The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (6 page)

But the flames of hell that wielded the power to melt cities struck few and far between, for the most part everything stayed the same.

Well, unless you were living.

The sestic radiation that Silas had let off had killed or driven insane everyone that wasn’t on what would become Skyfall. It mutated the animals, clouded the sky and stifled the rain. It killed the plants and trees, or condemned them to an existence of stunted despair. It sucked the life out of all living things leaving them either dead or broken shells. Little grew in the greywastes but corpses and even the greywasters harvested those. They ate friends and family alike without hesitation. Most too mad from radiation to do more but steal from and murder their fellow man.

Elish’s cold voice had been so smooth like he was reciting poetry or singing me an old song. It had made a frozen shiver run up my spine. I hung on his every word.

“Why did he end the world?”

“The world had already ended itself; they just quelled its suffering.”

“They? Silas and Sky?”

“That’s correct.”

“And the sestic radiation did all of this?”

“That and the scars brought on by the war. Many bombs were dropped before those two had had enough.”

“How did he cause it? Was it inside of him or a machine?”

I had turned by then and I had been facing him.

Elish’s purple eyes were glistening gems but I saw he was relaxed, set at ease by our love making. As soon as he left our room he would become my cold statue of white marble, but as for now, his body and mind were mine.

“It was him, but how he managed to kill the world I do not know – he never wanted us to know.”

I felt the invisible string pull on my heart; he had been too busy to take me in quite sometime. I missed the sex we had. Intense marathons that lasted hours, both filling me with a pleasure that brought me to my knees gasping and crying, and intense pain that had me scream for mercy.

Nothing could help the smile that came to my lips. In that moment my heart tugged towards him and I missed his cold touch.

The blond man of ice who had captured me in his snare and refused to let me go. Who looked upon my battered, bloodied body as I thrashed in my cage with a cold indifference. The dark times, the beginning years of my slavery with him had dimmed, overshadowed by what we had gone through together to get to this point. Those moments shone a beacon to the stars as bright as the moon, casting a shadow on the memories I had so deeply and brutally branded in my mind and flesh.

Memories I thought of fondly now, though I was glad I no longer had to dodge King Silas’s hand, or the Crimstones’ agendas, or even my ex-boyfriend.

I looked at my shackle scars now a silver pink, then flexed my back feeling the crisscross scarred roads that told their own stories; ones that Elish would regularly get lasered off of my body.

Elish could be a cruel master at times; hitting me, fucking me until I sobbed, or biting through my skin so he could taste the blood that drove every chimera wild. He was callous, unemotional, and held in him a cruelty that still surprised me at times.

But my heart sang at the sound of his voice. And my body melted when he took me whether it be a loving manner or not. My essence and my being belonged solely to him and at the mere glance of those cold eyes I knew I was his pet and he was my master. Though we had become more than that long ago.

We had the rings to prove it.

I felt alone in the chasm of fire and ice in my heart and soul. My fear and respect for my master so intertwined with my love I no longer knew how to separate the long invisible strings. I just knew they drew me to him, and as I looked out into the vast irradiated bare rocks before us I felt my heart ache from his absence.

“Make food.”

My brow knitted together; I had been enjoying the quiet ambiance. Both Luca and I were used to the cold tranquility that Elish brought in with his presence. Even when he was gone and it was just myself and the sengil the only sound was usually the TV, unless I had had a few drinks or a bump of something. This scientist brought an aura to him that was like lightning to the sensitive parts of my brain.

No... I take that back, not lightning, that wasn’t flicks of light I saw, it was fractures. A glowing orb filled with thousands of tiny hairline cracks that flared and split with different stimulants. At a distance, Perish seemed normal... but the closer I looked... yes, things were missing. He was damaged beyond anything I had ever seen or felt. There was something extremely off in this man’s brain, like he was two different people shoved into one mind.

“Pet? I’m speaking to you.”

Whatever sympathies I had for this brother I had never personally met dissolved with his condescending tone.

I turned around and narrowed my eyes at him. The scientist, unlike when Elish addressed him, didn’t cower. I realized then we were going to have a problem.

I decided to quell our differences immediately. As Elish had taught me, you correct bad behavior before it becomes habit.

“I am not your pet, nor am I your sengil. I am a chimera, like you.” I adopted my ‘Elish tone’, one that had gotten me out of many predicaments. Our brothers often called me his little protégé just to annoy him.

Perish snorted; his light blue eyes seemed to mock my attempts at brazenness. “Don’t bullshit me. You’re Elish’s cicaro.”

My cool tone faded as my Morosian upbringing took over. “But I am not
your
pet, there for... get
your
own fucking food,” I snapped.

I stalked up to him and like any slumrat worth his salt I didn’t stop until I was nose-to-nose with him. I felt a shrill jolt of adrenaline as I saw his eyes flick back and forth nervously, obviously surprised at my boldness.

But then they hardened at me, and I realized with an internalized laugh why. He was a bottom feeding chimera just like me. Two pathetic fucks at the butt end of the totem pole. Struggling with the other scum suckers to grasp at whatever shreds of respect and authority they could scavenge and hold over one another. We were born genetically enhanced kings, only to be pounded down by our better, advanced brothers. Now we fought over dignity like scraps of meat. There was no one lower than Perish and myself but perhaps Drake. And Drake didn’t care to dominate anyone.

“You’re Elish’s whore. You put all the lipstick you want on the pig, Jade; you’re a slavepet and you’ll submit like one.”

My insides boiled. I decided to yank out the only ace card I had, even if Elish had pretty much forbid all of us from mentioning it. “I am his fucking husband; you attended our shotgun wedding, did you not?”

