Fable of Happiness Book Two

by Pepper Winters

  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 br
ing 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.

  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 be
fore 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.”