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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I BLINKED FOR THE thousandth time, doing my best to focus on my new life.
The past few days were a blur, despite my attempts at remembering everything: the stay at the hospital, the tests, the examinations, right down to the pride and dread I’d felt when I’d willingly agreed to go with the concussion expert and have a frank discussion about my issues.
Apparently, I had plenty of those. Too many to fully remember because everything had happened so fast.
I still smelled the smoke of my dormitory going up in flames, yet I’d been away from my valley for four days. I still struggled around people even though Gem did most of the interactions on my behalf. There was too much newness. Too much to soak in.
Yesterday, I honestly hadn’t known how I’d coped with everything as well as I had.
Well enough not to kill anyone, anyway.
Perhaps I’d gone into shock, and the overwhelming upheaval of my life would come to bite me in the ass later? Or had Gemma truly sculpted me from the animalistic man I’d been into someone who could hide the feral part of himself and pretend to be human—for a little while, at least?
When I’d had my private meeting with the expert, I’d locked down all my instincts to either hurt him or run and forced myself to answer his questions honestly (or as honestly as I could). I permitted him to touch around my head to search for any abnormalities in my skull and at the base of my neck and subjected myself to hearing, vision, balance, speech, and memory tests. I told him about the guy with the white beard who kicked me in the head, my years of amnesia, and the struggles I’d had ever since falling off the cliff.
By the time he’d finished examining me, my headache was ten times worse, the whiteness that could appear at any moment and snatch me from reality whispered on my vision, and I almost begged him for a cure. To let down my façade and be brutally real that having a constant throb in my temples and a wobbliness that came and went depending on how tired I was fucking sucked.
Not to mention the mood swings.
The unexplainable moments when I’d accept whatever was happening. I’d happily surrender to the unknown and be ready to go with this new life because it was a damn sight better than my past. But then my mood would switch, darkness would fall over my thoughts, anger and temper would rise, frustration to be well, panic to be hidden, and a rush of anxiety that I was no longer free to go home.
But I can’t go home because I’m homeless.
Cast out of a valley that’d sheltered me in both good times and bad and left to flounder in this new existence. That was the hardest thing to swallow. To know that no matter how this new existence went, I had to suck it up because I had no alternative.
You have Gem.
I gritted my teeth, latching on to that thought.
Yes, I had her. And thank fuck for that. Otherwise, I’d probably be locked up in a different prison by now for hurting someone.
My hand stroked the pill bottle in the small bag beside me. I’d yet to take one. My naturally suspicious soul and inherently honed paranoia hadn’t let me self-administer yet. Would they even help the chaos in my mind? What exactly would they do to me?
At the end of the consult, the doctor had given me some pills. He said they’d stabilize my physical and mental pain, reduce any lingering inflammation, and told me to set up regular appointments with a doctor in my home state.
What home state?
I didn’t have one of those.
As I let out a heavy sigh, my churning, chaotic thoughts turned to Jareth. Where was he now? Had he hiked his way out of the national park, or had he stashed a vehicle somewhere like Gemma had and driven out?
Did he fully intend to hunt every member of Fables?
I should be helping him.
That was my job. My job was to protect and wear their blood, not his.
My nostrils flared with a
He hadn’t asked. He’d just done what he’d wanted and set Fables ablaze, but...if we ever met again, I owed him a massive thank you.
My hands curled with anger. Okay, so I owed him a punch to the face for burning down my house, but...he’d been right.
I couldn’t even deny that part because it was obvious, to both Gem and myself, that being away from the valley, being thrust into a new world where people didn’t know about my past had been the saving grace I’d needed.
My night terrors—my tendency to crawl out of bed and hunt the devils of my dreams—had stopped.
Well, not stopped exactly.
The sleepwalking had abated. I’d slept in the same room as Gem for four nights now and not once had I woken while strangling or hurting her. Each morning, she gave me a hug that throbbed with pride and hope that I was mending.
I let her believe my mind wasn’t as putrid, but that was a lie.
I might not act out on my fears in this new life, but it didn’t mean the nightmares had stopped.
After that first night, when I’d passed out cold and had one of the best night’s sleep of my life while pretzeled on an uncomfortable chair, I’d felt re-energized and woke feeling almost sane. However, the next night I’d had a nightmare of Storymaker, followed by another of Levin.
They were just as potent as usual. The scent of Storymaker’s sweat. The reek of my fear. The awful sensation of being used. Colors and voices, pain and degradation, but the difference was...I was no longer in the same house where such atrocities were done to me. I was far, far away, and my mind seemed to know that.
