The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (80 page)

Fucking fraudster.

Hopper threw his hands up into the air. “I don’t give a fuck who fucks who or who chews on who when it comes to you four. Just shut up while –”

“PERISH!” a familiar voice suddenly screamed.

My mouth dropped open and at the same time so did Perish’s. All of a sudden what had just happened seemed unimportant.

That was Killian and he sounded like he was in physical pain.

I jumped to my feet and quickly put my pants on. I ran out still buttoning up my shirt looking around the abandoned rest stop for where his voice was coming from.

“JADE!” Killian screamed. I looked towards where the dirt road was and saw Killian stumbling down it. His face was pale but his eyes puffy and red; his hair was messed up and he was covered in dust and dirt. I could hear his heavy breathing from where I was standing, mixed in with the stifled sobs that continued to roll from his lips.

I ran to him and he collapsed in my arms, hysterically sobbing. I put a hand on his head and looked behind me where Perish and Hopper were running towards us.

Perish slowed down as he approached us; his crazy eyes shooting from Killian to behind him.

“They got Reaver... they got Reaver didn’t’ they?” Perish whispered.

Oh... fuck.

Killian cried harder. He held onto me like I was his life-preserver. I held him, though at this moment I felt like I was going to collapse myself.

Reaver was fucked.

“The Legion found us. Nero got him. Nero got him,” Killian sobbed.

Yeah, Reaver was fucked.

We were all fucked.

Chapter 29

Reno

“Tiggy? Tiggy??”

The blood rushed to my ears, a heavy pressure that seemed to push my own mind out of my body. Like my head was doing everything it could to not hear what was going on around me.

But it was real, the voices were real, the frozen air, so thick with emotion, was real. The dead boy in my arms was real.

Trig stared at the ruined ceiling, his eyes wide in a shock I could only imagine.

I had killed him... my arms clenched him to my chest to hush his terrified crying. Because none of us wanted to be dragged back to the hell underneath our feet.

“Knight... get the Falconer... we... we got them.” I felt Trig get taken out of my arms.

My eyes travelled up to Ares’s face, but I could no longer lift my head. I didn’t want to lift my head, there was nothing happening around me that I wanted to see. Only a thousand images that I knew, once I saw them, would burn themselves into my mind.

I didn’t want to see Ares and Siris; I didn’t want to see Trig dead in Ares’s arms. I didn’t want to see that Ares had come for Trig. Just like the cicaro said he would all along.

“Garrett?” I croaked as Siris lifted me up, I tried to raise a bloodied hand but it fell limp to my side. The cold winter air stung my body and the bright light made my eyes automatically close.

Why wasn’t I happy? I was free... I was safe...

“He’s back in the skyscraper, bro. We’ll bring you to...” Siris sucked in a breath. I winced as I felt his hands brush my side and my stomach. “Wow... Ares we need to get this chicklet to a doctor. He’s been shot... did... did they shoot Trig?” They were running with me now, I could hear a rumbling plane in the distance. Where did they land? I hadn’t heard anything.

A grey building with the side of it a crumbled mass of dust and brick passed by me, a car was overturned in front of it with its tires deflated and hanging off of the rims. All of this passing rapidly in a blur of grey as they ran with me.

“I don’t know, he’s cold... he has some pretty bad injuries on him,” Ares sniffed. I shut my eyes and tried to tune out what I knew was his stifled emotions.

Ares had come for Trig.

My fiancé was warm in his skyscraper. Not a media appearance in over a month, not a single negotiation for my release. Ares had come for Trig.

No one had come for me.

“Holy shit... holy fucking shit... I... I just radioed Mom. She’s meeting us in Sidonius’s skyscraper.” A male voice was shouting over the noise of the Falconer, it was a low roar that I could feel vibrate my chest cavity. “Did you see any Crimstones?”

No, they left us too. Kerres left us.

They put my cold body onto the floor of the Falconer, my back hitting the metal bench. My head flopped down but someone caught it, the one who had mentioned he had a mother. That could only be Knight, Ellis’s son. I had never –

“I’m sorry.” I suddenly burst into tears, like my own stunned mind had finally caught up to the horrible thing I had done. The hot tears streamed down my face and onto the rusty-red stains dried to my shirt and pants. I put my hands behind my head and pressed, trying to keep in the hysteria I could feel crawling up my throat. Like a thousand little insects they filled my mouth just edging me to the point of madness.

I didn’t know what was happening to me but I had seen it happen to Killian. I knew I was witnessing my own mind breaking; the end of my rope finally being felt by my own frozen hands. Why was it always the feeling of safety that finally brought you to the fringes? I had been on auto-pilot and now... and now...

I felt a hand on my shoulder and at that point I broke down again. The man I didn’t even know made a sympathetic noise and put his arms around me.

“Poor little guy. We really need to get him to Sid’s; I don’t even want to imagine what he’s been through.” Knight clicked his tongue and patted my back as I tried to push down the agony and horror I was feeling.

I had killed Trig. I didn’t mean to! I didn’t fucking mean to I just needed him to be quiet!

The plane took off and another hand was on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Otter. We’ll drug you up good and get Sid to look at those wounds,” Knight reassured.

“Trig... Trig’s dead,” I stammered. I felt him try and put his hand in mine but it was shaking too hard. “Nico’s dead, fucking... all of them are dead.”

To my surprise the half-chimera, a man with short black hair and royal blue eyes, gave me a sympathetic smile. “Nico’s alive. It was Caligula who figured out the code you left. Smart thinking, Mother is quite mad at herself for not figuring it out sooner.”

Nico’s alive? Someone got out alive besides me?

Caligula came for Nico.

