Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (91 page)

I puffed on my own quil. I felt uncomfortable with the silence between us. I had the urge to say something so I just asked the first thing that came to my head. “Do you think... the thing between you and Greyson is going to be permanent?”

Leo dashed his cigarette, his lower lip stiffened. “We’ve been through so much worse...” he began. There was a pause before he continued. “He wants me home, says he finally did what I had wanted for the past twenty years... but I can’t get the picture of him strangling Reaver out of my head.”

Of course, you’ve been together for twenty years, Reaver’s almost twenty. They had met while Reaver was incubating. It wouldn’t be a wild guess to pin Greyson on having a large part of the plan to kidnap Reaver.

Leo continued. “I think I realized that if Reaver wasn’t going to be his... protégé as you called it. He didn’t want him around.” Leo threw the cigarette into the gravely rocks outside of the door. A spray of red embers illuminating the darkness before dying on the cold ground.“It didn’t matter that we had raised him, it didn’t matter that Reaver was a person who deserves a real life. He never saw him as that. He just saw him as someone he could mold, and eventually...” His eyes hardened. “No one sees the comedic justice in that more than me.”

My ears listened more intently than Leo could’ve guessed. Greyson had wanted Reaver to take over as mayor, this we knew. Had he seen a genetically engineered chimera being the perfect future mayor? Maybe that was Greyson’s plan all along.

“I did everything... everything to raise that boy right, and I did... he treats you nicely doesn’t he?”
I snapped out of my inner thoughts and gave him a nod. I decided, though it made me a bit embarrassed to add. “He really wasn’t... forcing himself on me when you and Greyson walked in on us. It was good up until the last two minutes he just got carried away. I think he was too into it to hear me but... I would have gotten his attention soon.” I could feel my ears go hot. “I encouraged it, I just didn’t realize what I was doing. He gets rough when he’s been killing things.”

“I know,” Leo said, he got out another cigarette. “I would’ve been surprised if... if he wasn’t that way.”

“He’s very loving, just not when people are looking.”

“That...” he began, “that’s what I had always hoped for. Greyson thought him being with you would help him have some compassion for others but it seemed to just be isolated to you. I had hope though but... “ Leo shook his head rapidly as if dismissing an unspoken thought. “No, it’s over now. It’s over. Reaver’s safe and happy. This is over now, I won... Reaver won.”

He looked at me and gave me a sympathetic smile. “Sorry Killian... I know a lot of those doesn’t make sense.”

A lump formed in my throat. “It makes more sense then you think.”

Leo let out a dry chuckle, he scraped his boot against the dirty wooden floor. “If only you knew Killian...”

And then I lost myself, I don’t know what made me say it. The heavy atmosphere around us, or the mood I was in, but I said it.

“I know who you are.”

I was expecting a kind of shocked reaction, but instead Leo gave me a very confused look as he blew out the cigarette smoke. “Who I am?”

“And Reaver too.”

Leo’s half smile disappeared. The shocked look I had missed just a moment before appeared on his face, though words seemed to have escaped him.

I reached into my satchel, and I pulled out the photo, I held it out to him and he took it with an unsteady hand.

“I found the photo... and I found your Skytech lab coat,” I said very slowly, I didn’t know if I should make eye contact or look away since I had been snooping for it but I decided to be a man and look at him right in the eyes. “Reaver’s a chimera isn’t he.”

I watched the cigarette drop from his fingers, onto the grainy floor below. His pointer and middle finger still in the same position when it had been holding it.

Lycos looked at me like I had just grown horns, his hazel eyes widened with every passing moment as the realization that I knew sunk in. That his twenty year secret had just been exposed.

I started to feel foolish for telling him I knew, the back of my neck felt hot.“I promise I wont tell him...” I said hurriedly, regretting my slip with each tense moment. “I just wanted you to know, I understand. You fled from Skyfall with Reaver, and brought him to Aras and hoped Greyson would accept him as a son not as a protégé... I understand why Greyson’s actions hurt you.” I realized I was babbling, feeling the calm atmosphere around us start to become very cold and sterile. The last thing Leo cared about right now was Greyson’s thoughts towards him. That was nothing compared to the bigger secret I had just exposed. Oh god I had to stop talking, but my mouth felt like a crashing car, and all I could do was watch it speed down the ravine towards the gas plant.

