Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (40 page)

“My apologies,” Elish responded, his tone not changing. “It’s… been a long day. Sanguine, will you accept my apology for my rude comment?”

I looked up at my oldest brother and stared at him, taken aback by his swift apology. Perhaps that was just King Silas’s rule, I wasn’t sure. I certainly wasn’t going to not accept it; it was time for me to learn the rules.

“Yes, thank you,” I said quietly, and once again I pulled my hoody over my head and drew the strings. “Can I have my sunglasses, Silas?”

“Sure, sweet one,” Silas said. Kinny was draping Silas’s cape over him. It was a beautiful cape, black with dark blue trim and a design of a carracat symbol on the back. It looked expensive, just like Elish’s did. I guess going out in public he had to look kingy. He certainly didn’t look kingy when he was eating Fruit Loops in his underwear like he was this morning.

Everything became dark with the sunglasses on. Sunglasses didn’t trigger my night vision so this was the darkest my world had ever been. I liked it. So once Silas was preened and primped and I was concealed under my sweater hoody and sunglasses, we made our way to the lobby.

I didn’t see much, I kept my head down and my mouth closed. The next thing I knew we were all in the back of a black car, heading towards the military base.

“You made sure none of the other boys are at the base?” I heard Silas ask Elish.

“They’re all in school, Jack and Valen only have military training on Fridays now. Drake is playing with Zhou’s daughters and he’s been doing well with not mentioning Sanguine to the others,” Elish replied. “The only chimeras there are Nero and Ceph. The legionaries know not to ask questions.”

“Good,” Silas said.

The rest of the trip the two of them talked about monarch things, stuff I didn’t understand. I stared at my feet instead and half-listened. Apparently another skyscraper was undergoing renovations and that was costing a lot of money, and also that Silas was holding an open forum next month. That was when he listened to his chimeras and top peoples’ requests for things. He did it twice a year. I thought of something I might want to request but all I secretly wanted was different foods I had seen on the television. I had always wished that donuts still exist.

“Do donuts still exist?” I suddenly asked out loud.

“Do not interrupt the king,” Elish snapped.

I slunk down and mumbled an apology. He reminded me of Nan sometimes, though Nan usually slapped us upside the head. I think Elish would if he could get away with it.

Though to my surprise Silas answered without chastising me. “Yes, they do. One of the first things that Skytech did after its creation was to figure out and manufacture yeast. Now it’s readily available to the people of Skyfall through Dek’ko. So since we have yeast we have donuts, bread, cinnamon buns, a lot of your favourite foods.”

I nodded. “Thanks for answering.” And I went back to staring at my feet. I would have to think of something else to ask for during the forum then.

When the car stopped we all filed out. We were in front of a giant gate which immediately opened for us. I glanced up once and saw a concrete building in front of us with no windows. It was two-storeys tall and a huge emblem of the carracat sigil was painted on the front of the building. Over the emblem were the words
Skyfall Legion Base
. Around that building was flat pavement but further on I saw smaller one-storey buildings and large vehicles all surrounded by a concrete fence topped with barbwire.

Quickly we were ushered inside, but not before I heard someone calling to us.

I looked but King Silas grabbed my arm. I caught a glimpse though before the man disappeared behind the concrete walls. He was holding a camera and was shouting Silas and Elish’s name.

“Underground media?” Silas murmured.

“Want me to stop him?” Elish asked under his breath. I let Silas pull me towards the door.

“No, Sanguine’s completely covered; they won’t know who he is. Let them speculate all they want.”

“It could get back to the younger boys… they read the UFM.”

“It won’t.”

The doors shut behind me but Silas still had his hand firmly clenched on my arm. We were in a grey painted welcoming room with legionary soldiers everywhere. One at each door and three of them at the entrance. There was also a small reception desk that was being occupied by a huge man with a weathered face and one with narrow eyes.

As soon as everyone saw Silas they stood at attention and got down on one knee. Silas nodded at them in approval and we walked down the hallway. I was behind Silas but in front of Elish, and I could see everyone looking at me. I guess I was an odd person to see with Elish and Silas all dressed and regal-looking. I was a worm walking beside birds of paradise.

“Sangy!”

I jumped and looked up. Immediately a small smile pulled on my lips as I saw Nero’s beaming face poking out of a door. He was grinning from ear to ear and he looked excited to see me.

“You’re looking sane! Kinda…” Nero laughed. Then I heard Silas made a warning noise.

“Don’t startle him; he’s still getting used to being outside. Low voices, no quick movements,” Silas said sternly.

Nero laughed and I stepped out of the room. “Sangy, I’m giving you ten seconds to brace your manic-self for a hug. Okay?”

My smile widened and I looked at the floor as I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s okay, you can.” I had only seen Nero briefly since he had rescued me, only when I was shovelling food into my mouth. I had missed him. He had taken up a lot of space in my dreams while I was at Jasper’s farm.

Nero came close to me and I just stood there bracing myself and my mind for it. As soon as he was close enough Nero wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me hard. Then he lifted me right up off of the ground and crushed my body against his.

When he was done he set me down, my entire body aching. I think I knew what someone felt like now while they were being squeezed to death by a boa constrictor.

Nero put a hand on my hoody-covered head before giving me a loud kiss on the cheek. “You’re home, puppy-wuppy. I’m so fucking happy you’re home and doing good. Is the ol’ man treating you good?”

Ol’ man? I think he meant Silas, I think he was over two hundred years old. So I nodded and said faintly, “He’s been extremely nice to me. Thanks for… for everything.”

A strange look passed on Nero’s face. He put a hand on my shoulder and shook his head. “Bro… my life is like… made now because I found you. You got no idea what guilt can do to someone, how much it fucks with them. I’ll feel guilty though until I see you at your prime. I’m just happy we pulled you out of that shit hole. So fucking happy, little bro.”

