Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (89 page)

Valen? How could he…

A sob broke my lips and I struggled to my feet.

“SANGUINE? JACK?” Nero screamed. “WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?” He was out of breath; he was running closer and closer.

I took a step back, my hand over my mouth, tears burning my eyes as I saw, in full view, Jack laying on the pavement as still as where death had lay him. I kept stepping backwards, away from him, away from the burning buildings My skin was blistering, my lungs screaming, but still the only sensation in my head was the horror and guilt of what I had let happen.

I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what he did. All I know is that Valen had taken back his power, and he had killed Jack.

“SANGY!?”

I looked to my left but when I saw the silhouette of Nero coming closer I didn’t run into his arms like I thought I would. I didn’t come crying to my best friend like I would have when I was a kid. Instead, with a thousand awful emotions eating me alive, I turned and ran into the nearest building I could find. Unable to face Nero when he discovered the dead corpse of our brother.

Another sob broke my lips. I ran through the smoke-filled building, the lobby around me almost invisible. I turned down the first door I saw and ran down a hallway.

“Sami…” a weak voice groaned. My head snapped to the left, into an empty room.

It was Sir…

Half of his face was blackened, just an eye white in his socket staring at me. His tux had been charred away and he was so burnt he was on his knees. He was crawling towards me, he was crawling towards me!

“Sami… you left. You left!” Sir whimpered.

I gasped and turned to flee away from him, but as I turned I saw Patches. On her hands and knees with her blue ribbons hanging off scorched hair.

“Sami… help,” she cried. I could see red flesh peaking through the charred mess that was her arms. Her back was both a marble of yellow and black. I could see it start to split open in front of me.

Oh god, she was crying. She was crying.

I turned and ran down the opposite hallway, as I got farther away from them I could hear them pleading. They were pleading with me, begging me to pick them up. Pick them up like Nana used to pick me up. Hold them in my arms as they died. Oh god, I could hear their voices ringing in my head.

I cried out and opened the first door I saw. It was a flight of stairs. I climbed up the stairs, desperate to get away from them. Get away from the fucking voices.

What had I done? What the fuck had I done?

A loud crash underneath my feet, one that made the stairs rumble. I looked up and hoped for the roof to come crashing down on me. I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to be in this.

Oh god… what had I done?

I should’ve never left Jasper’s. He had been right. Fuck, he had been right. I was supposed to be a monster. I was never supposed to be let loose on the world. Look what I had done. I had killed my boyfriend. I had killed my Jack. I had killed my friends.

I climbed up set after set of stairs, tears streaming down my cheeks and dropping into the dry and dusty floor. I wanted to stop and cling to the hot railing until I died but for some reason I just kept climbing.

When I pushed the door open to the roof I was sobbing uncontrollably. I collapsed onto the ground, the cold air a relief to only my lungs. I grabbed onto the door handle and cried like a lost child.

“I give up!” I suddenly sobbed, my screaming lungs making me double over in hacking coughs. I let out a loud cry and slammed my fist onto the hot tarmac. “I fucking give up! I’m done. I’m done…” I shook my head and leaned over until my forehead touched the roof. Despair rushing through me, pooling in my heart and filling me with its poison.

I had hung on when I had to flee from Sunshine House. I had hung on when I was run out of town after town, and when Cory tried to kill me. I had fucking hung on when Jasper had kept me prisoner, raped me at eight.

I had hung on – I hadn’t quit. I hadn’t given up.

I had kept going. I had kept breathing.

But now, today, in this moment –

“I’M FUCKING DONE!” I screamed and slammed my hand again against the roof.

My poor Sami,
a raspy voice sounded. One that was so full of derision and smugness it made me scream from rage.
My poor lost Sami
“FUCK OFF!” I screamed and looked up at Barry. My old friend was standing over me.

But as I looked at him I realized it wasn’t Barry anymore. The changes I had been seeing on my friend had fully taken effect. Barry’s ears were gone, his hair was now black and shiny. His eyes were two burning red coals that squinted from his closed mouth smile.

No… it wasn’t Barry.

It was Crow.

It had always been Crow.

Unable to look at him I turned away and took a stumbling step away from him. I choked and coughed from the smoke burning my lungs and started to walk.

“Sami…”

“SHUT UP!” I cried. I whirled around to face my old friend but as I looked at where I had seen him I realized that he was gone. Another voice had said that.

My agony shot into me as I saw someone I never thought I would see again.

“Nana?” I whimpered.

Nan was standing in front of me. She was wearing a blue kerchief over her crinkly black hair. She was smiling at me, a kind, motherly smile that she had held for me so often at Sunshine House.