Leo’s face darkened as I rambled, I could see his jaw was clenched tight. “You know who I am?” he said finally, I could sense the caustic acid on his tongue.

I shifted away from him, feeling my instincts start to tell me I was in trouble. “Lycos... you... you’re a chimera scientist... like... Perish,” I whispered, feeling my chest clench so hard it physically hurt.

Before I could react Leo grabbed me, I gave out a surprised yelp before I felt myself slam up against the wall of the abandoned house. A spray of decayed drywall rained down on us.

I felt a cold hand wrapped its self around my neck and then Leo’s hostile and intimidating face near mine. It was twisted in an anger unsuited for his features.

“Did Reaver see the photo?” He demanded. I was surprised that his voice had a tone of desperation, not anger. This did nothing to calm my fear. Desperate people do desperate things.

“No! No!” I said quickly, I started to struggle but Leo slammed me against the wall again. I felt my heartbeat rise as the panic swept through me. I started looking around for a way to escape, or at best something to defend myself with. I didn’t want to have to pull my magnum on him, but I would if it came to that point. I wouldn’t have a choice.

“No, look at me! LOOK AT ME!” Leo hollered, his face was a strangers... no, it was a chimeras. “Who else knows? Who else knows?” Before I could even defend myself his voice became angry. “TELL ME!”

“No one!” I stammered. “No one I’ve told no one... I promise.”

Leo dropped me and I fell to the floor right on my ass. The mayor grabbed his head and swore, he turned to me again his face twisted in anger. I crawled myself into a corner and tried to make myself as small as I could.
“I just fucking got this laid to rest, Killian!” Leo continued yelling. “What do you know about me? What more do you know? What did you find? Why?! Why did you go snooping, Killian?”

“I... I just wanted to know who his mom and dad were,” my voice wobbled.

Leo gave out an angry snarl at my welling eyes. “I wanted to know who he was... and I found the box and I went into the attic. You hid him for two years because they were looking for you, didn’t you? Why did you run with him? Why did you steal him?”

“Who is he, Leo?”

I brought my sleeves up to my eyes and wiped them, only a couple tears. I was getting better at not crying over things.

Leo knelt down in front of me, or whoever was in Leo’s body, it wasn’t the kind mayor anymore that much I knew. I saw the chimera he was in his blazing hazel eyes that seemed to want to eat me alive. The only chimera I had ever met was Elish, and his calm, cold demeanor was opposite of Leo’s unhinged anger. The mayor looked like a trapped beast in a pit, crazed and unpredictable.

I moved backwards until my back was pressed up against the wall. My hands felt my magnum loaded in its holster. I rested it on top of the cold handle, I could feel them shaking.

“If you ever speak a word of this to anyone...” Leo’s voice was a hollow growl, a tone that told me more about the consequences than any threat could. I tried to move back further.

“I will silence you.”

“What?” I exclaimed. I froze. Not from fear, but from pure shock that he would even take it this far. “Like kill me? What the fuck is going on? Who
is
he? Who are you?” I was the desperate one now, desperate, threatened and confused. I just wanted to get out of here.“I wont tell anyone, especially not him. I wont hurt him. You... you don’t have to threaten me.”

As if he needed to make his point clearer, Leo held up his pistol and put the barrel up against my head. My hand fumbled for my magnum but his hand grabbed mine. He squeezed it very hard.

“If Reaver ever finds out about this photo, or who I am or who he is... he will not stop until he knows the truth and the truth will kill him,” Leo whispered. “It’s been twenty years, if so much of a whisper of his existence hits Silas, he will find him and he will destroy him.”

I gasped as he squeezed my hand harder, it ached as he aggravated the old sprain Reaver had given me the previous month.

“Reaver will stay in Aras forever, and he will be safe, do you understand? I just got Greyson to give up on the foolhardy dreams he has for that boy, and I wont let you ruin everything. Do you understand me Massey?”

I tried to look away but he roughly grabbed my neck and squeezed it, forcing my head up.

“This goes beyond Greyson’s dreams now, Killian. This goes deeper than you, and deeper than even Reaver. No one can know who I am, or who he is. If you have to become collateral damage don’t think I wont hesitate to silence you.”

