Page 26 of Whiskey Shivers

Mark, to his credit, shut the hell up. The skeeze in our bed had managed to cover up with the comforter I’d bought and I wanted to puke.

“You take this money. You get in your expensive fucking car and you take this cheap-ass whore and yourself to the nearest hotel for the rest of today and tonight. By the time you come back, we’re going to be gone and you’renevergoing to contact Cor again. Do I make myself clear?”

“Who the—”

“Do I make myself clear?” Hex bellowed, and both myself and the whore in my bed jumped while Mark shrank like the pussy he was.

“Okay, alright,” Mark said with his hands up in surrender.

“No, don’t look at her. You look at me,” Hex demanded when Mark tried to turn his head in my direction. I swallowed hard and stared at him. I wouldnotgive him the benefit of me looking away. Not this time. Not after all the times I’d overlooked every other little thing he’d done – or not done, as the case may be.

“Fable,” Hex said quietly. “Step out into the hall.”

I did. Most of the time I would be incensed at being told what to do, but right now, with everything crashing down on me, I was merelygratefulthat Hex was in control so I didn’t have to be.

“You and the whore have three minutes to get fucking dressed and get the fuck out or shit’s going to get violent,” Hex declared.

“You can’t threaten me in my own house,” Mark rallied and tried to stand up a little straighter. Hex shut him down with a look.

“I just fucking did. What are you going to do about it?” he demanded.

The blonde had her phone and I went over and ripped it out of her hand and threw it on the floor, crushing it under my boot heel.

“You’re lucky I don’t slap the shit out of you, trying to call the cops on me in my own house!” I snarled. “Get your clothes, get your shit, andget out!”

“Fable,hallway,” Hex ordered and his tone was less gentle with me than it’d been the moment before. I swallowed hard and did what he said.

I stepped into the hallway, thought better of it, and went into the bathroom, dropping onto the closed lid of the toilet after slamming the door shut.

No, slamming the door didn’t make me feel better. I thought it might, but it didn’t.

I shook with the vibrant energy that the adrenaline had sent coursing through my veins but at the same time? I felt like I was emotionally suspended in animation, things roiling and churning my gut but like I was having a physiological response. My thoughts and feelings were just… stuck. Very stuck. Very… I was angry but I wasn’t. I was upset, but strangely calm, as though I resided in an echo chamber of my own shitty emotions butallI was getting was the echo – none of the initial shouting, though they’d been muffled somehow. I realized that I had to hold on to it. I had to stay calm and get through this. That I was just in that phase of the tsunami pulling back all the things from shore. That everything was rolling out like a video switched into reverse and that when everythingdidcome roaring back in, it was going to bedevastating.

Too much,my mind whispered.Too much, too much, too much.

The cadence of it was soothing even though the implication of the actual words was anything but.

“Fable?” A knock came at the door and I looked up from where I’d hunched and rocked myself on the toilet, the white knuckles of my good hand pressed against my lips, my jaw aching from how I clenched it.

I went to the door and opened it.

“Help is on the way to load you up and clear you out,” Hex said gently, and I lowered my hand from my mouth, shaking.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” I said, my voice sounding hollow.

“You just let me handle that,” he said soothingly and reached out to cup my face with his hand, smoothing back some wisps of hair that’d escaped my ponytail.

“What have you got to pack up your things?” he asked.

I sighed, closing my eyes and going back to what I’d always known.

“Trash bags are under the kitchen sink,” I said dully.

“Okay,” he said. “Start with in here. Put everything you want to take in the sink.”

“Okay,” I said, and he disappeared from the doorway, leaving the portal open. I felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room with him.

CHAPTERFOURTEEN

---