by Quil Carter
“We will, and we’ll tell the sentries to keep an eye out, but I know he isn’t stupid enough to leave Aras,” Greyson said. “We’ll tell you if we hear anything.”
I nodded and turned towards the door, walking back towards my house.
“Killian?” I checked his house again but there hadn’t been any change. I walked up a few of the more cluttered streets between our houses and started calling for him again. Every once in a while I yelled I was sorry for good measure.
By the time I had been searching for an hour I was starting to feel the once faint tinge of anxiety grow to a steady burn. I was starting to think I might have done something awful to him.
I clenched my fists and sucked in a breath. How stupid was I? This drinking bothered Killian and I just made him deal with my drunken ass. It wasn’t fair to him and I was an idiot for putting that on him. Especially if I had picked a fight with him.
I had a lot to learn, I would do better next time. No more drinking, and perhaps I wouldn’t hang out with Asher unless Killian was with me. Maybe that’s all he needed, just to see what we did. Basically we just talked, watched movies, and played video games.
Darkness started to fall on Aras, and with it so did my mood. I had already run up all the major roads in West Aras and some of the borders south and east too. I couldn’t find any sign of him, nor from Carson, Doc, or anyone else.
When it was dark out, I made my way to the last place I could think of. Though it was my last resort… but knowing Killian… maybe he had come to make peace?
I took off my leather glove and knocked on Asher’s door.
Chapter 43
Killian
I couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard me following him.
I had watched him walk towards the north gate, then walk back to my house. I had been perched on the roof, hiding behind the chimney when he was wandering around my yard. I had come to my old home looking for a blanket since I was planning on sleeping outside again.
Then he left and I watched him disappear back down the cul-de-sac. I climbed down and ducked into a house a block from the basement further west. I watched him walk past me, saying he was sorry.
I didn’t care that he was sorry. I was still horrified at what he had done.
I put another knot in the bag, the one that held Perry’s head. I had wrapped his head in a sheet to lessen the smell and had put him back in the bag. I carried him everywhere. If he was with me those assholes couldn’t abuse his corpse. Even if it was just his head, it was my head. He was mine, I was supposed to take care of him… I couldn’t even let him rest in peace.
I ducked behind a building as I watched Reaver turn down another road. He was wearing his old cloth pants, the ones Perish had given us to wear. It was odd to see him in Aras without his black cargo pants. They seemed as much a part of being Reaver as his M16. At least that was still on him. Over a black t-shirt and a denim jacket to be specific. Well, at least he had managed to change; he was a slobbering idiot last night.
I looked down at my knuckles. They were bruised. Where my fist had hit his rock hard jaw. I probably had hurt myself more than I had hurt him.
I shook out my hands and started trailing him again. I couldn’t believe I had hit him, but I had lost myself in the rage I had felt. He had said so many awful things to me. What had been wrong with him? A different person had slid down that tunnel last night, just like when he had come home wanting me to fuck him one day. That just… I had known Reaver for a long time now, both as a resident and my boyfriend, he did not say those things and he did not act that way.
Something was wrong with him last night, I didn’t know what drugs Asher was giving him but they were changing him. Even now… Reaver should have heard me, he should have sensed me. He was carrying himself different too… he was slumped, his feet dragged just slightly. I kept passing pools of saliva where he had spat. Reaver never spat, he carried himself with the esteem he had earned. Now…
Shit…
He turned another corner, and with that, my eyes burned. It was dark now; he had been looking for me for hours but I guess he had given up. That was Asher’s road.
A choke escaped my lips and I found myself clutching the skull to my chest. The putrid and sweet smell of decay hit my nose. It smelled, it was a grisly thing, but… it comforted me. Like a stuffed animal for a child, I felt safer hugging something I felt affection for. Even if was just a rotting skull.
Reaver would’ve never dug him up. Reaver would’ve never said those things to me. Something was happening to him, and I knew that it was Asher’s fault.
