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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 ru
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, ski
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.