And who had I been?
Fuck, he would never have become this...this thing.
This constantly afraid, always angry, forever fucked-up thing.
Once upon a time, I’d been the bravest of us all. No matter what mental games Storymaker played with me, I never broke. No matter the physical torture or sexual perversions, I didn’t let it touch me. Jareth was right that my penance for strangling came from my own experiences—yet another thing I’d shoved so deep, deep inside me, I’d all but convinced myself it never happened.
Storymaker never touched me sexually, but he got off on taking me to the brink of death before bringing me back. It didn’t matter where I was in Fables: heading to the bathroom, coming back from a guest, sneaking into the kitchen. If he found me, his fingers would find my throat, and I’d be his to murder, only to wake up to his firm slap a few moments later.
I’d adopted his sickness.
I’d slipped into his habits of control.
And that was yet another punch to the face because I refused to be a monster anymore.
Back then, it wasn’t suppression or amnesia that’d kept me strong—it was the knowledge that I had something to fight for. A goodness that never died inside me.
I was strong and kind and, Christ, how had I forgotten that?
As surely as I’d forgotten Storymaker’s enjoyment of squeezing my throat, I’d forgotten that I never let him break me.
Sure, I’d broken toward the end.
I’d drowned beneath nightmares and could no longer touch my own body, but that was after years of abuse. That was after thousands of hours of putting myself between my family and monsters. That was understandable.
It didn’t make me weak or worthless.
It didn’t mean I had to live the rest of my life hidden and alone.
If I hadn’t done what I did...then the grave outside would’ve held Jareth, me, and our family. It would’ve housed nine slaves instead of the many guests I’d slaughtered.
Only Jareth knew why I’d struck so violently that night. He’d overheard the same conversation I had. We’d been used together—a regular occurrence by that point. Seemed Storymaker deemed we were both the dangerous ones, the ones most likely to shuck conditioning—therefore the ones who needed the most reminding that our actions directly affected the others.
It’d been a game of Mirrors.
Storymaker had come up with it himself. The rules were one guest would touch a slave, and that same abuse would be done to the other slave, only ten times worse. I always begged to be the one receiving the magnification.
Most of the time, Storymaker agreed, sitting beside me while I was whipped, fucked, or burned. His voice constantly in my ear, praising how good I was, how bad I’d been, how much he loved watching me suffer.
That night, though, he’d made Jareth be on the receiving end.
Storymaker beat me with a cane until he split my skin. But Jareth had it worse. For every strike I received, he’d gotten ten. For every thrust from a guest, splitting me in half, he’d endured twenty.
By the time we were released, we half carried each other back to the dorm, stumbling past the library as Storymaker wiped his brow and adjusted his hard-on, muttering to a guest we couldn’t see that he’d grown bored of us.
That it was time for new stock, new slaves.
We were worn out.
It was time for an upgrade.
I’d thought Jareth had forgotten what we’d heard. He’d crashed out cold when we’d fallen into his bed. I hadn’t had the strength to untangle myself from him and ended up passing out in his embrace.
Our blood mingling. Our arms entwined around each other.
And when I woke, I’d been sickeningly hard—not because I wanted him or because we’d watched each other be raped so many goddamn times, but because the comforting warmth of a sleeping body had reminded me of everything we’d lost. Everything we’d been denied. Everything we deserved.
Shaking my head, I tossed back my second drink and eyed the brother who would always know me better than anyone else. We shared a look. He climbed to his feet and crossed the room to pour me a third glass. And when he sat back down again, I grabbed Gem’s hand and released eleven years of fucking forgetfulness.
I made a choice to move on.
To no longer let it define me.
To bury it in the past where it belonged.
I looked at Jareth, answering his previous words. “You gave me one chance because we both learned that goodness can’t be faked. I deserved that chance because you needed to see for yourself that I was still me. That something inside me was still alive and would fight tooth and fucking nail to be worthy.”
Jareth nodded; Gem inhaled.
I continued, “But if I blew that one chance, you would’ve killed me without hesitation. Not because you learned what I did—that evil can masquerade as good but will always eventually show its true colors—but because of her.” I squeezed Gemma’s hand, locking eyes with her. “Jareth would’ve killed me, not because he chose your life over mine but because I’d already made that choice. If he’d let me live and I ended up killing you, then two lives would’ve been on his hands because I would’ve killed myself the moment I realized what I’d done.”