by Leon Logos
“Ignorance is bliss,” she maintained. “I was happy not knowing about that. But I guess, Alistair could’ve hurt me if his plan didn’t work.”
In retrospect, it had been a turbulent year. And very eventful. Not even the whole year. Two months. All of this had happened in two months. She felt her stay with the Aurelians had lasted at least half-a-year. But really, it was just a little over two weeks. From first arriving to Sequim to now, it felt like an entire year. She pondered it in wonder for two whole minutes.
“Well, I’m going to get some food,” said Kyler. “You hungry?”
She nodded without looking at him, realizing that she was.
“All right, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Kyler returned as fast as he implied. Not a minute, but only ten of them. He came back with two bowls of hot oatmeal.
“All the good stuff is being eaten by the men,” said Kyler. “But this should suffice. Be careful. It’s actually really hot.”
She stirred the oatmeal with her spoon absentmindedly, in reverie. She recalled the grandeur and superlative quality of the meals she consumed with the Aurelians. Breakfast, lunch, and supper was always exquisite. Her diet had acclimated to this decadent standard of eating. Which was why the porridge tasted five times worse than it actually was. Kyler was downing the porridge-like it was ice cream, detecting no issues with it.
“I can’t rush when it comes to eating,” Kyler noted. “Since I’m malnourished, I need to recover my nutrients and stuff steadily. The doctor said something about that; I didn’t understand him. Though I need to eat more often. I want my pounds back…”
“I was eating like a queen with them,” she commented. “I know,” said Kyler. “I saw the palace. I can only imagine your bedroom. Good luck readapting to an ordinary lifestyle.”
“It wasn’t that long with them, I’ll be fine,” she said quietly. “Anyway, I was thinking… What about you, guys?”
“What?”
“You guys don’t care about your origin? Who your parents are? Where you come from. Hell, even your real names?”
“We were raised by Gunther Carlisle, our parent is Gunther, and our names are already known,” said Kyler indifferently. “In short, we don’t care.”
“That can’t be…” she said in disbelief. “But why?”
“We don’t need to know, we’re all grown up now,” said Kyler. “Our past is all that we know. Why do we need to worry about who our parents are? We never knew them, and we have no problem with keeping it that way. They were never here for us. And they never will be.”
“Yeah, because Gunther took you from them!” she reasoned.
“Yeah, and probably killed them, too,” said Kyler blithely. “Serenity, I get why it’s relevant to you. But not to us.”
Resigned, she said no more about it. They desisted from speaking for a period of five minutes, eating their porridge in silence. Kyler finished his when she wasn’t even half-way done. The porridge tasted pungently like pepper to her. She felt even she could make better-tasting porridge. Cooking was never her strong suit, but she did have ample experience in it. She had been forced to prepare her family meals when they didn’t get food from outside. Despite the limits of her culinary capabilities, she was never fired from her role as chef. Even with the excessive complaints about her.
“So, I hear Garen was challenged,” said Kyler conversationally; it was strange, given Kyler was never inclined to casual conversing.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” she said. “I’m not sure what happened, though. I think Garen won because I saw his opponent defeated.”
“Which was who?”
“Bastion; he was part of the Council,” said Serenity. “And the one who beat my ass. And yours. He rearranged my face.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” said Kyler, glancing at her face. “And the Council guys can fight? I thought they were old, weak men.”
“No, this one was a military guy,” she shook her head at once. “He was their strongest soldier. You’ve met him. And he’s arrogant as hell. I compared him to Desmos before, but he was more like the former—”
“Garen?” Kyler finished. “Yeah, sounds like it.”
Thinking about Bastion naturally engendered her to remember Destiny. Her heart sank, recalling that she was possibly deceased. What made her potential death even more grim was the fact that she was already wounded before Gunther killed her. She wasn’t as close to Destiny as she was with Lily and Sixto, but Destiny had been undeniably like a big sister to her.
“Oh, by the way, you wanna know how the Aurelians got so rich?” Kyler said, amused. “Viktor told me.”
“Let me guess, they stole it?” she said, unsurprised.
“Yeah, pretty much,” said Kyler. “Money laundering, government embezzlement, robbery… The Aurelians have been doing it for centuries.”
“And somehow nobody tried to stop them?” she asked, confounded. “No government organization? Or even a rival family?”
“With money comes power,” said Kyler simply. “Well, not to rub it in, but this pretty much proves that we were telling the truth. These Aurelian fools were shady from the start. They never accepted you.”
“You are rubbing it in,” she said reprovingly. “God, I’m such a terrible person. A normal person would be traumatized after yesterday…”
“You are traumatized, I see it in your eyes,” said Kyler insightfully. “You’re only speaking casually as a coping mechanism. You always were a social person, Serenity. Looking for a friend. Which is why you loved school-season so much.”
“Not all the time,” she said quietly. “Some of those schools were filled with douchebags and assholes. I was a lone wolf in those places. They picked on me for that too. Imagine that, someone with my childhood, being bullied. You would think I could at least be able to defend myself.”
“I remember it painfully,” said Kyler blatantly. “Always pissed me off how weak you were. It kind of made it embarrassing to call you one of us.”
