The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (29 page)

I shook my head again. Perish slipped his pants down and stepped out of them, his boots still on his feet. When he pulled down his boxer briefs my ears went hot.

I turned to walk out of the room but he grabbed my shoulder. “Come on, Si-guy. You think you’re such a big man now. You don’t want to take some of that inner anger out on me? You can tear me in half if you want to.” He smiled as he started undressing me. I let him, there was nothing I could do but stare at the floor.

“Reaver decided at the end… that we could keep Chally.” I looked down and saw my flaccid penis, I had never seen myself so ungroomed, I looked a mess. “He didn’t want to; you saw how much he… was against it. But he decided in the end he loved me enough.” I felt my face tense as my eyebrows knitted together. “He is such this… dark horse, but to me, he’s my baby. He loves me so much.”

It was cold in the room, but Perish’s hands were warm. The next thing I knew he was rubbing and jerking off my penis.

I watched and said absentmindedly, “You know I’m not Silas. Right, Perish?”

He hit me again. I stumbled back naked and slammed into one of the stacks of boxes. They fell on top of me, raining their miscellaneous contents down, mixing in with the dirt and dust.

I coughed and felt him pull me out from under the mess by my leg.

“Get up, get it hard and come here,” Perish snapped.

I got up in a daze and saw him lay down naked on the mattress; his own dick hard as rock.

He spread his legs. “Do it, or you don’t want to know what I will do in retaliation.”

What he would do in retaliation? He would hurt the slaves again, my friends, the only friends I had. He had already cut off Edward’s arm, the same arm that he was forcing them to cook right now. Those slaves had helped me even though my own mind was slipping through my fingers, and hadn’t turned their backs on me even though Perish treated me better than them.

I couldn’t let him hurt them, I couldn’t.

My eyes stung as I started to stroke my own dick. I sniffed and stared at it as I pulled and tugged at the soft member trying to get it hard.

Nothing was happening. I stood there like an idiot and continued to try and force something out of it, but it was limp and useless in my hand.

Perish started yelling at me. He got up off of the bed and slapped me across the face.

I didn’t fall this time. I stood there. “Reaver loved watching Friends. He would laugh so much but when I would come out of the bedroom and try and watch it with him he would switch it to The X Files and tell me I had been hearing things. It took me two months until he would admit he liked –”

“Shut up!” Perish screamed. He took my shoulders and started shaking me. “You useless, deranged idiot! Do you even know where the fuck you are anymore? You weak-minded, pathetic fuck! This is all your fault! All of this is your fault!”

My head snapped back and forth until he stopped. “I’m Killian… not Silas.” I looked at him, my brow creased. “That’s why you’re being so cruel to me isn’t it? I thought you loved Silas?”

“You are Silas, you blond little dumbfuck,” Perish snapped. “I remember you, I remember what you did. How could we forget? We said the radiation would stop the computers that were controlling the missles, but now look at where we are. Look at what we did!”

Perish paused, his face blank. “Look at what we did. I asked you if I was right, you said I was right. You said it was the right thing to do.”

“Oh,” I said quietly staring at my boots and groin. I still wasn’t hard. “You’re just as crazy as I am, huh? I thought the brain piece was supposed to make you sane.”

“Shut up and get your cock hard.”

“NO!” I suddenly screamed. I ripped myself away and pushed him. “I am not going to touch you, you disgusting, sociopathic, fucking piece of shit! You sorry excuse for a fucking immortal!”

Tears sprung to my eyes. I pushed him harder this time, and before I could stop it, all the anger hidden inside of me started to spill from my lips like water.

“Greyson and Leo, good people… my parents… all these people die and pieces of shit like you get to walk the earth forever without fear. You’re nothing, Perish Fallon! NOTHING! I will never love you. Silas will never love you. No one loves you, you fucking loser! NO ONE! I’m glad you’re fucking immortal because you get to experience eternity being reminded that you’re worthless! WORTHLESS!” I shrieked so hard my nose started to bleed but I didn’t care.

