The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (66 page)

We had been on the road for three days now, three days without seeing a legionary or any sign of the helicopter. I didn’t like Elish not knowing where we were, but I knew if we stayed in or near Kreig eventually the Legion would find us.

So we stuck with Reaver’s plan and we went with the slavers – though I really didn’t like them all that much.

Hopper was a nice guy and Churro and Chomper weren’t that bad either, but they gave off an atmosphere I wasn’t comfortable with. There were some others that never missed an opportunity to talk down to me when my boyfriend or Perish and Jade weren’t looking. They all just seemed like a pack of bullies to me.

But I kept my nose clean and did my job, if Reaver decided this was our best bet for staying safe, I trusted him.

“Okay, food time...” Jade called and immediately I heard the sound of chains rattling. Every slave got their own bowl they used for the duration. They drank with it and ate with it. I think that was the only items they were allowed to have besides the clothes on their backs.

I watched as the slaves, about two dozen of them, all rose up from their places with their bowls in hand and their slave collars firmly around their necks.

They were all dressed in rags, puffed jackets with slashes leaking synthetic padding, jeans with tears and holes in all places, and some with blankets so threadbare you could see their clothes underneath. Their shoes were horrible too, smelly brown sneakers reeking of body odor and old feet, most with laces made out of dried intestine or grass that had been weaved together.

I felt horrible for them, which is why Reaver didn’t let me look at them. Like me these people had once been free, though unlike me their fates weren’t as sealed. Reaver reassured me that these men and women would be sold as house slaves or brothel workers. It was still a shitty life but at least they weren’t going to be used for meat or fois ras.

But it only lessened the sting of empathy a bit. I wondered if their families knew what happened to them or if they even cared. If Reaver hadn’t have been watching me would anyone have cared when I disappeared? I bet it would’ve taken until tax day for them to notice I was gone.

I sighed, hating that my own thoughts could bring me down more than what was happening around me. At least now I had Reaver and my friends, and though things were complicated right now... we were still alive.

I ignored the men’s voices behind us, all of them clambering over the cooking steaks, and focused on ladling the mush into the slaves’ bowls. The poor arians could smell all that good food and all they got was this shit.

None of them even said thank you, they were too worn-out and weak to do anything but give us all hollow looks. I looked away... and didn’t make a face or wrinkle my nose at them. I wanted to treat them like they were people, that was the least I could do for them.

After the last dirty hand held out their cracked plastic bowls for me, I turned with a downcast sigh and picked up the now empty Ratmeal tote. With Jade beside me, wiping the white meal off of his hands we walked back to the food tent to get our rations of steaks.

I saw that Reaver’s special mostly raw steak was off to the side resting, it had only taken a few days and already everyone had learned my boyfriend. Like in Aras they kept their distance from him. Reaver had that air about him that everyone seemed to understand within the first hour of meeting him. He wasn’t a man to cross and the salt-of-the-earth slavers could sense that about him right away.

It must’ve been a greywaster thing, though unfortunately it didn’t completely bleed down to Jade and me. They respected us but we still got bossed around a lot, mostly when Reaver was out of earshot.

“Oh, it’s Twinkles and Sunshine!” Hopper said with a grin. He seemed to have found it hilarious to call Jade, who was usually stone and even-faced (no doubt a trait learned from Elish) such a nickname. I tried to tell him it was because of his yellow eyes but I didn’t even believe me.

My nickname was rather obvious, it rivalled Reno’s nickname of me ‘Tinkerbell’.

Hopper picked up his steak with his hands and took a chunk out of it, before talking with his mouth full. “We’ll be heading towards the entrance tomorrow, while we’re on the highway it’s half-rations. Though usually we snag a wild biigo here or there. Skytech released some chipped ones to feed their precious little carracats.”

I wonder if Perish’s ears were burning, but I think he was taking the opposite area of the camp. I’d have to ask him if he was responsible for the carracats. I had never seen one before but the slavers kept talking them up as being something we all wanted to steer clear of.

“What’s a biigo?” Jade asked, like me he now was eating his steak with a knife and fork. We really stood out here; it was obvious we were from Skyfall.

“What it sounds like,” Hopper laughed. “A fucking big ass goat, with twisted horns that half of the time end up gouging into their own faces. Taste like butter though, I tell you.”

I gave him a polite smile, before my eyes wandered to the dark silhouette I could see in the distance. My boyfriend walking on the collapsed roofs of the houses, jumping from one rotten pile of debris to the other.

I hoped he would come back soon, even if he was only gone for a few hours I always missed him. I had been worried about him lately. I know he had to be my greywaster while we were with the slavers, and not the boyfriend I got to myself in the basement, but I still missed him. Ever since Greyson and Leo had died, and the chaos had happened in Aras... it just seemed like he was slipping back to his own dark world.

He never talked about Leo and Greyson either, and whenever I mentioned them, even offhand he got annoyed at me. He didn’t want to talk about it, and I understood why... but well... I wanted to talk about it.

The silhouette disappeared behind one of the houses and I went back to my food with a worried sigh and a tooth on the corner of my lip. I wished there was some goal, something I could look forward to, a time where we could be safe and comfortable together, but there wasn’t. We had no home, no basement, no comfort... and none in our foreseeable future. Our main focus in life now was staying away from the Legion, and while we were at it: trying to fix Perish.

Suddenly there was a shout behind me, towards the stakes the slaves were tethered to. I turned around and saw an older man trying to take a bowl away from a younger one. The young one was pulling it back as the old man yelled at him to let it go.

“That’s your problem, you two fed ‘em, you break up the scuffles,” Hopper said behind me and Jade. I sighed and got up with him, leaving the rest of my food behind.

