I’d been diligent in my nursing duties.
I’d scavenged the house for any and all medical equipment. My little doctor’s pharmaceutical box beside his carpet bed had already been very useful in treating him when he was sleeping.
Hopefully, in another few days, he would snap out of his concussion-induced complications, remember who I was, who he was, and could be trusted to stay awake, eat, and survive while I went to get help.
Every time I woke from a fretful nap, I’d ask myself if today was the day I could leave. And each day, he woke even more twisted than before, trapping me inside this place, unable to leave.
And now, he’d gone and kissed me.
He’d shown me a side of himself I would never have met thanks to his past.
He made me beg for a way to help him, to keep him alive instead of wish for his death.
Unfortunately, the sweet version of Kas didn’t last long. He stayed with me long enough for me to bandage his broken arm, eat some snow peas, corn on the cob, and inhale one of my rapidly dwindling chocolate bars before he fell asleep again.
I kept my distance after that.
For personal safety, I fashioned a rope cuff and tied it around his ankle, tethering him to the same heavy couch leg. It wouldn’t hold him if he had full faculties but in the brief moments of lucidity, it would stop him from leaving or hurting me.
I needed to know he’d stay in the library.
My nerves were too frazzled to think of him stalking around the house in his current, unstable condition.
While he slept, I pushed the kiss out of my mind and studied the medical books until my eyes felt as if a thousand papercuts had replaced my retinas, then fell asleep in my nook of the library. Wrapped in a blanket, I slept with my hand on my knife, just in case.
On the seventh day, I’d left Kas sleeping fitfully, crying out occasionally, speaking the names of people he loved with such longing and reverence. Normally, if he dreamed of them, he’d wake in a foul mood. He’d threaten me, then snap into subservience. He’d war between two sides of himself—the protective brother who would do anything to save his siblings and the aggressive loner who’d been abandoned for a decade.
He was dangerous.
An enigma of wanting to hurt me all while bowing at my feet like I truly was his new master.
After our kiss and the constant stress of the past week, I didn’t know how much more of this I could take.
My brother would’ve lost his head by now. My mother would be worried sick. My fans would’ve sent snooty emails asking why I hadn’t posted a video in so long.
My entire existence was on pause, and I was exhausted.
Past exhausted.
I’m wrecked.
Needing to move on the eighth day, I explored the veggie garden again, ignoring the empty spots where I’d dug up food that’d fed Kas and me over the past week.
When I’d first arrived, I hadn’t appreciated the random food Kas had provided. I’d found his offerings primitive and lacking. No seasoning. No cohesiveness.
Now, I understood it was all he had.
He painstakingly planted, nourished, and harvested every morsel he ate.
The rows upon rows of produce were every wealth he owned. There was no other food in the entire mansion. I knew. I’d looked. It made my respect for him billow. The fierceness of his will to survive was awe-inspiring.
However, it also layered me with a thousand more questions.
From his bursts of awakeness, I’d gathered he’d been a prisoner here, along with the other poor souls he’d mentioned. He’d killed the people keeping them in hell. He’d saved his family.
But if he’d managed to overthrow those who oppressed him, then why was he still here? Why was he alone? Why had his supposed precious family left him?
Those questions kept me company as I patroled the huge house and hunted for my personal locator beacon and phone for the hundredth time. The first day I’d tried looking for it, I’d opened every drawer, cupboard, and basket. I’d tried to put myself in Kas’s shoes and imagine where I would hide two pieces of technology I didn’t understand after smashing them into pieces.
Would he have kept them or thrown them away?
And even if he had thrown them away, they would still be around here somewhere. It wasn’t as if there were trash services to take waste away. No recycling truck appeared each Friday.
The first few times of searching and being unsuccessful had driven me to look outside. I’d hunted for freshly dug holes, kicking through the overgrown daisies and grasses, squinting against the sunshine to see if anything glittered to be found.
And nothing.
Nothing in the kitchen, the bedrooms, the library, the many, many other rooms.
I had fantasies of finding my PLB, fixing whatever Kas had broken, and hearing the whop-whop of helicopter blades as help arrived. I had dreams of Kas being flown away from this nightmare and reinserted back into society, with me by his side to remind him to behave.
But that was the thing. They were just dreams. Just fantasies. Things that would probably never come true.
On the ninth day, I wandered as well as hunted. I ambled the gardens, gathered a cos lettuce, a broccoli, and a handful of green beans for a salad later on, then cut down the servant hallway to the foyer after leaving them in the kitchen.
A puff of air kissed my cheek as I passed another flight of stairs leading to the left.
Of course!
I’d forgotten about this hallway. I’d traveled this way when I’d first trespassed but had been using the main entrances ever since.
Where does it go?
My phone and PLB could be up there.
Without hesitating, I took the steps two at a time and opened the ratty door at the top.
And then, I froze.
A chill ran down my spine.
Because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, I’d finally found Kas’s bedroom.
I’d found it strange that in all my sleuthing the past week, I hadn’t found an area where Kas slept. No signs of well-worn mattresses or a spot on the carpet somewhere. It was as if he didn’t live in this house at all.
But now, I knew.
He lives here.
In a dormitory of ten single beds all lined up along the walls, end to end, the wrought iron frames all touching as if they were one giant caterpillar circling around the space.
No other furniture.
No rugs or color.
Just gray sheets, gray blankets, and a world of graffiti above each bed on bare gray walls. Scribbles from fingernails, pens, and crayons were the only works of art. Counting off days, depicting flowers, recounting their nightmares with sketches of monsters.
I drifted forward. My hands bunched by my sides as I followed the line of beds. Each bed was impeccably made with tucked corners and fluffed pillows. On top of each pillow rested a book.
All old-fashioned tome in red leather with gold writing. All identical with the words The Fables by Stuart Page. Morals for all occasions stamped into the binding.
Only one bed didn’t hold a book. An empty mattress that seemed even lonelier than the rest. With my heart in my throat, I moved from the empty bed and gathered up one of the books, tipping it open.
I braced myself, not knowing what I’d find.
A dragon blowing fire from the pages?
A minotaur galloping to slay me?
Instead, I found a name.
Drawn in careful calligraphy and duty: Wesley.
Beneath the name was a single sentence: Chosen from the Fable of Madness. Chapter Eight: Wes & the Sparrow.