Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (103 page)

I took a moment just staring at the wall, feeling disgusted with myself. Valen’s justification did nothing to quell the sick feeling inside of me. If I was that angry I should’ve just killed him, not raped him. Even in psychosis that…

I thought back to when I had killed Ludo, how close I had been to fucking his corpse just because the psychosis had made me feel so sexually aggressive – who was I kidding? It was me to do that.

“Silas fixed my psychosis… kind of,” I said to Valen. I don’t know why I felt compelled to say that, I just felt like I should say something. “So that won’t happen anymore…” Then I thought of something. “If your abilities work though – why didn’t you come home? Silas would be happy to hear that enhancement took wouldn’t he?”

“It’s already too late, I smashed that vial,” Valen said bitterly. “If I didn’t I knew I’d get my head cut off by these
Crimstones
since no one would pay a ransom for me. And why should I go back?” He slammed is fork down again, his pale and unhealthy face creased with anger. “Silas would only like me because of my empath abilities, he still wouldn’t give a shit about me. So fuck him, fuck the monarch, fuck Elish, and the entire family.”

He ate the last several bites of his food before he threw the container behind the tipped over office desk. He looked absolutely miserable but in a way he reminded me of a child who ran away from home but had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do once he left his backyard. This kid had no survival skills at all, but he had a mental power inside of him that seemed to rival Silas’s. That could be a dangerous combination especially in the hands of the rebels. Valen was easily manipulated it seemed, and I knew this, but, oddly… what I was about to say next wasn’t manipulation.

Because even though I had hated him while I was Sami Fallon, fucked in the head, insecure, and dealing with extreme mental issues – now that I was Sanguine Dekker, a confident, immortal chimera who knew his place in the family and felt secure in his life – I emphasized with him, I understood him, and I felt bad for him.

He reminded me of me when I was a lost eight-year-old, and I knew the dangers of a kid going off with the first older man who told you he wanted to be friends.

“I think we would’ve been good friends if we met each other under different circumstances,” I said to him with a half-smile. “I think we would’ve been close, don’t you think?”

Valen’s troubled eyes seemed to soften, his lips disappeared inside of his mouth.

“Maybe,” he replied. “It’s too late now though, what’s done is done.”

I shook my head. “It’s not. I have pull with Silas, me and him… we’re close. Why don’t you sneak us out of here and we can go home.”

Valen looked hopeful for a moment before his doubt came back to him. “You’re lying to me. You just want me to take off those cuffs and you’ll kill me.”

“I don’t need cuffs to kill you, I’m made out of weapons,” I said to him. “You know as well as I do the family is going to come and break us out.”

“They – they won’t risk killing you and Jack…”

“Jack and I were made immortal the night after Cypress was hit with that rocket launcher,” I said, and when Valen gave me a suspicious look I pulled up my jacket, showing off my clean, blemish-free arms. “You have a lot to lose, Valen. Your best chance is to give Silas that briefcase and come home with us. Since your empath abilities have been discovered, you have a good chance of getting through this. Just… come home.”

“To what?” Valen mumbled. “My friends are dead, the rest of the family fucking hates me…”

“I’ll be your friend.”

My heart threatened to break when Valen looked up at me. Because I saw in his eyes the same look I knew must’ve been my own every time a man had told me he wanted to be my friend. I saw hope, I saw relief that I would no longer have to be alone, and I saw caution – because I had been betrayed so many times by wolves in sheep’s clothing.

And like me, the hope of finally having someone to talk to, of finally having some to trust, won out over years of being betrayed and burned.

Just like when I had gone with Jasper, even though my entire life was deciding to trust someone and then being betrayed by them. I saw myself in those pink eyes so much I could feel a burning behind my own.

Because I wasn’t Jasper. I had gone from being the boy desperately wanting a friend, to being the one that could be that very friend.

I wasn’t Jasper, I was Sanguine.

Valen’s first real friend.

I held my shackled hand out, and hesitating at first, Valen took it. I pulled him up and rose with him.

