by Quil Carter
Leo put his hands on my shoulders. “Hey, hey… it’s alright. Calm down.”
I looked around confused.
“Where is he? Where is he!” I couldn’t stop screaming. Leo got up and ran out of the room. I could see Reno behind him handing him something. Leo came back and put three blue pills in my mouth. I tried to spit them out but he closed my jaw for me.
“He’s fine.” Leo grasped my jaw; not just to keep me from taking out the pills but also to make me look at him. “Killian, do you understand? Reaver is okay. He’s just getting one last check up with Doc and he’ll be home. I promise. You need to calm down.”
“You were supposed to protect him! That’s why he’s here, isn’t it?” I screamed hysterically as soon as he took his hand away. “What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck is wrong with all of you!” I couldn’t hold it back, I felt like I was going crazy. “You let Greyson kill him! The prisoners had trideath! They were fucking infected, we had to kill them!” Oh god, I was unloading everything. “Those fucking parasites took advantage of you being gone. I was robbed and punched in the face! And the Kerry’s were robbed and… he… he had to do something! He’s your fucking responsibility, you cruel fuck! He thought you would be proud. He’s your god damn son, Leo!”
Leo looked shocked. He put his hand over his mouth, then left the room. I was crying hysterically. A moment later Reno was there. He hugged me and I just sobbed on his shoulder. He patted my arm and held me to him. I liked Reno even more in that moment.
When my crying had turned to whimpers and I could hear a bit better, I realized Leo was in Reaver’s living room also crying, but he was doing a better job at hiding it. I knew all the signs though since I was such a pro. His breathing was shaky and he was sniffing.
Reno held me tight; he had always been softer than Reaver. He wasn’t as rock solid or cold-skinned like Reaver was. He was just normal and squishy.
I sniffed and let his tight hold on me take the sadness and fear away. Soon it would be Reaver… Leo had said…
My poor Reaver… how could Greyson do that to him? I had to get to him.
“You okay, Tinkerbell?” Reno asked.
I sniffed again and nodded.
“You wanna sing a song?”
“No,” I whimpered, my mind was too frozen in shock to do something so silly.
Apparently no wasn’t an answer. Reno started to sing. “Five little ducks went out to play. Over the hills and far away… mother duck says quack quack quack quack… but only four little ducks came back.”
“I think your Geigerchip is broken.” I wiped my eyes. He sure was crazy.
“Four little ducks went out to play. Over the hills and far away… mother duck says…”
He let that hang. I sighed and indulged him. “Quack quack quack quack.”
“… but only three little ducks came back.”
I smiled, and when I did Reno said ‘yaay’ and squeezed me.
“How is he okay? He was dead, he wasn’t breathing,” I said as Reno petted my head.
He let out a breath. “Doc came and hauled him off to the clinic. He had him in there for like four hours and then Reaver just came out of the room,” he said. He sounded as much in disbelief as I felt. “He has some bruises on his neck and a few good goose eggs on his head but he said he’s never felt better.”
A part of me didn’t believe it, but Reno wouldn’t lie to me… would he? Maybe they were just trying to keep me calm… but no, with how hysterical Reno was before I passed out he wouldn’t be this calm if Reaver was dead.
“Wait –” I paused and tried to move my body to see the Coca Cola clock. “Four hours? How could I be out for four hours? Who knocked me out?”
A look of guilt swept across his face. “I knocked you out and then Doc injected you with something to keep you asleep through all of it. I was glad… you were breaking my heart with all that screaming.”
I rubbed my head; I had a bump on it as well. “Did they burn Greyson yet?”
Surprisingly Reno shushed me and nodded towards the living room where Leo was. “Keep it down. Leo left Greyson. Greyson’s catching up on the mayor stuff and Leo’s packing up his shit.”
I could feel fresh tears but I nodded. Greyson deserved it… actually they both did. Leo should have protected Reaver. He was a coward for not telling him he was a chimera, they both were. If there was any time to tell Reaver his origins now would be the time, when he was on the cusp of becoming what Leo and Greyson had been trying to prevent.
