The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (61 page)

“Handy but disgusting... how is that supposed to help us always? You think you can slice a throat with this weak piece of metal? It’s as flat as a key card.”

Nico rubbed the shiv onto his jacket and turned himself around, shaking his head. “No, I’m unlocking these cuffs, then I’m fucking murdering the next person to come through those doors. Then we grab the weapons on them, and fucking run.”

Grab weapons and fucking run...
If I didn’t have the knowledge that this Meirko asshole wanted to cut their losses and kill us I would’ve kept my ass where it belonged, but now a whole new sense of urgency was on me. So I watched Nico go to work on his cuffs. Not just watched though, I learned.

He took the small bit of metal and wedged it into the locking mechanism of the cuffs where the raised notches were, then secured it in place. Then, with his free hand grasped onto the cuffs, I heard him squeeze them tighter and at the same time shifted the shiv in further.

My eyes widened when I saw the cuff give a bit of slack, and when he pulled off the first one I was fucking gobsmacked. “Seriously? I’m getting one of those fucking implants.”

“I’ll do it to you myself.” Nico glanced behind him before starting on his other cuff. He didn’t need to though, I was watching that door like it was a ticking time bomb.

Several times people walked past, making all three of us jump and anticipate a shadowy silhouette in the halogen light, but besides fast talking and arguing, they left the three of us alone.

With each click of the cuffs coming loose, a chill filled the air, a certain taint to it that seemed to fill every molecule with electricity. I could feel it in my chest and soon in my veins.

Though I never let it overtake my nerves; my hands were steady and only my heartbeat gave away the energy I was feeling inside of my chest. Reaver had taught me that. I had been in many bad situations with that man; he had taught me to stop being scared.

Easy for him to say, he was immortal...

The last click came from the cuffs around my left hand. I got up and stretched my arms, though I was so weak I had to lean up against the wall to keep from whiting out.

Nico did the same. I heard him take two inhales before more snapping of stretching limbs.

Trig was still on the floor, he looked scared. “I’m not going. Ares will come for me.”

There was a squeal and a sob as, to my surprise, Nico hit the boy over the head. Then he grabbed a tuff of the boy’s hair. “Listen to me, you little shit, Ares isn’t coming for you, just like Artemis never came for Kay. We’re on our own now and we can’t rely on them. Even if they wanted to get you Silas will never negotiate with these fucks. Are you going to come with us or should I kill you right now?”

The boy whimpered and my heart broke for him. I kneeled down and rubbed Kay’s head with a confident smile. “You little Skylanders are so soft. Come on, buddy. I know it’s scary and shit and it might seem easier to stay here... but they’re gonna rape you, kill you, and eat ya. At least this way you have a chance to go back to Ares, where he will only rape you. Isn’t that worth the risk?”

The boy stared at me dumbfounded, like he couldn’t comprehend the odd string of words coming out of my mouth. But as they sank in, his eyes shifted from mine and he gave me the slightest nod. “It is better... I heard Kerres too... Meirko wants to get rid of us.”

And that won’t happen. I gave Trig a supportive pat and helped him to his feet, unlike Nico and myself he didn’t have the weeping broken skin that had been rubbed raw underneath our shackles, the timid cicaro hadn’t struggled at all. Though he still had an odd gait to him, there was no denying what that was from. He and Kay had had a few features to them that Nico and I did not.

It was nice to get out of those shackles; I rubbed my hands though it was like I was brushing back damp tree bark. I put my nose up to my wounds but I didn’t smell rot yet, at least that was something to be happy about.

“What’s our game plan, Nico? Just literally smash and grab?” I turned to the black-haired soldier. He was rubbing his hands as well; the shackles hanging out of his pants pocket. I tucked mine into my own as well; we might end up needing them in the future.

Nico gave me a nod before walking up to the door. I watched him run a hand down it, before he pressed his ear against the dented metal. “They’ll be feeding us in five hours, it’s always between six and eight. Until then we’re quiet. If we’re lucky we’ll catch some more intel.”

And so we played the waiting game. Nico and I walking around the cell to try and get the circulation back in our legs, and Trig sat silently, only speaking when spoken to and only walking and stretching when one of us prompted him. I had my doubts if he would get out of this alive, but I had to try. If Reaver could see something beyond the innocence and weakness of old Killian I should try and do the same.

When the voices started to come back, Nico and I got into position. I was on the right wall he was on the left. They would see me first and once they did Nico would strangle them with the handcuffs.

Though the plans we had talked about in hushed voices dissolved when we heard how many people were coming for us. I swore inside my head, and like the good sidekick I was, my eyes fell to Nico.

“Put your cuffs on loosely, there are at least four of them, play it by ear,” Nico hissed, then with a hurried jingle we started making ourselves still look bound. “This would be a fucking suicide mission, four is too many and one of them is Meirko.”

Just as I was clicking the last notch into place the door opened. With all three of us sitting against the wall the artificial light filled the room.

Yep, four people...

They yanked all three of us to our feet and marched us into the blinding lamplight. I kept my hands pressed up against my stomach to hide my loose handcuffs.

“Where are you taking us?” Nico demanded, before with an
oof
and a crack I heard them hit him. No more questions were asked after that.

Not because I didn’t have many of them but because I wanted to be conscious for this escape. I had to be on my toes, and leave my delusions inside that cell where they belonged.

So I started looking around for some kind of weapon I could use, anything sharp I could pick up when things got messy. I could use my teeth like a chimera but I don’t know if I could do that much damage. I didn’t even know where to aim; Reaver had been the freak show not me.

We were led into another room, though this one was twice the distance as the one Shale had raped me in. It seemed like a far away room for some dirty deeds. I hoped Nico knew what he was doing because I really didn’t fucking know.