“That’s an understatement; I was an embarrassment to all of you.”
“Not to me,” said Kyler candidly.
She nodded her head discreetly, already aware of this. And she always appreciated Kyler for being her only friend. Her only actual brother. Though, in light of recent events, her perception of the others had changed dramatically. Now, it was only a matter of forming a new opinion of them.
Kyler took the bowl from her when she was finished. He rose up from the chair he was sitting in and left the tent. Serenity stretched out her legs, placing her hands behind her head. She debated walking out of bed. Of course, she could only walk with crutches now. A pair of them were leaning against the wall on the left side of her bed. She wondered how prepared Viktor was when it came to doctors or medics; and if the doctors he brought were medically qualified. The cleaning and bandaging of her wound seemed legit. And the bullet was even extracted, while she had been unconscious (thankfully).
In hindsight, she thought she had been strong in the midst of all the havoc. Sixto’s death caused her to faint out of trauma and shock, but she had already been beset with those emotions even before that. The events that unfolded in the bunker were also intense.
Kyler didn’t return to visit her until nighttime arrived. All of Viktor’s men had returned, their sacks full of gold and riches. They were now reveling in joy, celebrating their victory and the spoils that accompanied it.
Kyler entered her tent, waking her up from slumber.
“Desmos wants to speak to you,” he said. “To all of us. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Serenity grabbed the crutches from the side of her bed and used them to support her weight. It was her first time using crutches; therefore, she needed a minute to get used to ambulating with them. Kyler was patient with her, waiting for her to get accustomed with them with his arms folded. It was uncomfortable getting on her feet again, after being in bed for so long. But she recuperated f
rom all the exhaustion and weariness sustained from almost two days. After sleeping for almost a full day, she had sufficiently gained back her strength. Serenity nodded at Kyler, ready to follow. Her gait was awkward, but she could passably use the crutches.
Kyler led the way out of the tent. The night was bitter cold, but it wasn’t a factor in obstructing the late-night festivities. The men danced around the fire, chanting and drinking uproariously. Their rapturous celebration seemed a bit irreverent to her; shouldn’t they have been mourning the substantial loss of their comrades? Unless this party was a way of honoring them.
The outpost was essentially a camp. There were seventy other tents, of varying sizes. It was situated in a colossal forest clearing. The lights and torches could only illuminate the general area of the camp. Anything outside the proximity of the outpost was shrouded in blackness.
Hobbling on crutches, she passed two men chugging down cold beers. She assumed they had raided the Aurelian kitchens in order to obtain the drinks. Aside from the drinks, there were foods that she recognized. Food that she had consumed herself, that definitely were taken from the kitchens.
Overhead, a blanket of stars sprinkled the night sky. For a night so fraught with death and destruction, the sky was incongruously beautiful. As she jostled through a crowd with difficulty, a drunken man seized her by arm. His lust-filled eyes and malicious, goofy grin repulsed her. Kyler came to her aid, patiently shoving the drunken man off of her. The man was so wasted that he dropped to the ground easily, falling asleep.
They found the other brothers sitting on crates, away from all the festivities. They were close enough for their faces to be illuminated by the bonfire that was lit. Desmos was sitting on the ground, his feet stretched out. His back was leaning against one of the crates. Garen, Agno and Cackle were sitting on the crates, drinking with colorless visages. Serenity took a seat next to Garen, setting her crutches down on the ground. She waited for Desmos to speak.
He turned to her, his face in visible pain, clutching his side.
“Are you injured?” she asked at once.
“Nothing serious,” he said. “I need to speak to you.”
“I’m here,” she nodded, giving him her attention.
“I know you obviously weren’t around when this happened, but I managed to get Gunther to speak a little,” Desmos explained. “Well, a bit.”
“Did you kill him…?” she asked tentatively. “A-actually…?”
“He was already dead; only retribution and willpower were keeping him alive,” said Desmos softly, his face twitching. “But yeah, I did.”
“Woah…” she said, nonplussed. “Was it hard…?”
“Forget about that,” said Desmos dismissively. “He shed some light on your background. With a little persuasion.”
“What did you find out?” she asked eagerly.
“That he loved your mother,” Desmos began. She remained silent, deciding not to interrupt him when hearing information that had already been divulged to her.
“He loved her so much that when she rejected him and married your father, it was too much to accept. But your mother didn’t choose your father just out of genuine love; but also, because around that time period, the Aurelians ordered the Carlisles to be exterminated.”
“They killed his family…” she said slowly.
“Yeah…it was a small family, but yes. Gunther didn’t just storm that camp because his girl left him. It was out of revenge, for killing his only living relatives. And the reason he took you was to assert something; he decided to create his own family. To raise them to exterminate the Aurelians, just like the Aurelians exterminated the Carlisles.”
“Is he my actual father…?” she asked, holding her breath. “Gunther?”
“That I don’t know for sure,” Desmos confessed. “But he was insistent that you belonged to him. Since your mother was supposed to be his. He wasn’t going to let the Aurelians keep you. He was going to use you, one of them, to kill them. Just like the Aurelians used Gunther’s dad to kill off his own family. Yeah, that’s how it went down. And when the job was done, the Aurelians killed Gunther’s father as well.”
