Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (57 page)

Once he left Jack continued, “Silas I can see… he has these… whimsies about men he finds, but Elish? Elish doesn’t like anyone; he doesn’t even like me that much. It’s baffling. I don’t understand why everyone likes you.”

I gave him a flat look and I bore witness to Jack’s cheeks turning bright red.

“You know what I mean…”

I did know what he meant but I still crossed my arms and sniffed, deliberately turning my head away from him.

Jack hit my arm before pushing my menu towards me. “My family is weird but Elish is really predictable. He won’t give you the time of day unless you’re first generation or King Silas. I love him but he’s just… Elish, I guess.” Jack then shrugged and picked up the menu. “If I try and piece it all together my mind might explode though so let’s order food.”

I opened up the menu and was greeted by about a dozen things I didn’t recognize. What the hell was:

“Spanik-ko-peeta?” I raised an eyebrow at Jack.

“It’s really good!” Jack said with a pointy-toothed smile. “It’s spinach and creamed bosen cheese and they make this flaky crust and deep fry it…”

I laughed incredulously. “I was raised on half-rotten rat jerky, and raw meat that came from Jasper’s pockets. You order. I have no idea what any of this stuff is. Surprise me.”

Jack seemed perfectly okay with this. He spent the next ten minutes rattling off what each dish was and then carried on about how it was grown in a skyscraper in Skyland specifically designed for growing produce. They even had special LED-type lights that could act like sunlight and irrigation systems that went up the walls. I didn’t understand most of what he was saying but Jack seemed so excited to tell me all of these things I let him ramble on and on about it.

The kid sure did love to talk.

The quiet waiter came back and took our orders. Jack ordered us the spinach thing and breaded turkey bites. I learned a lot about turkeys in the time that it took for the food to come. Perish was supposedly genetically engineering the turkeys to be twice as big to the point where they couldn’t stand on their own anymore. So they were engineering them to have bigger, thicker legs.

After talking my ear off about giant turkeys Jack started going on about our brothers.

“Felix is a total asshole. Rio is okay, but he’s a part of Valen’s gang. They all torment me relentlessly, Valen especially. Ceph I love though,” Jack laughed lightly. “You don’t have any brothers?”

I shook my head.

“But you mentioned someone before. A friend? He…” Then Jack cut himself off, maybe remembering as he said those words that I had mentioned that my only friend had killed himself.

I slunk down and kept shaking my head back and forth. “Barry was his name. He wasn’t a real person…” I said slowly. I wiped my face down my hands feeling spring after spring of anxiety start to sprout from my body. “Neither was Crow, my other friend. They were… friends inside of my head.”

A tight cord started to wrap around my chest, I felt it tighten as the realization started dawning on me that I was probably coming off as completely nuts. But Jack already knew I was nuts so what was the use? I had impaled myself with enough swords so what was one more?

“I told you I got… I got problems,” I said glancing up at Jack. He was looking at me with a grave and serious expression on his face.

The silence that descended seemed to have its own noise; it was static to my ears and a rushing behind my eyes. I turned away from his grave expression and wished I was anywhere else but here.

Then the food came, though the door opening made me flinch and jump in my seat. The boy with the gelled hair smiled at us but still said nothing but he was holding a pad in his hand.

As Jack quickly ordered our main course I stared down at the golden, flakey pastries and the small breaded nuggets of meat surrounded by green things. I poked one with my hand before picking it up and tasted it.

My mind went wild.

Immediately I started grabbing the small appetizers with both hands, before realizing Jack was staring at me a bit bewildered. I looked at him, two spinach things and two turkey balls in each hand, and felt my face go hot.

“Sorry…” I said hastily. I clenched my own teeth and smacked myself in my mind. Old habits die hard – but I also knew it was the stress brought on by that horrible silence.

“I’m still kinda feral. So, um, tell me about Ludo? You mentioned he was one of your brothers too?” I stammered, praying he would just take my offer of distraction and go for it.

