Twelve Kassen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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THE RINGING IN MY ears fell echoingly silent.
A switch from concussed buzzing to aching quietness. A deadly sort of quietness where I was aware of everything. Of my heart pounding, my lungs breathing, my very fucking blood gushing through my veins.
Every synapse locked onto the woman swaying before me.
The hazy vision from my head injury realigned into crystal clarity.
Everything about her, I noticed. From her dusky blond eyelashes, slight sheen on her forehead, glistening lips from her tongue, to the panic blooming in her gold-flecked hazel eyes.
We stood in an orb. A circle of silence and nothingness that’d snapped around us the moment she said my name. The only name I could remember. A name that filled me with filth. A name I hadn’t heard aloud since I’d freed my family.
A sharp lance of agony cut through my skull. The bubble around us faltered, fracturing down the middle like a crack in glass, spider webs of brokenness clinging together before the inevitable explosion.
How much had I said in my sleep to this woman?
What the hell had she gleaned from the misery I wallowed in?
My past was mine. Not hers. She wasn’t entitled to my pain.
She wasn’t allowed to know the extent of my suffering because that would change things between us.
It would make her bold. It would give her far, far too much courage to stand up to me.
It’s already changed things.
The silence stretched as my fingernails dug deep into my palms. My fists shook, wanting to strike. Someone. Something. I wanted to hit her, and the discipline it took to refuse such an urge crucified me.
She deserved to feel a fraction of her betrayal. Over and over, this goddamn woman hurt me. Her appearance. Her actions. Her care. Her tricks. How was I supposed to stay safe when she was the exact fucking opposite of the word?
I inhaled hard, shaking my head from the black shadows creeping over me. The bubble strained around us. One last pulse of quietness. A single second before anarchy would rain.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” She licked her lips nervously, her gaze dancing over my face, searching for my reaction. “I...I’m sorry...Kas.”
I winced as another hot poker drove through my skull.
The second shattered.
And I gave her my reaction.
My teeth stayed tight together as I spoke.
“That name came from a book. It’s not mine.
It was never mine. Yet you have the audacity to use it.
” My fingernails pierced my palms as more rage filtered through my hands.
I really, really wanted to strike her. I’d spent a lifetime being made to obey, forced to bend over and take whatever shit they gave me.
But now? Now, I’d crafted a life where I never had to answer to anyone. Ever again.
I had food I’d painstakingly planted. Which she’s eaten.
I had a house I’d laboriously cleaned and claimed. Which she’s ransacked.
I had a valley I’d felt safe in. Which she’s infiltrated.
She’d ruined everything.
Over and over and fucking over again.
And now, somehow, she’d taken possession of my name?! What was next? My body? My soul? The very freedom I’d fought so damn hard to have?
Christ!
“How did you learn it, huh?” I snapped. Did you trick me while I was sleeping? Did you twist my mind into spilling secrets that weren’t yours to know?”
“No!” She licked her lips again, a nervous twitch as true fear along with disgusting compassion colored her cheekbones. “It wasn’t like that!”
“Then tell me!” I barked, leaning into her, crushing her. “Tell me why you’re looking at me differently. Why you’re watching me with fucking pity instead of terror.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” I grabbed her and shook her again, pleased when she groaned as her neck fought the motion.
“You think we’re friends, Gem? Did you envision I’d wake after days of being unconscious and suddenly, what?
Be cured? Be grateful?” I laughed with ice.
“Before you came into my life, I hadn’t been seriously hurt in years.
I had nothing to heal from. Nothing to fear.
Yet after a week in your dazzling company, I already hurt more than any punishment they ever gave me. ”
She flinched. “Kas, I—”
“Don’t use that name.”
Her shoulders braced beneath my hands. “I have to call you something.”
“No, you don’t. You haven’t earned that right.”
Biting her lip, she nodded even though her eyes remained narrowed. “Give me a name, and I’ll use it. Choose anything you want, and I’ll honor your request.”
“Honour it? Ha! You haven’t honored anything else of mine.”
Fight unfurled beneath her fear. “I cared for you, in case you’ve forgotten. I honored your life. Without me, you’d still be at the bottom of the cliff. Dead.”
“Without you, I would be living an ordinary summer’s day. Safe and alone with no fucking trespassers messing up said life!”
“You could’ve let me go that first day, and none of this would’ve happened!”
