Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (105 page)

Nero shot to his feet. “He can’t see us,” he said, his voice full of fear. “I have to hide with him, in case… in case it worked.” He looked around. “Go and tell him you couldn’t find me after I went looking for Ceph.” Then his eyes fell on Valen. “Keep this secret and we’re good, me and you, for everything.”

I felt Valen’s arms help me to my feet before he said in a weak voice, “If Silas doesn’t kill me first.” The young chimera looked into the haze and swallowed hard. Though as we walked out of the store and towards the voice, it felt like he was holding onto me for protection more than he was helping me walk.

With the briefcase in my hand we started walking towards Silas, who was still yelling our names. It sounded like he was deeper into the mall, which gave me hope that perhaps they had found an exit.

When I felt like we were far enough away that Silas wouldn’t be able to discover Nero I answered back. “SILAS?” I called. “We’re over here!”

A shadow stopped and then sneezed, but it was an animal sneeze. I felt Valen tense up beside me as it came bounding over, but immediately I could tell it was friendly. It was a large cat with spots, though its spots were barely visible in the smoke and dust.

“Pickles… hey,” Valen said weakly, but suddenly he took in a sharp breath and clung to me harder.

Silas walked through the smoke, when he spotted me he looked relieved, but the relief turned to soured anger when he saw Valen.

“Wait… wait!” I called. I held out my arms to protect Valen as Silas’s eyes narrowed. His teeth locked and, to my horror, I saw the same blackness I had seen in Valen’s eyes, appear on Silas’s, then behind me a sharp scream.

“NO!” I hollered. I grabbed Silas by his shoulders and started shaking him to snap him out of it, behind me I heard a thunk as Valen dropped to the ground. Silas’s eyes remained fixed on Valen so I did the only thing I could think of: I hit Silas.

Silas’s head snapped back, but it worked, the green came back to his eyes but immediately they seemed to burst into flames. I didn’t care though, I was so tired, so fucking mentally exhausted, my leg was broken, and for all I knew Nero was holding the corpse of his fiancé with the faint, miniscule hope that he had made him immortal.

“I have the briefcase,” I said quickly. I knew this was the most important thing to him. “Valen got it back.” As Silas’s eyes started focusing on Valen again I framed the king’s face with my hands and made him look at me. “The building is about to go down. I can’t explain it all to you, but Valen is coming home. Silas, his empath abilities work, he works. He’s–”

With an angry snarl Silas smacked me right across the face, without Valen to steady me I fell to the ground hard, my broken leg screaming with pain.

Silas walked over to Valen who was laying on the ground, the inferno in his eyes crystal clear even in the smoke and dust. I could feel a terrible anger inside of him, one that made Valen start to shake and whimper.

Then Valen let out a scream, the young chimera grabbed his head and clenched his hair, curling up like a dead insect and shrieking like his entire body was on fire. I couldn’t see Silas’s face but as he stood, towering over the boy, I knew the depthless black had come back to his eyes.

“Silas!” I yelled as I tried to get to my feet. I reached over to try and feel for anything that could help me stand and, to my relief, I felt something solid. I managed to stand up and take a step – then I tackled Silas to the ground.

We both fell, and I pinned him down with my arms. Silas glared up at me, his face was without expression but the anger radiating off of him was so potent it seemed painted on his entire body.

“He is nothing but a product of the environment
you
put him in!” I yelled. “Just like I was. You treated him like shit for something he couldn’t help, just like the life you forced me to experience. This isn’t his fault, you made him this way now except responsibility!” I cried, slamming his shoulders down onto the ground. “He wants to come home. He’s sorry and we have the fucking briefcase, Sky’s brain matter is in those vials we have all of them.” I took a deep breath, my lungs filling with dust.

Silas’s expression changed, it was like he had only started hearing me now.

“You have Sky’s brain matter?” Silas whispered.

I nodded. “We were able to recover all of the vials, all seven. Without Valen, they would’ve been lost. He made a mistake. You know above everyone else how much I hated that boy but I understand him now. He’s – he’s just like I was…” I loosened my grip on Silas’s shoulders. “And I would’ve given anything to have a friend during those times.”

When I saw the shift in King Silas’s face I breathed a cautious sigh of relief. I crawled off of Silas, and the king rose, then walked over to the crumpled Valen.

“Get up,” Silas demanded.

