Page 54 of The Toy Maker

Jason cocked an eyebrow at my statement. “Nothing Luke didn’t let her do.”

I preferred not to listen to his logic.

“That’s not an excuse,” I snapped while the anger still burned through me. I didn’t expect him to understand, not when he spent all his time tucked away in his workshop, tinkering on the newest way to drive me into taking his offer.

He couldn’t understand what it was like to feel disposable.

Still, he pretended he could. “Why are you taking this so hard?” Jason watched my explosive reactions with an unfounded amount of concern. I wasfine.

I shook my head with a scoff, turning away from him. “Doesn’t matter.”

I tried to walk away, desperate to put some distance between us, but Jason’s hand closed around my arm. His touch made my pulse race, which only deepened my irritation.

“Fine, don’t tell me, but I hope you understand that no one can make someone do anything that they didn’t already want to do.” His eyes locked onto mine as he continued to try and decipher my outburst. “At least, not in this case.”

His words hung in the air, challenging me to argue, but the anger bubbling inside me refused to let me form a coherentresponse. My jaw tightened as I glared at him, my fists clenched at my sides.

“Maybe,” I said finally, “but that doesn’t mean she should get away with it.”

I jerked my arm free from his grasp and for a brief second, I caught a flicker of something in his eyes—regret, maybe, or confusion—but I couldn’t bring myself to care. The last thing I wanted was his pity.

Without another word, I turned on my heel and stormed off toward the dressing room, knowing I could kill both time and my memories of the night there.

Kitty and Jadefound me finishing off Sarah's abandoned bottle of rum in the back room. Less than an hour had passed while I drowned my sharp edges in the most questionable way.

“Not you, too.” Jade joined me by the vanities while I polished off the bottle. “At this rate, our next girl’s night out is going to have to be at an AA meeting,” she groaned.

Kitty handed me another half-empty bottle, and Jade glared at her.

“So, why’d you freak out?” Kitty asked kindly.

I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth and tried to remember the source of my anger. Amy's blatant bitchiness infuriated me, but seeing Sarah hurt reminded me of a time in my life I worked hard to ignore.

I stopped trying to make sense of the rage and retreated into myself. Kitty's reasonable question hung in the air.

Why did I lose it?

I tugged at the snug corset; any tighter and I'd be unable to breathe, but that didn’t seem to matter so much anymore. Sighing, I took another long sip of rum.

"My dad cheated on my mom." The words didn't burn as much as I assumed they would. The more time that passed, the further away the memories seemed. "He cheated and moved on while my mom…"

I squeezed my eyes shut. Mom shut down, refusing to get out of bed for weeks, forcing Tristan and I to fend for ourselves. My heart squeezed in my chest, warning me to back off from the memory or take a deep breath, but it was too late.

Jade took my hands as I tried to stabilize myself. The pressure from the corset and mixture of punch and rum sent black spots over my vision. She wasn’t kind before, butafter, I could never please her. My life was just one big failure after another through her eyes. I was destined to be her if I didn’t listen. I’d be left behind.

As my eyes fell back into my head, a familiar sensation tingled over me.

Someone caught me in their arms before I could tumble to the ground.

TWENTY

I wokeup in the back of the shop, on a cot I had grown much too accustomed to. The room was dim, with only the faintest light creeping in from under the door. I was curled up, protecting my vital organs and what was left of my dignity while slowly regaining consciousness.

“Keep going at it like this and your stomach will need to be pumped,” Jason’s smooth voice filled the room. A faint shiver cascaded over my body at the sound.

His room was warm, unlike the rest of the shop, and the smell of cinnamon returned, clinging to the sheets wrapped around me. He was close, he had to be, but I couldn’t bring myself to fully open my eyes.

I shushed him and groaned at the sound of my own voice. He probably thought I was a loser, having seen me drunk on two occasions and tending to me both times. I had been more vulnerable with him in the last few months than I had been with anyone.