The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (76 page)

How would I have felt if I saw Reaver doing the same to King Silas?

The thought made my gut feel sick, and it made me sympathize even more with this poor lost Morosian.

“I’m sorry,” I said to him simply. “One sad fuck who fell for a chimera to another... I’m sorry, Kerres.”

He nodded but after that it was silence. A silence that seemed to sync itself with the biting winter air, becoming one continuous muted landscape that, even though it would absorb and exploit even the slightest of movements, was bringing nothing to my ears but internal static.

Finally Kerres spoke; a low tone but one that made me automatically fix my eyes on him.

“I won’t give up... I’ll find him one way or another,” he said, more to himself than to me. “This plan might not have worked... but I’ll find him.”

Will you let us go?
I wanted to ask so badly.
Just let us go.

Kerres rose to standing and turned around. He looked out the thin cracks of the shed and I heard him sigh. “I have nothing left to live for... I’ll find him or I will die by his hand. I have nothing left... I gave up my life to save him.”

What do I say to that? I felt like getting up and putting an arm around him, but I was too weak, I could barely sit up. “You will, bro, I’m sure... I mean when shit is at its worst just remember – something’s gotta give.”

Kerres nodded and to my surprise he opened the door. Without another word he walked out into the cold night, and I could hear the padlocks lock behind him.

I heard him sit back down in front of the door and, with a weighted sigh, I closed my eyes. I held the cicaro against my chest for warmth, wondering in my tired thoughts if Kerres would ever get the resolution he so dearly needed.

The next day Kerres was nowhere to be found, and we were all alone.

I called to Kerres a few times when I had been woken up by Trig’s crying. My whole body was aching, and what sparse bits of energy I did have had been spent just being able to find my voice.

He didn’t answer but I had been hoping he was asleep or had gone out to find us food, but when afternoon had hit us and I still hadn’t heard so much of a shuffle, a deep foreboding had started descending on me.

I managed to crawl my body towards the cracks in the shed and I looked through them.

And there was nothing. Everything was gone. His gun was gone; the crate where he had sat was empty.

Kerres had abandoned us.

My teeth clenched and ground, in a fleeting moment of false hope I managed to stand on weak legs to try the door. But no, Kerres and I might have had a fleeting moment of understanding last night, but he was either thoughtless or he didn’t want us to come after him once I was free... because the padlocks were still on the shed.

I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the door in defeat. I inhaled a deep breath and pulled on the handle but I was so weak the wood didn’t even bend under my strength. Though this shed had wood as old as the Fallocaust it was still too strong for me to break through.

Kerres had sealed us into our tomb,

I turned and looked around the small shed he had stuffed us into but there was nothing in there I could use to break out of here with. Only crumbling plaster, insulation full of dirt and debris, and thin strips of wood that might’ve been wood paneling at one point. Besides that the room had been cleaned out, we had nothing.

This is where we’re going to die.

“Is he gone?” Trig’s voice was so weak I almost couldn’t hear it. The boy had shifted himself to sitting and was slowly rocking himself back and forth, his glassy dark eyes half open but dead.

“Yeah... he’s gone.” I almost felt too defeated and done to feel the fear from those words. I had no idea what was in store for us now, and the fleeting hope that Kerres had just gone to get food or something was becoming dimmer by the passing second. It was late afternoon now and I had been on and off awake since the morning.

The kid wasn’t coming back.

And unlocking the shed would’ve been too dangerous for him. Kerres was really ready to sacrifice anyone and anything to get Jade back, or at least get him away from Elish.

Mother fucker...

My back slid down and I leaned against the door. I stared forward and ran my hand along my hot and blackening stomach, before it went father down to the hole in my upper leg, now clogged with dried blood and from the smell of it... becoming infected.

Then there was silence but this silence had a different air to it. It wasn’t thick or full of emotion like some of the quiet moments I had experienced. It was cold and thin, like it had been stripped naked and exposed to the elements. A sober tranquility with nothing more to say, for its presence was enough for you to know why it was there.

There was nothing more to say, and I had no warm words of reassurance for the little cicaro. I would die in here with him and soon.

Trig sniffed and huddled in on himself, shivering from the cold. His jacket doing nothing to warm that stick-thin body. What would Reaver have done in this situation if that were Killian? I didn’t know; I had never been in this position and right now my only instinct was to curl up against the door and die.

Even when Trig started to cry I didn’t move. I sat with my back against the shed door and just stared forward, feeling every ounce of pain wash through me again and again every time I struggled to get breath.

At that silent omission I took in a deep inhale and realized it was starting to get hard to breathe. I lifted up my shirt and knew why; the black on my stomach that was hot to the touch seemed to be crawling up to my chest. I wondered of my lungs were going to start filling up with blood or something. I didn’t know how it worked... I just knew it wasn’t good.

The next thing I was conscious of was Trig’s muffled sobs. I opened my eyes and looked ahead, shocked as hell that it was dark out.

“W-what’s wrong?” I mumbled. My voice a scratching rasp that sounded like sandpaper scraping together.

The boy’s head jerked up, his face tear-stained and gaunt; I could see his lips turning blue. “They’re back.”

Sure enough, a beam of light shone through the cracks in the shed. I swore inside of my head and made sure my back was leaning against the door. The door was metal and it didn’t have cracks for them to see my outline in.

“Shh,” I whispered to him and I tried to motion him over to me but he was too petrified. “Just be quiet and they will go away.”

“I can’t let them take me again.” Trig’s words were muffled; he had his hands over his mouth as if trying to stifle the sobs breaking his lips. “They raped me so many times in there. I can’t... Otter, I can’t let them take me again.”

“Shh... they won’t we just have to be quiet... I’ll... I’ll fucking think of something,” I whispered. My heart was slamming against my ribcage with such a ferocity I was sure it was going to bust out of my chest and hit the wall.