I sunk down to my knees and started to sob.

My breath became short. I ground my teeth together and drew my hands up to my knees. I closed my eyes, feeling my teeth grind and squeak against each other, the sound echoed in my head matching the pounding in my ears.

Bodies in the water, bodies in the basement.

If heaven’s for clean people.

It’s vacant.

The anxiety attack came with vengeance, hitting me like a truck and leaving me nothing but a gasping, crying heap of muscle and bone. For a long time I felt like I had become nothing, lost inside my confused and pain-filled head.

Yeah, I was nothing. I was nothing.

I was hyperventilating, clawing my legs and crying, babbling like an idiot as the panic attack claimed every last part of my body. From my head to my feet, nerves to my blood. I was gone and the world around me was nothing but a distant memory. A haze of images that had once been clear, but were now so far away from my brain the grey sun seemed closer.

I came to the sound of grunting and crying, rhythmic noises like a song I would have skipped on the Discman. Noises that started out quiet but were soon pounding on the door of my brain, demanding for me to let them in so they could watch me scream in horror.

I looked up and saw Perish fucking Danny, the young man’s face a frozen in shock as Mr. Fallon fucked him from behind. He was doing him hard; his face sweaty and his eyes two slabs of ice. He was pushing into him, the sounds of flesh smacking against flesh replacing the hammering inside of my head.

My head stung and I couldn’t catch my breath. My chest was on fire. I whimpered and tensed my hands, then felt something odd. Something odd, something odd…

I looked at my hands and saw they were stained red, and covered in tuffs of bloody blond hair.

My hair.

I put my hand on my head and felt it warm and sticky. Not knowing what else to do… I clenched my hair again and pulled, ripping more out of my scalp. I chuckled at this.

Then the sound of hair ripping from my skull infiltrated my head instead of them fucking.

That was better – much better.

So I did it again.

And again.

And again.

Laughing the entire time.

Chapter 47

Reno

“Come on… you’re being silly. I won’t be gone for long,” Garrett sighed. His freshly trimmed moustache twitching on his face as he gave me a sympathetic look. I don’t know why he had dressed up; he was just going to the greywastes.

“No,” I said stubbornly. I was leaning up against the door to the outside hallway. “How can you leave me with that guy?! He’s going to string me up by my toes and torture information out of me.”

Garrett kissed my cheek and grabbed his suitcase. “Silas requested it, love. And this is a good chance for me to go to the bunker in Aras without having to worry about him monitoring me. I must find out what Lycos did. Not only for my own reassurances, I am sure Elish wants to know for sure as well, and that in turn will help Reaver.”

I gave him a heartbreaking look and got down on my knees. Garrett gave me a surprised blink but I didn’t do what getting down on one’s knees usually meant (though that was also a good angle), I grabbed onto his leg and hugged it tight.

Garrett burst out laughing and started dragging me around the apartment. “He’s bringing Drake and he’s bringing Sanguine, you know as well as I do Sanguine is in Elish’s pocket currently. Love, I would never leave you here if I felt you were in harm’s way. Please, he only wants to visit with you and get a more detailed account of your time under the Crimstones, especially where Kerres might be.”

I clung to his leg tighter. “Will you bring me back something?”

He stared at me. “Like what?”

“A treat.”

My fiancé stared at me before he chuckled and patted my head. As I slowly unwrapped myself from his leg he said, “Alright, I will bring you back a treat. What’s a treat to a greywaster? A severed head?”

I thought for a second and stood up. “Actually… could you go into Aras and just walk by Leo and Greyson’s house? Killian and Reaver’s too? Just… make sure they’re houses are still there and no one’s touched them.”

I knew the mood would take a turn after that but I didn’t expect the sadness to hit me how it did.