“Give it here, fucking retard!” the old man spat, then with a hard yank he wrenched the bowl free, but not before all of it spilled onto the ground.

The old man swore. “You spilled all of it, happy with yourself? Food’s for the ones who’ll survive the journey. They’re wasting food on little maggots like you!” With a toss he threw the bowl at the kid’s head.

The kid didn’t even yell back or defend himself. He only stared blankly at the tipped over dish before backing towards the steak he was tethered to, a defeated and sad look on his face.

“What’s going on here?” I raised my voice and tried to sound as dominant as I could, reminding myself that I was their superior, even though it knotted my stomach that that was the situation I had found myself in.

“Nothing!” the old man said, the sound of moving chains around him as he leaned against the post. “You hear him complaining? No? Then nothing!”

Wow, I hope they fucking ate this guy.

Though the most my authorative nature gave me was a dark thought towards the man, Jade was different. He walked over to him and kicked him in the side, making him yell out and fall over to the greywaste ground.

“You talk to him with respect or I’ll beat it into you, slave,” Jade snarled, or Elish Jr snarled anyways. “Now you can apologize nicely or you can apologize screaming, your choice.”

The old man looked at Jade in a way I knew he would never look at ‘Tinkerbell/Twinkles’, with respect and fear. Maybe one day but today was definitely not that day.

“Sorry,” the man said simply and Jade nodded in acceptance. He turned around and motioned me back, but I wasn’t done.

I looked down at the younger one, who actually looked older than I had initially thought. His body was slight and frail though and I had a suspicion this wasn’t the first time someone had tried to steal his food.

“Was that your food?” I asked him.

He stared up at me; he had dirty blond hair that fell over his face in unwashed locks, and dark grey eyes. There was no question he was weak and sickly. The old man might’ve been right on him not surviving for very long.

The young man nodded, before giving Jade a sideways glance.

“Jade... get him more...” I said to him.

Immediately Hopper, who had obviously been watching the exchange, said loudly, “We ain’t making more, if he wants food he should fight for it.”

I gave the slaver a dirty look but he was already gnawing on the rest of his steak. I could have and maybe should have walked away at that point but I didn’t.

“Do you want some of my steak?” I whispered to him.

The young man gave me a shocked look, like I had just spoken a foreign language to him, before he nodded slightly. I was glad Reaver was away so he couldn’t stop me from engaging with him. This was why I wasn’t allowed to look at the slaves.

“Jade?” I whispered so Hopper couldn’t hear.

Jade looked down at the boy, and to my surprise he nodded. He started walking towards our plates, so I turned my attention back to him.

“What’s your name? My name is Killian.”

Surprisingly he said nothing back; instead he started making a weird gesture with his hands.

I blinked at him, so he did it again but slowly.

I still didn’t get it... it wasn’t until he kneeled over and started writing in the dirt that I understood.

He was mute.

I am Chally.
He reached over and took my hand before gesturing slowly. The first one was in the shape of a C, and then the rest of the letters, most not as easy as just making them with his hands, followed.

“You can’t talk?” I kneeled down beside him.

Chally shook his head.

“Where are you from?”

Chally started writing on the ground again.
Tintown.

Maybe I could...

No, Killian, no...no... no Killian.

“Were you kidnapped?”

Chally shook his head, and made the motion like he was handing me money.

“You were sold?”

He nodded.

Poor kid... I looked up as Jade came back with the remainder of his steak. He knelt down and handed it to him.

“He’s mute, Jade, look how thin he is... he was sold in Tintown.”

Jade mouth twitched. I knew he would be in my corner about this slave. Jade was technically a slave too, he must have empathy for these types of people.

“Why were you sold?” I whispered, just as Hopper started yelling at us to stop talking to the slaves. I ignored him, he wouldn’t get past barking and he knew it. I was Reaver’s boyfriend.

I looked down as Chally continued to write.

I got too old.

Oh man...

I looked over at Jade, who I think in that moment had also had enough. He pulled up the steak that Chally had been tied too, with Hopper cussing at us in the background.

“Get up, you’re coming with us,” Jade said and we both helped the boy to his feet.

“What the ever-loving fuck..!” Hopper yelled.

Jade held up the thick chain the boy had attached to his leg and said very coldly to Hopper, “I am purchasing him; he’s my slave now.”

Hopper threw his hands up and let them drop to his sides with a loud smack. “He ain’t fucking for sale! Put him back where you damn well found him!”

Jade pushed the confused kid towards me and stalked up to Hopper. “I am a chimera and it’s within my right to purchase any arian, greywaster or rat of my choosing. I am buying this pet.”

A hush fell over the camp. I could see Chomper and the others stop eating to watch the new show playing in front of them. Even the slaves behind us had stopped moving, their chains were silent.

Hopper glanced behind him and turned his head to the side. “You might be a fancy-bred mutant, but in my camp... you’re a cook and our help, and cooks don’t buy pets. Are we really going to have a problem here, Sunshine?”

Jade’s lips pursed, and though I was no aura reader like him I could see the anger radiating off of him. “Yeah, we are, unless you sell me this kid, I’ll make sure he’s –”

Hopper shoved him backwards, and in a flash the fuse on Jade’s temper lit and exploded.

I ran from Chally and grabbed the back of Jade’s collar as he pinned Hopper down and started punching him; the slaver swearing and spitting at Jade as he raised a fist and slammed it into Jade’s head.

The other slavers were around us but Jade wasn’t having any of it, with a beast-like snarl he whipped back and sunk his trademark sharp teeth into one of their hands, his own hands clenched around Hopper’s throat. It was chaos, all around us was chaos, yelling, screaming, and from the feral pet himself: the same insane snarling noise.