Serenity listened to the story, speechless. She had no idea Gunther’s past was rife with such darkness. A tale of woe.
“Why did he treat me like he did, then…? If I was his girlfriend’s daughter, why was I tortured, beaten, and punished?!” she demanded.
“Because as much as he loved your mother, he also despised her for leaving him,” said Desmos calmly. “Hate is still love. The opposite of love is actually indifference. When you don’t care.”
“That’s so…” she said, unable to finish the sentence.
“Furthermore, he hated your father like the devil,” Desmos continued. “And one thing he mentioned…your eyes are just like your father’s. I can only assume, but every time Gunther looked at you—it felt as if he was looking into the eyes of the guy that took her from him.”
“In other words,” said Garen gruffly, “Gunther was just a sensitive teenager who couldn’t even rebound from a breakup…”
“Not to mention, Father noted that you resembled your mother a lot,” Desmos said, recalling the details. “The same thing; looking at you probably reminded him of the woman that betrayed him.”
“So, is that it…?” she said quietly. “That’s all he told you?”
“I wish I could extract more, but there wasn’t much time…” said Desmos. “But…he did imply what he wanted to do with you. Though, I’m not too sure.”
“Which is…?” she said, bracing herself.
“Before I tell you, let me get this straight,” Desmos inhaled. “Father never considered you his daughter, as much as he felt entitled to your guardianship. He hated you. Even more than he demonstrated.”
“I know that already,” she said dully. “And if he hated me so much, I still don’t understand why he kept me… Why not kill me?”
“Two reasons, I think,” said Desmos. “One, you’d be used to lure Aurelians to us. Aurelians have been trying to retrieve you for years.”
“I was bait again,” she said, affronted. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Two, you were too valuable to kill or discard immediately,” said Desmos slowly. “Worth too much. Father wanted to use you to obtain something else. From the Black Market.”
“How would he do that…?” she asked apprehensively.
“Sell you off,” Desmos sighed solemnly. “Trafficking… Downstairs, they’ll take anything Aurelian. Even humans. You’re like royalty to them.”
A whirlwind of abomination and repugnance flooded her mind and body. She lowered her gaze, surprised but not that surprised. Learning this just reinforced Gunther’s image as a monster. As a demon.
“Trade her for what?” Kyler asked.
“Don’t know,” Desmos shook his head. “Didn’t get the chance to ask.”
“If I was so valuable to him…” she began, “wouldn’t he try to get me back? From the Aurelian’s captivity?”
“He’s not that stupid,” Desmos replied. “Infiltrating that fortress of a residence was a suicide mission. Honestly, I was delirious even trying. Gunther knew from experience; while we were at Patrick’s house, he was there. He managed to get past the security and make it inside. He stole a couple of documents but got caught. It’s a miracle he managed to escape.”
“So we were right,” said Agno. “We found those documents and gave it to Viktor. I mean, we stole them from Father obviously.”
“He only decided to return because his own ‘children’ had the audacity to try,” Desmos said. “Keep in mind, after surviving that fire, he became psychotic. Us sons, we betrayed him. He didn’t care about bringing us back.”
“But me…” she whispered.
“He wasn’t done with you,” Desmos nodded, coughing. “And without us, he was nothing. Just a piece of garbage.”
“Even with us, he was garbage,” she said bitterly.
; “That pretty much summarizes everything I’ve learned,” Desmos concluded. “I hope it answered most of your questions.”
“About Gunther and me, yeah,” she nodded. “Thank you… But what about you? What caused you to change? To defy him?”
Desmos sighed, gazing up at the sky in wonder.
“You,” he said simply. “I’ve always considered you my responsibility. I just felt obligated to get you back. And when Gunther denied my suggestion to go after you, it pretty much made me realize that he was trash. I can’t really explain it. When they put me in solitary confinement, I had a lot of time to reflect. To mull over things. My ego, my pride came into play too.”
“You realized you were no leader after all,” Garen answered tonelessly, taking a swig of alcohol. “Gunther was the big man.”
Desmos nodded silently.
“You stepped up to the plate when I was gone. Good job, man,” Desmos praised Garen.
Garen didn’t respond, taking another swig. Serenity frowned. Desmos was being awfully sentimental, and a bit mawkish. It was uncharacteristic of him. He had changed more than she initially had believed.
“Thank you, guys,” she mumbled sheepishly.
“Well that’s a first,” Cackle remarked. “She’s thanking us…”
“I don’t want to, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “You guys actually killed the people I cared about. Innocent lives…my cousins…my friend. I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to recover from this… But not thanking you would make me worse garbage than you all.”
“Thanks, sis,” Agno quipped.
“So, what happens next?” Kyler asked.
The question produced silence. It was a pivotal question, more relevant than ever. Now with Gunther gone, they were free to go wherever they wished. Free to do whatever they wanted. This was their liberation. Their extrication from slavery. She hoped they’d capitalize on it.
“Yeah, Desmos,” she said. “What’s next…?”
“Well, that’s up to you guys,” Desmos said.
“Huh?” she said, perplexed. “You’re the leader.”