Jack looked like he was going to question further my odd food hoarding, but he was the polite guy I knew he was so he decided to ignore it. “Well, Ludo is a total drug fiend. He’s a slut too – I don’t care for him. He has sex with anything with a penis.” Jack smiled, gently picking up a turkey bite. With the polite manners of royalty he carefully bit it in half and waited until he had swallowed the morsel before continuing on.

“Not just the usual drug user either, because we all do drugs, but he’s a complete lowlife addict but he’s also incredibly smart and kind of functions better on drugs. He works with Perish a lot, and Rio does too though he’s still in college,” Jack explained. “He uses his drugs to get guys which is just gross, but I can’t say anything…”

I didn’t like him already. I swallowed the flaky spinach thing. My mind spiraling as its greasy goodness coated my mouth and lit up my taste buds. Once again I slipped back into survival mode and snatched another one.

I let out a long breath and put it down, mumbling another apology.

“Are you okay?” Jack finally asked. He tensed up before shifting his body like he was uncomfortable. “Is this too much for you? If it is, it’s completely okay. I understand.”

My face felt tight, my lips pursing as I looked down at the bits of food on my plate.

“Your heartbeat is a mess too…”

Right, like me he could hear heartbeats. Great.

“I guess when you admit you have friends inside your head that were at one time more real than reality, you get a bit nervous,” I mumbled, before laughing dryly. “You should be running the other way.”

Jack shifted towards me, close enough that I could feel his thigh against mine.

He put a hand on mine. “I’m a chimera… I don’t run from things,” he said and squeezed my hand. “I told you, I kinda like you… you had a really difficult life in the greywastes and I know psychology enough to understand you might have some quirks but who cares? I have quirks.”

I saw him watching me, but my eyes took me away from his gaze, I didn’t move my hand though.

“Why me?” I found myself asking. “You’re a prince who could have anyone… so why are you showing an interest in me?”

Jack’s slender, long fingers gently stroked my rough, scarred hand. The contrast between the two of us had never been clearer as I watched the flawless tips touch me. Two boys who started out in the same steel mother. Then one was raised in luxury, and the other tossed into the greywastes with nothing but a hope and a prayer. How could we possible be so different? Yet the caps over my pointed teeth and the brown contacts in my eyes told me we were more similar than any arian or chimera out there.

“Because I don’t think anyone cares less that I’m a prince than you,” Jack said slowly. He gently lifted my palm and started tracing the spiral scars on my palm. “And I don’t think anyone cares less about your past or your quirks, than me.”

Jack raised my hand, before kissing my fingers slowly. My breath caught in my throat; my body froze but at the same time, it flushed with heat. “You have a deepness in your eyes that makes a thousand poems spring to my tongue. And a body that tells me I could paint you every day for the rest of my life and still be inspired. I might not know you well but–” He paused; his lips were so pink, so welcoming… “I feel like you’re an old friend who managed to find his way home. How… strange is that?”

Like a switch had been flicked the heat in my body suddenly turned to, not ice, but guilt. And to confirm my own masochisms I found myself glancing up at him, and seeing his black eyes, so deep and full, staring at me.

Eyes that held warmth, and to further drive in that serrated dagger – trust.

I pulled my hand away and ran it down my face. I could feel his eyes burning into me.

“Jack… I need to tell you something…” I whispered. My heart jumped, and at the same time his did as well. “Please forgive me for this, but I can’t be with you until you know.”

Suddenly there was a crash outside the doors. It was such perfect timing that as I rose to my feet I swept the area for a camera, but there was none and I had always been able to hear electronics when I focused my hearing.

Jack got up too, looking nervously at me. I think he thought I had planned the crash as well, but as we both pushed the door open at the same time both our suspicions were dashed.

Because sitting behind one of the tables, surrounded by three other men – was Valentine.

Valen, dressed in a light green long coat smiled when he saw us. He looked like a piece of peppermint candy that had been left in the dish for too long.