Garrett gave a sympathetic nod and touched my cheek. “Sure, love, I will. I know where they are. Are you going to let your fiancé go now? The sooner I leave the sooner I’ll return.”

I got to my feet and handed him his scarf; Skylanders loved their stupid scarfs.

“Alright,” I said with an over-embellished sigh. “Go crack the chimera code and figure out just what Leo did to Perish. I’m sure you’ll have fun on your adventure while I get emotionally ruined by the King of the Fallocaust.”

“No such thing will happen and if it does Sanguine will help you,” Garrett reassured and after a parting kiss he was gone with Chally and I was left in the apartment. Even the new kid got to skirt King Silas’s visit. Even though Chally couldn’t talk he had been with Reaver and it was best to just not risk it. Though the kid was pretty reluctant to go. I don’t think he missed the greywastes that much.

I was just making myself a drink of rum and ChiCola (yeah, that was what they called it here, chi was short for chimera), when there was a knock on the double doors of the apartment.

For a moment not as brief as I would tell Garrett later, I wanted to duck into our bedroom and hide under the bed, but I decided I had to trust Garrett and let the crazy king in.

I slunk to the door with a sigh and opened it.

Drake was staring at me and as soon as he saw me his mouth opened and his tongue lolled out. Behind him was King Silas holding his leash and beside him, the grinning face of Sanguine.

“Hey, am I supposed to bow or something?” I gave a nervous laugh and stood back as the three of them walked in. Immediately Drake threw his arms around me and gave off a happy squeal. Silas laughed and this and pulled his leash back.

“He has always held a soft spot for you. Get back, Drakey.” Drake coughed as Silas pulled him back on his leash, before Silas handed the gold chain back to the fox-boy. The orange-eyed cicaro restrained himself but he was still buzzing on the spot.

Silas pointed him towards the television. “There, you go watch something on the TV. Reno follow me, we will be talking upstairs in the rooftop garden. Where I am sure no ears will hear us.”

I tried to push down the apprehension and managed to do so before it reached my face. I gave a cautious glance at Sanguine but he was looking at Silas with his arms behind his back, that smile still on his face. The sengil bodyguard, wearing his usual bowtie and vest, wasn’t even looking at me.

“Alrighty then,” I said. I went to grab my jacket but Silas stopped me.

“Have you not been outside yet today? The sky is blue and the grey sun is out. Spring is coming to Skyfall. You will love Skyland in the spring. Artemis has been working very hard with Joaquin and young Jem. We have a lot of flowers coming up in Skyland this year.”

“Oh?” I said casually. “I ate a couple flowers in the indoor gardens when I first came here. They don’t taste as good as they look.”

Silas chuckled and the door closed behind us; Sanguine and Drake both inside. I felt the well of apprehension grow as I realized I was alone with him.

“Nervous are we?” Silas whispered as we walked down the hall towards the elevator.

“I would be retarded if I wasn’t, Asher,” I said to him lowly. “You know our history. Would you really believe my act if I acted all happy as shit to see you?”

“Oh? Garrett didn’t prep you or anything?” Silas pressed the up button on the elevator and the doors closed on us. I was trapped with him now, well, this was going great so far.

“He told me I was safe and not to worry, but Garrett loves you dearly. We, on the other hand, have a bit of a past,” I replied honestly. “The fact that you’re currently hunting Reaver doesn’t win you any favours with me. Why insult your intelligence by acting like everything is okay?”

I might be digging my own grave today but I think I was doing the right thing. Silas was smart as fuck; he was over two hundred and fifty-five years old. If I acted happy to see him – he would smell the bullshit in my words.

And from the look he gave me I think I had done the right thing. We were silent as the elevator rode the single floor until we got to the garden area which was Garrett’s roof.

When it had opened we still hadn’t exchanged any more words. I walked out into the beautifully landscaped rooftop, complete with benches, fountains, and potted plants just starting to sprout green, and fake Astroturf that would be replaced with real grass once it became a bit warmer.