There was no need to go hunting—to kill the ghosts that continued to haunt me. I was here, and their corpses were there. I was no longer the caretaker, watching over death. I was free, and if the nightmares were the only thing I had to endure, I could handle that because I gained more than I could ever imagine in return.
Staring out the window, I sighed again as fields flew by followed by road signs, cars, and life. Life that’d continued without me.
Christ, I’d missed out on so much.
It made me regret waiting this long.
It made me second-guess that I could’ve found Gemma years ago, if only I’d grown some balls and left my valley. If only I hadn’t waited until I was too afraid to leave. If only I’d chosen to chase happiness instead of allowing myself to rot in that tree-surrounded tomb.
“What are you thinking about?” Gem’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “You’re glowering at the passing cars as if you’re going to murder them.”
I swallowed everything I was thinking and slipped back into the present. I turned my head to focus on the most stu
I doubted that repetitive question would ever stop.
I drank her in, inspecting the new clothes she’d purchased during a short stop at a massive department store before leaving the city behind. The huge building with a sea of parked cars and bright signage had reminded me of a time before I’d been a Fable kid.
Cold sweat had formed on my back. The whiteness crept over my vision, hinting that I wouldn’t like what I’d find if I let that particular memory return.
Shutting it down, I’d shaken my head when she’d asked if I wanted to join her shopping. She’d hopped out of the black SUV rental that she’d arranged to be dropped off at the hospital when we’d been discharged, rummaged in her backpack for her wallet, then waved goodbye.
The rush of fear filled me as she disappeared into the store.
Familiar hints on my psyche whispered that something had happened to me in a department store. Had I been kidnapped in one of them? Had I lost my family while they purchased soaps and sweaters?
I couldn’t remember, and I refused to go digging. Eventually, I’d have to face those memories, but not today. Not while I was lucid and almost starting to enjoy being in a car, on a journey where I didn’t even know the destination.
Gem hadn’t kept me waiting long. She’d returned wearing new jeans, a yellow T-shirt with a sunburst on the front, along with a gray windbreaker. She’d tossed me a bag as she’d climbed back behind the wheel and buckled up.
I’d opened it with caution, finding a pair of dark jeans, an off-white T-shirt, some socks, a pair of black boots, and a hoodie with a tiny scorpion stitched into the hem. I’d changed my smoke-riddled clothing for new while she drove, my awe at how she handled the pedals, the steering wheel, and changing gear never ceasing.
When she’d first started driving, slipping into traffic and adding speed, my heart had chugged in fear. It’d been so fucking long since I’d been any faster than a run.
White had flickered on my vision, reminding me that all this newness was too much for my concussed mind, and fear switched to anger. As my hands balled, I did my best to remember what the doctor had said. The tricks he’d recommended I use whenever my mind took control.
I’d close my eyes and breathe deep, reminding myself I was safe and sane. It was a silly trick...but it worked.
Gemma reached over and patted my knee, bringing me back to the present moment again, squeezing me as if she was determined to keep me with her this time. “Is this all too much, Kas?” Her eyes flicked to the road, keeping us straight and following the cars ahead. “I can’t imagine how overwhelming all of this is for you. Leaving the hospital, traveling in a car for the first time in forever, new clothes that didn’t come from an awful guests’ wardrobe, an entire world open to you after living in the wild.”
She looked at me again, worry tightening her pretty hazel eyes. “I’m taking you home, and you’ll be safe there, but I’m aware a lot of things are changing for you. I’ll do my best to be as understanding as I can, but you can rely on one thing that will never change.”
My heart flipped with love for this wonderful girl, gratefulness softening my stress and pain. “Oh? What’s that?” I licked my lips, doing my best to tame my raging headache.
“Me. I’ll always be there.” She squeezed my knee again. “No matter what.”
I covered her hand with mine, staring at our linked fingers in silence. She glanced at me and smiled, but I didn’t know what to say.
How did I reply to that?
How did I tell her that I needed that promise so fucking badly to be true? That I needed her and not in some superficial new puppy love kinda way but in an I might not actually survive this transition without you terrifying kinda way.
Who wanted that burden placed on their shoulders? All I’d ever done was bring her pain and imprisonment, and now that we were heading back to her home, I only brought more issues instead of peace.
Removing her hand from mine, she placed it on the gearshift.
The silence continued to thicken between us. The hair on the back of my neck prickled as I struggled for something to say. Something that didn’t admit: ‘I’m not sure how long I’ll cope, and I’m doing my best to hide it.’
“How...how much longer to your home?” I asked quietly.