Thirty-Six Kassen
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
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“NO, YOU’RE DOING IT wrong,” I barked.
Goddammit, she infuriated me.
And perplexed me.
And scared me.
And undid me, one shitty piece at a time.
She was right.
My mind might not remember what’d happened last night, but my heart sure as fucking did. And it tripped over itself every time she was near.
“How else am I supposed to do it?” She huffed, swiping at hair that’d come unstuck from her ponytail.
Dirt smeared her cheek, and the smell of compost was ripe in the air.
For the last two hours, we’d stood side by side in the shed, filling pots, planting seeds, and doing our best to ignore all the unsaid things between us.
I didn’t even know why I was bothering.
The sun didn’t last as long these days, which meant the growth patterns had already adjusted for the colder seasons. I was probably wasting precious seeds on an experiment that wouldn’t yield edible results, but...what fucking choice did we have?
We didn’t have enough to last the winter.
If the animals sharing the valley had already started nesting elsewhere, then trapping enough to feed us would be tough. Whatever chocolate was left in Gemma’s backpacks wouldn’t be enough to keep us going. And we had no plan B.
Therefore, we had no choice but to try.
“Don’t just shove them in there. They’re delicate.” I grabbed the pot she was currently stabbing celery seeds in too deep. “How do you expect seedlings to reach sunlight if you’ve pushed them to the bottom? Jesus.”
I waited for her to give me attitude. To roll her eyes or make some snide comment about my teaching methods. Instead, she carefully watched me create a small divot in the dirt, pinch a few seeds inside, then cover them lightly with a tiny amount of earth.
“Just so you know,” she muttered. “I own my own house, but I’ve never mowed my own lawn or pulled weeds. The only plant I’ve ever been tasked to look after was a fern my brother bought me. It died because I went off climbing for a few weeks and didn’t water it.”
I raised an eyebrow, brushing away the remaining earth from the pot lip. “And your point is?”
“I’m not blessed with a green thumb.”
I passed the pot back to her. “You just haven’t had a good teacher.” I coughed with a half-laugh, half-groan. “Or never been so hungry you’ll literally eat anything. That tends to make you learn pretty quickly on how to gather and hunt.”
She gave me a look that clenched my belly, reaching out to take the celery pot. “I won’t ask if living out here on your own was hard. That would be a really stupid question.”
“It would be stupid.” I turned and grabbed a tray, ready to sow lettuce and mixed greens. “So don’t.”
“But I want to know how you did it. You said you lost your memory for five years—”
My head shot toward her. “I said that?”
She nodded. “In the bath. Amongst other things.”
I shivered.
What else had we talked about, and why the goddamn hell couldn’t I remember?
She shifted on the spot. “So...how did you survive if you had no memory?”
I kept my hands busy, tipping soil and creating pockets for seeds. “You don’t need to know who you are to figure out how to survive. It’s irrelevant.”
“No, but you do need skills.” She waved at the mess on the bench in front of us. “Like this. If I suddenly found myself alone, not knowing who the hell I was or how to go home, I wouldn’t have the foresight to learn how to grow a string of beans.”
I pushed past her, stepping outside into the early afternoon sun. “You don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re forced to find out.”
She followed me, carrying the tray of seedlings and placing it on the ground as I waved instruction with the watering can I’d already filled.
“What was that first crop like?” she asked softly as I tipped a shower of water over the freshly planted pots. “Did it give you joy, knowing you could survive even if you didn’t know who you were?”
A chill shot down my spine at her insight.
Yes, it gave me joy.
It gave me something to live for even though death was a constant whisper inside my head.
I stopped pouring and ducked to grab the tray, but she beat me to it.
“Ah, ah.” She clucked her tongue. “You’re supposed to be resting that arm. Lifting is my job.”
I just grunted and pointed at the cart by the ivy-covered wall. “Put it on there.”
She did as she was told, then turned back toward me, still waiting for an answer. Seemed whatever had happened last night had loosened her tongue. There weren’t arguments between us now, just constant interrogations. Her questions made my head ache, and my desire to be alone increased every minute.
Massaging my nape (with my good hand), I muttered, “That first crop was...the best thing in the world. The first sprout, the first vegetable, the first taste of something I made from nothing.” I didn’t want to look at her, but her presence summoned me.
