Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (39 page)

I looked at his face and scanned it. Though as I did I realized that even after everything that had happened to me I still smiled and played. So perhaps only direct questions would wield me the answers Crow and I needed to hear.

“Do they hit you often, Drake?”

Drake shrugged, and absentmindedly rubbed his head, where Elish had struck him, but as the crow pecked his arm he snorted and lowered it.

“Sometimes I get spankings for being bad. One spank for every year I was born. I’m almost eight and soon I’ll get eight spanks with the spoon.”

I nodded slowly. “Where?”

“On my butt!” Drake laughed. “Usually, or if there isn’t a spoon or I’m running I just get thwacks. Thwacks are… are… Garrett says thwacks are like spankings-on-the-go and they thwack me wherever. You know, they’re for when there ain’t no spoons.”

“
Are
no spoons,” Elish corrected him from inside the apartment.

Relief flooded through me and I nodded, smiling at Drake’s joke even though my stomach was full of poison over what I had to ask next.

“My Nan did the same to me…” I said, and swallowed hard. “Is that all they do to you? Do they hurt you in any other way?”

Drake shook his head and at that my entire body started to relax. “I got a spanking and sent to bed without dinner just two nights ago. Did you know what I did? I called Garrett a fuckface. He was being a fuckface too. I like that word.”

I held up my hand as another crow started trying to hop onto Drake. I put it on his shoulder and we both watched as the crow jumped over to him and gave a caw.

“Hello, Sanguine.”

“Are you happy here? You love your family?” I asked Drake.

Drake nodded vigorously; his tongue sticking out as he did. “I love Master Silas and I love Master Elish, and Garrett, and Mrs. Ellis, and Knight, and I love Jack, and I love Nero, and I love Ceph. I love everybody! I even love
you
.” Then another crow jumped onto his arm. Drake outstretched both his limbs and started walking around, stiff like he was pretending to be a robot.

“I am a chimera of the future! I am half-crow, half-boy!” At his movements the crows flew off of his shoulders and landed on the railing. Drake laughed and jumped up and down. “I’m going to get them food!” He ran back inside without another word.

I got up, feeling the crows tighten their claws around the fabric of my clothing as they tried to keep steady. I watched the little boy go into the apartment and looked over at Silas.

The king was looking at me, with a strange expression on his face. It was a mixture of pride, but at the same time guilt. Two emotions that seemed strange together but they seemed to swirl perfectly on this king’s face.

Though as soon as Silas saw I was looking at him they disappeared, and his kind smile was brought forth. Content and beaming, without the hints of sad feelings that I had seen previous.

“Did you get the reassurances you needed, love?” Silas said quietly.

I felt embarrassed at being directly called out, but I nodded. Silas sat on one of the patio chairs, one with a grey cushion on it, and motioned for me to do the same. The vast expanse of cityscape in front of me was making me nervous. The cityscape stretched on for miles before I could see a grey ocean. I had never seen the ocean before and it made me nervous more than it impressed me. So I turned away from it, pretended it didn’t exist, and sat beside Silas in the sunshine.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“We’re a good family, Sanguine,” Silas responded. “We love our children and we give them the best childhoods as we can. A lot of love, education, and guidance.”

I wish this made me happy. I wished I had the strength to push past the feeling burning my contentment alive. But I either wasn’t that strong of a person… or the wound was still too raw.

“And yet you sent one of your children away to fend for himself,” I responded bitterly. “I suppose it didn’t matter did it?” I looked at Silas and saw a pull on his mouth, but it didn’t stop me from saying what I knew I had to say. “You could always just create another one.”

Unable to swallow down the sadness this brought to me, I got up. And without another word, I walked back into the apartment… and crawled back to my den.

“Come on… it’s been more than enough time. You need a bath.”

I shook my head and pulled my sweatshirt hoody over my head. Silas made a sound through his teeth and I saw him cross his arms out of the corner of my eye.

Today marked me being in Alegria for two months, I was slowly starting to put weight on and Silas and Kinny had both told me I was starting to get some colour back to my face. I couldn’t tell because I hadn’t shaved in months and months and my hair was tangled, knotted and sticking out in all directions.

“Sanguine, lovely… could you at least brush your teeth?”

“No!” I shook my head again and this time drew on my draw strings so the hoody closed around my face. I didn’t care how I looked. I was comfortable with clothes on, and every fiber in my being wanted me to stay in clothes, as many clothes as I could put on myself.

Silas sighed and I saw him sit down on the edge of my bed. The bed was made because I had slept underneath it. I was starting to have terrible nightmares and I felt better if I woke up under the bed during those times. Everything seemed manageable if I was in an enclosed space, I wasn’t sure why.

“Why not? Don’t you think you would feel better? Washing all that grime off of you from that basement?” Silas asked.

It would make me feel better… I think it would anyways, but I oddly felt comfortable with the grime on me. I like being dirty and disgusting… no one would stay near me if I smelled horrible and I was ugly.

“I like being this way…” I mumbled.

Silas, of course, didn’t like this answer. “But underneath that layer of dirt lays an Adonis of a chimera. I want to see what you would look like at your best and I know it would make you feel better.”

