“Why?”
This isn’t a question I expect a hallucination to be able to answer. All of her information comes from what’s inside my own head, and I sure as shit don’t have a reason to stay. The only way to numb the pain is to get so fucked up I’m a problem foreveryone, a burden. The real Sable is back and safe, and they don’t need someone else to take care of them, especially not someone they hate who can’t keep them safe.
The best thing I can do is let them heal without me. When I’m dead, Arabella won’t be able to bother me, I won’t get the messages, or live with the flashes of what she did printed under my eyelids. I won’t need to hear my brother’s accusations knowing he is so fucking right to hate me.
“Because I’m asking you, Soren,” she sighs. “Because Ineedyou.”
My head whips to her, shocked and hopeful in a way I don’t have any right to be. Why is my subconscious inventing new tortures for me? The real Sable doesn’t need me, yet the words are so seductive. They’re everything I want in the world.
“Just come with me tonight. You can do this later if you really want,” she promises me.
One night? One night with Fantasy Sable, unaware of what the real world has for me? Her eyes shine into mine, and she extends her other hand. Maybe I can figure out the right combination of pills and alcohol to make this happen again. My convictions dry up and roll away as I take her hand, and she helps me down. She closes it behind me and does the latch, breathing hard and refusing to let my hand go.
She tugs on me, pulling me down the hall and shocking me with her strength. “Where are we going, Fantasy Sable?” I ask, following her anywhere.
“How fucked up are you?”
My steps falter, my shoulder hits the wall. My steps are so heavy I don’t think I can go any further, but if she pulls any harder, I might hit the floor.
“Me? I’m fine,” I say.
“Come on, just a little more,” she urges, and I wonder where my imagination wants me to go.
My eyes are locked on the way her hair shines under the moonlight. She keeps turning around to look at me like I’m the one who’s about to dissipate. Finally, we reach a door I’ve never used.
“Stay,” she says before she drops my hand and removes the chain from around her neck. A big, fat key hangs off it, and she uses that to unlock the door.
“Real Sable doesn’t have that key,” I marvel. “My imagination is so interesting.”
She pulls me through the door. “Yes, you are a creative genius.”
I chuckle, following her without really paying attention to where I am. My eyes are forever on her and only her, and until this hallucination leaves me like real Sable, I will enjoy her company.
Fantasy Sable brings me into a suite much like my own, and I follow her into a bedroom. I’m not great on my feet, and it takes a lot of effort. When we reach the bed, she pushes me into it. I open my arms, silently begging to hold her, but I’m shocked when she complies and cuddles into me. I breathe in her hair, letting the warmth of her body seep into mine.
“What if I actually jumped and I’m in heaven?” I ask, taking another sniff of her hair. Fantasy Sable frowns at me. There’s a little line of worry between her brows, and I don’t like it. If we’re going to live in a dreamland, I want her to be calm and happy, not worried. “I wouldn’t think I deserve heaven,” I confess to her, my palm curving around her soft cheek.
“For what you did with Arabella?” she asks, a hint of pain in her voice when she says the bitches name.
“For whatshedid to me, sure. But there was more to it than that.”
“What did she do to you?” Fantasy Sable asks.
She shouldn’t ask those questions now. We both know what happened, and I don’t want to waste my time talking about it again. This is supposed to be one last hurrah.
“I don’t want to talk about that. All I want is to keep you in my arms. I can’t have real Sable anymore, so I need to appreciate this while it lasts.”
“Why don’t you have real Sable?” she asks.
“She hates me.”
CHAPTER 48
SABLE
Something anchorsme to the bed, a bar over my stomach, heavy but not entirely uncomfortable. My eyes open slowly, and once again I have to think hard to remember where I am. When I blink, the room starts coming into focus, and I see a very tattooed arm with long, beautiful fingers wrapped around my stomach.
Soren.
