Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (59 page)

The elevator doors separated and I knew right away this floor belonged to teenagers. It was painted lime green with a black ceiling and purple-hued track lighting. The ceiling and walls were also completely covered in paint that the purple lights seemed to make glow.

I pushed past my desire to examine the weird glowing hallway better and stalked down towards the double doors. Every floor in Alegria had identical layouts, or at least the ones that I had been on so far.

I pushed the doors open so hard they slammed against the door stop embedded in the walls, making a loud crashing noise.

Immediately I spotted the pink-eyed little fuck on the couch, with an out of it Ludo underneath him with his shirt off. As Valen sprung to his feet I saw I was about ten minutes from interrupting something, but it looked like they had only gotten as far as making out.

An angry and annoyed sneer crossed Valen’s face before his eyes widened in surprise. Though whether it was him realizing who I was, or him seeing the insane anger behind my colour contacts I didn’t know.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Valen spat quickly buttoning a green and blue button-down. His pink hair was falling over his flushed face, and I could see a bulge in his corduroys. It was his eyes that amused me the most though, they were bright and staring, as if he had assessed the situation in front of him and found if amusing.

We’ll see how fucking amusing I was after I was through with him.

Without a word I stalked up to Valen and grabbed his partially buttoned shirt. He gasped from surprise as I wrenched him up towards me, and stared him down face-to-face.

“You beat up my boyfriend for the last time, my friend,” I said lowly, ignoring Ludo swearing in a slurred voice. It was Valen who I had in my sights and the drug-fiend chimera looked too out of it to do anything. “Do you understand me?”

Valen’s eyes narrowed. He tried to push me away but I shook his body until his hands dropped. Instead, to show his defiance, my brother turned his cheek away from me and raised the corner of his mouth in smirk dripping with taunt.

“Do you know who I am?” Valen asked. He seemed to sing those words in a way that told me they were not strangers to his lips. “Or is the rumour that all greywaster rats are retarded, true?”

Oh, a challenge? I liked this.

I smiled thinly and started twisting the collar of his shirt. In response Valen raised his chin and defiantly fixed his eyes on mine. He wasn’t backing down, and the thought of having a challenge intrigued me.

“You’re brothers aren’t here to protect you, my friend,” I said, feeling more like Crow in this moment than I ever had before. “It’s just you, me, and dessert.” I moved my eyes off to the side, towards where I had heard Ludo.

Valen snorted, though my mind exploded like a comet on impact as I saw the faint flicker of apprehension. “What do you want,
waster
? Me to start crying and blubbering? Please, I am–”

I backhanded him across the face with my free hand, the smack echoed throughout the room. Valen gasped and looked at me, his eyes staring in surprise at my actions.

In case he missed it, I backhanded him again before dropping him onto the ground. He almost got his footing right but he ended up stumbling and falling to the floor. The pink-eyed idiot looked shocked, like a spoiled little kid the first time someone gave him his first well-deserved spanking.

“If I hear about you messing with my boyfriend again–” I whispered. I got down on my knees and reached out to touch Valen’s face. He jerked it away of course, his lips pursed as if trying to hold back the tantrum bubbling inside of him.

“ –I will fucking destroy you. Do you understand me, Valentine?”

He was shaking with rage as he stood; his entire body was trembling like a dog left out in the cold. I enjoyed every emotion I could feel radiate off of him, to the point where I could taste it.

“Enjoy your last days on Earth… you scum sucking…”

I backhanded him again; the force of my blow flew him backwards. He hit the carpeted floor on his back and this time I didn’t let him get up.

In a fluid movement, I quickly jumped on top of him and straddled him, pinning him underneath my weight. The pink chimera, now with a bleeding nose, looked up at me shocked and angry; his eyes two blazing pink roses, injecting as much baseless aggression into me as they could. But I wasn’t afraid. I was done being dominated by cowards.

I wasn’t chained to the wall this time. I wasn’t helpless anymore.

I was a chimera, and not only was I better than the Skyfallers, better than the greywasters…

I was better than every single second generation as well.

Valen’s eyes blazed, but my attention was deflected as I heard a door slamming behind him. I looked up and saw Felix and Rio running in from the backrooms of the apartment, Ludo the tattletale trailing behind.

They ripped me off of Valen and immediately I started thrashing and pulling, trying to grab anything willing to bleed for me. I hated these blunt, useless teeth in my mouth but even if I was fully armed I couldn’t find anything to clamp onto.

We weren’t in a restaurant this time and Jack wasn’t here to stop me. I wouldn’t hold back. I was quite tired of not being a chimera.

