“Just come with us now.” Quell sniffed, tears tracking molten silver in the moonlight. “We can’t say goodbye.”
Wes swayed, his skin green and leg smelling rank. They couldn’t delay getting him help.
They have to go. Now.
This wouldn’t be easy. Christ, it would be the hardest thing I’d ever done. But I wouldn’t let them wait here while I did what had to be done. My job wasn’t over yet. I’d vowed to keep them safe, and they weren’t safe...not yet.
“I’ll follow soon. I give you my word. I just need to clean up first.”
“Clean up?! You’re going to bury those bastards?” Elise snarled. “No way. Let them rot.”
“If anyone finds this place,” I said. “They’ll be a manhunt if they find a house of corpses.”
“No one will find it.” She waved her arms. “That’s the point! No one ever found us.”
“I’m sure Storymaker has an outside contact. He’ll have a contingency plan if anything should happen to him. Who else sends regular supplies and food? The network isn’t dealt with yet.”
“I don’t care. He’s dead. You’re coming with us, Kas.”
I shook my head. “I’m not, Elise. Not until it’s over.”
“This is stupid.” Maliki snorted. “Who cares if Storymaker has friends. We’ll be gone. They won’t be able to touch us.”
My temper flared, worry rippling down my spine. “Don’t you think he has our records, Mal? Our real names? Our homes and where he stole us from? They’ll come after us. They’ll go after someone new. Do you honestly want other kids going through what we did? Are you that selfish to turn your back on those that might replace you?”
Everyone fell silent.
My anger faded, but my worry only increased. “This isn’t over. The shit I’ve done...” I choked, shoving away the bitter memories—the countless “games,” the eternal pain and imprisonment.
I’d survived by channeling my agony into something good. Into a shield to protect those I could.
I’d almost finished that task, but if I didn’t stay and destroy any information that would lead others to us or kill anyone else associated with this disgusting, disgusting place, then I’d fail.
I’d be turning my back on others who needed me, not caring when another guy like me was raped or another girl like Quell was forced onto her knees to blow a man three times her age.
No way.
Just...no.
I can’t.
“Leave.” I pointed into the darkness. “I’m not asking. Go.”
“But—”
“No buts.” I shook my head at Maliki. “Wes is dying. You need to leave. I’ll deal with the bodies, and then I’ll follow.”
“But how will you know where to find us?”
“I’ll manage.”
“We’ll come back for you.” Zanik spoke up. “I’ll stay and help—”
I narrowed my eyes. “Zan, you have to keep the others safe. You’re the second oldest. Get Wes to a hospital, protect our sisters. I’m fine. Truly. I need to know you’re all together.”
“This is just stupid,” Neo snapped. “We go together, or we don’t go at all.”
Wes had perfect timing as he suddenly groaned, vomited, then passed out.
Jareth and Neo snatched him, preventing him from falling face-first into cave rock.
I chose that moment to use the authority I’d gathered over the past few years. I hadn’t deliberately become the leader of our mismatched group, but I’d cultivated respect and done things to keep them safe that’d left scars upon scars inside me.
I’d done that so one day I could do this.
“If you love me, you’ll leave. Wes doesn’t have much time. Find somewhere safe, wait, and I’ll return to you, I promise.”
Looking at each one a final time, I turned on my heel and ran.
I sprinted back to Fables.
I left them in an unwinnable situation.
Wes was sick.
I was not.
They would do the right thing and leave.
By the time I returned to the mansion, I couldn’t fucking stand up.
It was empty.
Silent.
Too silent.
My guts were a mess. My heart howled for their disappearance. My loneliness was a crushing, pulverizing madness.
Things that were already fractured inside me splintered a little more.
I could feel it happening.
A fissure in my psyche. A crack in my memories.
For three days, I swam in insurmountable pain.
I channeled that pain into energy that enabled me to dig a mass grave on the boundary of the forest. I’d wanted it to be farther away from the house. I’d tossed around the idea of a mass cremation.
Neither were viable for multiple reasons.
Whenever my heart howled for my family, I’d grab a pair of decaying ankles and drag a Fable guest down the stairs, out of the house, through the gardens, and into the communal grave.
By night, I didn’t sleep.
Their ghosts haunted me until my throat choked with blood from my screams.
By day, I existed in a repetitive cycle of dragging bodies, burying cadavers, and dealing with the stench of death in the noonday sun.
And by the time Storymaker and his guests were jumbled together and covered in mountains of earth, I was close to death myself.
My body was nearing critical, yet I couldn’t rest. My mind was creeping closer to a complete shutdown, but I had too many things still to do.
I had to burn Storymaker’s paperwork, but first I had to read them, hoping to find the homes of my family, so I could return them to their true loved ones.
I had to undo all the evil he’d done, so I could somehow, someway, deserve my own salvation.
Unfortunately, the longer I lived at Fables on my own, the more my thoughts twisted and churned. The evil in the house was repugnant, spread by blood, flies, and the unmistakable scent of rot.
Fables had become a crypt.
Because of me.
I was a murderer.
I had their blackened souls on my hands, and that blackness seeped inside me. Molecule by molecule, drop by drop, their filth spread from my fingers to my wrists and my wrists to my arms. Inching through my bloodstream, coating my lungs, my heart, my bones until it reached my mind.
Until it slipped into my skull and claimed me.
You’re as bad as them.
You’re evil.
Diseased.
I tried to wash it away.
I became obsessive.
Days turned into weeks as I cleaned carpets and bleached bedding.
I scrubbed so fucking hard, the blood I cleaned up was replaced with my own, proving that I was the same as them.
I bled red. Same as them.
I was tainted. Same as them.
And when I looked in a mirror, all I saw was them.
A man intent on hurting others.
A man who had hurt others.
So I smashed those mirrors for telling lies. I rained shards all over the floor for showing the truth.
The truth that I was a man alone.
Alone because he deserved to be alone.
CHAPTER TEN
HE STOOD BY THE window.
His silhouette menacing and dangerous in the dark. Meager moonlight etched shadows with silver, revealing the rope that had been around his ankle now lay loose and abandoned on his carpet bed.