But...is he mentally stable enough to do this?
To be in a large group of people?
To speak in front of cameras and be confident enough to endure the inevitable ridicule?
I honestly didn’t know.
And that fear kept me company all the way home.
* * * * *
“Kas?” I carried groceries through the front door, glancing around the empty living room and kitchen. “Are you here?” Dumping the bags by the sink, I made another trip out to the secondhand car I’d purchased a couple of weeks ago.
I missed my Jeep.
Eventually, I’d have to arrange to get it towed out of the national park. And if that wasn’t possible—because let’s face it, I’d left it in a rather tricky spot—I would get another key cut and make a trip up there with a new battery to collect it myself.
Kas could come with me.
How would he feel about returning?
Would he regress after seeing the shell of what was left of Fables? We’d seen pictures of the fire-ravaged mansion thanks to a local news crew that’d flown over the ruins and done a piece on the firefighting team that’d successfully prevented a massive forest fire. Their reporters had researched and linked Fables to the recent news reports on Kas’s reappearance and the current investigation as police tried to track any family and the Fable syndicate who stole young kids.
Kas’s tale wasn’t often on the news after the first few days of interest, but it still circulated online among my fans. They still hounded me for Kas to do a survival video or even a simple Q&A so they could hear his story.
People were interested.
The buzz was still huge.
The gala would only add to it.
Stepping back inside, I kicked the front door closed with my foot and carried the last armful of food to the kitchen. “Kas?” I peered outside, checking to see if he was tending to his garden.
Nothing.
Huh, that’s odd.
He wasn’t exactly at the stage of going off on his own. He didn’t even carry his own key to come and go even though I’d cut one for him. He’d left it on the side table, stating he wasn’t ready to join the chaos just yet.
I’d wanted to ask him why he wasn’t ready. Was it the masses of people? The loud sounds, big stores, and overwhelming insanity of everyday life that society had become immune to? Or was his mind not as stable as he made me believe?
His whiteout moments were getting less and less. He’d stopped taking as many pain meds for his headaches. And the times when I did catch him staring into space, only to shake his head and blink at me blankly, were rare.
His memory stayed intact.
His overall demeanor remained levelheaded and calm.
But maybe there was something he wasn’t telling me.
Where the hell is he?
“Kas? Everything okay?”
I strolled down the hallway, peering into my office and climbing room. Nothing. Picking up speed and heading to my bedroom at the end of the hall, I glanced into the main bathroom and slammed to a stop.
“Oh, my God.” My hands flew to my mouth. Shock almost made my knees give out as I drank Kas in. “What...what are you doing?”
He didn’t look at me, glowering at himself in the mirror and hacking away at his long, ruffian hair. His hands operated the kitchen scissors as if they were a hack blade, chopping off sections of uneven strands and scattering them all over the bathroom floor.
I flinched at all the clumps already discarded on the floor by his bare feet. My stomach panged in worry as I inched into the bathroom and dared to reach up, stilling his hand with mine and trying to take the scissors from him, just in case he was sleepwalking.
“Kas?” I studied his dark eyes, trying to see if he was in a nightmare or awake. “Are you...okay?”
Slowly, the manic self-disgust faded from his stare, and his shoulders slouched. Tearing his eyes from the mirror, he ran both hands over his face and gave me a wobbly smile. “Sorry. I had meant to be done by the time you got back.”
“Done with what?” I looked at the scissors in my hand, a rush of sickness filling me. “You weren’t...going to hurt yourself, were you?”
“Christ no.” He shook his head and planted his hands on either side of the sink, staring at himself in the mirror.
“Then what were you doing?”
He sighed heavily, taking his time to reply. Finally, he murmured, “I looked up what a gala is online.”
“Okay...”
“I scanned images of richly decorated ballrooms, champagne towers, and crazy flower arrangements on overly stocked tables.”
“You lived in a mansion. That surely doesn’t scare you. You’re used to decadence. My little house is a downgrade in that area.”
He cleared his throat. “It’s not the setting that made me panic.”
“Is it the thought of so many people? Of being open about what you endured?” I leaned against the vanity and faced him. “If it is, I get it. I was wondering if it would be too much for you. As lovely as the offer is and the potential donations you could earn would undeniably cause positive change, it’s not worth it if it makes your past haunt you or your concussion to have a relapse.”