Page 497 of Once Upon a Fable

“What do you mean?” Gemma whispered, her voice soft but loud enough to scratch my heart.

“I mean...a few weeks ago when your live video went viral, our algorithms kicked in. The most popular videos of the day are posted on my direct feed so I can check out why a certain topic has hit the public so profoundly.” Tony shook his head at me as if he couldn’t believe it. “And that’s how I ‘met’ Kas. A long-haired, bearded bear who looked into the camera with so much pain, so much wariness, so much distrust. I remembered that look. I remembered his name and—” His tears started again. He ran both hands over his face, forcing himself to finish. “And when my daughter came home with that very same look in her eyes and the countless scars on her beautiful body, there was one scar that didn’t look like the others. It was black with lead instead of silver from age. It looked...deliberate. It made me fucking sick to think some bastard had autographed my child. That he’d hurt her then signed the very pain he’d given her. But she...” He blew out a harsh breath, glowering at the crowd and the insensitive cell phones recording such a private, agonizing moment. “She told me it was self-inflicted. That she’d sat in the dark with her older brother and dragged a sharp pencil over her forearm. He’d told her to stop. But she’d added his name instead. She said it was the only thing that gave her comfort. The name of the boy she loved, inked into her skin, a hero who did what he could to protect her.”

For a second, my mind was blank.

But then itdetonatedwith images. Of memories. Of sitting on our beds, drawing blood with a pencil, imprinting wounds on a body already riddled with them.

“We have to stop. It’s too addictive.”

“I know, Kas. Just...one more.”

And I’d let her.

She’d drawn a K and then an A, finishing it off with an S.

I’d felt so protective of her, so in love with her, so damn afraid that I would let her down after she’d just called me her hero.

Bile rushed up my throat.

Fuck.

Fucking...

I’m going to be sick.

Motherfucking sick.

I stumbled backward, clutching onto the bar.

Tony came closer, crowding me, crushing me. “I don’t know the extent of what went on in that place, but you were there for my daughter when I couldn’t be.” Tony choked on a sob, his arms reaching for me. “You were there to hold her, soothe her. She told me that for the first part of her imprisonment, you did your very best to save her from—”

My ears roared, blocking him out.

Whiteness gathered on my vision.

My head pounded.

My knees tried to give way. “You-your daughter...” I blinked, trying to see Tony through all the fucking white. “What’s...what’s her name?”

I knew.

I fucking knew.

Jareth.

He’d done it.

He’d found one of our sisters.

He’d—

“Her name is Isabella. Isabella Creed.” He fell on me, wrapping his arms around me in a fierce embrace, making my head disintegrate, my heart annihilate, and every part of me threaten to explode. “But I think you knew her as Quell.”

Holy shit—

The room pressed in.

Panic clawed.