“Come on, let’s go home,” I said to him.

And Valen nodded.

After Valen took off my cuffs, the two of us looked towards the other three who hadn’t moved an inch. In the first test of his loyalty I stood back and crossed my arms, before nodding towards them.

Valen let out a pensive sigh. His shining pink eyes looked past me before narrowing slightly. I saw them turn black as he focused whatever strange ability he had been born with.

Then I heard several gasps, before the sounds of all three of them collapsing onto the ground. Though no sooner had they hit the dirty floor did they scramble to their feet.

“Good work, Sangy,” Nero growled, his twilight-coloured eyes narrowing dangerously. “You’re good at manipulating that little bitch.” He took a step forward but Jack jumped in front of him and lunged for Valen.

“NO!” I snapped at them. I grabbed Jack and shoved him backwards right into Ceph who was trying to get to his feet. I spread out my arms and glared at them. “It wasn’t manipulation, nothing I said was false. He’s going home with us and that’s an order.” Then my eyes flashed at Nero, the only man who technically outranked me. “You need to do this for me Nero. Valen is coming home with us.”

Nero’s face was the embodiment of rage but I didn’t stand down. I glared at him and I didn’t flinch nor did I blink.

The brute chimera let out a frustrated, but muffled, bellow before whirling around and laying a punch onto the brick. “Fine!” he snapped, then he turned around. “I’ll go with this but I will not back you up when Silas gets a hold of him.”

“Deal,” I said, before turning to my boyfriend.

Jack’s expression matched Nero, though I saw a mixture of hurt. I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed the tense skin. “A life of rejection affects everyone differently, love. Please, all I’m asking is a chance. Will you trust me?”

Jack burned me with his eyes, before I saw him look past me. I turned and saw Valen staring at the ground again, making no move to run from the three chimeras chomping at the bit to rip him limb from limb.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Valen said simply. “Can we get out of here now?”

Suddenly the ground underneath our feet started to shake, immediately followed by a loud and thunderous bang that rattled the teeth inside my head. I looked up just in time to see plaster and debris rain down on us from the ceiling, like a god above us had slammed its hand down on the roof.

“Let’s go!” I barked. I pushed Jack out of the door and grabbed Valen, but surprisingly he pushed me away. “Wait!” Valen said hastily. He ran to the tipped over office desk and grabbed something.

The briefcase.

I immediately took it from him and pushed Valen out of the door, just as another explosion rocked the building, this time bringing on its heals the deafening crashing of something collapsing. My heart dropped at the deafening noise, I tried to mentally calculate where we should go next but all I could do in that moment was get everyone out of this office.

We rushed out of the makeshift prison we had been kept in and into the main part of the Wal-Mart, though we could barely see anything over the stacks of sandbags that acted like mazes throughout the structure. Though we didn’t need to see the destruction that the explosions were bringing, as we ran down the maze a stream of light illuminated the path in front of us. When I turned around to check its source I saw that in the far right-hand side of the building there was a gaping hole in the roof. It was late in the evening but it was also spring, I think the daylight would stay for a few more hours, we had that going for us at least.

Another explosion. I coughed and heard the others around me hacking as dust rose up all around us; only four feet away from Valen a large air vent came crashing down, taking out one of the bluelamps and draping itself over the sandbag walls.

“Valen, what way out?” I yelled to him. I had his arm in my grasp, I didn’t trust the others to not try and leave him behind. I wasn’t going to leave him behind.

Valen looked around, his eyes wide. “We can’t go to the front, that’s where they’ll all be…” Then he looked to the right, where the gap in the roof was. “Our best bet to escape undetected is to go through the connecting mall. The Wal-Mart is a part of a larger mall, there are a lot of exits in the main area but…” He hesitated. “The rebels have been capturing Perish’s radanimals.”

“But they’re in cages?” Nero asked. He was already pushing Ceph over one of the sandbag barricades. I grabbed Jack, Nero took him and started helping him over them as well.

