Fable of Happiness Book Two Read online

  Concussion?

  What would cause him not to wake?

  “Hey...you....” I grimaced.

  Hey you?

  God, I’d never been so annoyingly frustrated not to know someone’s name. How had I spent a week—has it been a week?—in his company and still not know his damn name?

  Give him a nickname.

  Something to call him by.

  Something to shout when he starts to fade.

  Tapping his cheek, I snapped firmly, “Time to wake up...douche bag.”

  Maybe something not so derogatory?

  “Monster?”

  Something that’s actually true and not you trying to convince yourself he is?

  “Robert, Charles, Jon freaking Snow?”

  Doubt George R.R. Martin would appreciate you plagiarizing one of his most iconic characters.

  Placing my hand on his forehead, I paused and quieted the panic in my blood. I had to accept that he most likely wouldn’t make it. My only task now was standing vigil beside him so he wasn’t so alone as he passed away.

  Fresh tears cascaded down my face.

  I’m so sorry.

  I was responsible.

  In some sick way, I’d been the cause of all of this.

  I was the one who’d trespassed. I was the one who derailed his simple life. I was the one who’d jumped on him while he stood so close to a cliff edge.

  “I’m so sorry...whoever you are.” I cried harder. “I wish I knew your name. I wish I could apologize for everything I’ve caused.”

  God, what is his name?!

  He’d been forgotten by society, hidden from kindness, denied love and connection. He was anonymous to happiness as well as freedom.

  Anonymous.

  He was forgotten to everyone.

  Everyone but me.

  The online group that’d posted the boulder I’d been hunting was called Climber’s Anon. They’d brought me here. If only to destroy this man’s final sanity and to hold his hand as he died.

  Anon.

  That will do.

  Cradling his cheek, I bent over him. “Can you open your eyes...Anon? Just give me some sign you can hear me.”

  I waited.

  I shivered.

  Nothing.

  “Come on. Just open your eyes, and I’ll do whatever you need. I don’t know how to help you if you don’t tell me.”

  Silence.

  Stillness.

  A forest empty of his existence.

  “Anon, please...”

  Nothing.

  An hour passed while I kneeled beside him and hoped.

  I spoke to him often. I checked his pulse and assessed his bruised body. I thanked the thunderstorm the night before for softening the ground and turning hard dirt into squishy mud.

  I racked my brain on what I could do to make him wake, going over my basic first-aid training and coming up blank. I had a simple kit of needles, surgical twine, an EpiPen (not that I was allergic), antiseptics, a ten-day course of antibiotics, gauzes, bandages, and painkillers.

  None of those things would help with a head injury.

  You can’t stay here all night, Gem.

  I looked up, noticing for the first time how dark the world had become.

  The sun had quietly gone to bed, letting darkness creep shadowy fingers out of the trees toward us.

  Twilight made everything seem so much worse.

  If he hadn’t died by now, perhaps...

  Hope flared.

  Fear crushed it.

  I was paralyzed.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  I couldn’t carry him back up the cliff to civilization.

  I had no way of going for help that wouldn’t take days.

  He needed treatment immediately, but I didn’t know how.

  All I could offer was comfort.

  Take him home.

  How?

  Brushing aside my tears, I let my mind cling to the task. I’d always been a doer instead of a worrier. If I could somehow figure out how to get Anon inside his home, then I could problem solve other things along the way.

  Glancing down at him, I ran my hands over his cooling skin. More bruises had appeared, mottling his old scars. His breathing seemed to be stronger, even if he hadn’t opened his eyes.

  The fact remained he was still too big and heavy for me to carry him.

  I’ll have to—

  My head whipped up and darted toward the trees.

  An idea sprang to mind. A trick I’d watched some bush-bashing hikers post on YouTube.

  Pushing off my knees, I opened my bag’s side flap and reached for my emergency tools. A Swiss Army knife, hunting blade, and a hacksaw.

  I selected the hacksaw and stood.

