Page 305 of Once Upon a Fable

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. Fallright, 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 evenlistento 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 Iwantto 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. Ilovedthem, 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 standthere 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. Ican’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 bring 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.