“The stores in the mall have those metal security curtains, they’re behind those,” Valen yelled. “They’re –” There was a loud crack and a sandbag burst beside me. Before I even saw where it was coming from Valen pulled his assault rifle from its holder and soon the entire area was full of the sound of gunfire.

“Go, your turn,” Nero yelled over the noise. I saw the rebel Valen was shooting go down in a spray of blood and more sand, so I grabbed the kid and pushed him ahead of me. Ceph grabbed Valen by the jacket and pulled him over, and, knowing that Nero’s rank and pride would never allow him to go before me, I quickly climbed up the sandbag barricade and jumped to the other side, more ceiling debris and dust falling around us as explosions sounded in the distance in a way that felt like the apocalypse was happening again. Whoever it was they were bombing Irontowers again, and this building seemed to be their favourite target.

Nero’s boots slammed down onto the ground behind me. I scanned the area, but before I could get a proper feel for my surroundings, Valen was waving us to follow him. With his hair coated in dust and dirt he started navigating through the ceiling material towards what I realized was a huge opening. Sure enough, to Valen’s word, through the opening I could see rows of closed off shops and a second-storey with an escalator almost impossible to access because of debris. The second-storey resembled the first but it was full of shoddy barricades and even several abandoned vehicles.

The mall was in horrible shape and the hole in the ceiling illuminating the state of this building did it no favours. The shops were all closed with the metal security cages like Valen had said but even they looked flimsy and patched together. It was just dust and junk in every direction, some even stacked on top of each other to bar off what looked like blown out walls. Scars from a distant past but nothing had been given the opportunity to heal.

I sprinted ahead of Valen, my boots kicking fluffs of insulation that further added to the thick dust around us, the fine particles were clogging my lungs making each cough feel like I had swallowed sharp shards of glass.

“This ceiling is going to fucking collapse on us,” I turned around and called to the others. They looked almost unrecognisable in the heavy dust. “Valen… where’s an exit?”

Before Valen could answer us several gunshots rang out towards the main floor we had just come from. I looked into the heavy dust but saw nothing. I ran up to Valen and Jack and grabbed Valen’s assault rifle. I rubbed my finger against the trigger and ground my teeth as I tried to pick out any movement, but it looked like the person was shooting blind, just as we had been.

But I was wrong, more gunshots snapped the heavy air in retaliation. I grinned and grabbed Jack’s shoulder. “That’s our family, they’re coming to get us.”

“We can’t go through the front to get to them, this place is a maze even without the dust,” Jack said, coughing into his hand. I spotted Nero and Ceph behind Jack, Nero was trying to wipe the dust off of Ceph’s face.

We all turned to Valen. The pink-haired chimera was looking around with a panicked expression on his face, but looking to the chimera with the weakest eyesight wasn’t going to get us out of here. I handed the assault rifle back to Valen and ran ahead of the group and into the dust, towards where I had seen several open hallways which might lead to an exit for us. I was having to go by memory though, the slight visibility we had only minutes ago had been reduced to nothing. It was like we were in a dust storm in the middle of the desert, even my eyes were becoming irritated and sore.

I held out my hands and after several steps they rested against a metal security cage.

I looked inside to see if anything was residing in it, or if there was a fire exit we could perhaps use.

Suddenly there was a flash of black. I stumbled back and almost fell as an extremely large irradiated bear called an urson slammed its paws against the security cage, making it rattle with such intensity I thought it was going to fall right on top of me. I scrambled away, knowing that getting the fuck out of its sight was what was best for our survival. So with my hand on the wall I sprinted through the dust until I felt the gap I was looking for.

Though as I turned to call the others a flurry of gunshots assaulted my ears. These ones so close I could see the sparking fire from the guns, more than one. This wasn’t Nero shooting at something, someone had found us.

“Nero?” I called before doubling over coughing. I took another step when, just thinking this couldn’t get worse than it was, I was thrown off of my feet by another explosion.

And this one was close – this one was really close.

