Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (125 page)

“We might have sent you to Moros perhaps,” Perish said slowly. “Or Eros, but never the greywastes. We never had the chance to plan since we all thought... we would never successfully create someone like you.

“And now that I see you were raised in this place. I wonder what your environment has made you become, and what is... and what is your engineering.”

That was the million dollar question Greyson and Leo had been asking themselves since they brought me here. The realization shook me, but I didn’t let my gaze waver from him.

Perish held out his palm too and put it beside me. I realized then... we had identical hands, right down to the lines on our palms.

“You love though, you love Killian. What a curious development. I can see why my master would be fascinated with your emergence.”

This conversation and on a greater level, his touch, was making me uncomfortable. Killian must have sensed it.

“Lycos just disappeared?” Killian asked. Well that conversation wasn’t much better, but I allowed it.

Perish shook his head, he withdrew his hands and clasped them behind his back. “Silas incinerated the lab with Lycos inside, without warning. Lycos knew things none of us did. Because of his research trying to create a perfect... you. Silas decided he had to die.”

“Why?”

“Punishment for failing, discretion for knowing Silas’s secrets.”
“What secrets?” I said warily.

“They died with Lycos... or I thought they had. I only helped sometimes, once the embryos were planted.”

I saw Killian’s hands hold both of ours in place so he could examine them, he let out a breath of disbelief and I heard him sit on the couch.

“How did Leo and Greyson escape with Reaver?”

Perish sat down beside Killian and I sat on the other side. Immediately I felt a tautness around my upper arm as he prepared me for my newest drug addiction.

“I am not sure, Silas summoned me to Skyfall while Reaver and the other babies were just small like baby kittens and next I heard Silas had incinerated the lab. We were not allowed to talk about it after, Master Silas was so mad, very mad, especially at me.”

“Why you?” I felt the needle move inside my arm, I was starting to like that feeling. I looked down and frowned. “That’s not heroin.”

“It’s your oxy prepared a different way, it wont zone us out like the heroin does.”

I shrugged and I tipped my head back as I felt the bitter sensation sweep through me, it wasn’t the sting of tar but it was a sensation I was familiar with. I got comfortable on the couch and started cleaning my guns. I would need them soon.

“Because I...” Perish’s mouth was wide open ready to say the next thing, but I suppose the light bulb gave a flicker because he clamped it shut. “I’m sorry I can’t say.”

I didn’t mind that, I was tired of him talking. My mind was racing, but the oxy was slowly catching up. Creeping its essence into the coils constricted around my brain, slowly unwrapping them tentacle by tentacle. Perhaps soon I would be able to think clearly and put some sense to this.

It was a few hours of cleaning and packing everything we needed for a quick escape and started hitching my M16. With the silence and calm of everyone being stoned, I was able to form in my head a few safety nets for tomorrows exchange. I knew Asher was a game master and I knew he was a taunter as well; either way I wouldn’t under estimate him. I wanted some backup in case the exchange went awry.

Killian eyed me nervously as I put on my sentry uniform. With good reason, I would be locking him in my bedroom. His stunt shooting Elish’s pet had only proved that I couldn’t rely on him staying in the bunker. I wouldn’t point it out now, even though I wanted to. But if he hadn’t followed and eased dropped on me and Greyson’s conversation, my meeting with Elish might have gone well and Greyson wouldn’t have gotten taken.

I remembered blowing smoke in Elish’s face, the man who had been introduced to me as James many years ago, along with his travelling partner I had always known was a slave. I thought he was dead, but with a cold instructive voice Greyson had told me otherwise and had warned to act like we had never met. This information had sunk into the other thousand troubled realizations raping my brain, perhaps I had doomed it from the start.

Either way, Killian should’ve have followed me.

What had Elish wanted anyways? He had requested to see me, as Elish Dekker this time, as my older brother and the man who had known my origins along with my father’s. But why me? And why did they wait this long to tell me?

Well either way, it had ended with him getting kidnapped right along with Leo. At least they were together now, I hope they were decent enough to let them see each other.

