiled.

I knew the risk.

I recognized the signs of something so far retreated into its mind that only savagery remained. But I still reached out. I still tried to free him.

Grabbing the rope by its neck, I tugged a little.

The dog spun and bit me. Its fangs sank into my forearm, sending my own howl threading with his. “Shit!” Ripping my arm back, the dog came with me, its jaw clamped around my flesh, not willing to let me go.

Pain flared.

Every part of me wanted to punch it in the head so it let me go.

I raised my free hand.

I curled my fist.

But then I made eye contact with the rabid mutt, and I couldn’t do it.

Everything hit me like an avalanche.

The gala.

The midnight run.

Quell and Gemma and every fucking thing.

And I gave in.

I found a kindred, fucked-up soul deep in the forest, and it calmed me. I found the peace I’d been chasing, even while my blood flowed down its teeth. He thrashed and jerked, shaking me like I was his prey to tear apart.

I clenched my jaw and let him do what he needed. I let him take out his trauma. To hate on a man who’d done this to him. To get his revenge on a master who was meant to take care of him, not fucking leave him to rot in the woods.

Tears came to my eyes as he sank his teeth deeper.

Pain burned through me.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I know what it’s like to be betrayed. To be lied to. Beaten. Abandoned.”

A growl rumbled deep in his chest as it thrashed me again.

More pain radiated hotly through my arm.

In some sick way, it’d been so long since I’d felt pain that I liked it. I enjoyed the burn. The sting. The sensation of being alive after so much.

The dog gave no sign of letting me go, and the strangest thing happened.

The anger inside me disappeared. The rage, the confusion, the fear that I’d never be whole vanished all thanks to this rangy, skinny canine.

I saw myself in him.

I saw the mania we shared.

And I came face-to-face with the deep-seated terror that we could never be loved because of what we were, what we’d become, what we’d done to survive.

It was the saddest thing to admit. To confess.

I doubted I would’ve ever been able to offer absolution for myself if I hadn’t found this creature. To see the pieces of me that so clearly needed forgiveness and understanding. The parts still cowering behind a bush, bound by a rope, waiting for some new devil to kill me.

But staring into the gleaming eyes of an animal trying to eat me, I found salvation.

I saw every broken piece that might never glue back into the right order, but they would glue into something. They would find their place, they would form into something valuable, and eventually, they’d be stronger than anything before.

Falling back on my ass, I gave in.

I let the dog keep biting me, all while my free hand went to the rope around his neck. His teeth chewed me harder as he felt my fingers in his fur. A yelp sounded as well as a growl, his fear overshadowing his fury.

“It’s okay.” I soothed. “Do what you need. I won’t judge you.”

My fingers fumbled in puss and blood, trying to free the dog.

My own blood dripped on the ground, mixing with his as he let go only to grab me again, puncturing me with new teeth marks.

I hissed but kept working the rope around his neck. I found a clasp, slippery with fluids and agony. The dog yelped again as I managed to open it, yanked on the rope that’d stuck to the wound, and threw it into the dark.

“You’re free.”

I wasn’t expecting anything in return. If the dog decided to bite me again, I would let it. I would permit him to drink a bit of my blood in order to gain enough substance to run into the forest and take his chances with Mother Nature.

However, the opposite happened.

The dog stopped biting me.

He stretched his neck, looking back to where I’d thrown the rope, the wound on his throat gaping and raw. He turned back to me. He licked his bloody lips. He whimpered and cocked his head as his eyes glossed with intelligence, gratefulness, and relief.

And then he bowed his head, tucked his tail, and slinked onto my lap.

He didn’t stop until he pushed me backward into the bush, forcing me to recline against the twigs and leaves. His paws landed on my chest. His tongue licked my face, my head, my hair. And then his skinny, abused body flopped down on my thighs with a heartbreaking blend of a woof, a whimper, and a whine.

And fuck me...I couldn’t do it.

My heart shattered.

My tears flowed.

And I grabbed the dog, who’d just shown me so much fucking trust, in a bear hug.

I wrapped him tight, stench and all.

I buried my face into his rancid fur.

And I motherfucking sobbed.

I sobbed for my stolen childhood.

I sobbed for my broken adulthood.

I sobbed for every person I’d loved and lost.

And in that midnight forest, cradling a creature who was me in canine form, I felt a cleansing.

A purging.

A fresh start.

A steadying of my world, ready for me to step from the darkness and claim it.

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