Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (29 page)

‘LET US GO!’
Crow screamed inside of my head.
‘LET US GO! FIGHT THEM! FIGHT THEM!’

“Shhh… be still, little thing.” I felt breath against my ear and the presence of the blond one.

“LET ME GO!” I shrieked.

“SILAS!” Nero snapped.

That was the last thing I remember – there was nothing after that but calm, soothing darkness.

These Voices In My Head

Where am I? I only knew I was huddled at the back of the plane, engine noises all around me that rattled my bones. I had wedged myself in between two crates and there I stayed as these strangers stood around me.

“He’s so scared…” I heard the blond one whisper. “I cannot silence his mind again without dying but I don’t believe he will lash out again.”

I stared at a metal bench, a few feet away Nero was smoking a cigarette, one of the ones with the blue ember. I saw him nod and offer the cigarette to the one with the buzz cut, though neither of them looked at me.

It had been so long since I had seen an adult besides Jasper, it was overwhelming in a way how big they were. Taller than me and three times as wide. They had a build on them like they were bodyguards.

I remember Nero being big; it had made me feel safe with him.

“Do you want a cigarette, Sangy? It’ll relax you.” Nero’s eyes met mine for just a second before I quickly looked away and drew up the blanket they had given me.

“We’re flying over Skyfall now… want to come look?” Ceph asked cheerfully.

I didn’t answer but I heard Nero say to him, “It’ll stress him out I think, all those lights in the middle of the night… I don’t know, but you remember those rabbits having all those heart attacks from stress? I bet his heart is even weaker than theirs.”

“Yes, I want him kept in darkness,” the blond-haired one replied. I shrunk back as he casually strolled up to me; his own cigarette in his hand. “Do you know who I am, Sanguine?”

I watched his every movement, every liquid movement of his feet and hands, how he seemed to glide instead of walk. I could… barely walk.

“No,” I rasped, still feeling that soothing cloud over my head. This man had done it to me with a narrowing of his eyes. He had abilities in him I used to read about in my fantasy books, the one with sorcerers, but I knew they didn’t really exist.

Though red-eyed, shark-teethed humans didn’t either, so maybe my own views on reality shouldn’t be so iron clad.

“I’m King Silas Dekker, the immortal king of the Fallocaust, and the one who ended the world,” Silas said to me with a small smile. I tried to hide my amazement but it showed on my face.

“Why did you take me from my home?” I said to him.

Silas drew a hand up but when I shrunk back he lowered it. “We are
bringing
you home, Sanguine. You are not who you think you are… you are no monster to be kept in a basement. Love – you are a chimera, my chimera, and my creation. You are royalty.”

My already fuzzy mind blanked under his words. All I found myself doing was staring at him in disbelief as my head tried frantically to process this information.

Was he lying?

Crow whispered that he was, but I found no reason for the King of the Fallocaust to lie to me. There was nothing I had to give him and nothing he wanted from me but…

How can that be true? How can I be a chimera? I didn’t even know what a chimera was, only that they were engineered by Silas to help him run Skyfall and the greywastes.

I was one of them?

“Is that why I look different?” I asked him before jumping when I saw a flash of light reflect opposite of the plane’s window. I didn’t like light, it made my chest tighten, it made me want to give into Crow.

No, I had to hold on…

Silas nodded. “Yes, that is exactly why you look different, and why you always knew your name was Sanguine. I created you to look exactly how you look. You’re no monster, Sanguine, you’re a genetic marvel.”

I was no genetic marvel…

I was a monster, I did deserve to be locked up. I knew myself better than them and I knew what I was capable of – what Crow was capable of.

But still those words… what Silas was saying to me…

“You created me… does that mean you’re my owner?” I found myself asking.

“Not in the way this Jasper person was no,” Silas said slowly. “Though I am your king and master, my chimeras are free to live their lives. Once you have healed mentally and emotionally… you can find out just what you want out of life. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

He kept edging his head into my vision even though I was trying to move my gaze away from him. I shook my head and said quietly, “I want my basement. I want… I want…”

“Darkness? Tell me, Sanguine… when was the last time you saw the sun?”

I knew when that was. “I fed crows… I was eight.”

“Eleven years.” I saw Silas frown out of the corner of my eye. “You have not been outside since you were eight?”

“Once I was let out at night to dig a grave for a boy… I was twelve or thirteen, it was dark. I didn’t like it…” I said, before turning away further. “I would like to stop answering questions.”

“We’re landing right now anyways,” Nero called from the front of the plane. “How do you want to handle this, Kingy? Do you want him in Alegria?”

Silas slowly stood up. “Yes, summon Kirrel and we will bring him to my hospital wing. I want him to have medical attention as soon as possible.”

When I looked towards the front of the plane I saw Levi and Juni huddled in a corner with Nero’s cape over them. Looking wide eyed at everything but they… they were smiling.

Juni saw me looking at him and he waved at me. Levi looked too and also waved.

“We’re going to Skyfall, Sanguine,” Juni said in a hushed but excited voice. “They say we’re going to live with chimeras, real chimeras! We won’t have to see Jasper ever again.”

Juni seemed happy with this but I was pensive. I didn’t trust any of it… I just wanted to go where I felt safe. Right now I was out in the open amongst strangers, I didn’t know them and I didn’t trust them.

At least the boys would be safe – that was something I was relieved about.

But then again at their age I trusted whomever was nice to me, maybe they were making the same mistake I did?

I closed my eyes and with that I slipped back into myself. I don’t know what this state was called but it was more like a walking zombie state than anything. My eyes were still open, I was still breathing and could follow instructions… but besides that I wasn’t responsive. I was deep inside of my head where my own mental barriers could keep me safe.