  With dusk came exhaustion, but I ignored my stumble and marched toward the gangly saplings that’d sprouted from seeds above. Keeping my eyes off the man lying like the dead, I dragged my blade forward and back, forward and back, sawing into a flexible tree until it cracked and fell.

  I repeated the task, selecting an equally malleable sapling, turning it from vertical to horizontal. Their trunks only measured seven inches in diameter or so, but they’d be strong. They’d work and not be too heavy.

  Hacking the off-shoots and ensuring they were smooth, I carried them back to him.

  Still asleep.

  Still trying to die.

  Placing the two trunks side by side, I measured out his size, then used my climbing rope to create a stretcher. Tying the two trees together, I formed a small hammock between them.

  Full darkness had descended by the time I’d finished, stepping back to assess my work, squinting in the gloom and using my flashlight to check the finer details.

  Thirst forced me to drink; hunger made me eat.

  I wolfed down two muesli bars because I needed to be strong for this next part.

  Ducking by his head, I tried to tip some water into his mouth. I prayed he wouldn’t choke or inhale it, but nothing happened. The water just spilled from his lips, cascading down his cheeks to leave dirty streaks over his throat.

  Fine.

  I would ensure he’d eat and drink once we were back inside.

  Once he wakes up.

  If he wakes up.

  For now...it’s time to go.

  Bending over him, I dug my toes into the soft, muddy earth and grabbed him by the shoulder and hip. With a grunt, I pulled him forward, rolling him onto his stomach.

  I grimaced at the mess of his back.

  Old scars and fresh scratches. Bruises had turned black on his shoulder blades. I hoped it was just from the fall and nothing sinister killing him inside.

  With another heave, I rolled him onto the stretcher, laying him in the middle of the rope hammock, resting him on his back.

  His head lolled to the side. His arms floppy and legs crossed.

  Ignoring my tiredness and fear, I rearranged him so nothing would cramp or stitch, then reached for my backpack. Grabbing the smaller backpack he’d carried, I secured it to my larger one.

  For a second, I paused.

  I gathered energy.

  I prepared.

  This journey would zap me of everything I had left, but I would do it without complaint. I would protect him because I doubted he’d ever had anyone who cared enough in his past.

  Hoisting the two bags onto my shoulders, I placed myself between the two saplings, grabbed the ends, bent my knees, and hauled upward.

  Argh!

  My hands clawed at the trunks, struggling to get a good hold.

  God, he’s heavy.

  Even with his weight distributed by the stretcher, it still cost me. Jerking him higher, I did my best to get a strong position, then lurched forward and dragged him behind me.

  I dragged, and I dragged.

  At one point, he groaned.

  A guttural groan full of pain.

  I almost dropped him. A sick recipe of hope and anxiety commanded I check on him.

  But
he fell silent as quickly as he’d made a noise, and I kept going.

  Kept dragging him through the darkness, resting, stumbling, struggling...all the way back to his ivy-covered, secret-shrouded mansion.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “STAND UP STRAIGHT, ALL of you.”

  We all snapped upright, a long line of Fable kids who’d been summoned before our master.

  Storymaker sat slouched in his favourite chair in the library. He nursed a drink that he’d made Elise pour for him. He trailed his fingers up her delicate forearm as he accepted the glass. Tugging her forward, he tiptoed his fingers up her bicep to her cheek in that sick, disgusting way that said he had two tasks for her tonight.

  A guest and himself.

  I almost bit my tongue into pieces, doing my best not to launch myself at him for touching her. For daring to make her tremble. For making her owlish eyes gleam with knowing tears.

  If I could, I’d take her place. I’d volunteer, just like I volunteered as much as I was physically able, accepting the beatings and sodomy so my family didn’t have to.

  I was the oldest, after all.

  It was my job to protect them.

  The only problem was, Storymaker preferred girls. He’d yet to touch any of us boys, and it fucking killed me that I couldn’t step in and save her.