“Oh my Sami,” she whispered. She opened her arms. “Come here.”

“Nanny?” I staggered to my feet and started walking towards her. “Nana, can I come home yet?”

Nan nodded as she smiled. I kept walking towards her but even though I walked towards her I still couldn’t get closer to her. I didn’t care though. I would eventually get to her; I would eventually find my Nana.

“Come here, Sami,” she urged me. Her arms open and welcoming. “My sweet Sami. My sweet, sweet Sami. You can come home.”

“Nana…” I said again as I stumbled towards her, ignoring the fires around me, and the stinging in my eyes. “Nana. I missed you.”

“Just one more step,” Nan said. “One more step to Nana.”

I smiled and nodded. I felt my foot step up on a ledge. I stood on the ledge for a second and opened my arms for Nan to take me into hers. For her to hold me, protect me, protect me… protect me…

I took another step as I felt my name screamed behind me. I took a step forward… but instead of falling into Nan’s arms – I only fell.

I closed my eyes as the wind started rushing all around me.

I was falling.

I was falling.

But it was okay.

Nana was there.

My Life After The Madness

Deep in my madness, he had heard my pleas.

A boy locked in darkness, loneliness, and naivety.

Isolated from others, chased from his home.

He went looking for a friend, and far did he roam.

The boy was captured, tortured, raped, and abused.

But he had his Crow beside him, to give up he refused.

Eventually he was rescued, but that Crow remained.

No longer a friend, but beast with madness ingrained

And though I ran and I ran, in a desperate attempt to be free.

I realized I could not out run him.

For this Crow had become me.

Elish picked up Jack and held the limp boy in his arms. His face was grave but firm, sweat beading down his face as several buildings burned around him. He looked behind him, where he had last seen Nero, pursuing the man he was sure had killed Jack.

Or had he?

“There are no fatal wounds on him…” Silas said confused. He lay a hand on Jack’s mouth and made his touch cold. There was too much noise around him to listen to the boy’s heartbeat – if he even had one.

“No… there isn’t,” Elish responded, his eyes narrowing. “This is quite the puzzle. I would suggest the rebels have gotten a hold of some biological weapon but here we stand.”

“Indeed… here we stand,” Silas murmured, but then his eyes widened. “Elish…” He quickly retracted his hand. “He’s still alive. It’s his thermal abilities – the cold must be making his body automatically reacting to the heat.” Silas lay his ear against Jack’s chest and nodded to himself. “He won’t be alive for long, but he breathes…” Then Silas glanced above, at the smouldering building above them. “Nero needs to hurry, before it’s too late.”

Elish seemed surprised at this. “Too late for what? Surely…”

Silas’s lips tightened, his emerald eyes two fire pits that reflected the inferno around them. It was almost unbearable, but they had both made their bodies cold so it was tolerable for the moment.

“Sanguine loves him… his pants were off, Elish. Whatever happened to them it happened while they were intimate. I’ve already ruined Sanguine in many ways. My first step towards repairing what I ruined will be to not let him lose Jack. I’m going to make Jack immortal… if it isn’t too late,” Silas said, resting a hand on Jack’s forehead. “Take him to Perish, lovely. I’d rather him do the surgery but if I don’t make it back in time to use my brain matter, use his and perform the surgery yourself.”

“He’s only twenty…” Elish said slowly but Silas held up a hand to silence him.

Then suddenly there was a sickening thunk behind them. They both whirled around to see what the noise was, and at the same time both their jaws dropped.

Silas let out a gasping scream and ran towards the heap of black shrouded in the smoke. Elish followed, Jack still being held in his arms.

“No… NO!” Silas screamed. “NO!”

As Elish got closer and saw the mangled body of Sanguine his heart jumped. And though for the rest of his immortal life he would swear to Silas it had jumped in horror – in truth it was from happiness and hope.

Hope that Sanguine, laying with his head cracked open like a ripe melon – was dead.

“NERO!” Silas screamed. He jumped up and started pulling Jack from Elish’s grasp. “DROP HIM!” the king screamed. “Drop him and bring Sanguine to Perish. NOW! NOW, ELISH!”

Elish looked down, Sanguine’s skull visibly split from the horrific hairline crack in his head. The boy’s eyes were half-open but they saw nothing and reflected nothing. The boy… surely…

“He’s dead, Silas,” Elish said as he lay Jack onto the hot concrete, behind him a loud crash as a distant building fell to its knees. An eruption of smoke rose to the air, filled with fire and debris like an exploding volcano. “Silas, I’m sorry, love. He’s dead.”