Suddenly my chest started to vibrate and by the quick change in expression Leo’s had as well. We both looked to our left and saw a shadow in the doorway.

The deacdog had his head lowered and his hackles up, a flash of teeth visible under his snarling black lips. His yellow eyes were focused on Leo, a small vibration showing under thin grey fur as he continued to growl.

I... I had never seen him show an ounce of aggression.

“Stand down, dog!” Leo demanded.

Deek didn’t flinch, if anything our chests started to vibrate more. Leo wasn’t the deacdog’s master anymore... I think he thought I was.

“Deek, stand down,” I said quietly. The dog stopped growling but his head was still bowed. I got up, Leo letting me this time and quickly tried to walk past him.

Leo grabbed my arm. “I meant what I said,” he said threateningly. “Keep your nose where it belongs, and nothing leaves this house.”

“I know.” I jerked my arm away and quickly walked out of the structure. I pulled my hoody over my head and tried to wipe away the tears, but I was so filled with shock and confusion they kept on coming.

My boyfriend had been kidnapped from one monster and raised by two more that’s what it was. I looked over to see Deek walking beside me. His tail wagged as he noticed me looking at him.

“Good boy,” I sniffed. I reached down and scratched his head.

I walked home with darkening clouds gathering in my mind, unsuccessfully trying to stop myself from crying. I didn’t want Reaver to ask questions, but who was I kidding? He knew everything, and he knew my body language.

But now I had to lie to him... lie to keep him safe. I didn’t know King Silas, he was just a faceless figure head we heard about occasionally. I didn’t know who he was or what he did, but I knew he was immortal and I knew he was dangerous. I couldn’t have anyone coming after my Reaver.

I felt a knot in my stomach, I tightly tucked my arms around myself to try and contain the pangs. My Reaver was a chimera, he was a genetically engineered human straight out of the labs of Skytech.

Chimeras was just a known term for Silas’s successors. Each of them had been engineered and raised to suit their purpose. Perish had been engineered to be good at science, Nero to be good at being an brute, Elish at being Silas’s top advisor. They had been created and grown for their purpose. They were raised by Silas himself or by designated families to mold the chimera for his specific purpose. They were little machines.

What had Reaver’s purpose been? And why did Leo run with him? How could he have ever gotten away with that. Silas must kept tight tabs on his chimeras, right?

Leo said they had no reason to look for them and I couldn’t give them a reason. Did he fake their deaths?

Why my Reaver? Why him and not the other chimeras that had and were still being created.

I felt like Leo had just taped a time bomb to my chest. How much time did I have before this chimera scientist decided I was too much of a liability to keep around? He said this went above me and he would kill me to keep his secret.

And it wouldn’t be hard to kill me and make it look like an accident. His secret was more important than Reaver’s happiness being with me. Lycos couldn’t have made that more clear.

Fuck, I was so mad at myself. Leo was right you stupid boy you shouldn’t have snooped, and I knew it. Leo kept saying Reaver would be in danger, that Reaver was safe now. I just had to leave well enough alone.

“I don’t have a choice,” I whispered, I closed my canvas bag, now minus one Polaroid. I looked behind me, half expecting to see Leo pointing his pistol at me. I had never seen that side of him, it scared the shit out of me. I had treaded where I didn’t belong and I was over my head.

I was an idiot... I opened the shed and let the deacdog in. I gave him a big pet, waiting for the cold air to dry the red out of my eyes. I had to put an end to my curiosity. Reaver was safe and free and that’s what mattered. Now I just had to make sure I kept my head.

When I crawled inside of the basement Reaver was working on his waffle maker. I had forgotten he himself was mad about Leo coming and trying to talk to him. That problem seemed so tiny compared to the mountain of information I had just gotten thrown at me.

Any hope that that would distract Reaver from the fact I had obviously been crying was dashed when my boyfriend glanced up at me.

I was surprised to see how upset he looked. “I’m sorry...” He dropped his gaze, his shoulders slumped under his own feelings of shame. “If it’s any consolation Reno ripped me a new asshole over threatening you. I lost my head when Leo came, I wasn’t expecting him. It wont happen again.”

He thought I was upset over what his idle threat to shoot me? I hadn’t been bothered by that at all. I knew Reaver’s nature, he would never seriously hurt me.