Fallocaust (The Fallocaust Series) (43 page)

He called me into his chosen room and we set up a quick camp. The mattress was also in good condition and it even have blankets over it. I shook out the blankets in the hallway and made us a nice little bed. I knew he wouldn’t sleep but he could still lay with me for awhile and rest his eyes.

Since we would be heading back tomorrow morning, we drank half a bottle of water each. Leaving half a bottle between the two of us tomorrow. We could drink our fill when we got to Aras.

Reaver made himself a drug area on a wooden kitchen table and I busied myself scavenging some more things from the apartment. It had also been cleaned out of food, and anything worth taking with us save a couple books.

“I’d love to check out a few more of the apartments tomorrow,” I said to Reaver when I was thumbing through some magazines. “There has to be at least one where they died rather than leave on their own.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Reaver said, there was a
tap tap tap
coming from him as he cut his drugs into lines. “If these were government issued evacuations everyone would have had to leave. I think this apartment building was one of them.”
I guess he was right, I hadn’t seen any skeletons in this building. I actually hadn’t seen any skeletons inside of the buildings. Just a few dried bones with shreds of clothing in alleyways and alcoves from either radanimals of perhaps the rain when it came.

“But we still found a lot of valuable things in the stores,” I said confused. “Why wouldn’t they be gone too then.” I grabbed some books and sat down on the bed with them.

“They would have just been stores back then, maybe they thought they would come back? Or the government was shooting anyone who tried to loot them. Not sure.” Reaver held up the straw to his nose and snorted some drugs. I didn’t dare ask for any, or I would be buzzing all around the apartment. He had mentioned wanted to patrol a bit earlier, so he would need them for that.

“Once you figure out the history of the town, it’s easier to know what you can find and what you can’t,” Reaver explained, sniffing and rubbing his nose. “Gosselin for example has been ransacked. You wont find much there in the shops or houses, but if you have the way to carry it home you can find neat things like pinball machines and arcade games.”

“Like the one in Greyson and Leo’s house?”
“Yep.”

“Did they teach you all of these things?”

Reaver nodded, he did a bit more drugs before he picked up my assault rifle. He broke it apart and started cleaning it with a stained rag. “Taught me a lot of what I know.”

“I wish they were my dads, my dad was a junkie and an angry one at that,” I said leaning back on a flat, must smelling pillow. “You’re lucky.”

There was a pause, I looked up from my magazine to see Reaver giving me a hard look. “They’re not my real dads though.”

I gave a exasperated sigh and rolled my eyes and he said I had mental issues. “I’m not even going to point out  how-”
“Then don’t.”

“Reaver!” I complained. “You should be happy to have two parents. Why do you care if they’re your real dads or not.”
“I don’t call them dad do I?”
I was surprised at that tone, and I think in that moment I got an idea as to why he always bristled at me mentioning them as being his real parents. I think there was some underlining issue with their upbringing of him. Maybe they never wanted him to call them dad? Greyson did seem to treat him a lot like a solider, perhaps that’s what he had wanted instead of a son.

Though the thought of pointing that out sent a shiver through my very soul. He would kill me!

“I wish I knew more about you,” I said instead. I put my magazine down and just watched him. He was so mysterious, a human from an unknown land with an unknown history. I wish he was registered just so I could know who he was.

“Why? It wouldn’t make any difference,” Reaver said, he leaned back in his chair, wiping his nose again. I could tell the drugs were starting to hit him. It was like watching a spring slowly uncoil. You could see his shoulders relax and his eyes get softer. I always loved watching it happen.

“Because... I like you, I want to know everything about you,” I said honestly. “I don’t even know your last name.”

“You don’t know my given name either.”
“What!” I said loudly, he looked like he regretted saying that. “Reaver isn’t your name? What’s your name!” I didn’t even know my boyfriend’s name?
“Keep your voice down!” Reaver hissed, he wiped his face with his hands and muttered something about the drugs being to blame. He looked out the window, and all fell silent for a few minutes.