“Okay get up.” I grabbed the handcuffs and motioned towards my bedroom. I wasn’t going to trust Perish alone with him. One was getting locked in the bedroom and one was getting handcuffed to the couch.

I got on the radio and contacted Reno, he met me outside my shed, his assault rifle in tow. I told him my plans and without another word, we walked off into Aras.

When we were done, it was a few hours until dawn. We had talked the whole time, more than we ever had in our years of friendship. Maybe it was the unease for what would happen tomorrow, or maybe I had just needed something to distract me from my own mind. Either way we bonded more during that time than we ever had.

I even got to be humiliated once more by yet another person knowing my chimera status, by Killian’s hand too. I should have known the hens would stick together. At least it confirmed Killian’s story about Leo threatening him. It wasn’t like I didn’t believe him but well he had been seeing a lot of things in his head lately.

I walked through my back yard but we both stopped inside my shed and shared the rest of our cigarette.

“You know what the most awesome thing about all of this is, man?” Reno puffed out the cigarette smoke and handed it to me. He blew it behind his shoulder. “I fucked the king, I fucked the king, Reaver. I got blown by him too. I got my dick polished, stroked and deep throated by the
king
.”

I tried to suppress it, but a laugh burst through my lips. “Leave it to you to find the happy side. Did he squeal and cry?”

“Nah, he’s probably used to genetically enhanced chimera dick, he just growled and moaned.” Reno crossed his arms as I took a hit. His right eye brow raised as he eyed me with a lust I had seen many times. “You know, I always hated you for your pretty dick. I guess it wasn’t just a god’s love. I find that rather unfair you get to be genetically perfect.”

I felt my teeth start to grind together, my good mood started to fade. Every fucking part of me was fake. A carbon copy of the body parts of every other chimera I bet.

“Hey!” Reno interrupted my self loathing, his voice was sharp. “Hey fuckface, listen to me. Don’t you dare get all angsty about being a chimera. It’s a fucking gift. But if you let yourself get caught up in the
‘Ohh Silas is bad, I’m bad too’
bullshit it’s a curse. You’re smarter than that. Use it as the fucking gift it is. You were never moral about duct taping toddlers as Legion bait, or killing innocent people, don’t fucking get moral on me now. I’ll beat your fucking brains in if you ever get pissy about being some genetically enhanced superman.”

I grinded my teeth even harder, not because I was still mad, but because I just realized that he was right.

“Hey superman, with your super eye sight, your super Sonic the Hedgehog speed and your super hearing. Sorry you got such a bum deal about being a demigod. I know there must be some down side to being a supreme being. Like having to be friends with peasants.”

I pursed my lips to hide the smile threatening to hook the corners of my mouth.

“At least I can say I got blow jobs by
two
deities.”
That was it for me, the laugh came out more like a muddled snort but it was enough for him to clench his fists and hiss a victory in being able to make me laugh.

“Come here, I want a hug.” I groaned as he wrapped his arms around me. I indulged him and hugged him back. Killian had trained me to stop cringing.

“Don’t let those fucks take you man, you promise?”

“I wont,” I said, pulling away. I lit us another cigarette in the shed. “The only way I would let them take me is if they got you or Killian. And you two will be together with guns, so it shouldn’t happen.”

Reno nodded and took the cigarette I offered him. “You sure you don’t want us to hide in the basement?”

I had thought of that, but Asher knew where the basement was. This place was safe, but all in all that safety made it quite the death trap for fire. It wouldn’t take much to douse my home in diesel and torch it. With my boyfriend in it. The same fears were for Reno’s house too, which Asher also knew the location of.

“Hiding in one of the buildings would be the safest, there are hundreds here. They wont find you two, but I don’t expect him to look.”

My dark haired friend nodded, fear and apprehension looked odd on his friendly features. Reno made jokes, he made me laugh and want to spend time with him. He was the first guy to ever make me burst out laughing, one dusty day many many years ago. That had made me stick to him and my offing Bridley had only cemented our friendship. I trusted Reno with my life, and everything precious in my life.

“Reno?” I said.