I watched as Asher opened up the door. He gazed at Reaver like he had been expecting him all along. I saw the corner of his mouth rise in a cocky smile and he stepped back to let my boyfriend in. He was dressed like a whore again.
Inside I felt cold, but to my surprise I started to feel a weak flame of excitement. This would be my chance to see what was going on between them. Just what he and Asher did together. Maybe I could see where Reaver was losing control.
My hand slipped down to my voice recorder. The other one was still resting in Reaver’s cargo pants, the ones he didn’t have on. This one though was primed and ready. Reaver wouldn’t be able to deny something was going on now.
I quietly snuck towards Asher’s house. The darkness, and my luckily dark clothing blending me in with the bleak grey world around me.
The glow of the house was bright, it blinded my adjusting eyes every time I gave the windows more than a fleeting glance, but it illuminated the inside like I was watching a TV screen. And the brighter it was inside the less they would be able to see of me outside.
I looked around as I heard them murmuring in the living room. A kitchen window was open and there was a cracked living room window open too, to catch their cigarette and quil smoke.
I ducked down and quietly walked around the house until I found a place I was satisfied with. There was a tree I could climb and I would have a brilliant view of the kitchen and the living room.
I made myself comfortable.
No being afraid, you have to do this, Killian, for Reaver, he would do the same for you.
Actually he would’ve never even got to this point. He would’ve been smart enough to find a way to get Asher away from me.
Oh gosh… my heart dropped. My mind trailed to the skull I was holding. Reaver had seen my heart soften for Perish, he had warned me, he had been hurt that I had enjoyed some of my time with Perish. But what had he done in the end? His sleep deprivation had driven him mad, but he would’ve killed Perish if he got a hold of him.
I couldn’t kill Asher though… Reaver would never forgive me.
I held my breath as I started to hear light talking.
“I’m sorry, man, but it just… it’s how it has to be,” I heard Reaver’s voice say. “You can call it what you want, but it’s what’s going to happen now. No more drinking nights.”
My throat tightened, and the steel around my heart that had formed during Reaver’s drunken ramblings weakened immediately.
“Not even one drink? One drink won’t kill you…” I became a statue as Asher walked into the kitchen.
“Sorry, man, and no more MDMA either. I fought badly with Killian last night… I am really just here to see if he had come to talk to you… I should be going.”
Asher disappeared into his bedroom, but I had a partial view of that too.
I watched the raticater lift up something, a metal crate. I was curious to see it was the crate that he had hidden in the plaza. Owen and Greyson had brought it back a few days after the raver incident.
My eyes narrowed, he was bringing out pain killers. Trying to soften up my boyfriend that way? The air around me seemed to get colder. I hugged the skull closer to me.
“Why don’t you just have some Dilaudids before you leave? This is Skyfall stuff, higher potency than the ancient shit you’ve dug up.”
I could see him setting things aside in the cache; papers, s
mall electronic devices. I was shocked to see one of them had a screen. It looked like an ancient cell phone but none of those worked anymore even if you could get them to turn on.
“I could use the energy, fuck that molly you gave me… it didn’t mix with the liquor.” I glanced over and saw Reaver rubbing his head. He was sitting on the couch but he was keeled over with his elbow on his knees. “I was a wreck last night, I barely remember anything. How about you?”
Asher took out two baggies from his cache, and put the contents he had taken out back into the case. I wanted to see more but the lid was blocking my view inside the trunk. He closed the box and dumped one bag into the other. He shook it and went back into the living room.
“Here, take some of that, you’ll feel better,” Asher said cheerfully. He dumped the contents onto the coffee table and handed Reaver a plastic card. “That’s been saving me all day. I feel like shit too.” What a fucking liar, he looked fine. “It’s brought me back to normal.”
“Good, give it here.” Reaver sighed, he sounded really upset. “Look, Ash, I love hanging out with you… but for the next couple days I’m going to be hiding out and just spending time with Killian. He’s been acting fucking neurotic and paranoid, and ignoring that this is bothering him isn’t working.”
