Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

We’d all made a pact that whoever got to the cave first would keep going, no matter what.

But that was before I heard Zanik screaming. Before I watched Storymaker hurling a whip as though he was some devil reincarnate, lashing everyone I loved until they were crisscrossed with blood.

I shuddered and pushed that day away. “We tried, and we failed. No way are we putting any of us at risk again.”

“But we have to do something,” Saraz whispered. “I don’t care if they hurt us. If one of us gets out, then at least—”

“I said no,” I hissed.

“Kas is right.” Quell turned onto her stomach, hugging her pillow. The dorm was stagnantly hot with no air but all of us had blankets covering our collection of scars and scabs. “Even if we took a vote and agreed on a person to run, the chances of them getting far isn’t high.”

“Even if they did get through the cave, it would be a week’s hike minimum,” Jareth piped up, his voice gravelly from sleep. “They’d catch us before we got near civilization.”

“How do you know it’s a week’s hike?” I asked, staying quiet and keeping my eyes trained on the door.

“I wasn’t drugged enough. I woke up. I don’t remember the route, but I do know it took a long time, even by car.”

Everyone gasped, digesting this information.

“And besides,” Jareth added. “Kas is right. Sure, one of us might get out, but then what? Who the fuck is gonna believe a kid that there’s a house of horrors hidden in some valley where men and women have a secret society?”

“Police?” Nyx squeaked. “The police would believe us.”

“The police are probably in on it.” Jareth sniffed, rolling over to face the wall, signaling his end to this conversation.

Quietness fell for a while, and the creak of bedsprings faded as we all stopped moving. I closed my eyes, waiting for sleep to whisk me away, but Zanik murmured, “I feel as if I earned the right to say this. After all, it was me who paid the price when we tried to run last time. And you know what I think?”

“What?”

“Tell us.”

“Go on.”

A babble of voices, all threading together.

“I think we fucked ourselves by getting close. I love you. I know you love me. And I would rather stay in hell with you than take a chance at freedom, knowing it will kill one of you in return.”

A grumble of arguments.

A thread of anarchy.

I had to squash that.

The only way we were getting out of this place is if we all turned on each other, or if we were smart and stuck it out.

Swallowing, I glanced at the door again, wishing I could see through the wood to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

“We need to kill Storymaker,” Maliki whisper-hissed. “Then we could all be free.”

I sat up in bed, staring at each of my family, imprinting their small, dark shapes into my heart. “Zan is right. We love each other. Therefore, we’re stuck with each other. But I promise you, I will get us free. I...I have a plan. I just need to wait for the right time.”

“What are you planning?” Wes asked.

I shook my head. “The less you know, the better. But Mal is right, too. Storymaker has to die.”

He had to die because if he didn’t, then we all would. And the thought of watching my family be butchered after being subjected to sexual fucking servitude was enough to make my hands ball and heart smoke with everlasting hate.

I would never leave them.

I would die doing whatever I could to protect them.

I would do that because I loved them.

And love was the cruelest prison of all.

I gasped, sucking in air as my mind returned to the library, and my body jerked in the wingback. I flopped over my legs, inhaling hard as the room spun with books and pages, all blurring together in mockery.

Books that I’d read, cover to cover, countless times over. Stories of bravery, fantasies of dragons and shapeshifters, romances where the hero always saved the girl.

I bared my teeth and growled at them all. Useless tales. Utter bullshit. The real stories of love and sacrifice were far less pretty and very rarely tied up with a happily fucking ever after.

Gemma.

Flinching, I groaned and shook my head. I didn’t want to think about her either. About the way her eyes glowed with pain. The way her voice caught with misery.

She’d argued with me, she’d pushed me, and she’d almost made me snap. But then she’d given in. She’d shrugged as if she was as lost as I was.

And then, she left me.

My breath hitched, replaying the way she’d shrugged before heading out the door. My heart had folded in on itself, burning to ash.

It still hurt—throbbing as if she’d ripped it free from my chest.

Who’d have guessed I’d be defeated by a simple, sad little shrug?

A shrug that said I’d hurt her more this morning by not even touching her than I had in any other interaction.

Christ, I didn’t even understand what she was shrugging about!

And why did something so innocuous as that punch me right in the heart and leave me empty and bereft and so many other complicated things?

That shrug had felt monumental. Familiar. It felt like a weapon that’d already successfully annihilated me before.

Yet...I can’t remember if that’s true.