I was quiet. A moment later Silas got up and left the room and I thought that was the end of it. But a moment later he came back and put a toothbrush into my lowered gaze.

“Do this for me at least. Just brush your teeth and I’ll leave you in your eleven years of filth,” Silas said in a flat tone. I knew he wasn’t happy but I didn’t expect him to understand how I felt. He never had anything like what I had gone through happen to him. How could he understand?

I stared at the toothbrush and as I held it Silas unscrewed a tube of toothpaste and put a bit on the brush. Immediately I brought it to my mouth and licked the toothpaste off. I ate it and held out my hand for some more. I enjoyed the flavour of mint and I liked that it was gooey.

The king sighed and then he chuckled. “I can’t stay mad at you. Eating toothpaste, what an idiot.” He put some more on the brush. “Brush your teeth with this, you know how to do that don’t you?”

Nan made us brush our teeth, we used old toothbrushes where the bristles had fanned out and there was barely any brushing, more polishing. I knew how to do it.

I smelled the toothpaste and wanted to eat it again, but if this was the worst thing he was going to make me do I took it. So I got up and started brushing my teeth and made my way to the bathroom. These bristles were stiff and I liked the colour of my toothbrush; it was red.

“Good man!” Silas praised. “Keep your teeth healthy. One day I’ll take you to Irontowers and let you loose on the stupid rebels.”

I stopped mid-brush and spat into the sink. “I heard you talk about that before… what’s going on there?” I started brushing again. I liked the bubbles. I may not be oppose to doing this more often.

“Some disgruntled Skyfallers who were too lazy or cowardly to make it past a huge city we have twenty or so miles from the coast,” Silas explained. I saw him appear in the mirror. He leaned against the doorframe and watched me continue to brush my teeth. “They’ve taken residence in the town, which has a water supply and an old military bases and barricades, and have joined forces with some radhead greywasters. They tried to bomb one of our factories six months ago. We’ve always had rebels but these ones seem to be getting too brave for my liking.”

“Why don’t you just go in there and kill them?” I asked through the toothbrush in my mouth. I finished off my teeth and started brushing my tongue and the inside of my cheeks.

“We can’t quite yet,” Silas said with a frown. “Garrett, who is currently in charge of relations with the Skyfallers, has an idea we’re putting into motion. He’s decided we’re smart to make the rebels look bad before we kill them. If we just go in there and shoot them all, more will crop up thinking of themselves as some sort of martyrs. We don’t want martyrs. So we’re currently using the underground media to make them look bad. After public opinion shifts, we’re going to capture them.”

“That sounds smart,” I said. “What’s the underground media?”

“What it sounds like,” Silas responded. He walked with me back to the living room and on the table I was pleased to see things coated in chocolate. Though when I advanced towards it Silas picked it up and started walking with me to the patio. I was okay with going outside but not in the sunlight. I enjoyed the warmth on my face but the brightness made me uneasy and so did the cityscape. The idea that thousands of people were in those buildings was rather daunting, I didn’t like thinking about it.

When we sat down he continued, “The underground media is something we set up when Skyfall was in its infancy. We have SNN, the Skyfall News Network and they have the UFM the Underground Free Media. The Skyfallers believe it’s chimera-free media where they are free to bash us if needed or whine about our policies. Unfortunately for them – we control that too.” Silas chuckled as he said this, he seemed pleased with himself. “We have our loyal court in the underground media system planting what we want them to plant and printing what we want them to print. Harmless things but awful enough for them to get their rocks off hating us. Rapes, murders, unfair taxation, rigged Stadium matches, and bullshit like that.”

“Sounds complicated,” I said. “You should just kill everyone involved and kill anyone else that decides to be terrorists against the family.” My brow furrowed. “They should be scared of all of us.”

Silas smirked at this and my furrowed brow deepened. He picked up a piece of chocolate and handed it to me. I took a bite and realized they were filled with a brown gooey liquid, so I grabbed one more, one in each hand, and started filling my mouth with sugary goodness. Well, so much for having a freshly brushed mouth.

“It’s politics and history. Nothing good ever happened to monarchs who decided to rule with dictatorship-type domination. Especially after the Fallocaust where we have media, free will, and the technology to fight back. It’s easier to keep them in a guarded happiness, but at the same time, obedient and scared of us. It’s a balance we need to achieve, though the Skyfallers are mostly idiots who have no idea how good they have it. It only takes one crazed lunatic with a bomb strapped to his chest to start inciting a rebellion.”

“You’re right,” I said. “They don’t know how good they have it. The greywastes are awful. We’re free but… people suffer a lot.” I thought back to my own childhood and immediately felt like I had swallowed a rock. “It’s horrible out there… what are the rebels trying to achieve?”

“They want chimeras out of power, they want democracy.” Silas frowned. “Which is incredibly stupid, but like I said if we go in there guns ablaze it will only prove them right.”

Then he smiled and handed me another chocolate. “I have a wonderful idea, lovely. Would you like to hear it?”