Silas turned and shoved Elish hard. “NOW! NOW!” he shrieked, completely unhinged and full of desperate madness. “GO!” Then the king let out a cry and fell to his knees. “GO! RUN!” Silas commanded.

“Silas – he’s dead!” Elish snapped. “Let him be at peace, you tortured the boy enough!” He had to stall Silas. Even stalling him for a minute could mean the difference.

The difference between spending an eternity with Sanguine and having the man just be a bad memory. A memory of the red-eyed defect who threatened to take his place as king beside King Silas.

I will not let that happen – I will be king. It’s my right, it’s my place.

Not his.

Then Nero burst out of the smoking door, but he spared no glances to Silas and Elish. Without asking permission Nero picked up the mangled remains of Sanguine, the young chimera like a broken ragdoll in his arms, before turning and running towards where the car was parked. Sanguine’s satchel with that disgusting bear still dangling off of his corpse.

Elish’s teeth gritted; he mentally sent out a prayer to the universe that the boy was indeed dead and this could all be resolved in the easiest of ways. But it was Sanguine he wished dead; he had been seeing something salvageable in Jack, and he did not wish the boy to die too.

Elish picked up Jack, and with Silas’s shadow in front of him, running after Nero – he ran too.

Nero had his hand on Sanguine’s head, trying to hold the boy’s fractured skull together. A groan fell from his lips as he tried without success to keep the two splits to stay open, every time he withdrew pressure the two fractures of skull burst open, revealing a hint of the pink brains underneath.

The entire car smelled of blood and smoke, the rear-view mirror a testament to the hell that they had left behind.

Elish looked at the smoke they were leaving behind.
The fires are near the harbour – we will lose buildings but the harbour and parkland that separates Cypress from the other districts may be our saving grace. Let the slums burn – as long as it crosses no borders. The districts that matter will be fine.

Ceph, who had been driving, had remained silent after calling Perish on his remote phone. Perish was in town, luckily, and he was ready.

He would be waiting with a suicide pill for Silas, then after the king was dead his brain tissue would be extracted and surgically implanted into Sanguine and Jack.

Elish hid the smirk as he watched Nero, with tears rolling down his face, try to keep Sanguine’s head from splitting back open.

The boy is surely dead…

After what was probably an eternity to Silas but a fraction of a second to Elish, the party burst through the door of the surgery floor, a room above the hospital wing Kirrel was in charge of. Perish was waiting, scrubbed in and in scrubs. Silas ran to him and Perish gave him the suicide pill but Silas shook his head.

“Get the saw, now,” Silas said hastily as he laid down on the operating table.

“You need to die first, Master!” Perish said in his usual quickened tone.

“There isn’t time!” This surprised even Elish, but it also filled his heart with unease. Silas was desperate to have Sanguine become immortal. What if this experience only bound him further to Sanguine? What if Sanguine’s love for Jack mattered not now that the king had come face-to-face with the possibility of losing that deranged lunatic?

As the sounds of the saw filled the room Elish’s face darkened. He watched with a poisoned look as Nero lay Sanguine down on the operating table beside Silas. Perish holding the buzzing saw in his hand with Silas staring at the ceiling. A determined and fearless look on his face that held a window into the bravery that the King of the World had.

“Hold his hand,” Nero barked to Elish. Elish’s teeth ground but his legs brought him to Silas’s side. He shielded Silas’s eyes with one hand and grasped the king’s hand with the other. He squeezed it tight and watched as Perish lowered the buzzing handheld saw down onto Silas’s hairline.

The sound of the saw changed octave, and Silas’s hand clenched Elish’s in a grip that threatened to break Elish’s hand. And as the skin and soon, bone, started to fly through the air, pricking and stinging Elish’s face, the king didn’t scream. His teeth only locked together, his lips peeling back as he grimaced. Elish admired him in that moment.

As a mercy Perish kept cutting an inch into Silas’s brain matter, the hot meat flew onto Elish’s face, stinging his eyes and blinding him temporarily, but it did its job – Silas’s hand went limp and his face relaxed.

Elish nodded at Perish and Perish, with a tooth biting down on his lip, made another several quick saws until a triangle of skull was cut out of Silas’s head.

“Garrett is going to assist,” Nero suddenly said. He put a hand on Elish’s shoulder. “He’s waiting outside. I need to take care of this Cypress stuff and you need to come with me. You’re king now.”

Elish gave him a cooled look as he wiped the blood and brain matter off of his face with his sleeve. “I’m more experienced with medicine than him.”