“Is he leaving Aras too?” Where would we go? We didn’t have a home, our home was Aras.
“Too? Greyson didn’t mean that, he was just pissed. Greyson only saw the party going down and some quips from Matt the idiot who hammed it up as Reaver being a badass. He didn’t know about the trideath scare, or the increase in crime or the overcrowding. He didn’t listen to the reasons why Reaver killed those guys; he just got pissed and went to find him,” Reno explained. “He feels awful for losing it on Reaver but he’s been in hiding. Ashamed I guess. He’s got a lot of sucking up to do… man, he overreacted and he knows it.”
I started to feel the Xanax kick in. I took a deep breath and felt my body forcibly relax.
“Reaver didn’t help… he just eggs him on,” I whispered.
“They really know how to piss each other off,” Reno agreed.
I saw movement in the living room. I watched as Leo put his jacket on and went towards the tank hatch. Without a word he disappeared into it. I felt badly for him; he had so much to deal with right now… it seemed everyone did.
Reno clapped me on the back and stood up. “I’m going to get you some water to wash that barbiturate shit down.” I tried to stand but I fell back on the bed. Wow, I was dizzy.
“They’re hitting you, eh?” Reno chuckled. “Come on. Try and stand up and walk into the living room.”
I got up and took a step, but I swayed into the door frame; Reno thought that was pretty funny.
“I don’t usually get so woozy from Xanax…” I mumbled, holding my head. Reno handed me a glass of water and helped me sit down on the couch.
“These are the big ones, buddy. So you took a bit more. You’ll be fine, maybe you’ll hold it together when you see Reaver.”
“Is the party over in the square?” I asked. The cold water felt great down my throat; I downed the whole cup.
“Nah, now that it’s night time everyone is back out and having a good time. Greyson decided to let them. I think he’s seeing the positive side of what Reaver did.” Reno grabbed a bag of gummy bears and shovelled some into his mouth. “That woman Reaver let go was Chive’s daughter Melissa. She came right up to Greyson and said Reaver let her go. Spared her from being burnt crispy. You should’ve seen the look on Greyson’s face. T’was grand.”
“Reaver let someone go?” I was surprised at that.
Reno nodded and handed me the bag. “Told her to pay double taxes and beat it. She already paid Greyson up front just to make nice. Amazing, eh? Greyson’s too hard on him.”
I chewed on some gummy bears and thought for a second back to the things Greyson had said to Reaver. He had said such horrible things.
“Did Greyson only raise Reaver to be a mayor too? Since it would be hard for him to have his own kid?” Leo fled to Aras with Reaver… and Greyson saw that as a golden opportunity to raise a chimera as a replacement. Maybe that’s the only reason he took Leo and Reaver into Aras in the first place? That was a sad thought and it really made me look at Greyson in a whole new light. He was a bigger prick than Reaver. Reaver didn’t grow up to be exactly what he needed so Greyson resented and hated him.
Reno thought for a second, his mouth chewing through the sugary jelly mass of over two hundred-year-old candy.
“I think so, man, he’s always been like that with Reaver. Training him and stuff. Even when he was a kid. Treated him like a little soldier more than anything.” He spat out a hard piece of green gummy bear to look at it, be
fore popping it back into his mouth. “Leo was always the momma, trying to love the madness out of him.”
“He’s not as bad as Greyson thinks,” I sighed. “He’s very loving when no one is watching.”
Reno winked and took a handful of gummy bears from my bag. “Don’t tell Reaver that.”
There was a crackle and some static and Reno’s radio came to life. “Reaver just left,” Doc’s voice said.
I felt a rush of excitement and worry. Reno got onto the radio and thanked him, before getting to his feet.
“I’ll meet him on the street. I don’t want to deal with the cry-fest when you see him.” The corners of Reno’s eyes creased as he laughed. Unlike Reaver, my friend had a look to his face that suggested he’d been laughing his whole life. “You two come up in the next few days for some drugs and Mario; bring your guitar too. I’ll be slacking for the next week after this whole mess. I barely slept.”