Dust and chunks of plaster rained down on me. I threw my hands over my head and mouth and closed my eyes as I felt the ceiling debris hit my body. I swore and tried to look to where the group was but all I saw was grey.

“Jack?” I coughed. I knew he was immortal but I had to get to him. I crawled through the now knee-high piles of debris, hearing more gunshots – more gunshots.

Then a scream – a scream that didn’t belong to my group. I looked up just in time to see a rebel fall to the ground, his eyes wide with horror and blood pouring from his eyes and ears. He was dead before he even landed on the ground.

Valen’s work.

Another scream. I saw a silhouette in front of me but it disappeared. I managed to raise myself to standing but as I walked my left leg buckled underneath me. I looked down but saw nothing, though I could feel the blood start to soak into my socks.

More gunfire, and some debris from the ceiling falling onto my chest. I kept walking towards the shadows, my ears filling with a roaring noise as the sounds around me drowned out and claimed every single one of my senses.

Then a new sound… one that made me whirl around and stare at its source with my mouth open in shock. I screamed the word fuck louder than I had ever screamed it before as I heard the metal security cage fall to the ground.

And a large black figure come barrelling out and into the dust.

“Nero!” I screamed. I turned and ran towards the silhouettes, panic coursing through me. Rebels we could handle, we could do rebels, but I had seen urson before in the greywastes and you didn’t fuck with those things. They were the size of grizzly bears before the Fallocaust and ten times as angry. The radiation had driven them and all radanimals into insanity and they never missed a chance to take their rage out on anything they came across.

“NERO, URSON! GET CEPH AND VALEN OFF THE GROUND!” I yelled as loud as I could, hoping my voice would carry over the chaos.

Suddenly behind me I heard a gut-wrenching scream. I ran towards it but a hand pulled me back. I turned and saw a ghost, someone completely covered from head to toe in dust, except he had a heavy fountain of blood running from his nose and mouth.

“Jack… found an exit…” Valen choked on his own blood, his hands were trembling. “He’s going to get the family. He’s out.”

“You go too!” I yelled. I started backing up as I saw the shadow of the bear tossing someone around like he weighed nothing, guns were going off all around me. I swear these rebels had us surrounded, it felt like they were everywhere and yet I couldn’t see any of them.

“They’ll kill me, I don’t even have the briefcase, you do!” Valen said, his voice shrill. He looked ahead where the bear was and his eyes widened. “Nero has my gun… Nero has my fucking… we – we have no guns.”

“Sangy!” Ceph suddenly came barrelling towards us; he was out of breath and his head was bleeding. He grabbed me and started pulling me away from the urson. “The exit Jack just went through caved in as soon as he opened the door but he got out. We’re going to the second level and we’re going to find a window to jump from.” Ceph turned around and I saw his face drop as he spotted the urson, though he didn’t say anything. He pushed the two of us ahead of him, a large combat knife in his right hand.

Seeing that knife reminded me of the one I had. As I saw the outline of the escalator in the distance I reached down and pulled out the long narrow dagger I had sheathed on my ankle and let Valen go ahead of me. Though this made my walking up the slippery steps all the more harder, the briefcase was still in one hand and now my knife was in the other.

“How many rebels are back there?” I yelled, my voice drowned out by the gunfire, and the falling debris around us.

“Dozens,” Ceph yelled back. “Nero’s shot, he wouldn’t let me stay, he’s taking care of them, that stupid fuck… fucking faster, Valentine!” Ceph snapped, though it wasn’t his fault, the escalator was uneven and hard to navigate with the junk it was clogged with, every step we took was loose and unbalanced and crap kept falling down the steep steps as we dislodged it.

Valen got to the top and looked around, blood dripping down his face and landing on the covered floors. He turned to wait for me but my foot was slowing me down, with every step more and more pain was shooting through me and though I could tough out the pain, the weakness in that leg was still there. Blood had pooled in my boot too, it squished with every step, I knew there was a lot of it.