Page 45 of Once Upon a Fable

With her trespassing, she’d brought life back into this place. She’d chased away the quietness that’d settled so deeply inside me.

After years alone, you tended to forget.

If enough time passed, you could even pretend it never existed.

But thanks to her, I remembered why I’d struggled so much in those first few years. Why I’d spent a year catatonically drunk before I’d had to make the choice to live or die. Why I’d turned my back on those who’d turned their back on me.

Loneliness.

It was a disease that once caught, there was no cure.

Its endless vacuum sucked up every emotion and thought until the only thing left was a husk. A wordless husk with bones so hollow, I expected one day just to shatter into dust and be done with it.

“Well?” she snarled. “I’m done waiting. You made me wait all night. If you’ve made up your mind to become a murderer, then just do it already.” Tears glittered in her angry eyes, a final attempt at hope blazing. “But...if you’re still looking at your options, I have money. I...I’ll pay you to free me. What do you want? A million? Two? Put a price on my life, and I’ll pay it.”

I paused. “You expect me to believe you have that sort of money?”

“I do.” She balled her hands, warming to her crusade. “I’m successful online. I haven’t had anything to spend my income on. I’m...a good saver. If I have to buy my life from you, then so be it. You can have every penny I haveifyou let me go.”

I sat back, stunned once again at her beauty. This time, it wasn’t her looks that made me hard but her fierceness. Her fury and skills at negotiation. She hadn’t accepted her end, after all.

When I didn’t speak, she licked her lips and rubbed her arms. “Well? Do we have a deal?”

She didn’t need to know that money meant nothing to me. What would I spend it on out here? It couldn’t be used to buy food, not when I couldn’t afford to reveal my existence. I couldn’t plant a dollar bill and have it sprout into parsnips.

It wasn’t the money that she was willing to give me that made interest and hesitation billow. It was the fact she was willing to offer me anything at all.

It made my cock twitch.

It made me wonder...

Picking up my final strawberry, I ate it slowly, savoring the sugar and licking at its juice. “I don’t know.”

She froze. “But...you’re open to discussing it?”

I shrugged. “I’m unsure at this point.”

“What would make you sure? Why are you so intent on killing me? Tell me that, and maybe I can—”

“You don’t belong here. I need you gone because I don’t know any other solution. Because you have nothing to offer me other than complication and will end up demanding more than I can afford.”

Silence tumbled between us, heavy with thought and consequence.

She let her arms uncross and hands settle into her lap. Her breathing turned slow and deep as her forehead scrunched. I watched it all as she shook her head, her eyes narrowing on the puddle next to her.

I couldn’t guess what she was thinking, but whatever it was took all her concentration. All her courage. Everything she was.

Finally, after what felt like forever, she lifted her chin and captured my eyes.

She studied me. Her gaze dropped to my mouth, swept to my hair, then glided down my body.

She nodded once.

Inhaled hard.

Then murmured, “I have something else to offer.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN