The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (67 page)

Then I was shoved away, I fell to the ground and was relieved to see it was Reaver who had gotten me out of the dogfight. He ripped Jade off of Hopper and away from the others and glared fire at the slavers.

“What the fuck is going on here?” he demanded, still holding onto Jade’s collar.

Hopper rose and wiped the blood away from his mouth. “Your feral dog attacked me when I refused to sell him a bought slave. I’d take a fucking stick to that brat. He’s too young to have that big of balls, especially for a slave.”

Reaver turned around, Jade had his arms crossed and that defiant look on his face.

“What the hell are you doing? Don’t fucking pick fights with greywasters, you moronic fuck. They don’t play by your Skyfall rules, you’re lucky Hopper didn’t order them to shoot you.”

I decided to jump in; I knew Jade wasn’t going to handle this in a good way. “It was my idea. He’s really weak; the other slaves keep stealing his food. He’s a mute; he can’t even scream or defend himself, please?” I wanted to grab his arm and cling to him until he let me buy Chally but I kept my distance. He hated showing affection in public.

A cold shock rushed through me as his eyes got dark. He looked at me and his face didn’t soften.

“Killian... I told you not to look at them,” he replied back slowly.

“Someone was hurting him and stealing his food,” I protested. “It’s not like we asked for him for free, we’ll pay for him.”

He was still glaring at me and I shrunk under his gaze. A moment later he moved, only to grab my arm and pull me towards a small hill of rocks that had been sheltering us from the North West.

When we got behind it I continued to cower, for good reason.

“What the hell are you trying to do?” he hissed.

I slunk with my back against the rock and murmured. “He’s disabled; he’s sick... what’s the big deal?”

Reaver hissed and turned around, before grabbing his hair and turning back around to face me. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? These are slavers, Killian, slavers! You and Jade are fucking lucky Hopper is easy-going or they would’ve shot both of you!”

But Hopper is easy-going... if I was scared of him I wouldn’t have even asked...

I don’t think.

“He wasn’t going to...” I said, but I gathered my nerve and got back to my point. “Reaver, I want to buy him. He’s a nice kid; he got sold in Tintown. His name is Chally –”

“No, Killian,” Reaver said sternly.

My mouth dropped open and I felt my eyes brim to my own embarrassment. “They’re selling him anyways! I’ll pay double I don’t care! I can’t just watch him suffer.”

My boyfriend shook his head; I could see the vein in his forehead bulging out as he got more and more upset with me. There was nothing I could do though. I would trade Reaver being upset if it meant I could save Chally’s life.

“No, no and don’t ask again. The answer is no, I am not opening up the floodgates for a fight with these fucks. Without them we’re walking targets; we need to blend in. Don’t jeopardize your safety for some fucking retard!”

“He’s not a retard!” I suddenly raised my voice, making him hiss at me to keep it down but I didn’t care. “He’s a fucking arian human who got sold like I did. He isn’t a rat, Reaver! Jade will pay for him if my own work pay isn’t enough.”

“Keep your fucking voice down!” Reaver snapped. “I have enough on my plate right now. I already have all of you and getting that message to Elish about Reno and just getting a hold of Elish to let him know where we are! I am not buying into your fucking pity party for weak creatures. I let you keep the fucking cat, I let you keep the fucking dog, and so fucking help me I let you keep the fucking scientist. I’ve given you enough leeway with your penchant for bringing home defects!”

My lower lip started to tremble, and I could feel the hot tears on my face. I felt so awful for Chally. I didn’t know what to do. I felt so powerless.

I guess my boyfriend decided that he had said his peace; he turned around and started to leave.

As he did, I felt a funny feeling in my gut... the apprehension and anxiety I got when we had fought about Asher so many months ago. I hated it when he just left me alone after we fought, left me to suffer in my own misery. I felt like he was leaving me now, telling me how it is and then taking off to go be a slaver-mercenary.

Though it wasn’t like before, because he wasn’t the same person as he was before. Ever since Kreig he had been quiet, reserved and stressed out, only putting on a show in front of Hopper and the other slavers when necessary.

“He wouldn’t be your problem,” I said quietly, “he would be Jade and mines.”

“And you’re my problem, so he’s mine too,” Reaver said lowly. “I already said my peace, Killian. No slave, don’t look at him, don’t talk to him.”

“SINCE WHEN ARE YOU MY FUCKING MASTER?” I suddenly exploded, surprising myself with this outburst. I didn’t even realize the way he was ordering me to not buy Chally had been wearing down my nerves. I think he had just grazed the very first live nerve ending. “I am your boyfriend; I am not your fucking pet! I’ll buy him if I want.” I stalked past him but as I did he grabbed my shoulder to pull me back but I jerked my arm away from him and walked back to the camp.

“Grow the fuck up already, stop acting like a brat!” Reaver stalked after me. “We’re not in Aras anymore, you can’t –”

“I know I am not in Aras, asshole!” I whirled around, my face flushed from being so angry. “Because of
your
fucking family none of us are in Aras!”

Reaver stared at me for a moment and I knew I had gone too far.

I didn’t know what to do though, I was too mad to apologize. So I just stared at him like an idiot wondering if I was going to get a smack across the face. If he did I wouldn’t hold it against him.

“Killian... I am trying to remain calm.” Reaver took a big inhale and closed his eyes for a second. I was shocked that he hadn’t exploded. “Do not piss off the slavers; do not look at the slaves. Right now our mission is to not get captured by legionary, and to try and get to Falkvalley or at least get as far away from Kreig as we can until Elish comes, not to adopt pets.”

And with that he turned around and headed back to camp. I followed behind, wiping the tears from my eyes, trying to ignore the slavers chuckling around the campfire... all of their laughs directed at me.

I walked past the area where the slaves were being kept, past many stakes in the ground with rusty iron chains attached. They were talking in low voices too, though most of them didn’t speak... not from being mute but because Hopper didn’t let them talk.

I spotted Chally, and my heart lurched when I saw he had a red patch on the side of his face, quickly becoming a welt.

He looked at me and shifted his eyes away, then moved his entire body so he was facing away from me. He hated me now, I had gotten him into trouble... once again I had tried to help and it ended up backfiring on me.

That night I curled up in my sleeping blankets and listened to the guys outside the tent laugh and carry on. Even taking a few minutes to openly tease me as Reaver went on his patrols but eventually Hopper told them to lay off. Probably because Perish was glaring at them or something; he was always camp guard when Reaver was patrolling. They were both never gone at the same time.

Twinkle’s tantrum
, that’s basically how they referred to me and Reaver’s fight. They also laughed and teased Hopper over him getting rabies from the feral dog, who was pretending to be asleep in the bedroll on the other side of the tent. I bet he was seething too.

The whole situation just rotted my gut, and I realized in the cold air of the greywaste night that it was getting harder for me to pretend I was okay with being companions with slavers. It was illegal for one; even in the shitty lawless greywastes it was illegal, though no one ever cared. The fact of it was these were not good people, if they were slavers they were slavers for a reason.

Jade understood... he was a slave too, and he felt the same way I did about keeping people captive. Perish wouldn’t of course, he had done the same thing in Donnely; he experimented and fed his splices with arians.

The tent flap opened and I heard Reaver tell Deek to stay near the entrance, then the click of him taking his gun holder off of his back.

A few moments later he got into the blankets and put an arm over me before he shifted to spoon me.

I shoved him away.

“No, don’t even try it,” Reaver said flatly. “It’s freezing outside and you need the body heat, you’re skin and bones.”

I let out a breath but let him push my back up against his chest, I felt him draw me in tight and rest his forehead against the back of my head. I would never take for granted him actually wanting to be near me. At least there had been some positive changes to this new, darker Reaver... he wanted me around him more.

So I shifted around so I was facing him and buried my face into his neck.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him.

Reaver sighed and petted my hair back. “You wouldn’t be my Killian if you didn’t have a need to help everyone. Just... not this time, Killi Cat. I have enough stress worrying about you and Reno.”

I nodded and he kissed my forehead before resting his chin back onto my head.

“He kind of has the same skinny blond boy look as you though...” Reaver murmured. “And he doesn’t talk either. He’s like a better more tolerable version of you... Killian 2.0, now without a voicebo-”

Reaver squawked as I dug my fingers into his side before he laughed quietly and kissed my forehead again. I raised my head and kissed his lips with a smile and settled in to sleep, hearing Jade snicker from his bedroll.

Chapter 24

Reaver

We woke up to a commotion that morning.

I left the boys in the tent and walked out into the tense atmosphere around the camp. I glanced around and saw the majority of the group a quarter mile away hovering over what looked like...

“Is that... a dead slave?” Perish said beside me. He shielded his eyes from the glaring grey sun and furrowed his brow.

My mouth pursed to the side. I was half hoping it was the mute kid just so Killian could put his pet wish to rest.

I wasn’t that lucky though, I could see the dirty blond-haired kid leaning against the pole he was shackled to staring off into space like most of the slaves did during their resting times.

“Chomper... what’s going on?” I walked past the moustached cook who was stoking the fire.

“It looks like a slave tried to escape last night.” Chomper glanced up before throwing a thick cut up two-by-four onto the flames. “The spikes activated on his collar and once that happens there is no going back.”

Perish’s heart jumped but I gave him a warning glance to keep his pride in his head; I assumed he was the one who designed that collar. Must’ve been a newer model, from what I remember the collar he had put on me would explode once activated.

“I’ll check it out,” I said, before motioning Perish to follow me. I walked out of camp and towards the gathering of slavers, all of them, especially Hopper, talking in quick and angry voices.

When the slaver spotted the two of us he raised his hands as if pleading with me to explain to him what had happened. “Are you kidding me? Really? Why would he even try running? We explain to them very carefully, even the stupid ones understood it!”

“Who was watching over them?” I asked, walking past Hopper and taking my last steps towards the corpse to give it a better look

My teeth clenched as I looked down. I realized it was the old man who had been harassing Chally, with blood stuck to his neck and dried onto the cold ground below.

Suddenly this morning surprise had turned a lot more personal.

“Tabbit was but he fucking fell asleep. I don’t understand it, that ol’ man was pretty fucking well-behaved.” Hopper spat on the body and gave him a good kick in the side. “Well, that’s food then. For fuck sakes Melchai pays two hundred a head. This is –” Hopper let out an annoyed noise before he kicked him again out of sheer frustration.

“Maybe mute boy scared him,” one of the men, a dark-skinned one named Jimmy said with amusement. Though with a withering gaze from Hopper he shut up. Hopper wasn’t in the mood to make jokes which was odd for him.

“Whatever... I’m fucking flogging Tabbit for falling asleep and this fucking slave is coming out of his pay. Reaver... get your boyfriend and the pet to help Chomper chop him up before he starts to stink. I’m making myself a fucking drink.” And with that Hopper pushed past us towards the camp.

Well, I wasn’t needed here. I turned around leaving the blood-caked old man to his fate and made my own way back to the camp.

As I walked I looked down at the footprints, freshly pressed into the greywaste dirt. This area was compacted and the dirt had a lot of rocks in it but I could make out the slave’s path just by his shoe imprints. They had shitty shoes and the rest of us all wore army boots or the equivalent.