My eyes searched for hers and got caught in the kindness glowing there.
No, not just kindness, newness, and never-ending eagerness to know me.
I didn’t like that.
I didn’t like her questions.
I didn’t like this.
Whatever this was.
Giving her a sneer, I headed to the cart and pushed it toward the kitchen door. “Of course, now that you’re helping, we’ll be lucky if anything germinates, thanks to your heavy hands.”
She shrugged, not bothered. “You were the one who said this might be a waste of time.”
I huffed.
I crossed the threshold, leaving dirty tracks on the marble tiles from the cart wheels. “Come.” Fables no longer had a greenhouse. A particularly bad hailstorm had ensured the glass did not survive.
But I had a better idea.
I couldn’t make the sun shine for longer hours, but I could ensure the seedlings would be kept at an even temperature all winter by sheltering them in the games room where the largest hearth and the warmest fire would flicker.
“Gemma,” I muttered, “come on.”
The chain slithered behind me, clinking on the tile, ensuring she’d have no choice but to follow. There was comfort in knowing that but also impatience too.
Yet another thing she’d been right about.
My temper had reached its limit with how inconvenient working with the long chain had become.
It hooked on everything. Later today, we were going into the woods to collect firewood, but the thought of Parable catching on roots and branches... fuck, what a nightmare.
But...the key.
Who the hell knows where—
THWACK!
“What the—” I spun, making the kitchen swirl and my head pound. Abandoning the cart, I tripped back outside. My gaze instantly fell on Gemma. Sunlight etched her with gold, highlighting her cheekbones and arms as she yanked at the ax embedded in the ground by her feet.
I forgot all about the seedlings.
Panic drenched my blood.
Stalking to her, I snatched the ax. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You could’ve chopped your damn leg off!” Fisting the handle, I scanned her body, ensuring she hadn’t rearranged anything. My muscles locked as my heart raced. I honestly didn’t know what I’d do if she’d maimed herself.
Is she bleeding?
Anything missing?
Fear forced words up my throat. “Are you...are you okay?”
She just smirked. Smirked as if I hadn’t just had a fucking heart attack over her welfare. “I solved our issue.”
“What issue?” My temper soared, ripping through my concern.
“The fact that you can’t remember where the key is issue.”
I narrowed my eyes, locking onto the chain.
The now dismembered chain.
She kicked out her ankle, revealing a short leash that could easily be tucked into the waistband of a skirt or threaded through a pair of leggings.
“Now, darling Kas, you won’t do anything stupid, will you?”
Storymaker lashed his hand around my ankle while his other hovered with a key. I tried to hide my desperation to be free, doing my best to keep my face respectful and contrite. “No, sir.”
“Because if I release you and find out you’re once again scurrying around in the dark, then this goes back on your ankle for the rest of your life. Got it?”
No way.
A month was bad enough.
A month of knowing Storymaker felt my every move.
A month of constantly backtracking around furniture so I could earn slack to serve guests or do my chores.
Each time I jerked in my sleep with a nightmare, the chain let Storymaker know.
The first few times, he’d charged into the dorm and beat me, just for the sake of it.
He claimed it was because I’d tried to leave my bed, but in reality, it was just an excuse to hurt me.
At least the entire month I wore Parable, he’d never laid another finger on my other family members. They were boring to him. I was the fly, and he was the spider, and he relished playing with me.
“I’m only letting you go because I’m sick of your twitching waking me up at night. Don’t make me regret this.” Stroking my cheek, he dropped his gaze to my mouth. “Otherwise, I might just make an exception to my sexual preferences and see why all our guests rave about you.”
My stomach revolted.
I almost vomited.
I waited for the command that I couldn’t refuse. The instruction to serve and get on my pathetic, conditioned knees. But after a second, he blinked and inserted the key into the padlock. When the cuff fell off my ankle, I swallowed a groan.
Pulling up his shirt, he unlocked and unbuckled the belt from his waist.
He smiled as he stood, leaving the long length of chain on the floor. “Put that away, nice and safe, Kassen. That way, if you disobey me again, you’ll know exactly where to go to retrieve it.”
Fuck that. I wanted to burn it.
I wanted to smash it into teeny tiny pieces and—
I gasped, stumbling to the side, lost for a second as Storymaker’s room switched for sunshine and vegetable patches.