I got up and very woozily walked him to the tank hatch. “I’d really like that. I’ll make Reaver if I have to.”
Reno gave me a big bear hug. I loved his hugs. He was warm and more squishy than Reaver who was cold and firm to the touch. I hugged him back.
“Good thing Reaver didn’t die… I’d hate to have to be the one to take care of you.” He clapped me hard on the back.
I scoffed. “I would be the one taking care of you. Gummy bears are not dinner.” I handed him the bag. Reno laughed and he disappeared through the tunnel to the shed.
I found Biff sleeping on a pile of dirty clothes and picked up him. I carried him to the couch and sat down with him. Because he was a cat he jumped off me and went to walk away, but with a few pets he jumped back onto my lap and made himself comfortable.
I started to feel even more woozy and dizzy, so I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes, waiting for Reaver to come home. Biff’s loud motor purrs were hypnotic.
I woke up to Biff jumping off me, his back legs pushing right into my stomach. I opened my eyes and saw Reaver dumping some shredded meat into his dish.
“Reaver!” I cried. I got up but I only got one step in before my balance went crazy and I swayed and fell sideways into Reaver’s desk.
Reaver let out a half laugh, half snort, and helped me to my feet. “They drugged you good, huh?”
I wrapped my arms around him and clung to him. Chimera born or not, he was my baby. “I want to leave.” I felt my eyes burn. “I want to move. We have enough money. I want to leave Aras.”
I heard Reaver let out a breath; he was quiet for a moment. “We’ve already left Aras.”
I pulled away and let my hands drop. I could see the dark bruises around his neck and a bit of red on his hairline, besides that he looked good, though from what he had just said I think Greyson had hit Reaver harder than I thought.
I shuddered, remembering his ears bleeding; what had happened to him? How did Doc fix it? Maybe he had some Skyfall medicine hiding somewhere.
“We’re… in your basement,” I said slowly, “in Aras.”
His lips pulled up in a smile and he shook his head. “Nope, we’re in West Aras.” His eyes shot to the ceiling. “From Quil Street and back, including your house, now belongs to me. I have defected, and claimed it as my own.”
The room went quiet. I must have looked like a fish with the way I just gaped at him. “Greyson… let you do this?”
“Greyson won’t say anything and if he does… or comes into my town, I’ll fucking shoot him and he knows it.”
“What… what does that mean for us?” No one else lived in this side of Aras but us, and my home was abandoned.
“It means we’re a free town now. We won’t get rations but we don’t need them anyway, we’ll buy our meat from the Slaught House directly. We won’t pay taxes so we won’t have security, but I’ll be sentrying my town anyway.”
“What about our jobs?”
“We don’t have jobs anymore.” Reaver’s tone was dark. He took his pistol apart to clean it. I noticed it was something he did when he was stressed, or at least when his mind was busy.
“But you love being a sentry…” I sat down on the couch and watched him. Reaver’s face was lined, I could see flecks of dried blood still inside his ears. I resisted the urge to start preening him.
“I’m only taking the west wall now, the one that lines my new town,” Reaver said. “You’re not working at Doc’s anymore. Why don’t you work on that greenhouse thing for Perish’s plants? They’ll die in the cold unless you shelter them.”
I nodded. I would miss working with Doc. It had been fascinating learning how to sew people up and treat sick people, but I suppose getting those plants to grow would be worth it in the long run. I guess I was the new second-in-command of West Aras… though what the point was when there was only two of us I didn’t know.
Though in the end it would keep Greyson away from Reaver, and prevent him from actually killing my boyfriend this time. This meant I wouldn’t have to see that prick anymore, and I had no desire to see him. He was the tyrant, and Leo was a tyrant made worse because he was a chimera and too much of a coward to even tell Reaver he was one too.
I’d had enough of both of them, and it looked like Reaver had as well.
I guessed this was safer than leaving… though we had enough money, tokens, and trade that we could have made a nice life for ourselves in Tintown or Anvil.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” My hands tensed around themselves as my mind shot back to that horrible scene.
