Garden of Spiders Volume 2: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 3

by Quil Carter

  I was never the same again.

  ~

  CHAPTER 60

  How can the world keep turning? How can the men and women below my feet, continue on with their lives? It seemed… as if everyone should be grieving for him, not just people, but the planet in whole should’ve stopped in its place, and released from its heart a cry that would have the universe freezing time.

  But time went on, the sun rose the next morning, streaming light through the windows of my private hospital room. It seemed to me, a crime against nature that the world was not weeping for him, that I alone was bearing this insurmountable grief. It was unfair, unjust, and in so many ways, I was alone with my broken heart. I was alone with this hole in my chest, this empty cavity where sunlight and warmth had once filled.

  Where my Finn had lived. Why, just why was I finding out now just how much of me he’d occupied? It wasn’t until his presence was gone, that I realized he’d been the one holding my heart the entire time. What had started out with me allowing him to sleep beside me to make him happy, had turned into the most honest love I had ever experienced.

  And he was gone. Dear god, he’s gone, and now I look at this world with dark filters in front of me. No longer do I see the sun; no longer do I see the beauty of living. What had started out as a dream, had turned into a nightmare, but upon forcing myself to wake up, I’d realized that during my sleep, I had gone blind.

  While Silas was holding me, the both of us crying over Finn’s body, I had collapsed. Whether it was my mental anguish bleeding into my physical body, or the blood loss from the bullet in my chest, I didn’t know. All I remember was a dark veil being draped over my eyes, then Silas’s horrified scream. He screamed for help, hysterically he screamed. I believe he must’ve thought the blood that had soaked through my shirt had been Finn’s, not mine, and the moment he realized I’d been shot in the chest, my master had lost his mind.

  I remember pleading in a voice that had lost the strength it had once wielded proudly, for them to leave me with Finn. I didn’t want to leave him. Then I remember Silas’s hand slipping into mine, and a promise that he would bring his body into the awaiting ambulance.

  What happened next was a blur. I kept slipping in and out of consciousness, but I do recall one thing, I remember Silas above me with both hands on my chest, then the buzzing of my Geigerchip. Silas was stopping my wounds from bleeding through a direct feed of radiation. Perhaps that was the only reason why I lived; I didn’t know.

  They rushed me into emergency surgery at the Guardian Hospital, a hospital for the elites. I had surgery on my chest there, just like I’d had surgery on my heart six years previous.

  The bullet had missed my heart by half an inch. It had shattered a rib however, and the shards had to be taken out one by one.

  But I survived, and three days after Finn had died, I was finally fully conscious.

  Fully conscious, staring ahead, a television on the wall in front of me with the sound on mute.

  I found myself… continually trying to collect myself, continually walking amongst this garden to see what had changed, what was damaged. I think it was fear that was making me do it. I was worried that if I didn’t mentally prepare myself for the fallout of what had happened… that I would go insane from grief.

  But even though I kept preparing myself for it, for the hysterical screaming and crying, for the grief that would have me downing a bottle of pain killers, or jumping out the window… it didn’t come.

  I only continued to stare at the wall, mentally looking around my own mind and wondering where everything was.

  It was all gone; it was an empty dark room now. It had once been so bright, so lit up and glowing. I could go inside of my own head and analyze every emotion I was feeling, for they were right in front of me to study with fascination. I’d loved learning about myself so I could always reign over my own emotions, since I had been such a wreck when I was younger. It was as if I had learned to speak a special language that only I knew, and as I controlled those around me, I continued to learn how to control myself.

  But now my mind was no room teaming with life and the low buzzing of a thousand conversations. There was no inner monologue of how I could achieve what current goals I had, no plans being knitted together. A light had been turned off in an area of my brain that I had never realized was being lit by Finn.

  Or perhaps… Finn had just caused a massive outage.

  Either way, I found myself only staring at the wall. There was no sobbing, no nervous breakdowns. There was…

  … nothing.

  Some time later, there was a light knock on my door. I ignored it, but the door handle turned and Silas walked in.

  He looked horrible. His eyes, puffy and red, were being cradled by dark circles and his face was sunken in and gaunt. As he approached, I saw that the rimmed hat on his head was only there to hide unwashed hair; he hadn’t bathed, and the blood underneath his fingernails confirmed that.

  “Oh, Elish…” he whispered. He approached my bed and laid a gentle hand on my forehead. “I’m so happy you’re awake.” A caring hand was brushed down my cheek, and it wasn’t until he nudged the tube did I realize I had oxygen going into my nose. It seemed like I was connected to many different machines. I hadn’t really looked at myself to see.