Yes, my eyes closed. On my mattress with… with… Barry.

Wait, where was Barry?

“Barry?”

I opened my eyes, heavy and full of sand and my mouth parched and dry. There was a weariness in me that suggested I had been asleep for a long time but… but where was I?

Immediately my eyes widened, even though the room was dimly lit it seared my eyeballs and filled them with fire, and not only that… I was connected to things, wires and machines that hummed and beeped, each noise hammering itself against my skull.

“Okay, he’s aware… shit, shit… um…”

My head jerked towards the voice and I saw another adult, this one with thinning black hair and a trimmed beard. He was reaching over to a machine and rapidly pressing buttons.

I tried to jerk my arms up and was horrified to see I was restrained. The moment I realized I was tied down I went into panic mode and felt my destructive other half start to skim the surface of my previously calmed state.

“Let me go!” I shouted. The man paled before running out of the room, I took this opportunity to try and slip my hands underneath the belts that were securing my wrists. I frantically scanned the room trying to figure out where I was.

It was a hospital room and I was connected to machines. What were these machines doing? It was too bright in here, it was too open. I saw a window to my left that had the blinds closed but I could see daylight trying to shine its way into the room I was in.

No, no, no, everything was wrong here… everything was wrong.

“Run,”
Crow murmured to me in my head.
“Run and find some place safe.”

Victory. My skinny wrists slipped out of the binds and I jumped off of the bed. I tried to run out the door but I felt a sting of pain followed by the sounds of the machines crashing around me. I looked behind me alarmed and saw them falling to the floor, the wires connecting me getting ripped out of my skin and chest.

Panic claimed any reasoning I might’ve had, and trumped the small defeated voice inside of me that was telling me it was okay, that things were different outside of the basement, but my frantic mind was having none of it. I ripped off the last of the wires, ignoring the blood shooting out of the punctures in my skin and ran out of the room.

“Sanguine… wait!” I looked and saw four people running down the hall, none of which I recognized. My instincts kicked in and I turned and ran in the opposite direction.

Hospitals in movies were huge but this hallway looked like the hallway of a normal building. It had sculptures and bright paintings, its lights were still dim and not cold like the bluelamps. Everything was different, nothing was like how it was in movies or books. I didn’t understand what backwards place I was in.

My head whipped around until I saw a door. I opened it up and ran through it and was horrified to see I was in a storage room.

But it was dark… it was dark and it was quiet.

I ran past stacks of boxes, more paintings, and objects I couldn’t discern in my racing mind. I took a chance and hid behind an old couch that had another couch laying face down on top of it, making a perfect cave in between.

And it was perfect, as soon as I crawled into it I felt the tension entrapping me start to give.

I took in a deep breath and backed away further inside my cave, cushions below me and all around me. It was comfortable and cautiously relaxing.

And it was dark, enclosed and dark…

I closed my eyes and curled up inside of it and waited for their voices to come nearer.

They didn’t come though and as I waited I found the exhaustion catching up with me. Though I was on edge, and my mind was an over-revving engine, I felt my eyelids start to droop, before I knew it I had fallen asleep in my couch cave.

“Well, you look like the cutest little thing all curled up in that couch.”

I opened my eyes and jumped from surprise as I saw Silas staring at me.

I hissed at him and backed away further; he laughed at this which I didn’t like at all.

“Sanguine, I have a wonderful place for you… it is dark, quiet, and no one will bother you there… unlike here, which usually has someone going in and out. Would you like to go there?” Silas asked.

“Leave me be,” I said to him. “Don’t put any wires in me… no wires.”

“You’re dehydrated, malnourished, injured, and worse… we’ve had you sleeping for days, little love, but don’t you feel better now just a bit?”

“No.”

I saw him lift something up.

It was Barry.

My eyes fixed on my old bear. I could smell the basement of Jasper’s house on him. I outstretched my arm and took it from him and put him under my chin.

“Levi made sure to bring it, did your mother give him to you?” Silas asked.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” I said slowly. I inhaled Barry’s smell, of rotting carcasses and stale water and felt myself back in the basement where everything always stayed the same.

“Look, Sanguine…” Silas sighed. “You can’t stay in this couch fort forever. You need to get your strength back up. You’re a shell right now and we cannot rebuild you if you’re hiding in the darkness for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t need…” Why would I even finish that sentence if I knew it was a lie? “– I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not… I have already made plans for your re-emergence. I have arranged therapy sessions for you, regular doctor’s appointments to monitor your health… nothing too overwhelming, not at first. Most of your family doesn’t even know you’re alive.
I
didn’t even know you were alive.”

I looked up over Barry’s fur. “I don’t understand.”

Silas was quiet for a moment. “For our second generation of chimeras I decided to give several of them to surrogate families. Your mother was hand-selected by me to be your–”

“She wasn’t my mother,” I said bluntly. “Didn’t you say I was engineered?”

Silas nodded. “Yes, but she would’ve been your surrogate parent. How old were you when she died?”

“One.”

Silas flinched at this and murmured, “I see.”

He regained himself a moment later though. “Nero and Ellis told me they had found you. Did you know Nero came to visit you with supplies several years later and you were gone? After looking–”

“You looked for me?” I asked.

Silas nodded. “Yes, love. Every year Nero looked for you, though as time went on we all thought you had died. Once a year for an entire month that determined man set off to comb the greywastes for any sign of you – but there was never a shred of a clue that pointed to anything but death.”

So that was why Nero and Ellis were so friendly towards me, why they gave me that house to stay in. They had wanted me to stay safe, and I would’ve been safe if I just… if I had never met Jasper.

Jasper…
below the surface of my skin I could feel bugs crawling. I started clawing at my arms, my teeth finding my lips to chew on.