Valen looked up, fresh blood on his face and his body shaking violently. He struggled but managed to rise to his feet, and though I expected Silas to speak to him, instead the king turned his back on Valen and looked at me.

“He will forever be at the bottom of this family’s hierarchy, and no one will ever know he is an empath, ever,” Silas said, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “And he will forever be your responsibility. Actually –” Silas turned around and faced Valen, the boy shrunk down at what I knew was a scathing look. “– I believe he will be the first chimera sengil, your sengil. You can kiss the feet of the chimeras you hated so much, until you’re too old and ugly for them to want you.”

Silas was trying to be cruel but I was too relieved at the fact that he was letting Valen live to care.

I nodded at the king. “I will take him as my sengil, J-Jack and I will.”

Silas didn’t look happy; he once again turned his back to Valen and started walking towards the far end of the mall. As he disappeared into the dust Valen took my arm again, and started helping me walk.

“Thank you,” Valen whispered, though he looked defeated. “Though I have a feeling I will one day regret being spared.”

Silas started calling for Nero as the two of us followed him, Pickles running ahead. I could see Silas’s cape swaying back and forth as the king walked gracefully into the dust, the briefcase held firmly in his hand.

“We all have those days, Valen,” I said to him as I stared at my beautiful, yet dangerous, king. I swallowed down the lump in my throat and pushed myself onward.

“And we always will.”

I took in a deep breath, feeling absolutely stupid for feeling nervous about something like this. Given what the last year of my life involved you would think something like this would be easy – it wasn’t though, I felt like I was going to throw up.

Oh god, what if I threw up? I groaned and walked towards the mirror as my brothers all buzzed around behind me, no one looking as nervous as I felt.

I stood in front of the full length mirror and adjusted the stupid rose and little white flowers I had in my pocket. Garrett called them boutonnieres. I bet he knew all of the dumb names for wedding things. I suppose it did make me look nice though, nice enough to do several poses in front of the mirror. It wasn’t often I saw myself in a suit; I did look pretty handsome, it had even been fitted for me. It was a black suit with a silky blue blouse underneath, but even though I had begged and begged Garrett he wouldn’t let me wear my red bowtie.

There was a flash of silver and black behind me, then something smacked my backside. I turned around with a glaring look and saw Jack, pretending that it wasn’t him. I paid him back with an equally hard smack on his ass, making my boyfriend yelp and laugh.

“Okay, everyone ready?” I turned around and saw Garrett with Kass standing beside him. Garrett looked stressed to the max, enough to have white powder underneath his nose. Kass didn’t look much better, my poor friend was caring a binder in one arm and a timetable in the other. He looked like he wanted to jump out of one of the windows behind us.

“Yes…” everyone called, most using a tone that hinted to them wanting to be anywhere else but here, especially Elish who had his arms crossed in passive-aggressive defiance.

“Good!” Garrett clapped his hands together, then his face dropped in shock. I didn’t know why until I saw a flicker of movement to my left. I laughed as I saw Drake throwing one of the wedding rings up into the air and catching it, little Knight, Ellis’s son, giggling as he watched.

Quietly Elish snatched the ring in mid air, and without even saying a single word, only giving the boy a cold glare, he handed it back. Drake took it back with cautious fingers.

“Thank you, Elish,” Garrett said with a smile, then turned back to us. “Okay, Elish and Sanguine, you’re the best men.” He looked at his watch and his mouth started to move as he counted down. As soon as he looked up at us the music started, a piece that our most musically talented brother Artemis had written. Garrett’s smile widened and he stepped aside and gracefully waved the ring bearers, Drake and Knight, towards the doors. Then two (exactly two) minutes later – Elish and myself.

Elish walked ahead and I kept pace with him, together we opened the doors and faced the hall in front of us. All of the wedding guests quieted down when they saw me and Elish.

Everyone from chimeras to elites, to Nero’s top legionaries were in attendance, all of them sitting down on refurbished church pews the legionaries had recovered from the greywastes. There were at least two hundred people in attendance, all to witness the Imperial General and his second-in-command, get married.

I looked ahead and smiled as I saw Nero. He was standing at the end of the walkway with a grin so wide it lit up the entire hall. He was dressed to the nines in the same style of black and blue, except he was sporting a pair of black combat boots. And just to further save his Imperial General pride, he had a loaded SN Scar assault rifle on his back, an early wedding present from his future husband.