“You could’ve kept your nosy business out of places where you didn’t belong and never have come here!”
“Well, you should’ve—”
“I should’ve what?” I seethed, yanking her close. Too close. So close our noses touched and eyes locked deep.
Her chest rose as she planted her palms on my pecs, pushing gently.
Fire burned me. Heat came from out of nowhere, swirling between us.
Arguments blazed in her stare. The same urge to strike me resided in her, but somehow, she sucked in a breath and visibly calmed.
Not all the way. Just enough to murmur words instead of punishing with fists.
“You could’ve just said thank you. You’re right that I’m the reason all of this has happened.
I’m fully aware neither of us is happy with this arrangement.
I know you’re struggling with having a guest—”
My entire body jerked at that word.
She noticed.
She knew what it meant.
She knew more about me than she had before I’d fallen, and that gutted me because just how much did she know?
“Shit, I’m sorry,” she rushed. “I didn’t mean to use that word.
I’ll erase it from my vocabulary immediately.
” She stood stiff in my hands, her breathing shallow and quick.
“Look, I can’t seem to say anything to you that doesn’t get me into trouble.
I don’t know how to do this. I understand why you can’t trust me.
But you have to know my intentions are pure.
I mean you no harm or have any intention of tricking you.
So, please...just take a breath and listen to me.
Give me two minutes, and I’ll explain everything. ”
“Oh, you’re going to explain everything all right.”
“What does that mean?” She frowned.
“It means, I have a shit ton of questions, and you’re answering every single one.” Pushing her away from me, I ducked and grabbed the leash from around her ankle.
The room tipped upside down.
Buzzing returned in my ears.
My mouth went sour with the urge to be sick, and the headache that seemed to be a permanent friend swelled with pressure until I swore my brain would ooze out of my ears.
“Come,” I growled, thick and almost indistinguishable as English.
“Move.” Tripping sideways, I kept my fist locked around the leash as I pulled her from the library.
Each step required far more coordination than I currently had.
Fables was no longer built on solid rock but on an ocean that bucked and rolled beneath my feet.
“Where...where are you taking me?” A feminine voice behind me, coming from a dark tunnel and unable to find my ears properly. I crashed against the banister, clutching at the spindles as I looked upstairs to the rooms where so much of my soul had been stolen.
Big mistake.
“Come, Kas, it’s time to play.” Mrs. Cox crooked her finger in my direction, swinging a crop in her other hand. She cocked her hip, smiling from the landing. “You’ve been a naughty boy, haven’t you? Time for some discipline.”
Storymaker’s palm shoved between my shoulder blades, making me stumble up the stairs. “You’re the one who begged to take Jareth’s place. So go...be a good boy and fuck that woman raw.”
I blacked out.
I came to.
“You need to sit before you fall.” That voice again. A voice down a well, echoey and far away.
No.
I needed...
There was something important...
The garden!
Shoving off the banister, I tripped and stumbled the entire distance from the house to the veggie patch outside. I ignored the mess in the kitchen. Of pots used but not washed. Of knives waiting on benchtops and not in their usual home. Of crumbs—goddamn crumbs, on my pristine floor.
I didn’t let the swelling in my head overflow with anger. In keeping with her character, she’d messed up my church of cleanliness. Everything of mine she touched, she destroyed.
My heart lurched, and I fell out of the doorway, almost collapsing to my knees in the chef’s garden.
It was a massacre. A fucking massacre.
Earth lay scattered along my carefully tended pathways. Holes in the corn crop, the lettuce patch, the bean lattice—holes everywhere where mature vegetables used to be, waiting for harvest, their destiny to be jarred, dried, or frozen in preparation for months when nothing grew.
Christ!
I bashed against the wall as my balance threw me sideways.
“Please, you really need to sit down.” She wrung her fingers, coming into my eyeline.
“Your head is killing you. You can barely stand. You’re gray and sweaty.
You should be back in bed, resting, not...
” Wafting her hand around the veggie patches, she scoffed—actually had the goddamn nerve to scoff.
“Not dragging me outside for a cultivation lesson.”
I smiled, thinly, nastily. “Oh, this isn’t a cultivation lesson.”
“Then what is it?” She sniffed, her eyes going harsh.
“I had to see for myself what damage you’ve caused.”
“That damage kept you alive.”
“Did you have to pick so much?”
“Forgive me if I wanted to feed you as much as possible. Healing requires energy!”