Reaver’s eyes dark and lifeless, I had been so sure he was dead. The blood coming from his ears had scared me the most.
I moved to the side of the couch until I was in touching distance. I reached up and grazed his little ears. “Blood coming from your ears usually means your brain is bleeding.”
Reaver was polishing the inside of the barrel with rag. “It wasn’t coming from my brain, it was coming from my ear canal. Doc says Greyson clocked me in the ear and punctured the inside. I haven’t shoved a finger inside to check but it hurts and I’m alive so –” He shrugged.
I chewed on my cheek and leaned my head against one of the cushions and just watched him clean his pistol.
“I think you did a great job as mayor,” I decided to say. I didn’t know if anyone had said that to him yet. “You got rid of trideath, that’s all that matters. It’s scary that that woman caught it from the Kerry’s. How did she manage that?” I felt a shudder go up my spine; even the word trideath sent shivers through me. “What if you had gone straight home? She could have spread it…”
I saw an amused look on Reaver’s face but he was quiet.
The light was dim around him, the generator off and the temperature inside the basement dropping. I pulled up a blanket and watched him clean the barrel of the pistol in long strokes. His movement was so flawless and calculated it was easy to see he’d been cleaning guns his entire life.
My eyes moved to his hands. I loved his hands, they were big but not burly, his fingers were long and thin; if he wanted he could have been a piano player. Everything on him was beautiful and flawless down to the last detail. I loved him so much.
“I love you,” I said as I stared up at him.
I watched the corner of his mouth rise in a smile; he was loading bullets into the barrel. He reached over and stroked my cheek. “I love you, Killi.”
I smiled at his touch and rested my head against the back of the couch.
Why did Leo take him though? Chimeras have been around for a long time. There were at least twenty of them if not more. Why was he special to Leo? Why him? Chimeras were bred to be loyal to King Silas, which is why the king only trusted his creations to run his world. What had happened that made Leo take Reaver and run?
My eyes started to feel heavy, and soon they started to close. I fell asleep to my boyfriend now cleaning my Magnum. The same methodical stripping of the gun, the same rag to clean it. His pale, handsome face tensed with concentration and a thousand thoughts I would
never hear.
Reaver was who he was; I would accept him and love him, psycho chimera or not. In the end it wasn’t about his labels or his genetics, it was that he was mine and I loved him.
I pushed the diseased worries from my head, and decided that for my own best interest and his I would leave it alone. It had been twenty years and I had to trust that the mayors knew what they were doing. In reality, little had changed, I just knew things I wish I didn’t. Reaver was just acting like Reaver, the only difference was I understood his mind just a little bit more.
I’d love him as I always did, and put the rest of it to bed in my mind.
Finally my eyes closed, and I fell asleep.
Chapter 35
Reaver
My eyes immediately shot towards the movement, and I watched as Killian’s hand slipped off the couch and dangled over the floor. When I realized he had fallen asleep I put his Magnum together a little more quietly. After I had screwed on the last part and put in some replacement bullets, I rested it gently beside my tin of quil-making material and turned down the bluelamp.
Killian had passed out quickly, but he was working through an injection from Doc plus three Xanax so I guess it was to be expected.
As for me, I wasn’t tired at all. I woke up in Doc’s clinic feeling just fine, besides a splitting headache and a sore neck. A bit of Vicodin had stemmed both so I was just left well-rested, well physically well-rested anyway.
I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, not for the next nine hours, unless I drugged myself up. I eventually might do that. I didn’t want to fuck up my sleep schedule with Killian more than it already was.
I made my way towards the tank hatch, grabbing my M16 in the process and strapping it across my back. I grabbed the mayor’s radio I still had with me, and put it on the couch next to Killian’s lap. Hopefully if he did on the off chance wake up and wonder where I was, he would know he could reach me that way.
I lit a quil on my way down my street of the same name. I could see dew on the old twisted cars and a sheen on the slabs of concrete. It was indeed colder too, and from the smell of it we would be getting fog soon. Winter was almost upon us. At least we had a few less mouths to feed.