“No, you’re not.” Nero’s eyes flashed as he said this. “You’re coming with me, and don’t make me embarrass you by saying why I want you to come with me. We have to help Ellis evacuate Cypress. Let’s go.”

This was the last thing that Elish wanted but he got up anyways. If Nero knew his preference for Sanguine dying the king would undoubtedly blame him if Sanguine did indeed die. If Sanguine died it would be a strategic move for him to be Silas’s support system and if Nero ruined that with whispers of Elish botching the surgery, he could lose his king forever.

So, begrudgingly, Elish left the surgery floor and he and Nero headed towards the Skyland military base.

It wasn’t until the early morning that Elish, Nero, and Ceph made it back to Alegria. All three of them were exhausted, in foul moods, and Ceph was even laying his head on Nero’s shoulder, his green eyes glazed and slowly closing.

Nero looked outside, the hellfires of Cypress still burning in the distance. They had several fire trucks on hand for fires but once the firemen got to the other side of the Cypress walls it was obvious that half of the district would be a uninhabitable.

Though it could’ve been worse and Elish knew it could have been worse – it could’ve been a district that actually mattered.

Which was curious to Elish.

“Why Cypress?” Elish murmured more to himself than Nero. “Why one of the poorest, filthiest districts? Perhaps because the rocket launchers would be obviously seen in a more populated district? Still though…”

Nero didn’t move and for more than several moments he didn’t speak either. The brute chimera’s mind was with Sanguine; Elish couldn’t say the same.

“We’ll find out,” Nero finally responded. “There will be nothing holding me back this time. Public opinion or not. In two days half of the greywaste legion will be at the Augustus Military Base, and we will find every single one of those fucks.”

Yes, the plan had been hammered out to every last detail. Nero and General Zhou and General Taylor had been pouring over a map of the city, lists of available legionary, weapons, and talking to their top strategists over the invasion that was coming. The rebels were going to be crushed once and for all. All that they were waiting on now were the planes and vehicles that would be piling in to the greywastes military base. Ones that would be full of legionary waiting to have a hand at killing something.

But still… why Cypress?

Elish’s face hardened as he remembered picking up Jack. The boy had seemed dead but there hadn’t been a visible wound on him. Surely the missile couldn’t have stunned him that much. Jack in all respects had been dead.

The car pulled up in front of Alegria and everyone filed out. Ceph half-asleep and Nero looking just as soured and troubled as Elish was himself.

“Look, Eli, I appreciate you saving Ceph and I realize you have my nuts in your hand for that, but I gotta be honest… if Sanguine’s dead –” Nero said in a voice full of warning. “– and I see a smirk on your fucking face…”

“I’ll try and internalize my leaps of joy,” Elish said coldly as the car door slammed. “I would think someone like you, who had seen Sanguine at his absolute worst, would see it as a mercy for the boy to finally be out of pain.”

Nero sighed and shook his head. “I feel bad for you, bro. You can’t love for shit, or show compassion for shit. Your life must suck big time to not feel a damn thing.”

“Somehow I live,” Elish snipped back. He held his chin up high as the legionaries keeping guard of Alegria opened the doors for them, “and my life is just fine, thank you.”

Nero snorted; this brazen act made Elish’s mouth purse but he didn’t take the bait he knew Nero was going to dangle in front of him. Instead he kept reminding himself that all of his problems may be over, and it would be he laughing as Nero wept for the red-eyed chimera.

“You know why Silas will never take you as his partner?” Nero suddenly said.

Elish almost stopped; he almost turned around and struck Nero for even shedding light on the desire only the first generation of chimeras knew of. Elish’s darkest secret, and darkest desire.

“Because you’re a fucking stone-hearted sociopath. Even when you’re loving towards him I can see it on your face, it’s forced. Silas wants someone real. Silas wants a partner who’s a real person… not this fucking robot that you are.” Nero’s tone dropped as Elish walked further away from him. “And the fact that you wish your own brother ill, that poor fucking kid who was raised in a hell your silver-spooned mouth could never imagine in his nightmares, just proves it.”

“I’m not having this conversation with you now,” was Elish’s response. He stepped into the elevator and was tempted to order Nero and Ceph to take the stairs to give him some peace. “You’re over-emotional due to last night’s events. I suggest not taking it out on me.”

Elish closed his eyes in exasperation as Nero let out a frustrated noise.

“What happened to you!” Nero suddenly exploded. “When you were a teenager you were our little ball of emotion. You clung to King Silas like he was your security blanket. What the fuck happened, Eli? What happened to make you turn into such a dick?”