“Elish said to all of us to never mention that again.” Perish’s eyes narrowed like he had indeed forgotten this fact, then he said haughtily, “You still have cuffs, chains, and collars. You’re his pet.”

“And not yours!”

“No difference. Now hop to it, pet. Food.”

And with that my last straw was drawn.

“I’d say go fuck yourself...” I said through clenched teeth; my nose pressed against his. Our eyes were locked like laser beams, trying to burn the other one alive. I hated how at home I felt in this moment. It made me miss the dog-eat-dog attitude of the Moros slums. “But you’re so much of a little bitch even Reaver’s twink boy would be doing the fucking.”

I was so shocked when his face fell that I took a step back.

Was he that easy to bring down? I was disappointed.

Perish’s sky blue eyes looked behind me; I did too but there was nothing outside the windows just the first hints of darkness touching the steel grey sky.

“Killian’s been in the shower for almost an hour.” Perish wrung his hands together anxiously. What fire was in his eyes only seconds before had dimmed back to his shifty, inconsistent movements.

The mood was completely gone. I still felt cheated.

“So what?” I raised my hands and let them drop. I thought we were going to have a fight? I was looking forward to getting some hits in, feeling some pain. My adrenaline was rushing!

“Killian is very unstable; Killian’s been through a lot today...” Perish looked around, his body moving as his head did until he had twirled himself into a circle. He took a step towards the bedrooms, then the basement but with every step his mind started telling him to walk in the opposite direction.

“The... bathroom is to the left down the hall near where the laundry room is...” I said. I spoke slowly in case he had a problem processing.

Perish nodded and rubbed his hands together. I felt shrill voices of anxiety hovering around his head, like he constantly had information fed to him whether he liked it or not. “Jade, Killian is very sensitive. You can act big all you want with me, but for Killian and since Reaver is dead please show him kindness. Killian is very sweet but Killian is very delicate right now. Act like a chimera and not a gutter rat, okay?”

He said all of this like a huge run-on sentence. I nodded anyways, still confused but curious to this odd behavior. Silas had really done a number on this guy; it was a known fact in the family that he was one of the worst treated chimeras in existence.

Perish started walking towards the bathroom, his hands still rubbing together. He got to the door and knocked lightly.

There wasn’t an answer.

“Killian?” Perish whispered. He leaned his forehead against the door. I saw his eyes widen and fill with concern. “The... the light is off... Killian?”

Perish tensed his fingers and put his hand on the door knob. He twisted it but it was locked of course, I had told the kid to lock it.

That little bastard must’ve been more injured than I thought. Elish was going to kill me if he died on my watch. He was the only thing that kept Reaver grounded. We needed him. “That’s an easy door to get into...”

I ran to the kitchen and found a thin metal skewer. I shoved it into the hole in the door knob and heard a click.

I slowly opened the door.

It was pitch black. The bathroom was thick with left over shower steam and heavy with the smell of perfumy soap. I reached off to the side and flicked on the light, dreading what I was going to find.

My eyes immediately fell to the corner of the bathroom, where a naked little heap of blond kid was leaning against the wall, a fucking needle sticking out of his arm. Killian’s head was off to the side, his eyes were half-open and glassy and his mouth slacked.

“Oh shit.” I shut the door and quickly walked over to him. I bent down in front of the kid and slowly took the needle out of his arm. I tossed it into the sink and shook Killian’s chin. “Wake up, wake up, you little junkie.”

Killian’s eyelids fluttered before his hazy eyes found mine. “No, I need... I need my Magnum.”

“Are those the only words you can say?” I grabbed a robe and draped it over his shoulders. What a fucking piece of work, I should’ve made sure he didn’t have any drugs on him when I frisked that gun. “I’m from the slums, dude. If you wanted to shoot some tar candy you should’ve just said it. No one here fucking cares.”

Killian rose to his feet; he stumbled a bit but Perish helped him walk his little self to the living room. I grabbed that smelly bag he was always carrying around and got him a bottle of pop out of the fridge.

I tossed it to him and sat down with my tea. Then I started rooting around his bag for the heroin.

“You shouldn’t snoop so much,” Killian’s raspy voice said. ““It will just get you into trouble.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. That had been the first words we had exchanged with each other years ago when Elish was firing his father and had left me behind to gauge Killian’s aura.

“You remember me, huh?” Killian said. His hands shook as he tried to open the bottle, the soda bubbles started rising to the surface with each feeble attempt.

“Of course I do.” Elish and I were involved in this more than Killian could possibly know. Elish had been pulling strings and arranging chess pieces for years. I had met Reaver before Killian had ever set foot in Aras.

I took the bottle from him and cracked it open before handing it back.

“Jeff Massey’s kid, from Tamerlan. Of course I remember. Your parents died a year after coming to Aras, right?” The words left my lips before I realized that was a pretty awful thing to say; Elish would’ve slapped me upside the head.

Killian’s face fell. He nodded and tucked his legs up under him; he looked like he was going to drown in Elish’s robe. “Yeah.”

This kid was so submissive and scared; he had gotten a lot worse since I had last seen him. I thought being around Reaver would make him strong, but then again this was all pretty fresh in his mind. Perhaps I was being unfair. It had taken me years to temper my body and mind under the hand of Elish, and that was with him actively training me.

I spent the next several hours trying to make conversation with the kid, but eventually I just gave up. He seemed just shell-shocked and almost catatonic. His movements were shaky and his eyes kept looking in all directions like he couldn’t believe where he was.

Perish wasn’t much of a help either, he was trying to force conversation on the kid even more. I think we were both hating the tension in the room, but Killian wanted to talk to Perish even less than he wanted to talk to me.