A single flashlight beam slowly swept over the shed and I heard more muffled voices, men’s voices who sounded just as authorative and dominant as the Crimstones. I didn’t recognise these ones but I knew they were probably the reinforcements. No doubt trying to look for Kerres and, to a lesser extent, the prisoners he doomed to slowly starve to death.

If my own injuries didn’t kill me first.

It was a tense half hour after the last flashlight swept over the shed. When he was finally confident that they were gone Trig managed to crawl over and lean beside me, careful and considerate enough to not touch my aching stomach or my leg.

He wept beside me, long mournful cries that I tried to stifle by directing him to my chest.

“Why won’t Ares come for me?” he cried softly, pulling on my shirt in his own inner turmoil. “Why won’t Garrett come for you?”

That hit me where it hurt... I wanted to give him false confidence that hey, maybe they were coming for us, but it had been too long and I had accepted the fact that no one was looking for us anymore, besides the Crimstones of course.

“I don’t... I don’t know...” I was surprised that my own voice cracked under my emotion. “I thought Garrett would have found me by now.” I tried to laugh it off, but I was in too much pain to laugh.

“I don’t want to go back into that fucking sewer.” Trig clenched his teeth and let out another small cry; his grip on my shirt a small window into the internal agony he was experiencing. I could relate. “I’d rather die than go back in there. I can’t... they can’t just kill us they’ll torture us just to feel like they won.”

I swallowed. “Yeah, I know.”

“They’ll find us won’t they? The Crimstones?” I saw Trig’s eyes looking at me but I couldn’t look back.

My teeth once again clenched together. Though to my absolute surprise… I found myself getting angry.

“Yeah, yeah, they fucking will,” I said bitterly, my breathing started to become shorter. I didn’t know what was going on inside of me, but I think the last ounce of restraint, hope, resolve, the last ounce of fucking
everything
left me.

“They’re going to find us, rape us, and kill us. And Garrett is going to sit in his fucking skyscraper as everyone does his dirty work for him!” I suddenly snapped. “Because that’s what these chimera assholes do. We aren’t important to them. Who the fuck cares if Elish is exchanged for us? He’s... he’s fucking immortal! Isn’t Jade going to get all immortalized too? Do that trick on him and hand him over and we can get him back. But no, fuck us, they don’t care. They’re a bunch of heartless animals just like Reaver!”

I suddenly burst into tears; I buried my face into my hands and sobbed. My strength had left me; the funny, charismatic Reno had left me. I was done and I knew I was done.

“Ares isn’t coming for you, and Garrett isn’t coming for me. We’re on our own and we’ll either die in this shack or the Crimstones will take us back to the sewer. That’s the life of mortals unlucky enough to get caught up with chimeras. We’re expendable to them, Trig.” I sniffed, my hands soaking wet with my own tears. “I was stupid to think Garrett would care. I’m just another human to him, another mortal he will see live and die. He might love me as much as a chimera is capable of loving, but you can see as well as I do... the writing is on the fucking walls. We’re expendable.”

Trig dissolved into tears; he shook his head and I saw a hand reach up to grab a tuff of his hair, from what I knew was stress alone he pulled on it hard. “No, Ares is coming for me... Ares loves me. He WILL come! I know he will. Ares and Siris... they’ll come, and joke and call me names. He will, Ares will –”

“ARES ISN’T COMING!” I suddenly screamed.

I rose to my feet, even though my legs were buckling, and slammed a fist against the wall. Then I fell to my knees with a painful cry and gave the door another slam.

“Ares isn’t coming! NO ONE IS!” I grabbed the kid and shook him, his tears falling against my face. “We’re fucked, okay? We’re done! The Crimstones will find us and what they’ll do to us will be ten thousand times worse than us dying in this shithole.”

Trig cried even harder; his small thin body was trembling hard under the weight of my harsh words. I couldn’t believe such anger was coming out of me, but with that same thought I knew why it was.

Because it was true. Everyone had left us and now we had nothing. I was going to die, if not tonight then tomorrow morning. Already it was getting hard to breathe and it would only get harder.

Trig suddenly let out a large wail. I let go of him and felt my own tears run down my face, but they weren’t from sadness, they were from anger, betrayal, and devastation.

Reaver would have come for me.

I stared at the boy as he sobbed long drawn-out wails into the cold night air. A devastating sound I had heard come from Killian when Redmond had shot me.

Maybe you could come and get me, Tinkerbell?

Someone?

Please?

Suddenly Trig’s face was illuminated but in his own despair he didn’t notice. Immediately my eyes widened and the anger left my body.

The Crimstones had come back.

“Trig... be quiet... be fucking quiet!” I said desperately. We might be fucked in this shed but I’d rather die here than go back into that sewer, back into that fucking pit to be raped and beaten and I knew he felt the same way.

But the kid was too deep in his own emotions to hear me. He continued to cry loudly and as another flashlight joined the one on the shed my heart rose to my throat.

I grabbed Trig, and though my chest and stomach screamed from the pain I held him to my chest like I had done yesterday.

“Be quiet, Trig, you have to be quiet!” I pleaded desperately. I held the back of his head and shut my eyes tight. I stifled my own desperate cry and said through locked teeth, “You need to be quiet!”

“I see something!” a voice suddenly sounded. “Bring the light!”

Panic rushed through me; a cold wave of dread followed by such an overwhelming flood of fear I felt myself temporarily fall into madness. I clutched the back of Trig’s head to muffle his sobs and bit my tongue to try and suppress my own.

No, no, no... they won’t take us... they won’t take us!
I groaned as I heard another voice, and another one. I clenched the kid’s head and steeled myself; the minutes seemed like hours.