“PIN HIM!” Valen suddenly screamed. He was on his feet with a stream of blood running down his nose and dripping onto the carpet. “Fuck him in his tight bitch ass! You think you can screw with a chimera? Strip him down! Rape the little prick and pass him around like the whore I’ll make him into.”

“Yeah!” Ludo said, before letting out a high and manic laugh. “I bet he’ll fucking squeal. I haven’t had a squealer in weeks. Oh, baby, I bet you’ll cum for daddy, eh?”

My throat tightened but I refused to show the tremor of terror vibrating through my body. I wouldn’t show any fear, I wouldn’t give him that.

I was thrown to the floor. I clenched my teeth tight, my mind a racing motor that offered me no way of getting out of this situation. Only my self-derisive thoughts were clear enough to read, and they were telling me I was a fucking idiot for waltzing into an apartment floor full of chimera teenagers.

Then a hard impact on my back, right on my spine. I grunted and tried to sit up but I felt the chimeras’ hands on me, pinning me down. They were talking quickly amongst each other, laughing and pawing at my body. I growled and yelled at them, struggling and twisting my body to try and get away from their claws.

When I felt one of them slip a hand down my pants and grab my dick and testicles, I lost my mind.

Calling on every shred of strength I had, I reared up. I put my hands underneath me and tried to push myself up to my hands and knees, but like they were waiting for an easier access point I felt a hand on the front of my jeans and with an expert-like movement they unbuttoned them and pulled them down to my bent knees.

Then a finger roughly pushed against my hole before tearing past the dry friction and ripping into me.

I screamed at them, but in the middle of my screaming I felt another finger get roughly pushed into me. Pain ripped through my backside and it only accentuated when the chimera started roughly finger fucking me.

Then, to my horror, my body froze, and the breath got sucked out of my lungs.

All of a sudden I couldn’t move.

His fingers were roughly ripping themselves in and out of me, their jeering and taunting assaulting my ears. I was surrounded by this pack of animals but I couldn’t move.

Suddenly I was back in the basement with Jasper behind me. It was like my mind was reverting back to being eight years old and even though my brain was shrieking I couldn’t move.

Oh god… I can’t move – I can’t move.
Internally I was screaming, my eight-year-old self shrieking at me to move, to stand up, to run and fight. But I was paralyzed. As the infiltrator shoved a third finger inside of me and roughly pushed them deeper in me I only stared forward, tense and coiled but absolutely still.

“He’s quiet…” I heard Felix say, he sounded disappointed. He was beside me; I think it was Ludo’s fingers inside of me, grinding and digging deep inside my ass. “He’s not pleading. It’s not fun when he ain’t pleading.”

Move, Sanguine – for the love of fuck – move. Don’t let them do this to you again.

Ludo laughed behind me. I felt him remove his fingers before I heard him spit. I felt wetness against my hole and his pants unzip.

“I’ll make him scream once he feels my cock,” he growled. “He’s been raped before. I know that disconnected look. That’s so fucking hot. Who raped you, Sami? Was it your daddy? Did Daddy fuck you? If you wanna call me daddy it’s okay.”

Someone smacked my head, short small smacks like someone flicking their finger against your earlobe. Short jabs to enrage a pissed off animal but I remained frozen.

The brute chimera chuckled and I saw his finger in front of my nose. He tickled it before reaching down to stroke my chin.

“He ain’t a fighter, is he? Poor little–”

You know what happened next.

Felix shouted as I clamped down on his finger, and even though my teeth were blunt I still had the improved jaw strength that all stealth chimeras had. I pressed down on the index finger and when he tried to wrench it out of my mouth I quickly clipped my teeth together and ripped it right from its socket.

Gleefully I watched as Felix yanked his hand away, a ribbon of tendon left behind to fall from my mouth like ribbon taffy. I growled with my prize, and as I felt knock after knock rain down on my head, I smiled.

Then he picked up my head by the hair and slammed me down onto the floor. Voices behind me, laughing ones, but a moment later more hands came to my mouth to try and retrieve the finger. I put it into my mouth and locked my jaw, and in response I was pulled to my feet.

My vision focused on Valen, his eyes still an inferno of pink fire, behind him Felix was pressing a red towel against his wound.

Valen’s fists were clenched, and as I smiled at him, the brute’s thick finger between my teeth, he shook with rage and started punching me in the face as Rio and Ludo held me back.

“SAMI!” a hysterical voice sounded behind the chaos. Valen’s eyes shot past me and I saw them narrow.

“Valen let him go!” Jack screamed. I craned my head just in time to see Jack run into the apartment. He pushed the other two chimeras away from me.