  I glanced down at my arm and saw an IV going into my hand, there was a heart monitor connected to my chest as well, buried deep underneath a thick bandage that I knew held many stitches.

  “Are you in any pain?” he asked. He sat down and began stroking my hair back. “Would you like me to give you some more morphine?” I looked around for the button that would give me a dose of the powerful opiate, but realized it had been deliberately hidden. Silas must’ve been worried I may kill myself. Perhaps he had every right to worry, or maybe this feeling of nothingness was here to stay.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I… I don’t know.” My voice was the weakest I’d ever heard it. Silas must’ve thought the same because his lip tugged and his large eyes became planets of white, green, and black.

  “It’s okay, love, you don’t have to know,” Silas said. He sniffed and continued to stroke my hair. Usually I would reject his touch, inwardly at least, but something inside of me accepted it. I didn’t know why. I didn’t understand what was going on with me. “Your surgery was a success. I was there watching the entire time. They removed the bullet, and the bone fragments were put back where they belong with a bit of that glue stuff…” He paused as he tried to think of the name.

  “Synthetic skeletal adhesive,” I said. The Skytech scientists had perfected it before I was born. Instead of using screws, rods, or pins to hold damaged bones in place, some, especially fragments like it seemed I had, could be glued.

  “Yes,” Silas said with a smile. “You’re so much smarter than me now.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek, then inhaled a deep breath. “Such a… a smart b-boy.” I could hear the breaks in his voice, small hairline fractures that grew larger as the sentence went on. “You’ve made me so proud.” I felt a hot tear land on my earlobe, and this was followed by a trembled breath.

  I raised a hand to try and comfort him, but on top of being incredibly heavy, the IVs that were connected to my arm rattled. It made Silas raise his head. “No, no, love, don’t move,” he sniffed, but I managed to lift my hand to pat his arm.

  This dissolved him. He took one look at my gesture and his wide eyes flooded with tears and his face scrunched and reddened. Even though it appeared that he was trying all he could to remain strong for me, he lost the battle and began to cry into my neck.

  When Silas had gathered himself, he went back to stroking my cheek, crumpled up tissues now piled on top of a raised hospital tray from him blowing his nose and wiping his eyes. I hadn’t said anything else, nor had I done anything.

  “Are… are you okay, love?” Silas whispered, after a long silence between us.

  Without breaking my gaze from the wall, I asked him
, “Who killed him?”

  I don’t know where the question came from, I didn’t know it was on my mind until I asked it.

  Silas sucked in a breath. “Oh, sweet one…” he said quietly. “Not now… not yet. You’re still too weak; you’re still in shock.”

  I turned to him. “Tell me.”

  But he shook his head. “Master will take care of it,” he assured.

  “Silas.” My voice rose. “Who…” But just like there was an off switch inside of me, I gave up. Exhaustion took me, and I sunk back into the bed. “When can I go home?” I asked instead.

  His lips disappeared into his mouth, and his eyes flickered up to the monitors I was hooked up to. “It’s been three days since your surgery… I believe you should be okay to come home today, love. Kirrel’s clinic is close by, at the very worst, you can be moved there if I think you aren’t actually ready…”

  I nodded. I didn’t want to be here anymore. This place was strange, it smelled off. The times I had slept somewhere else besides my own bed could be counted on one hand. I would heal better being in the comfort of my own home.

  Silas left soon after to fetch Nero, and I used the free time to unhook myself from all the monitors I was attached to. Silas returned an hour later with my brother, still heavily bandaged and with a despondent look on his face.

  I noticed almost immediately that Nero wasn’t making eye contact with me. He said hello, told me he was relieved I was alive, but there was something different about him. I knew my brother, I knew all of my brothers… and Nero was acting off.

  It was painful to stand; my chest was tight and it was difficult to breathe. Nero had his arm underneath my shoulder to help me, and with some struggling, I was able to stand on my own two feet.

  “I’ll get the wheelchair… you look like you’re in agony,” Silas said. He’d been standing in front of me fretting the entire time. I hadn’t seen him so anxious, so worried about me, since my heart attack. It was genuine as well, there was not a false move to him.

  “No,” I said. I steadied myself with Nero’s help and took in several deep breaths. The room was spinning and the heat rising to my head to give it its own pulse, but I wasn’t going to admit it. “I don’t want them to see me in a wheelchair.”