I gave him a skeptical, narrow-eyed look which made him smile wider. “If you can be brave… and we can do it tomorrow night even if you wish. But I would like to invite you to our military base in Skyfall. Nero and Ceph spend most of their days there and they would be ecstatic to see you. I want a greywaster perspective on the rebels, perhaps you can come up with some ideas as to how we can take care of them with the Skyfallers not getting up in arms. Would you do this for me, Sanguine? Your first request as my newest addition to the family?”

His words hit me and immediately anxiety simmered deep inside of me. I had been here for two months now; perhaps it was time for me to touch the ground.

Though I knew my mind, and I could already feel Crow churn inside of me. He didn’t like it but not enough to stop me, just enough to breathe caution.

“We could go at night?” I asked cautiously. “Would it just be the four of us? No one else?”

“Yes, your other brothers don’t know you’re alive and I want to keep it that way awhile longer.” Silas nodded.

I mulled it over in my mind while I chewed on the sticky chocolate. The taste of mint and freshness quickly disappearing from my mouth as it was replaced with sugar. I liked the taste of sugar more than toothpaste, though toothpaste did have its perks.

“You’ll have on dark sunglasses so the legionaries don’t recognize you as a chimera. The windows in our car will be tinted too, sweetness. You wouldn’t see anything but dark until Legion Base.”

I could do this, and when I told Silas that I saw him smile big and clap his hands together. It made me happy to make him happy… ever since he started cutting me last month, and allowing me to use the wire to relieve stress, I had become more drawn towards the king.

Silas had been nothing but kind and patient towards me but I knew he treated his chimeras differently than the Skyfallers and the greywasters. I had been around greywasters and they were all a bunch of idiots.

The rest of the evening passed without anything bad happening. Silas went out for his Sunday chimera dinner and I stayed in with Kinny and he ordered us meatball subs which was my new favourite food now. I ate two and spent the rest of the night on the couch watching TV and doing my school work.

I fell asleep on top of the bed but as usual I woke up underneath it. I brushed my teeth, trying to make it into a habit and went on with my day. Most of the time I was alone still, since Silas had king things to do but TV was good company and so was Kinny. I didn’t mind that sengil, he was silent and he was considerate too. He even warned me when he was going to vacuum so I could hide in my bedroom with Jett, the name I decided on for the kitten.

Jett and I didn’t like vacuums.

“Can I at least brush your hair?”

“No.”

Silas glared at me and slapped the top of the hairbrush against the palm of his hand. I smirked at him as he did this. “Nan used to threaten me with spankings the same way. Too bad I’m taller than you, I’ll smack you right back.”

We were both in his bedroom. I was picking out sweatshirts and pants for me to wear and Silas was primping himself with the bathroom door open.

Silas gave me a look like he wanted to accept my challenge. Then, as I put on a black sweatshirts with an old logo on it, I popped my head out of the top of it to see Silas hovering the brush over my head.

“No!” I protested and threw my hoody back over my head. “Stop trying to preen me. I like me this way.”

“Why!” Silas said in an aghast tone. “Why do you like being filthy!? It’s baffling me and two months later I’m starting to play with the idea of giving you water wings and pushing you into the pool.”

I stared at him in awe. “Water wings? Wings made of water?”

Kinny laughed behind me. I turned around and gave him a glare.

Though to my horror Silas saw this as an opportunity and put the brush in my hair. I jerked back and gave him a push before stealing the brush out of his hand.

I smacked him on the head with it. “Bad King”

Silas gaped at me for a moment. “You brazen shit! Look at you…” Though as he made a motion to grab the brush I held it up over his head. I was about half a head taller than him and I took full advantage of it.

Silas reached his hand up and jumped. I held the brush up higher and tried to suppress a laugh.

But to my surprise Silas decided to play dirty. He jabbed me right in the stomach making me keel forward with a squawk, then he snatched the brush and as I turned to run away he smacked my shoulders.

Then a laugh escaped my lips. Enjoying the light and playful mood I hadn’t experienced in years and years, Silas chased me around the apartment trying to hit me with the brush.

I really thought that being chased would make Crow upset. That it would spark something inside of my head that would switch my mind to panic mode. But I was fine, and the realization that I was fine made me laugh even more. I think I had finally found someone that I trusted.

Silas was hitting me on the shoulders with the brush, both of us laughing, when we heard a throat clear. Silas stopped and so did I, and we both looked towards the door to see Elish standing there. He was looking on with an unimpressed expression on his stern face, dressed in a white cape, a dress shirt, and grey trousers underneath.

“Hello,
gelus vir
,” Silas said happily. “Did you see him laugh? Doesn’t he have a wonderful laugh, love?”

Elish didn’t look at me; he held the door to outside open as Kinny ran towards Silas with his shoes and cape.

“Yes, splendid,” Elish replied back blandly. “I’m glad he laughs at being beaten now, instead of screaming and growling. It will do well once his novelty wears off.”

My head hung low; suddenly I didn’t feel like going anywhere.

“Elish.” Silas’s biting voice sliced through my defeated emotions. I glanced up to see the king with his back to me, and Elish with a stone-cold expression on his face.