Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (30 page)

“Sanguine… you’re drawing blood,” Silas said slowly. He made a motion to reach out and touch my arms but when I recoiled back he stopped. I looked down though and saw my fingernails embedded in the thick scar tissue. I scraped the nails back and felt relief under the pain.

Pain solves everything, right, Barry?

“Did you inflict the injuries that caused those scars?” Silas asked.

“Most me… some him.”

“Jasper?”

My heart froze again, the ice started to form around it, encasing and protecting it from the images and feelings that man’s name brought with it.

Was he alive? I didn’t want to know.

“What did Jasper do to you, Sanguine? What did he want you for?”

I could feel the blood drain from my face, unbidden I choked as my brain forgot to remind me to breath.

“Don’t ask me about Jasper,” I rasped. “I will play along with this but don’t – don’t ever ask me about him.”

Silas looked at me. A man with blond hair cut right below his ears, wavy and styled above groomed eyebrows. A man who had never lived in despair, a man who had never sucked dick for food and water.

I froze at my own words and stared in horror at my now heavily bleeding arms. I backed up further into the couch and suddenly… this cave wasn’t a sanctuary. It was trapping me, it was making it so I couldn’t escape. King… King Silas was blocking the only exit.

I looked around wildly, my breathing becoming short.

“Sanguine, it’s alright, it’s just–”

I reared up, feeling the bottom of the couch above me press against my back. I lifted it up and let it fall to the side, and as it did I tried to jump over it.

But my legs were weak. I fell onto the ground and when the cold floor smacked against my face all of my rage, fear, and frustration came flooding back to me.

Crow snapped, like a temporarily misplaced puzzle piece he came back and made himself right at home.

And that was it, everything else was a flurry of gnashing teeth, thrashing bodies, and King Silas yelling at someone named Elish to come and help him.

There was only darkness after that.

“I really don’t think the boy is ready for his own room,” Elish said in a cold tone. I knew from the first time I laid eyes on him that he didn’t like me but I don’t think any of them liked me. “I do hope you plan on installing chains.”

I rubbed my still scabbed and aching neck, and backed myself up against the wall of this weird-smelling room. It was painted dark purple and there were paintings in black frames, everything had a dark feeling to it and it smelled… strange.

I didn’t like it, though at least the colours were dark – I didn’t like bright colours.

I pressed my back against the wall and slid down to the ground before wedging myself as far into the corner as I could. I watched the men in what was supposed to be my new bedroom.

“He’s fine. Kirrel has him rather sedated and I’m learning his signals,” Silas replied. He turned on a table lamp that had a thick shade over it. I squinted and tried to press my back further into the wall. I almost hoped I could melt into it, disappear into some solid mass where no one could hear me or see me.

My head felt funny… the shot the man with the beard gave me was leaving my mind nothing but fuzzy static. I felt calm though… oddly calm.

Crow was not calm. He didn’t like being drugged; he didn’t like this bitter liquid they had put into our veins.

“This is your very own bedroom, Sanguine.” This King of the World gave me a smile. He walked over to a king-size bed and straightened out a corner of it. “Come over here and feel this fabric. I picked out purple and grey but I can change it out for any colour you wish.”

I didn’t look at him; I was unsure of this man. He seemed kind but I felt an unease with him, with all of them. Especially the man with short blond hair who had come rushing into the room when Crow was just about to bite Silas’s face. He had purple eyes, a strange colour like mine, and his voice was as cold as ice.

Crow and I had come so close to being left alone, then Elish had to ruin it with his weird electrical touch.

Like I could make my fingers burn…

“He’s inside his head again.”

“Yes, but he answers when you call his name.”

“Come here, Sanguine,” Silas called. I looked over at him and saw he was patting the bed in an encouraging manner.

I didn’t take my gaze off of him; my brain was already filling me with the adrenaline needed to make a desperate escape. There was nothing about this situation that felt okay, not a single thing I could take comfort in but Barry. I wanted my greywastes. I wanted my basement where I could hide in the darkness. Where there were no other people just me and Crow.

I want that silence. Where’s my white door I can look at… where are my concrete walls I can paint? It was strange here… and the blinds made me uncomfortable.

It made Crow uncomfortable, he was just under my skin barely breaking the surface tension.

But he would; he would.

“Sanguine?” Silas’s voice sounded again. My eyes which had become unfocused snapped to him again. I watched his movements and started sweeping the room for anyone else to be wary of. “Look at that, Elish. He’s scared out of his mind; look at his eyes flickering back and forth. Nero mentioned that as well; he’s always looking for threats.”