Past Nero I saw King Silas, radiating just as much happiness as Nero was. He was dressed similar to Elish, in a blue silk shirt but instead of a suit he had on a magnificent black robe embroidered with blue and green patterns. He looked more like a sorcerer than a king, but those two never missed a chance to look mystical.

“Stop smiling you look like an idiot,” Elish muttered beside me as we slowly walked down the hall.

“Stop frowning you look like a dick,” I muttered back. Elish let out an irritated sigh and we kept walking towards Nero and Silas.

Nero winked at me when we got to the end of the hall, as his best man I took my place beside him and watched the other chimeras walk down the carpeted walkway behind me. Nero’s top General, General Zhou and Garrett, then Jack and Ellis (we couldn’t walk together since I was best man and Garrett refused to allow it).

Finally Ceph appeared in the archway. His auburn hair longer now, and curling at the edges, and his brilliant green eyes bright and full of life. My best friend’s fiancé had the same look on his face that he had when Nero and him stepped off of the Falconer after vanishing for two days after the bombing of Irontowers.

Why Ceph was so happy after being trapped inside a collapsed building so long was anyone’s guess.
I smirked and looked up at the ceiling, trying to proclaim my innocence even though I was only speaking inside of my own head.

Unable to help himself, Nero walked towards Ceph and met him halfway down the aisle. He held out his hand and Ceph took it with a half-smirk. Nero leaned in and kissed his cheek and the two of them walked the rest of the way together.

The ceremony started, and as Silas spoke about Nero and Ceph’s youth and a few stories, I stood beside Jack and found his hand. I squeezed it.

Jack squeezed it back, we had barely left each other’s side in the month since we had escaped from Irontowers. It had been difficult at first since we were now sharing a space with Valen but slowly we had all been finding our normal routines.

“I love you,” I said to him under my breath. Like everyone in the family besides me, Valen, Nero, and Ceph, Jack didn’t know the truth behind what had happened after he’d escaped from the mall. I felt guilty about it, but the less people that knew the better.

“I love you,” Jack said back, then he tugged on my hand. “That will be us one day.”

I snorted, a little too loud so I tried to mask it into a cough. “Not for another twenty years.”

Jack grinned and kissed my cheek. We both turned our attention to Silas as they started getting down to the vows, and when the
I do’s
were exchanged and rings placed on each other’s fingers, Silas turned to the crowd and announced Nero and Ceph as married. The first chimera besides Ellis to get married in our family.

Nero got what he had always wanted. Ceph was immortal, and he would have him forever.

Though this thought brought an unease to me, because I knew that one day Silas would find out about what we had done to Ceph. That we had used a piece of Sky’s brain matter to make Ceph immortal. The consequences for that act would be extreme, I knew this, Nero knew this, and so did Ceph… but… what choice did we have? That was a worry for another time, right now I think all of us deserved to be happy. I knew I was looking forward to some peace and quiet, with my boyfriend by my side.

After the ceremony the celebration moved to the same floor I had faced Jasper on. The non-chimeras had their own celebration in a hall down the street and the chimera family settled in to a night of drinking, drugs, and a hell of a lot of food. Though I noticed that the left-hand side of this room had all of the beds removed now, so it wasn’t going to be one of
those
nights.

Valen took a drink of his cream soda and vodka, his hair now back to its natural blond and his clothing choice a little less loud. Jack had told me that Valen’s bright colours made him angry, like flashing red in front of a bull, so I had asked Valen to tone it down and dress more normally. My new sengil wasn’t happy about it but, well, he was my sengil so he had to do whatever the hell I told him to do.

“How are the headaches?” I asked him. I watched Jack dancing with Artemis, already a little tipsy though I had decided to stave off of the alcohol. I was nursing a rum and ChiCola and that was good enough for me.

“Manageable,” Valen said with a shrug. “The opiates are helping. Funny, I always forget that opiates are actually pain killers too.” He chuckled at this and so did I, then he let out a breath and looked around. “I… never thought I would be back here.”

“I didn’t think you would be either,” I said to him. Or that I would want him back, but in truth, once Valen had been pardoned and accepted back into the family he had been improving. He had gotten more mature and perhaps a little more sure of himself, even though he had been demoted to sengil. The family treated him differently now too, though they didn’t show him more respect they didn’t berate him or ignore him.