Reaver bent forward and did a line of drugs in each nostril. He rubbed his nose.
Asher’s arms crossed. “I was going to head out for my second cache in the next day or two anyway. That’ll give you lots of time to kiss up.”
Reaver gave him a nod. “Who are you taking with you?” He leaned back in his chair and tilted his head back.
“No one. Like you I wouldn’t mind some alone time.” Asher took the sniffer from him and did a couple lines too. “I’ll be gone for a week. There is a settlement in the town I need to visit, a few people owe me money there.”
Please don’t go with him, Reaver… please, don’t volunteer.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take Reno, Greyson, or someone?” Reaver wiped his nose again, his eyes had started to get a bit glassy. Odd, his eyes never got glassy when he was doing his Dilaudids. If anything they got more aware and more focused.
I watched him intently.
“Nah, I like being alone.”
I sighed with relief, but my eyes never left Reaver’s face. I watched him blink slowly and deliberately, before his head slumped forward.
I watched as Asher knelt down in front of him. Smooth strides like what was going on with my boyfriend was nothing to be alarmed about. On the contrary, he knelt in front of him like it was what he had been expecting.
Asher lightly put his hand on Reaver’s chin and lifted his face.
To my horror his eyes looked like they were staring off into space. Asher shook his chin, and slowly Reaver’s black eyes found his.
“Where is that little shit?” Asher’s voice dropped. I craned my head and tried to force my hearing. “Did you show him the skull?”
The pain in my stomach started to gnaw my insides like a thousand serrated teeth. I watched Reaver nod, a string of drool dripping down his mouth.
My mouth went dry, and suddenly it made sense.
Asher patted Reaver’s cheek and rose. He walked to the kitchen out of view of Reaver and got something out of his drawer. It was tweezers.
Asher tilted his head back, and brought the tweezers up to his nose.
I watched him slide the metal prongs into his nostril and pull out a piece of cotton, before doing the same to his other nostril. He flicked the cotton into the sink and scrunched his nose.
He was drugging Reaver.
With the two small pieces of powder-caked cotton in the sink, Asher walked into the living room. My mind was an explosion of anger, fear, and understanding. This hadn’t been Reaver being drunk, Reaver hadn’t turned into an abusive boyfriend. Asher had been spiking his drugs and his drinks.
But why?
The bile rose in my throat, as the question was answered for me.
Reaver mumbled something, his eyes were staring at the gyprock walls, unfocused and dazed. A string of saliva ran down his mouth, now leaving a thin wet line all the way to his collar bone. His movements were sluggish, uncoordinated, and slow.
Frozen in place, I watched Asher straddle him. He ran his hands up Reaver’s shirt before removing it.
I could hear Reaver moan as he caressed his chest, a moan he had only made when we were being intimate. He sounded like he was in ecstasy, but his eyes stared off into space.
The alarm bells deafened my ears, but I still couldn’t move. The only movements I could manage were making sure I didn’t stop breathing. The adrenaline I felt sweeping through me kept sucking away my breath as quickly as it came.
Asher looked down. He was smirking. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but from the area I had a good guess.
Asher said something to Reaver, and I watched as Reaver put his own hands up and started running them down Asher’s chest and stomach, before leaning forward and kissing him.
I knew he was drugged, but it still wrenched my heart out. They kissed deeply, I could see their mouths open and taking in each other. It was a passionate kiss, a sexual kiss. Why couldn’t I have slipped the voice recorder into that living room?
Then came my breaking point. Asher sank down to his knees, and with a single command Reaver spread his legs apart. He watched with glazed eyes as Asher reached in and pulled his dick out. It was rock hard.
Reaver was obeying his every command.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I jumped down off the tree. I didn’t care if it was stupid, I couldn’t watch this happen to him.