  Dismissing Elise, Storymaker narrowed his gray eyes at us as she joined our lineup. Watching us over his glasses, he sipped his drink and made us all squirm in tense silence.

  I happened to know he was almost blind without his thick glasses, their silver frame painting him as some bookish father figure with salt and pepper hair, long, lean body, and obscenely feminine hands.

  He’d been the feature of many of my nightmares.

  His feeble, nerdy body was unable to create too much pain by fists and feet alone, but his affection for torture, sex, and age-old sadism had well and truly made him the scariest motherfucker in this house.

  “Neo, didn’t I tell you to stand up?” Storymaker drawled, his stare locking onto the boy beside me. The boy who’d named himself after his favorite character of all time. He wanted to be Neo from The Matrix. A man who’d been normal until he suddenly wasn’t.

  Neo bowed his head, his black hair swinging to obscure his face. His almond eyes, courtesy of a Vietnamese mother who’d been raped by an Englishman, gleamed with hate. He braced his shoulders, sticking his scrawny chest out.

  Storymaker huffed. “Are you forgetting your manners, my children? What are you supposed to say when I summon you to a family meeting?”

  I swallowed bile that washed up my throat, reciting along with my fellow prisoners. “Thank you so much, Master, for giving us a night of fun. We can’t wait to play with our friends.” Our voices all droned together, sounding like a hive of dying honeybees. “We promise to be good. We promise to go to bed when they tell us and to play whatever game they want. We promise to make you proud.”

  Quell, standing next to Neo, wretched, her blond hair jerking as she pursed her lips and swallowed down whatever her stomach had tried to evict. Nyx with her fire-colored hair and milky skin grabbed her hand. Nyx seemed even whiter tonight. A ghost with flames upon her head, her light green eyes locked on the window as if she could escape.

  “Ah, ah, ah, what have I told you? No touching unless a guest commands it.” Storymaker leaned forward, his temper cutting through the suave refinement he did his best to maintain.

  Nyx and Quell let go of each other, denied every small comfort we had.

  “And if I catch you all holding hands at night in that dormitory of yours again, I might just have to take those hands away, okay?” Storymaker grinned, looking at each one of us.

  Jareth hissed under his breath. His bi-colored eyes (one blue, one brown) were so fierce and full of loathing, I honestly wondered if tonight was the night he snapped.

  He’d tried to attack Storymaker before.

  He’d gotten as far as grabbing the bone-handled letter opener on Storymaker’s desk, ready to stab the bastard, before the two guards who were always close by disarmed him and dragged him out of the room.

  We didn’t see him for two weeks.

  And when we did, he wasn’t the boy we used to know.

  He was...soulless.

  Storymaker kept his eyes locked on Jareth, waiting, same as us, to see if he’d try to kill him again. A few seconds passed before Jareth unfurled his fists and forced himself to take a breath.

  With that breath, Storymaker relaxed back into his chair and smiled like any doting father would. “Right, now that you’re all bathed and fed, it’s time to play. You’re in for a treat tonight, my children. Every single member of our wonderful society is here. It’s our birthday, after all. That means you all get to stay up well past your bedtime. If you get sleepy, feel free to ask for some wakey medicine. We can’t have you falling asleep when you’re meant to be playing games now, can we?”

  No one replied, our collective hate thick around us.

  “Answer me,” Storymaker commanded. “Tell me you won’t fall asleep and disappoint me.”

  We all shook our heads, vowing silently not to fall asleep.

  We all hated wakey medicine.

  It made our heart race and sweat coat our skin. We wouldn’t sleep for days. We’d hallucinate. It was doubly hard to protect each other when we were all high as fucking kites.

  And I couldn’t be incapacitated tonight.

  No fucking way.

  I’d already killed Wes’s guard. If I didn’t finish this, there would be no second chance.

  I’d been hoping for a night like this. Praying to a God I no longer believed in.

  Last year, on Fables previous anniversary, only a few guests showed up. Men and women, who had a Fables’ membership, often had high-powered jobs and important positions in society—according to Storymaker and his decree to respect and obey every single one as if they were kings and queens.