The rest of the plane ride I sat beside Knight, too stunned to say anything more than a few simple sentences. They asked me where I was shot; they asked me where Kerres was. I answered them as best as I could but the gears in my mind seemed to have rusted. I was tired and defeated. I should be jumping up and down but instead I felt a pit in my gut that I couldn’t shake, no matter how many times I reminded myself that I was safe.

I was safe and I was going to be back in Garrett’s arms soon.

I hadn’t even realized I had passed out, actually I don’t even know if I had actually passed out. All my mind decided to make me aware of was that I was now in a small room with light blue walls, lying on a hospital bed with many beeping things around me.

I was warm... I was on strong opiates from the feel of it and...

My heart gave a jolt.

There he was.

Garrett sleeping. His head resting in his arms which were crossed on my bed, a leather chair pulled up close to where they had laid me. He was sound asleep, with his usual slicked back hair messed up and his once smiling face troubled and creased. My fiancé looked tired... but we were all tired.

I was tired.

I reached out my hand and touched his stiff gelled hair. My hand was wrapped in a clean bandage and as my body shifted in the hospital bed I could feel many other places wrapped too.

So here you are, Reno, you’ve been rescued, you’re back with the chimeras. Why don’t you feel relieved? Why don’t you feel ecstatically happy like you thought you would?

Because I killed Trig, because Garrett stopped looking for me. Because I was just a mortal human engaged to an immortal chimera and no matter what... I was just another person to him. Someone who he would see live and die, then eventually get over.

I felt nauseas... and I hated myself for it. I should be happy but instead I just felt numb, sad and numb.

The tears started to come again. My mind just wanted to dissolve, to... disappear completely. This place wasn’t offering me the calm, warm blanket I had so sorely needed. I felt homesick and sad. Stuck here with people I didn’t know, when my friends were in the greywastes so far out of reach. I bet they didn’t even know what had happened to me.

Garrett stirred and I withdrew my hand. I couldn’t take my eyes off of my fiancé in that moment, though the love I felt for him was mixed in with my confusion.

He lifted his head and I saw those light green eyes widen with shock. He pursed his lips and gave me a smile, heavy with sadness.

“You look beautiful,” Garrett said to me. “Are... are you in any pain?”

I shook my head; my mouth turning to liquid, unable to form even the simplest of words.

His face softened, but he looked like he was on the edge of tears. My instincts told me to comfort him, but I was the one in need of comfort.

“We had Sidonius sew you up. You’re in my medical wing... you’re home, lutra.” His face crumpled as he said this, but he managed to hold back the tears I could see brimming in his eyes. “I finally have you home.”

This was my home? I had no home – I was a greywaster without a block, just a stupid mortal idiot who would end up being nothing but a blink of an eye to Garrett.

Maybe I was just nothing then...

No.

I was a murderer... I had that going for me. Sure, I had killed before, but never someone innocent. Never a little cicaro who held on to the hope, until the very end, that his heartless, sadistic chimera of an owner would come for him.

And he did.

My chimera never did – but Ares came for his toy.

“Knight told me that you know Nico is alive. We got most of our information out of him, so don’t worry... no one will pester us. I have sent them all away. We stopped the internal bleeding and we have the best antibiotics for you and and...” Garrett was looking more and more anxious the more words he said. I saw him clench the sheets underneath his hand before he stopped speaking altogether. He took a moment to gather himself and he managed to press on. “And... I brought up a wheel chair for you. Can I take you down to our apartment? I’d just... like you to be safe and home.”

I looked at him and he stared back at me. He looked so tired, so defeated, but relieved. I could understand the first two but the third...

“I want to go,” I whispered to him.

My fiancé smiled back and rubbed my hand. “Okay, let’s go home.”

I shook my head and pulled my hand away. “No, I–want–to–go–home. I want to go to where Reaver is.”

Only the steady beeping of the machines around me broke the thick silence that fell on the room. They were our metronome, our only signal that time was still passing by; that time didn’t stop the moment Garrett realized what I was saying.

“Lutra...”

“My name is Reno,” I whispered to him. I started to try and get up off of the bed. “Reno Nevada, from Aras, and I want to go home – Find Elish and tell him I want him to bring me to Reaver.”

“But... why?” he choked. Garrett stepped back as I put my feet onto the floor. He didn’t stop me either when I started unplugging myself from these machines.

Why? Because I spent a long time being locked up by terrorists and in the end it was the Morse code I gave that led them to find me. Garrett had stopped looking for me weeks ago, not a single media announcement, no negotiations, nothing. Garrett had resigned me to my fate.

Chimera love.

I stood up and tried to take my first step, but with a teeth clenching cry of pain I sunk to the ground. Garrett put his hand on my shoulder but for some reason the moment he touched me my mind flared with anger.

I shoved him away and felt the area behind my nose burn. “Don’t fucking touch me!” I screamed at him. I tried to crawl my way towards the wheel chair he had waiting for me.

“You... you’re sick, love. Please, let me help you get up. You’re just exhausted,” he said hurriedly. Garrett ran over and grabbed the wheel chair, his hands trembling so much they rattled the steel arm handles of the chair.

I glared at him, pursing my lips tight to hold back the meltdown I knew was coming. My eyes stung, my body ached. Why was I here? Why did I even fucking exist if I didn’t belong anywhere?

“No!” I screamed again when he tried to help me up. “Just get out of here, just fucking...” I tried to rise to my feet but I collapsed again, this time my head hit the floor. I saw stars and a bright aura like haze in my vision. I groaned but the next time he grabbed me I had no strength to pull him off.

“What’s going on?” an unfamiliar voice sounded. “Why is he on the floor?”