“Asher? Is Reaver there?” I called loudly. I pressed my back up against the trunk of the tree.
Asher jumped a mile high, his eyes wide like saucers. I watched with a sickening sense of satisfaction as he tucked Reaver’s cock back into my boyfriend’s pants and looked around, his face twisted in anger.
I was about to make my way to the door, to bring my boyfriend home, when I heard a whisper from Asher that made every single cell in my body turn to ice.
“Rape him.”
I turned and I ran.
I didn’t even feel my boots hit the pavement as I raced down the winding driveway to the cracked paved road. My legs were weightless, if I was a bit crazier, I might have just tried to fly.
My heart jumped into my throat as I heard Asher’s door swing open, slamming itself up against the side of the house with a loud bang that echoed through the abandoned houses around me.
There was nothing stopping me from being attacked by Reaver now, nothing but my own adrenaline and my own fear. If Reaver could get hard, if Reaver could respond that way to Asher’s commands, I knew I was in for it. I had to get the fuck away from him, and fast.
My eyes scanned every direction, at the same time, I felt my teeth grind together. I was running as quickly as I could, but where the hell was I running to? My mind just told me I had to escape him. I had to find somewhere, to hide but where? He was a genetically enhanced mutant who was probably fucking created to hunt kids like me.
God dammit, what was I going to do…?
I weaved past the rusted cars and jumped over a wire-snared utility pole, the sobs bubbling to my mouth with every laboured breath. The moon was out, but I could never see as well as Reaver.
I did a last second turn and found myself on a rough road, with slabs of pavement sticking up like icebergs, leaving the vehicles a cluttered mess of skeletons jammed one up against the other like half-shuffled cards.
I could hide here… I heard my boots skid against the dirt as I weaved into an old yard and stopped behind a van.
I pressed my back up against the side door and tried to slow the burning breaths that were ripping my lungs apart. My temples were throbbing. Every time I tried to listen for Reaver, all I could hear was my pulse hammering inside my brain.
I held my chest and closed my eyes trying to gather myself, trying to figure o
ut what I was supposed to do.
Let him rape me? He was my boyfriend, I had already had sex with him, would it be that bad? I shook the thought from my racing mind. It wasn’t Reaver, that wasn’t Reaver, it was a monster. Reaver was drugged, he was being controlled… that wasn’t –
Click… click… click.
I could hear his boots against the pavement. Slow and methodical. He wasn’t even running. He was making that noise deliberately. Reaver could be a ghost if he needed to be. Or was he too drugged now?
I could hear the dirt shift underneath his steps; he was getting closer. My heart hammered, could he hear it? Were his senses still muddled? Fuck, I didn’t know, I didn’t know what to do. The tears ran down my cheeks.
“Here, Killi, Killi, Killi.”
I swallowed a cry, and pressed my body up against the van. I heard his hollow, echoing footsteps. His feet were scraping up against the ground, each step sending a percussion of fear through me.
I could hear his breathing, it was garbled with the saliva that kept running down his mouth. He wasn’t at his peak, the drugs made him sloppy… but could I outrun him?
“Where is my beautiful?” Reaver said in a raspy whisper. I tried to swallow the scream that was crawling up my throat to my mouth. “My little pretty kitty? Ubi es, amor meus?”
My flight or fight kicked in, and I knew better than to fight Reaver; even under Asher’s orders and drugged up he could still outmatch me.
As I heard his fingernails scrape up against the van, I made a break for it.
“Ah-hah! You can’t run, little cat. Come here, don’t make this into a game!” Reaver’s voice was a manic growl; he sounded completely insane. As I weaved around the cars, I could hear him start to chase me.
I started cutting through houses, trying to jump over concrete blocks and half-fallen fences, trying to make him fall or lose my position, but still he persisted.
As I felt my energy drain, I saw something familiar, my old house. I realized in that fleeting moment, I had absentmindedly been running to Reaver’s the whole time.
