Page 85 of Once Upon a Fable

“You don’t know a goddamn thing about me!”

“You’re right.” I nodded, clinging to the shovel. “I don’t. But I could...if you told me. If you stopped being such a bastard and saw that, despite how you’ve treated me, regardless of your abuse, I’m still open to understanding.”

He marched into me, his hand swooping toward my throat.

I didn’t let him get purchase. Not a third time. He would not be strangling me today. Dancing backward, I held up the shovel as a weapon. “Give me your name.”

“I don’t have a name.” He crouched into a predator stance. A hunter ready to pounce. “I suggest you dig. Now.”

I shoved back hair that’d swung forward and stuck to my cheek. “You expect me to dig my own grave?”

“I expect you to do what you’re told.”

“And if I don’t?”

His lips spread into a thin grimace. “Then I guess I’ll be the one digging.”

I looked down at my feet. At the barren land and the aura of death. “Is that what this place is? A tomb for whoever used to live in that house with you?”

He stiffened. “You think me capable of killing everyone I come into contact with?”

“Absolutely.”

He cocked his head. “If you’re so sure of what I am, then why are you still trying to talk to me? Why are you still beingnice?” He raked both hands through his hair, swiping the long wildness behind his ears. “You say you’re lonely. You try to use your own experiences to convince me to open up to you. But what you’re not following is, I have nothing toconfess. I have nothing I want to share with you—mentally or physically. Ilikebeing alone. I like silence because silence is safe. And you?” He laughed icily, unable to hide the pain lying beneath. Pain that took my breath away. “You fuck all of that up. I have no silence. I have no safety. And I’m done.”

He sprung.

Instinct took over.

I parried to the side and raised the shovel.

Bowling into me, he tried to tackle me to the earth. If I hadn’t refreshed myself on self-defense moves, I would’ve fallen and been his before I hit the ground. Instead, I let muscle memory take over.

I rolled with him.

I kicked out my leg and struck his thigh, sending him collapsing onto his back. His hands reached for my throat, throwing his whole weight at me. My hands clutched the shovel. In a sharp twist, I wrapped my legs around his torso and spun upward instead of letting him pin me into the dirt.

He didn’t get my throat, but he did snatch my arms.

That connection sent shockwaves through both of us.

My legs spasmed around his waist.

Electricity struck us as if a lightning bolt had shot from the sun.

For a second, everything stopped.

Nothing else mattered.

Only shock and lust and pain.

So much fucking pain.

We were a collision.

A disturbed, confused, broken demolishment of everything that we’d been before this.

This.