  It’d been a club they’d all formed, pooling funds to build a house in a place no one would stumble upon. The rules were simple: once a member, always a member. You couldn’t transfer or cancel. Their combined funds kept us operating, each one paying more if a member died and could no longer contribute.

  In my eight years of serving, only two members had died.

  That left eighteen.

  Eighteen guests who’d arrived throughout the day and were getting ready for a night of abuse and gluttony, taking Viagra or doing their hair, preparing themselves in their respective bedrooms.

  Soon, we would be taken to those bedrooms.

  Shared around.

  Enjoyed.

  And Storymaker would pat himself on the back for an enterprise well run. Human property well-trained. Slaves well versed in fucking. He would relax in his library. His guards would station beside him.

  No one would suspect a massacre.

  Staying perfectly still and eyes on the carpet in submission, I traced the butcher’s blade I’d stolen from the kitchen, hidden carefully in my jeans. The chef had been beaten for its disappearance. His scullery maid whipped in the vegetable garden.

  But I hadn’t fessed up.

  I’d buried it outside by the cucumbers.

  I’d waited until I’d counted eighteen guests had appeared through the cave.

  And now...

  Now, I was going to use it.

  Or die trying.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE CLOCK IN THE LIBRARY struck midnight by the time I finished washing away the mud from his skin and hair. The old-fashioned minute hand tick, tick, ticked as I applied antiseptic cream to his cuts, bandaged sore knuckles, stuck butterfly stitches to the lacerations on his chest, and rubbed arnica into fresh bruises.

  I’d managed to get some water past his lips, coaxing him to drink even while he remained unconscious. Occasionally, he acted as if he’d wake up. His pulse would skyrocket, his body would wince, and his forehead would furrow. He’d moan in his sleep about games and friends and blood.
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br />   His delusions didn’t last long, the tension in his body draining, leaving him catatonic once again. During his episodes, I kept my hands on his naked chest. I murmured to him that he was safe. That I would take care of him. That all he had to do was open his eyes, and I’d do whatever he needed.

  He never responded to me, reserving his reactions to whatever dreams haunted him. Eventually, I ignored his mumbles and flinches, focusing on repairing the exterior wounds, and doing everything I could to repair him.

  I worried he’d broken a few bones. The heat in some areas and rapid swelling hinted more than just bruises existed.

  But until he was awake, I couldn’t know for sure.

  And even if he had broken pieces of himself, what did I know about setting bones? I only knew rudimentary things like making a splint for a broken leg and a sling for a broken arm—just enough to get back to civilization for help.

  Not for the first time, my mind ran from the library and flew up the cliff to my Jeep. I mentally made the drive out of the national park and into a populated town with doctors, police, and psychiatrists.

  I’d bring them all here or find a way to take Anon to them.

  I’d pass on the largest responsibility of my life to professionals who had trained for this.

  I...I don’t know what I’m doing.

  Kneeling over him, I made a deal with myself.

  If he hung on until morning, if I could get him stable enough, if he would only just wake up so I knew he could eat and drink, I’d go for help. I’d somehow make the long journey, not to save myself but to save him.

  Crazy how just a few short hours had changed everything.

  Incredible how I’d gone from doing anything to get away from this man to doing whatever it took to keep him alive.

  Please...wake up.

  Don’t die.

  My hands trembled as my courage faltered a little.

  Dammit.

  I dropped the tube of antiseptic for the third time as I tried to apply it to the cuts I’d given him last night. Indentations of my car keys still lingered around his throat and collarbones.

  Guilt was a crushing, hissing enemy in my heart.

  My shoulders slouched.

  I’m sorry.

  Tiredness made my arms shake like useless twigs. All my strength had been used. I had nothing left after dragging him here. I’d left scuff marks on the marble tiles as my sapling stretcher hauled in garden debris as well as a nameless man, mumbling under his breath and reliving nightmares in his ill-gotten sleep.