“He has Felix’s fucking finger!” Valen snarled. “He’s not going until I stick my cock in his ass. Get the fuck out of here or I’ll be fucking you next, Jacky.”

Jack paused. I saw a wash of fear come over his face, but to my surprise when he looked at me I saw his expression change.

“Spit it the fuck out!” Jack yelled at me, his eyes glistening. “Give it back. What the fuck – what the fuck are you doing here?”

I looked at him, shocked. I had fully expected him to be sympathetic, or at least to stand up for himself.

Angrily I turned away from him and spat the finger at Valen. I shoved my arms away from the two chimeras holding me back and pulled up my pants.

But when I turned around Jack was right in front of me, to further hammer in the confusing attitude Jack had he pushed me hard in the chest, almost knocking me off of my feet.

“I told you no!” Jack screamed hysterically, tears now running down his face. “You can’t fucking come in here and do this to a chimera! We’re princes, you’re just an arian. They can kill you!” Jack’s face was going red; his chest was rising up and down like he was having trouble breathing.

“You can die for this. They can kill you for this, Sami!”

“No they fucking can’t!” I suddenly snapped, and in my own anger I pushed him back. “I can fucking defend myself, you asshole. I don’t need you,
you
fucking need
me
. They were about to fucking rape me!”

“What the fuck did you expect? You shouldn’t even be here!” Jack yelled back. “We can do whatever the fuck we want to arians and you just served yourself up on a fucking platter! You went to their apartment and fucking threatened them first didn’t you? Are you fucking insane!?”

Jack pushed me towards the door, Valen and the others laughing behind us. “Just get out. Get out before they fucking kill you. Just get out of here, Sami. I don’t want to see you anymore. I don’t want you around. It’s over!”

My eyes widened. I turned around and looked at him shocked. But when I saw the fury and desperation on his face, and behind him the chimeras laughing, the shock turned into anger. I felt like hitting him; I wanted to smack him right across the face for how he was treating me.

“Fine!” I snapped back and shoved him away. “Fuck you. They’re all right about you, you are fucking weak. Fuck you. Enjoy being their bitch.”

I walked out the door, the loud taunting and laughing behind me, and headed towards the elevators.

The store owner stood behind the counter, giving me stricken looks every time I roughly slammed an item I decided I didn’t want back down onto the counter. She didn’t dare comment on anything I was doing though. I had already handed her my black card and even if no one else knew I was a chimera… she at least did.

I looked at a handheld Game Boy before slamming it down too. “Don’t you have the updated ones? The ones with the colour screens?” I snapped. “Or is this shit all you have?”

Television was starting to become boring. I couldn’t sit and watch TV without needing to do something with my hands. I was starting to become bored in my apartment.

“Um…” the lady store clerk stammered; she gripped the side of the counter hard. “We have merchants constantly coming in from the greywastes. We can put a special order in for you, Prince Sanguine.”

Yeah, see? I’m a fucking prince. I’m getting fucking sick and tired of people not treating me to my damn status. If Valen knew who I was he would’ve been pissing his pink fucking panties but no… no one knew.

I lost Jack – I lost the guy I had really liked. Who was going to be my boyfriend. All because I couldn’t be a chimera and that fuckhead couldn’t defend himself.

I paid for the items I did decide I wanted, including a Sega Gamegear, and stalked out of the electronics shop.

Well over a month since the incident with Jack and I hadn’t been able to snap out of my angry and aggressive mood.

College had been painful and aggravating. Jack now sat in the front of the class, completely ignoring me. I had made and lost my first friend in my first month of school and every time my mind reminded me of that fact my mood plummeted. Though it wasn’t self-hatred anymore. A lot of my self-hatred had left when I had told Crow to leave me alone. Now every ounce of it was directed at Valen and to a lesser extent: Jack.

Why? Because Jack was a chimera, not only that but a stealth chimera. We had been engineered for better than this and the fact that he was actively letting Valen bully him filled me with rage. Not to mention the furious reality that he’d had the balls to yell at
me
for protecting him. It was like Jack enjoyed being the fucking victim and that was like a piece of steel being dug into an abscessed tooth. It was a personal insult to me.

But could I do anything about it?

“I don’t want to hide anymore!” I had said angrily to Elish over a week ago.

I slammed my hand against his office desk. I was in a private meeting inside of his office at the college, with Mantis standing in silence in the corner of the room.

Elish had given me a dismissive look. “I thought you enjoyed being a normal arian?”

I seethed and started pacing around his office. “No, I don’t. I want them to know who I am,” I said. “I’m a damn prince. I’m Sanguine Dekker. I’m a fucking danger to every single one of them and I’m tired of those fucking dirty pieces of shit not realizing that!”