I glared at the two of them, but they only stared right back at me. Unable to keep their gaze I looked to the black side table instead.

Silas had normal green eyes but Elish’s were odd like mine. A lot of them had strange-coloured eyes. I had seen oddities and strange mannerisms too. They were crazy like me… crazy like me.

I was only half-crazy, like the Daisy Daisy song.

“There is certainly a myriad of mental issues on this one,” Elish commented. I wrapped my hands over my chest and pulled my knees up; my mouth found my bottom lip and I started to chew through the already heavily scarred skin.

“I don’t suggest we ever put another baby in the greywastes; I don’t know if Mantis will have the skills to curb this one’s issues. We had an exuberant amount of problems with second gen and those were with children raised with us or close by in Skyland or Nyx.”

Silas’s mouth pulled to the side. “Yes, this one did not go as planned. I would have never suspected these mental issues. I will never tell him but Nero was right,” he sighed. “Well, at least Ares and Siris reportedly are doing well in Moros.”

“Ares and Siris are borderline retarded,” Elish replied coolly. “There is not enough mental for there to be an issue.”

Silas laughed at this which made me automatically be on guard, but he only patted the chimera with the short blond hair on the shoulder. I glared at Silas when he looked at me again but he only shook his head with a cluck of his tongue.

“He’ll get used to us.”

“Having a crazy greywaster-chimera with a seven-year-old boy running around is not a smart combination,” Elish replied with eyes still analyzing me.

“Of course it isn’t. Drakey will be staying with Garrett and Tom for a few months. They’re getting too cozy with each other for my liking and Drakonius will keep them on their toes.”

“The boy can stay with me as well. He learns bad habits from Garrett, and Garrett lets him get away with too much.”

Silas smiled at this. “Of course, love.”

Elish left not soon after that which I liked, all of these people around me was making my heart race. I wanted to be left alone in this moment, alone and some place small where I could be by myself. I wasn’t used to this – any of this – and it was starting to give me that anxious churning in my gut; the one that made my breath short.

Silas left for a moment to show Elish out. I took that chance to try the rectangle window that was beside my bed. I tried to open it since it was getting dark outside but the mechanisms were strange. All the windows in the greywastes were rusted shut or missing altogether. We’d had several at Sunshine House and Jasper’s were intact, but the window in my basement had thick boards over it.

Now I was in the only surviving city after the Fallocaust. A place that I had only heard of from the people who I had been around since my earliest memories.

Skyfall, the city on an island in the west greywastes. I had remembered the tales, of electricity all the time and hot water that came out of the tap. I remember them saying there was pre-Fallocaust food and they were creating new food all the time. There was a police force, and cars, and streets and…

I traced my hand over the window and rested it against the cold glass. I looked out and onto the city that spread to every inch of my vision, all bathed in night vision blue. Skyscrapers in various states of disrepair but it looked like they were actively repairing them. Several of the towering buildings I could see were trapped in metal cages with the workers crawling on and around them like ants in their ant hills, even though it was night.

I tried to swallow through the anxiety this gave me but it seemed nothing more than a scab that my mind kept picking. It was an itch and whenever I saw these new things in front of me I felt my own mind neurotically scratch it.

I just wanted some place quiet… some place safe.

“Sanguine?”

I looked up and saw Silas in the reflection of the window; he was in the doorway holding something in his hands. I smelled the air and turned around at the strange scent.

“Come with me to the living room,” Silas said in a calmed voice. “I have coffee, have you ever had it before?”

I backed up against the window feeling my hands tense around the frame. I looked around for a place to escape, feeling his words start to add fuel to the growing apprehension that seemed rooted in my soul. This strange king made me on edge. I disliked that he was friendly because I knew, like Jasper, that it was only a mask. All men wear masks; it wasn’t until they’re comfortable with their control over you that they let them slip from their faces. Only then can you see the darkness that each one carries in their hearts. All hearts are dark, some men are just better at cloaking their most sickening transgressions.

When will I see your mask slip off, Silas Dekker?

King of the World.

“Come on, it’s just the two of us…” Silas took a step closer towards me and it was then the apprehension flared, ignited by the fuel already pooling inside of me. I took a chance, and with the chains that bound my hands rattling, I crouched down and slid under the bed. I backed my body up to the corner and watched his feet with narrowed eyes.