When we were shoved in the room I saw Kerres in the corner with his arms crossed, a pissed look on his face; and a brute looking man with black hair and too many scars. That was Meirko in all his glory, a sour-faced shit who was the brother of the old leader.

Meirko was dressed in camo with a cigarette in his mouth, a vertical scar running from his cheek all the way to the left corner of his lips. I wouldn’t put it past a chimera making that scar, and this fucker looked like he held grudges.

“Bunch of pretty little fairies, huh?” Meirko growled. He walked up to Nico and put a hand under his chin. “Except for you. Wrong place, wrong time, chew toy? Did you know your mommy offered us under-the-table money for you? Silas executed her when your own dad ratted her out. It was on the TV.”

I froze, anticipating Nico spitting in his face or doing something, but he was a statue. He was standing as still as he could on his weak legs, staring forward with not a bat of his eye.

Meirko smirked and walked over to Trig. The kid was staring at the floor with his lips pursed inside of his mouth.

“And you, pathetic little pet. No one has offered anything for you, you’re not even asked about. All it is is the fiancé and the boyfriend. How does that make you feel, slave?”

Trig turned away as the cigarette smoke blew into his face. I thought he was going to stay silent like Nico but instead he raised his head and said in a mousy voice, “Ares will come for me. Ares loves me.”

Meirko laughed, the same with the other three who had brought us in. Hell, even I internally laughed at that. Ares was a brute and they didn’t love anything. Those fucking dudes were hardcore socio-fucks; they didn’t love anything outside of rape and torture.

“No, you little shit, no one is coming for you. Which is why we’re not even going to tape your execution, it would be a fucking waste of film.”

Suddenly, in a flash of steel cuffs and dirt-stained bodies, Trig was trying to punch him. I swore and took a step back as the three who had been holding us jumped on top of the little cicaro and started wrenching his body away from the leader.

Then Nico ripped his cuffs off.

And this was it... this was fucking it.

Taken by surprise Meirko was pushed into a metal desk. He crashed onto the ground like a rolled over barrel, spitting booming curses as the others grabbed Nico.

I jumped in at that moment. Not knowing what else to do I pushed one of the Crimstones holding Trig and grabbed his gun.

Not mincing movements I shot him in the head before finishing off the second one; blood splattering against the brick walls as the chaos in the room reached critical mass.

Something grabbed my arm and twisted it. I whirled around to see Meirko holding onto me, his eyes ablaze and his mouth open, screaming shit at me I couldn’t hear over my other senses.

I raised the gun, pointed it under his chin... and pulled the trigger.

But there was only a click.

There was only a fucking click.

Meirko took me and threw me up against the wall, but as the force of the blow knocked stars into my vision I saw Nico behind him raise the butt of a handgun and slam it down on the Crimstone leader’s head.

When Meirko went down, Nico took one look at me and wrenched Trig’s arm. I didn’t see it at first but he had the pet’s hand in his. “Take him and run. If he’s slow, leave him behind.”

I didn’t know what the plan was; I just knew no one was shooting at us anymore. I nodded and took Trig from him before the three of us burst into the long damp hallways.

Which fucking way? No one knew, I didn’t know and I knew the other two didn’t. I ran deeper into the dark cisterns not wanting to risk running into any more of these fuckers.

It didn’t take us long to run out of light, the strings of battery operated lights fading into the distance like the flood lights of Aras. We were in almost complete darkness.

Where was my chimera with his night vision? Just three fucking useless humans. Why couldn’t they have kidnapped at least one chimera? Even the one that acted like a dog would’ve been able to do better than us.

I could hear the two boys breathing on either side of me, and like me, as the darkness coated us like a thick, stifling blanket, their movements slowed down. Soon we were just walking, bumping into each other with our hands outstretched, feeling the damp brick for any ladder or door that would take us to the surface.

No cold metal, no door to break up the long formless sewers we were trudging deeper into, all I could feel was brick, fucking brick. It was on either side of me with a trench in the middle that never missed an opportunity to trip one of us. Trig went down the most, and after that it was me. The water tasted like rat shit, and what bits went into my mouth when I fell I was sure were fucking full of disease. I swear if I got rescued just to get like trideath or quadeath or quintdeath or whatever the more worse versions of trideath were called... I’d be pissed.

“Anything?” I whispered to Nico, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. I had a hand on his shoulder and my other firmly clamped around Trig’s.

“No,” Nico murmured. I could feel his duct-taped hand sliding against the brick. “But there has to be an exit here somewhere, just keep your hands out, let them be your eyes.”

Then my hands lit up.

I sucked in a breath and swore with vigor inside my head as a flashlight illuminated my blood-stained hand. Immediately I grabbed Trig’s wrist and memorized the path of the sewer tunnel we were running through. With my new found bursts of adrenaline, I started to run down the dark tunnel, our sneakers splashing through the trench in the brick, making such a racket I wondered if the fucks above us could hear.

“There they are!” I heard Meirko shout. I gritted my teeth together and jumped onto the narrow and slippery brick ledge and pulled Trig’s small frame onto it too.

The boy’s hand was dripping sweat or mine was dripping on him. I was able to get a hold of him though and used my own mental map and the flashlight beams to try and make some sense out of this underground maze.

My mind didn’t react when I started hearing gunshots, or when they pinged off of the walls dangerously close to my head. I made sure I had the boy and I fucking ran.

“It’s only Meirko and Kerres,” Nico said out of breath. He was running along the opposite edge of the trench.

Nico’s eyes narrowing as he glanced behind him. “Just watch for a place to duck into. If we can disable their –”

Suddenly there was an audible crack of gunfire and he disappeared from my vision. I stopped and jumped over the trench that divided the middle of the sewer and grabbed his arm.