Elish smiled, his amusement made an angry noise climb to my lips. “Well, it took awhile but you’re finally acquiring the chimera-ego. Oh, how far you’ve come.”

“Then let me!” I said, whirling around. “Let me be Sanguine! I want to wipe that smug-fucking smile off of Valen’s face, and Felix, Rio, and Ludo while I’m at it.”

I growled when Elish shook his head no. “King Silas will be awake in two months, and really, that isn’t that long. Once King Silas is awake and he has seen your… progress, I’m certain he will arrange for you to start being integrated into the family.”

“Why not now?” I challenged. “Why not show him once he wakes up that I’m just fine?”

Elish’s smile turned into a smirk. A smirk just brimming with derisiveness. “Sanguine, you certainly are
not
fine. In fact, you’re bordering on arrogant. Why haven’t you made up with Jack yet? I have given you more than a few opportunities to apologize.”

“Apologize!” I said incredulously. “He fucking told me to fuck off when I was trying to defend him, then when they tried to fuck me
he
told me to fuck off. He broke it off not me, why should I apologize? Isn’t this what the second generation is supposed to do? Fight and maim until one of us reaches the top?”

“And from the sounds of the report you were the one dominated.”

“Because I couldn’t be a chimera!” I exploded. Elish’s words stung on every sensitive nerve I had. “If I was Sanguine I would’ve been able to act like a damn chimera. Jack… now Jack hates me.”

“Jack’s outburst was solely out of fear for your safety.”

“Since I’m just a stupid greywaster to him… problem is I’m not.”

“Perception is reality. Jack wants you safe. That’s the only reason why he’s distanced himself from you.”

“Valen is the one who needs to be safe,” I snarled, slamming my hand down on Elish’s desk. “That pink-eyed little shit is the one who is going to need protection, not me.”

“Valen has a lot of protection. He has a gang of several men who follow him around like little groupies to a member of a boy band, plus his three chimera brothers who are his best friends,” Elish responded casually. He tented his hands over his desk and looked up at me. “But you’re missing the point. Chimera or not, prince or not. Jack sees you as nothing but an arian greywaster who happened to come into some luck. He’s protecting you by freezing you out of his life. And chances are he will do so until Valen isn’t a threat to you anymore.”

“Valen is no threat!” I exclaimed, but as I shouted that Elish’s words started to soak through the anger that had coated me like a thick film.

Elish seemed to sense this, he said nothing back, only continued to tent his hands.

“I’m tired of pretending…” I said slowly. “I’m ready.”

“You’re not ready, all you want is to dominate and punish Valen for humiliating you.”

I swallowed the growl that trailed behind Elish’s words. “He didn’t humiliate me. I’m just ready to be Sanguine.”

Elish was quiet, but Mantis behind us spoke.

“Are you sure it is Sanguine that you want to be?” Mantis asked. “Because from your anger and attitude I would say you’re more eager to become Crow.”

“Crow’s gone,” I said darkly. “I told him to get lost in the janitor’s closet over two months ago and I haven’t seen him since.”

“Or perhaps he realized that you were past obeying direct commands,” Mantis commented.

My eyes narrowed, I turned around to face him. “He’s gone.”

Mantis tilted his head to the side, in a way that showed me he wasn’t buying my answer.

“I think Crow and Barry ordered you around because you were a scared little boy in need of guidance. Now you’re a teenager rebelling against the only authority he’s ever had. But I would suspect this demon lurking underneath your surface cannot be expelled by mere yelling, Sanguine. I would be wary just who you’re giving control to right now.”

“No one!” I snapped at Mantis. “The only person who controls me is me. Crow’s fucking gone, just like Barry.”

“All I’m saying is be cautious,” Mantis said. He picked up a mug of tea that had been cooling beside a windowsill and took a sip. “Crow isn’t a physical person. He’s the embodiment of all the pain and misery you went through in the greywastes. He can take many forms and can influence you in other ways, besides just yelling at you. Be wary, he seems smarter than your average chimera delusion.”

I grunted and turned away from the psychologist. He wasn’t even a chimera, though he was immortal. What did he know?

“Even if you’re ready to be Sanguine, the order still stands,” Elish said. “And though the second generation may be snarling and scrapping for shreds of authority the first generation has established theirs long ago. I’m the king and Silas’s second-in-command, then Nero, then Garrett. And that is all that is important to you right now, Sanguine. I suggest you try and make up with Jack and try to rekindle the romance, rather than focus all your energies on being angry at not being
ohhh’d
and
aww’d
over for being a chimera. The need for attention and praise for being in the Dekker family is rather unflattering and it’s an ugly colour on Valen. I suggest you do not pick up any habits as such. Silas would be extremely disappointed if he woke up to you being a petulant ego-maniac.”