My friend glanced up at me from under his eyebrows, taking note of my suddenly subdued tone. “Yeah?”

I shifted around and inhaled a deep breath. “If something happens to me...”

“Nah, Reav-” I put my hand up, a cigarette dangling between the pointer and middle finger. Reno shut his mouth and just stared at me.

“Take care of him.”

Reno’s eyes immediately started to brim, he looked like Killian as he gazed up at me with eyes filling with unshed tears.

He averted his gaze and quickly wiped his eyes with a glove hand. “Of course I will, man.”

I nodded and took one more drag from the cigarette. I motioned him inside. “Let’s go. I have a handcuffed scientist on my couch. If you can stand him, you can have him.”

Reno laughed, he stood back as I opened the tank.

“I have a tendency to enjoy the company of mad men, who knows.”

And with that, we both went into my basement.

Chapter 53

Reaver

I had my hand firmly on Perish’s shoulder as we walked to the north gate. Not because I felt he was going to run away, more to show my own authority over him and the situation I was about to go into. I couldn’t show my towns people or the chimeras that Perish and I were on friendlier terms. Especially Silas, who would indeed punish him for it.

In front of the gate was Redmond and Hollis, and behind them the enforcers blocking off the north entrance and the only street within a block leading to occupied houses. I didn’t want towns people to witness this, too many idiots.

I glanced quickly up to the north wall and saw my sentries in place, the exact position I had told them to be in last night. I had made it clear to them, in a voice that held no room for debate, that I didn’t want any of them to move.

“I want everyone to stand back,” I said when we approached Redmond and Hollis. “No one talks, no one touches their guns. I want this clean and quick.”

Hollis was already sweating and from the disturbed dust around him I could tell he had been pacing for awhile. Without a word he turned from our small gathering and stared walking the north road towards the square where the enforcers were standing.

“Reaver you better know what you’re doing.”

I looked over at Redmond a bit surprised, there was a tone in his voice that rubbed me the wrong way. Like I was to blame for all of this. I hoped Greyson knocked some sense into his fucking head once we had him back.

“I’m the only fuck here who does.” I threw his own tone back to him and without another word he turned and followed Hollis towards the road blockers. I shot him a barbed look as he turned his back to me, hoping he could feel the heat on his neck.

It was just the two of us in front of the gate now.

I still held onto Perish’s shoulder but it wasn’t long before he started getting restless. I eventually let him wander off to look at the deacons, I followed closely behind.

“They’re so big, I’ve never seen a white one before,” Perish said his tones hitting an octave I had only seen reserved for Biff or Killian. My gaze wasn’t turned to the wolf dogs though, it was fixed to the air waiting for the plane to appear. The overcast sky revealed nothing but snow white clouds and a threat for more rain.

I heard him grab onto the chain link fence and rattle it.

“Hey, come here! Pup, pup!” Perish sang.

I leaned against the fence and pursed my eyes with my fingers. My heart kept jumping and clenching from the nerves of what was about to take place; and here he was singing to a radiated mutant wolf.

“They’re not fucking dogs, they wont come to you.” I didn’t even try to hide the annoyance in my voice. He might be decades older than me but I still felt like he was a younger brother, the kind I would’ve loved to kick the shit out of growing up.

“Watch me!” Perish snorted in a rare act of brazenness.

I was about to shove his face hard into the chain link fence when I heard the strangest noise. A whistling so high pitch it seemed to tickle the hair inside my ears.

I realized with a curious amusement it was coming from Perish. His lips pursed as he made the shrill whistle, his eyes focused on a white bitch laying with her back to Perish. The other deacons laying not far behind.

Sure enough their ears perked, they craned their hairless scabby necks towards the scientist before rising to their feet to investigate this curious noise.

Perish’s head turned from the cage and shot me the most cockiest smug fuck grins I had ever seen.

In the same second a black male deacon charged out from a corner hidden by the concrete wall, not but two feet from Perish. With wild blood shot eyes and rows of yellow razor sharp teeth he lunged at the cage and snapped at Perish’s face.