I nodded and tried to hold my smile. “You were my first friend… I thought of you a lot in there.”

Nero made an
aww’ing
sound and hugged me again. “Aw, man… fuck, Sanguine. Fuck, fuck… I’m so sorry I didn’t find you sooner.”

“You still looked though,” I said to him. “Which is a lot more than anyone else has ever done for me.”

I wasn’t expecting that to get a reaction, but to my side I heard Silas’s pulse jump for just a few moments, before it slowed down. I guess without realizing it I had just personally attacked Silas. I wouldn’t apologize because it was true.

Nero nodded and shook my shoulder, before turning to the king. “He was a hilarious little fucker when he was little. Loved to bite too. When can we introduce him to the family, kingles?”

Everyone walked to the doorway that Nero had come out of, Nero with his arm around my shoulder hugging me close to him. Crow wasn’t nervous having Nero around. Crow might not have been around when I had met Nero and Ellis but he knew him from my thoughts.

“Seriously…” Nero dropped his voice, Silas and Elish had walked ahead of us, into what looked like a meeting room. They were talking to each other. “You’re being treated well?”

I nodded. “Silas has been really nice to me.”

“Good,” Nero said quietly. “He can be a bit of a twit, but he’s great, okay? He loves you, and we love you, and me and you are going to be best friends, ya hear?”

“We already are,” I said back. “At least in my mind we always have been.”

“Good man!” Nero praised and squeezed me to him. “Now come and listen to us be military masterminds. We have to kill some rebels!” Then he raised his voice. “Right, Kingy? Can we kill the fucking rebels yet?”

Silas glanced behind his shoulder and waved us both over. “The time is coming soon,
bellua
. What are the new reports coming in? What’s the UFM saying?”

Nero and I both walked over. The room had a large marble table in the center of it surrounded by clean chairs with curved wooden armrests. On the wall furthest to me was a projector and surrounding that was lots of framed pictures of military things and medals too.

“UFM is working smoothly. Valentine, as you probably heard, slit the throat of some Nyxian asshole and our UFM writers are playing on that right now. The rebels are still second story though, and they’re still singing their praises. Oniks is still doing what we told her, not holding back the chimera bashing but the stories are getting dry. It’s the same ol’ same ol’ and it’s not shifting public opinion. We need to think of something massive to report, some way to make them hate the rebels.” Nero picked up a black laptop that was resting on the marble table and plugged it into the projector.

I saw an aerial view of what looked like a large city, I assumed that was Irontowers, it had several red marks on it. “This is where we know the rebels are. We know where their military supply are coming from and also where they got those vehicles. We know their movements too, after we got some of our top military into their circle. We have everything ready for an attack, Silas. We just need your orders,” Nero said.

But Silas only shook his head. “No, not without our hook. We need the public to want to destroy them, Nero. Believe me I saw the same thing play out during the war, we have to get the public on our side or people who normally would be compliant will start to turn. Trust me.”

Nero made a noise before clicking the touchpad on the computers. “You might think differently after this report. Right now, the last UFM issue anyways, they’re on about the sengils again. We had Rich go over to Edgeview; he’s started eyeing up some potential sengils. Oniks didn’t see it as important enough to squash so it was printed. The rebels and their supporters are starting to complain that we’re taking orphans and as they say… ‘forcing them to be sex slaves’.”

“Are they now?” Silas murmured.

“Is that true?” I suddenly said, my heart seemed to send a pulse of cold water through my veins. “Are sengils sex slaves? You said Juni is going to…”

“Shh, shush, love, no,” Silas reassured. “Sengils are orphans who would otherwise be stuck in the filthy slums if they weren’t taken and trained under our hand. Straight sengils work in the kitchens or other places and the ones who like men are given to chimeras. They’re never forced to do anything sexual, but as time goes on…”

“… and we are all pretty hot shit,” Nero said beside me.

“If it happens, it happens naturally, and no chimera gets a sengil until the sengil is fifteen,” Silas finished. “We treat those little orphans better than most elites. It’s like winning the lottery for them.”

I was skeptical but Kinny looked happy to be a sengil. I was planning on asking him if he was alright with it though.

“No one is going to mistreat Juni or Levi?”

“Of course not and especially not Juni, he saved you.”

“Okay,” I responded and with a nod, they continued.

Nero switched to another file on the computer. This one was a copy of the newspaper they were talking about. I saw a lot of highlighting on it.

“
Speak for the children! When are we going to start standing up for those with the weakest voice? The sex slaves of chimeras, or as they call them: sengils,”
I read out loud.

The cold ice that was pumping through my body from thinking that the chimeras were using the sengils in such a way, turned into anger over the headline. I felt a sudden rage come over my body at these people accusing my new family of such a thing.

“They’re not even telling the truth,” Nero said bitterly. “They think we pull these fucking kids out at seven and make them sengils then. They have another eight years of training and living life before we even get them. It’s bullshit propaganda but it’s shit like this that Oniks says we have to let through.”

Silas’s face darkened. “This won’t help the opinion on us, but I refuse to let the public into our private lives. Our lives are not on display, and we won’t give out more information just because of a stupid article. I refuse.”

Nero nodded as looked down at the laptop screen, his fingers drumming against the plastic case. “It definitely isn’t helping that’s for sure, because it has too much truth mixed in with the misinformation. Right now is a bad time for it to be printed too, Rich says we need four boys since Loren, Kinny, and Wyatt will age out in eight years and we’ll need more sengils for second gen. And you just know they’re going to get more support once it’s realized we just took four more.”

I looked at the screen and found my mind starting to grind its gears together. I lightly scanned over the article and matched it up with the rebels in Irontowers.