“I am none of those things,” I said coolly.

Elish spread his hands. “Then what is the issue here?”

My face darkened as I stalked down the street. We were in the rainy season now and raindrops were starting to fall onto the dry pavement. It was cold out and Nero had told me we might be getting snow soon. It snowed sometimes at Jasper’s farm but I had always hated the snow. Not because I didn’t enjoy it but because I almost froze to death on many occasions in the winter and I just had a bad association with it now.

I would enjoy this winter though. I would embrace it and love it because I was a chimera and I wasn’t afraid of anyone, anything, or any weather. I didn’t have to pay for heat at Skylanding anyways so why the fuck should I be scared? Fuck it, fuck everyone!

I kicked a forgotten plastic bottle and watched it bounce across the sidewalk before landing right beside a mailbox. I kicked the mailbox as I walked by it for no other reason than because my mood was so foul.

They should be embracing the fact that I wasn’t a coward anymore. They should be happy I wasn’t hiding under the bed, throwing up from gorging on too much food, or going psychotic when Crow came. But my family seemed content letting me be Sami the greywaster and I was frustrated and angry with that.

I pushed open the glass doors of Skylanding, and looked towards Jan who was watching television on a small TV. He was used to seeing me now so he only smiled; the fear never left his eyes though.

“Get me Kass,” I said to him. “Tell him I want pub food, greasy shit. Bring me leftovers for Jett too and I want a bottle of vodka with it.”

Jan nodded and immediately got onto his phone. I took the elevator to my floor and locked my apartment door behind me.

“Brraaappp!”

My almost full-grown kitten came bounding towards me, his yellow eyes bright and his pupils wide. I picked him up, and because no one was there to see me, I smiled and rolled my eyes.

“It’s hard to be in a bad mood with you, knuckle-head,” I said and carried him towards the kitchen. He purred and stayed in my arms watching me intently as I opened the fridge and pulled out a stick of dried rat pepperoni. It would tide me over until Kass came to my apartment with my orders. It would have to satiate Jett as well. He always had dried kibble for him but he had more bad habits than I did. And he was about as eager to correct those bad habits as I was.

We sat down with our pepperoni and I turned on the Gamegear and plugged it in. There was only one battery factory in the factory towns and they were expensive as all hell. Since normal arians couldn’t afford them, juice suckers such as Gamegears or boom boxes were altered so they could only be played by being plugged in. Game Boys were okay though but I didn’t want an old one I wanted a coloured Game Boy advance.

I turned on Sonic and threw a piece of pepperoni for the cat. Sonic helped cheer up my mood somewhat but I was still annoyed at everything. I was looking forward to having some vodka to numb it, and Kass to keep around until I was tired of looking at him.

I settled in with the heat cranked up and my colour contacts out of my eyes. I was used to them now but if I kept them in for longer than five or six hours my eyes started to become itchy and irritated. So it was a relief once I was able to come home and kick back.

There was a knock on the door which I knew was Kass. I unlocked the several deadbolts I had and opened it up.

Kass gave me a smile before handing me the food. I noticed he had something colourful and rubber in his hand.

With an amused laugh from the housekeeper he put what I realized was a rubber clown mask over his head. “
Woooo!!
I’m gonna eat your dick!”

I rolled my eyes. It was a freaky enough-looking mask. The clown had wide staring eyes though the pupils were cut out so you could see, and a lip-sticked mouth wide open and grinning through pointed teeth. The face itself was white, but the rings around the eyes were blue and it had red fuzzy hair embedded into the scalp.

“IT is on the movie network tonight. You wanna watch?” Kass asked. “I knew you’d say yes so I bought this old Halloween mask. If there’s shit that survives the Fallocaust perfectly it’s fucking rubber Halloween masks.”

I shook my head with a smirk. I took the bag from him and motioned him to come in. “I saw it was queued. Men in Black is on after in case you don’t feel like going home,” I said to him.

“Sure, I got nothing better to do,” Kass said with a shrug. He brought the vodka to the coffee table before I heard the tinkling of glasses coming from the kitchen. I threw the mask onto the table and sat down.

“How fun do you want your drink?” Kass called.

That was our codeword to how much liquor I wanted in it. Since Jack fucked off Kass had been my only friend to come and visit me besides Nero, so we were starting to have our own language. “Normal fun. It might change as the night goes on though. I’m just pissed today.”