“Jacky! What a surprise to see you here!” Valen said happily as the men surrounding him laughed. They were surrounded by half-drunk drinks but their appetizers hadn’t come, they must not have been here for long.

Jack’s pulse rose, I could feel the angry heat coming off of his body. He glared down Valen and the others before saying in a rather dangerous voice.

“This place is reserved for me and Sami,” Jack spat. “Elish reserved it for us. Get out of here; you’re not supposed to be here.”

Valen scoffed and waved a hand, he was even wearing peppermint green fingerless gloves and pink nail polish. I was surprised he didn’t have a skirt on with how much he liked dressing like a chick. “This restaurant is big enough for all of us and you have your private room. What’s the big deal? Or did you not want us to hear the grunting through the thin walls?”

The other three laughed with Valen. One of them had oddly bright burgundy eyes, another one’s eyes were silvery with flecks of blue, and finally a big one, whom I knew must be Felix, had moss green eyes trimmed with gold. All chimeras, every last one of them.

“We’re just having a drink, Jack!” Felix grinned. He already looked drunk and the black-haired, skinny drug user who must be Ludo nodded, a joint tucked behind his ear. That man was smiling from ear to ear with a crazed glint in his silvery eyes that told me he was missing a few brain cells.

“Come join!” Ludo said with a lewd grin. “Stop being such a tight ass. We just wanna meet your beau.”

I felt Jack’s hand around my waist; he pulled me towards him in a protective way. “We’re going to leave…” he said in a biting tone, but his heartbeat suggested he was nervous. The attitude only went skin deep.

A churn of anger moved in my stomach, both derived from Valen obviously trying to crash our date and the anxiety coming from Jack.

I took a step towards the group. Jack’s hand immediately tightened trying to stop me but I broke free of his tendrils and walked up to the table.

I put my hands on the white tablecloth and smiled at the four of them. “Nice to meet you,” I said to them. “I’m Sami, Jack’s friend. We were having a wonderful evening before you four decided to pull something smart. Now… will you kindly leave this establishment – or are we going to have a problem?”

“Sami!” Jack gasped. He started to try and pull me away but I raised a hand above my shoulder to tell him to step back.

The four laughed and exchanged amused glances. But when I slammed the hand back down on the table they fell silent.

I leaned into them, feeling four pairs of eyes on me. All holding expressions of amusement and intrigue. Each chimera probably daring me to make a move, but little did they know they were staring right at their older, genetically superior brother.

“Did I stutter?” I whispered, dropping my voice. “Or are the stories about chimera hearing fabricated?”

Then Jack grabbed me and pulled me back, to my own shock my instincts snapped ahead of my reason, and with a snarl, I whirled around and shoved Jack away.

But when the boy stumbled back and fell into the table behind us the anger disappeared. I ran to him as he fell with a crash onto the ground, stammering an apology. Then I grabbed him from his underarm.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” I said hastily, ignoring the howls of laughter and the scraping of chairs. “Instinct. It’s a touch thing… forgive me.”

“Sami, you need to leave!” Jack suddenly cried. He looked over my shoulder and I saw his eyes widen, I could see flickers of movement in his pupil-less black eyes.

“Leave him alone. He’s just a greywaster – he doesn’t know our rules yet!” Jack yelled. I turned around and narrowed my eyes as I saw all four of them right behind me. Felix two heads taller than the other three, and Valen with his face twisted in an ugly sneer. They were staring me down like a group of hyenas who had just found a lone wolf near their kill.

Their threatening gazes knocked up against the half-built walls of my newly erected pride, and drew out of me the darkness that was the soul of every chimera. I was a Dekker and I was a chimera, and I’d be damned if I’d let these fucking toy dogs bare their teeth at me.

“I’ll only warn you once,” I growled, lowering my head and glaring at every single one of them. I twisted my lips back like a snarling dog, wishing I had my pointed teeth to show off. “You don’t want to fuck with me.”