“I don’t remember my mom at all, but I remember my dad a little. I remember he had black hair, and he was very young not any older than I am now,” Reaver explained.

I held my breath, I was afraid if I said anything to him he would stop talking and shut himself down.

The light from the flashlight half illuminated his face. It looked stone cold again, not soft at all, or whimsical. It was steeled, emotionless. I guess the drugs could only do so much. “I remember him throwing a ball for me, and I would run and bring it back. He would do it all the time to try and wear me out... we were... in a closed off area I had never been outside before.

“Then he was gone and I was with Greyson and Leo. I asked where Dad was and he said he had to go away... everything after that was just normal living. I was in Aras and I well... just survived.”

“They changed your name?”

Reaver shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe my dad had before he met Leo and Greyson. I think he called me Reaver before I came to Aras.”

“Greyson and Leo never said?”
“I never asked.”

That was maddening, I wonder if he would get mad if I asked for him? I tried to tell myself no, that if Reaver wanted to ask he could and it wasn’t my place, but curiosity was driving me mad.

There was silence again. Then the flicker of a lighter as Reaver lit a cigarette. I watched as the cherry ember brightened with his inhale, then a puff of white smoke.

He looked so handsome in that moment, and I don’t think I had ever seen him so encapsulated in himself. A cigarette in one hand, and his other resting on the table beside drugs. His blackened eyes looking out the window like was in his sentry nature. Cold, silent, unbroken and unemotional. Was he just an expert at hiding his emotions? On subjects anyone would be emotional over? Or did he just truly not care? Reaver lived in the present, he never seemed to dwell about the past, or the future. He didn’t seem to care very much for his origins, his names, his adopted fathers, or anything but what was going on in this moment.

The white smoke swirled around his pale face, the ember lighting and darkening as he smoked. The silence continued to drive me crazy, but I knew with him it couldn’t have been more natural.

I watched him for hours, my magazine forgotten. I watched as he smoked, cleaned our guns, and every once in awhile bent over to do more drugs. It was when my eyes started to become heavy, and my mind heavier that I decided to ask the question that had been burning the most.

“What did he call you, Reaver?”

There was a long pause.

“He called me Chance.”

“Come lay with me, Chance.”
To my surprise he extinguished his cigarette and walked over to the bed. He laid down beside me and put his arms around me. My heart soared as he kissed my head. Then whispered in my ear, in the most calming loving voice.

“If you ever call me that again, I’ll break every single bone in your body.”

I giggled and nestled myself into his chest, he of course grumbled at me. I fell asleep as I had done last night to his breathing and slept the entire night.

When I woke up the next morning, Reaver was gone.

Chapter 20

Killian

I didn’t panic at first, I ignored the growing pit of anxiety in my stomach and ate half of the Good Boy we had saved for breakfast. I put it away and brushed my teeth as best as I could and rinsed my mouth out with my share of water.

I swallowed the remains from brushing with a shudder and started putting everything away. Reaver would be back soon, he had probably found some good scavenging areas while he was patrolling and was delayed. Maybe I had woken up too early for him.

But I went to grab his drugs on the kitchen table, and I felt a chill go through me. His dilaudid powder was still here. Five lines had been left untouched, the other five nothing but yellow residue left beside a plastic straw.

My mind thought back to the previous night, he had done those five while we were talking...

He hadn’t done anymore after I fell asleep.

He had gone out patrolling after I fell asleep.

My heart was in my throat, I ran my fingers along the table and picked up the straw. The five lines taunting me. When he started snorting the drugs he would continue the entire night so he didn’t crash.

Reaver had never come back from his patrol, he could have been gone hours.

He must have fallen asleep.

Yes, I said to myself with so much confidence my brain forced my heart to believe it. Reaver fell asleep. He had been up for days now. He would feel mad at himself when he woke up, but he would be fine.

Maybe he left you behind?

Maybe you got too close to him, he scared himself with how much he was revealing to you. Reaver shut himself down, and decided the only way to maintain who he was was to leave you to die in Donnely.