I wasn’t going anywhere and whoever was foolish enough to touch me would see my own mask slip off. I still had my teeth; I still had my weapons.

Silas’s feet, black loafers, pattered over to me and he kneeled down. When he poked his face down my instincts kicked in… I hissed at him.

Silas chuckled, every time I tried to threaten him he laughed which infuriated me. A growl rumbled in me and in response he put the steaming cup down on the edge of the bed and sat down.

“I was amused and a bit worried the first time I heard you growl. Did you know you are the first? Not even my Jack has gotten angry enough with me to growl. I might use your genes for our future chimeras I am rather impressed with how you look physically – the mental part we’ll work on.” Silas slid the coffee cup further towards me. “Out of all of your brothers we altered your genetic makeup the most. I did things to you that made me wonder if I was doing the right thing but I’m happy with my results. You are a chimera unlike your brothers, Sanguine, and I think we will be spending a lot of time together.”

“I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to be a chimera,” I said in a low voice. I looked at the coffee cup and restrained myself from tossing it right back at him. I could take the guy; he was shorter than me by several inches and slight. His blond hair was styled and wavy and his face porcelain smooth; he was used to being taken care of. I bet he knew nothing of the greywastes. I could destroy him and I would if he came near me.

Silas chuckled again and I heard him sip his coffee. “Well, there isn’t much of a choice there, Sanguine. You’re a chimera through and through, my successful experiment.”

“I’m an experiment?” I didn’t like how this made me feel, it weighted on me in a way that suggested it was going to bother me for the rest of my life.

“No, love, no,” Silas murmured. “You’re so much more than that. You are perfection, everything about you… oh I wish I could look at every inch of you.”

I started to growl again, the hair on the back of my neck prickled. I didn’t like what he was implying… I didn’t like those words. I didn’t like… no, I would never let that happen again.

“I don’t mean it in that way, Sanguine.”

I backed away further, my feet now crunched against the corner of the wall.

He seemed to be reading my mind. “When you create art do you not enjoy gazing upon it? You are a piece of art, Sanguine; from your ruby-red eyes to your serrated teeth. Tell me, would you like to meet someone like you?”

I was quiet. I looked past the coffee mug and saw him set down his own mug with a soft clinking noise. My mind argued with itself whether to answer or not but I decided to throw chance to the wind.

“Who’s like me?” I asked quietly.

“He’s a chimera your age, exactly your age actually. His name is Jack and he has teeth like yours and eyes as black as an eclipse. Jack is currently attending college. Would you like to meet him one day?” Silas asked. His voice was continually rising. Jasper would do the same trick, talk to me like that to gain my trust but then he kidnapped me and I was never free again.

Jasper had also fooled me into believing he had someone like me. I remember that boy who never existed; I remember Tristin.

“No,” I replied.

Silas took another drink of his coffee. “You’re going to just stay under the bed forever then?”

I shifted around and rubbed my nose as it started to run. The person who took care of this place needed to dust underneath the bed; it was making my nose itch. “In the greywastes we don’t think that far ahead.”

“True.” Silas rose to his feet and I saw him dust his pants. “I encourage you to come and join me. Would you like a cigarette?”

Silas got down on his knees and he pulled out a cigarette from a tin, without using it as a bargaining tool like Jasper had, he slid it towards me and then slid me a lighter.

I stared at it resting beside the coffee and drew my hands up to my chest. I let out another growl for good measure. I wanted to show him I wasn’t scared, even though the hammering in my heart was telling me that I was.

“I have dealt with my fair share of frightened cats, Sanguine. We have all of eternity to fix what the greywastes broke; you can take your time.” And with that he rose and walked out of the bedroom; he even closed the door behind him.

When I was sure he was gone I crawled out from under the bed and stood up. The new clothes they had dressed me in were covered in dust but it was normal dust not the ash I was used to. Like Silas had done I dusted them off and sat on the bed with the cigarette.

I ignored the shaking in my hands and smoked the beautiful silver smoke into my lungs.

King Silas left me alone for the rest of the evening. I heard several other voices come and go, male voices with strong tones so they must’ve been chimeras. I stayed in my bedroom and explored it. I found clothes that I didn’t like, new and without a tear or a rip to them. I was still wearing a white t-shirt and cloth pants they had given me when I first came here. I assumed my greywaster clothes had probably been torched. This place smelled fresh and springy; my clothes were not welcome here.