“Do you know what you’re going to do if Silas ever finds out?” Valen asked. The king was chatting happily with Garrett, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

I shook my head. “No idea, I think we’re hoping he decides to make Ceph immortal on his own and we can just… go with it. Or else…” I thought for a minute. “Fake it? I don’t know, Val. I don’t want to think about it right now.”

Valen nodded and took another drink. “Fair enough… we’ll think of something, all three of us.” Valen gave me another smile. He seemed to glow every time he mentioned our four-way pact. I think being included in a family secret made him feel like he belonged.

Poor little fucker had just wanted to belong somewhere. I wished I was mature enough to see that when I met him but I had been pretty fucked up myself.

Then a shadow appeared to my right. I looked up and saw Elish with a drink in his hand, looking down at the two of us. A smirk on his face that I didn’t trust in the least.

I looked back at him and motioned to an empty seat. “All danced out?”

Elish gave me a cold look and I tried not to laugh at my own quip. The thought of Elish dancing with the others (to rock music no less) was an amusing mental image.

“Valentine…” Elish said in a tone that was like ice melting over a hot blade. “Loren is drunk and making a fool out of himself, please take him to his bedroom and see that he stays there.”

Valen raised an eyebrow as he got up. “Do you mean… see that he stays there or…” Valen smirked. “
See that he stays there.
” Valen’s smirk turned into a grin.

Elish gave him a frosted glare though I laughed. Valen didn’t wait for the answer he knew would never come, he turned and left to find Elish’s drunk sengil.

I lit a cigarette and took another drink, I blew the smoke out of my mouth and watched as Elish reached into his pocket.

He pulled out one of the brain matter vials – and rested it on top of the table.

As I stared at it, knowing the blood was draining from my face. Elish spoke, “I thought I would come to you before I came to King Silas with this – rather disturbing – discovery I made when I was testing his vials for contaminates.”

A part of me wanted to brush it off and play dumb, but I knew it was already too late for that. He had seen the expression on my face.

Not this – not so soon.

“Tell me, Sanguine, why is Ceph’s brain matter in his vial?” Elish asked in a tone ripe with taunting. “Why is Sky’s seventh vial missing? This is –” A nasty smirk crept onto Elish’s face. “– quite the mystery.”

I was silent, then I put my cigarette down in the ashtray. “He’s your brother, Elish,” I said, scanning his face for any hint that brotherly love would impact any of his decisions, but there was none. Elish was a cold, heartless sociopath and I knew there was no part of him that would be swayed by Nero’s love for Ceph.

“Yes, but being my brother and a chimera does not mean he can do what he will–” Elish paused as if savouring the expression on my face, and the racing heart I wondered if he could hear over the music. “Nor does it mean he can make whomever he pleases immortal. You do realize when Silas finds out – he will encase Ceph in concrete, or worse.”

My teeth clenched, the smirk on Elish’s face became more prominent. I stared at that vial, Elish’s slender, manicured fingers gently drumming the table beside it.

“He loves him,” I said through my teeth.

“I care not.”

“Of course you don’t!” I snapped, feeling my heart clench as I saw Nero sitting on the edge of the stage with Ceph, talking happily with one another – Nero’s arm was around Ceph’s waist. He looked – he looked so in love.

“You don’t even know what the fuck it is to fall in love,” I said angrily to Elish. “You think you love Silas but I can tell you – you don’t. You don’t love Silas, you love the idea of Silas, you love the idea of being king, and one day you’re going to fucking realize that. You’re going to realize you’re just a miserable emotionless monster incapable of loving anything.”

Elish’s smirk disappeared from his mouth. “You’re not doing a good job of persuading me.”

“Why bother?” I snapped, the emotion rising in my voice. “If you can come here on your brother’s wedding day and taunt me with this.” I flicked the vial towards him. “There is no persuading you. If you’re that inhuman then go fucking tell Silas; you’re just a fucking vampire that feeds on peoples’ miserable reactions to your games and I’m not giving you shit.”

Elish was silent, yet his face held no emotions. “Do not make me out to be the villain when it was you four who decided to lie to the king,” he said in a dropped tone. “You four decided to use that brain piece without his consult, and believe me, Sanguine, if there is one thing you don’t want to fuck around with when it comes to Silas – it’s anything that has to do with Sky.”

My blond brother grabbed the vial, his chair scraped as he started to rise. But as he was getting up something came to me, a memory that hit me like a rocket. Something that I had caught when I was being held in Irontowers, an exchange between One-eye and Oniks.