“Fuck you, brain!” I said angrily to myself. I walked over to the window, the sun was shining through it leaving the dingy apartment bright and exposed.

Everything was quiet...

The tone of the city felt different under my growing apprehension. The rows of windows looked like eyes now, or gaping mouths. Each one open and staring at the invader that had come to rob them. I was a single person in a city that once held thousands.

NO I WASN’T! Reaver was here too.

I turned away, unable to look anymore. I sat down in Reaver’s chair and inhaled all five lines of the dilaudids. Then I slammed the sniffer down and sat back down on the bed. I pulled the blanket over myself and shifted my weight into the corner of the mattress. I sat still and listened. Any moment I would hear him come up the stairs. I wanted to run out the apartment door and look for him... but he said stay, he said never leave without him. He told me to stay home, stay safe, stay safe...

The drugs made my anxiety go down. I dug into Reno’s bag and pushed the coke aside, that I wouldn’t do yet, it would make me paranoid as Reaver warned. I did find his baggy of dilaudid powder and sat in the far corner of the mattress with a spoon and continued to wait.

I hated my mind and where it was taking me. The thoughts that swam in my head were maddening, a confusing torrent of questions, theories and fear... lots of fear.

They kept replaying in my mind, and the only thing that could numb them was drugs. I did a lot, until my nose was plugged and my throat was full of the sour dilaudid taste. I don’t know when it was, two or so hours after waking up that I cried for the first time.

I curled myself up tight in the mattress and cried for awhile, pausing only to wipe the neon yellow snot away from my nose. The pills had done that.

When I had had enough of crying, I just started to feel mad at myself. How useful was I right now? I got up and shoved the baggy in my pocket. I tried to dry my eyes as best I could. I felt like such an idiot, such a useless wuss. I put on my assault rifle and looked out the window again.

Still nothing, still silence, still quiet... fuck I was starting to hate quiet.

“REAVER?” I suddenly screamed at the top of my lungs. “REAVER?”

Reaver... Reaver... Reaver...
my shrill and panicked voice echoed off of the buildings and fell silent. No one answered, just ghosts below me, not even an animal, not even a hopper. Just silence.

Where was my Reaver? Where was my boyfriend? This place was empty, we had seen no signs of anyone yesterday. Did he fall? No Reaver never fell... he was a parkour master running and jumping like an acrobat. Did he fall asleep? That was the only thing that made sense.
HE LEFT YOU!
NO!

I hated my brain, I hated my brain so much... he wouldn’t leave me, he couldn’t have left me.

I... I didn’t deserve it... did I?

Or maybe I did. I had gotten too close to the sociopathic horror that is Reaver. I had made a chink in his armor and to save himself from being exposed as a nice funny guy he had left me in Donnely to die. Telling Greyson and Leo I had been killed in an accident.

That made the tears come...

“Just shut up! SHUT UP!” I screamed out loud, fully realizing that I was screaming at myself. He wouldn’t leave me. Reaver liked me, he held me every night since we left, he kissed me. He told me the name his dad had given him.

He revealed too much, and he pushed himself away. He’s gone, long gone, probably back in Aras by now. Right this moment he’s pretending he’s upset and telling Greyson the old lady killed me.

I took some more drugs and sat back down, the assault rifle digging into my back as I leaned back into the chair. I let the drugs hit me, and calm me down.

He’ll be back

He left you.

My head tipped down, until my forehead was resting against the kitchen table. The drugs were coursing through my system now. Trying to kill the snapping beast of doubt, though with every victory three monsters appeared in its place. It was like a virus in my mind, the longer I let it sit the more it bred and grew. Too much time had passed now. I wanted to open my eyes and look out the window, to see if I could tell the time of day, but the drugs had made my arms heavy and my body relaxed and slacked. I stayed there with my eyes closed, my over active mind going everywhere I didn’t want it to go. I found myself slipping into a drug induced haze of panic and worry.

And all there was was silence around me.

I eventually started to come out of my high, though I wasn’t sure how long I was out for. All I knew was I was still alone, and there was a puddle of drool under my face.