  “But, love, you need it…”

  I shook my head and took a step, and then another. Soon, with Silas hovering over me, I exited the hospital room and slowly made my way to the elevator.

  Everyone stopped to stare at us, but no one dared speak as we passed them by. There was no last checkup from the doctor. I didn’t even sign any discharge papers. We made our way down the white hall, windows to my left showing a cold sunny day, and the reception area to my right, and walked through the automatic glass doors into the frozen February day.

  But unfortunately, when I was several steps from the black car, my injuries protested me being out of bed. All I remember was feeling a rush of dizziness, then my world went temporarily dark. I came-to only seconds later, Nero had grabbed me before I’d met the pavement, and was helping steady me while Silas lost his mind.

  “Take him back in!” I heard Silas cry. I forced the nauseas darkness from my vision and managed to gasp that I was okay.

  “No, you’re not!” Silas cried, his words twisted into a tight anxious knot. He was fluttering over me like a mother bird whose chick was attempting to jump from the nest too early.

  “I won’t be o-okay, if I have to go back there,” I gasped. I stood up again, panting through painful lungs to try and catch my breath. “Please, Master… I just want to go home.”

  “Only if you stay with me,” Silas said. “I’ll only let you come home if you stay in my room. I’ll send the children away while you recover. Please, love, those are my terms.”

  His terms? Silas didn’t often give terms, you had to do what he said. I decided to pick my battles and I nodded. Silas sighed with relief, and with Nero supporting almost all of my weight, I walked to the black car and we were driven back to Alegria.

  It was a silent ride home. The cars and the people passed by, their expressions neutral and their movements automatic. Nothing had changed in their lives; they went on as normal like the elite robots they were. How I wished for a normal life sometimes, a normal unspectacular life with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

  The car stopped in front of the skyscraper and Nero helped me out. Again, this was done in silence, the only noise being the nervous ones in Silas’s throat when I attempted the marble stairs that would lead us to the front entrance of Alegria.

  “Will you send the children away before I arrive, Silas?” I asked him. We were in the lobby now, the receptionist watching us timidly from his circular desk. Silas had walked ahead to summon the elevator, and he was wringing his hands.

  “The older ones are staying with Garrett, and the younger ones with Ellis and Stellen,” Silas said. I walked into the elevator and Silas pressed the button for his floor. “I wasn’t in the best of states… I didn’t want them to see me so unhinged. I feel badly for poor Jack though; he can’t wait to see you.”

  That was different. Silas had no qualms over letting us see the insanity at full force. But then again, I suppose Silas didn’t really have many places to send us. Now three brothers and a sister could take the children whenever Silas was feeling overwhelmed, and the twins and Ceph would be getting their own floors soon too.

  “Jack has been hounding me to see Elish,” Nero said, finally speaking. “He hates the books I read him; keeps bitching about getting the intelligent books from his bedroom at your place.”

  “You can retrieve them,” I said. “I’ll tell Finn to…” My voice trailed off, about the same time a cold knife pierced my heart.

  The silence that fell once my words died on the air was heavy. Suddenly, my mouth went dry, and a boulder formed and became lodged in my throat.

  He won’t be there. Never again will he be there.

  My sengil…

  Finn was dead.

  I reached out and pressed the button for my floor on the elevator. “Elish… love? What are you doing?” Silas said. He put a hand over mine, but my eyes didn’t meet him, they glanced up at the elevator’s digital screen and I watched it stop on the floor of my apartment.

  The door opened, and I limped out into my hallway.

  Silas tried to grab me. “Elish, Elish, come back. Please, don’t go in there. Baby, you’re too weak.” I ignored him, my heart starting to pound. For reasons I could only equate to insanity and denial, I knew, I knew with all of me that when I opened that door, Finn would be there. He would be there with my tea, asking how my day was.

  I opened the door and walked in into my apartment.

  And I was greeted with nothing but silence. My apartment was empty, the blinds open how we left them, the living room and dining room tidied and clean.

  Meow.

  I looked to the hallway and saw Dave weave his way through my ajar bedroom door. He trotted to me with his tail in the air, but my eyes were on the bedroom.

  Maybe he’s in there. Perhaps he was tired and decided to take a nap.

  “Elish…”

  I ignored Silas behind me and my legs automatically took me to my bedroom. My heart was pounding now, I was covered in a cold sweat and the pain in my chest was a talon squeezing my heart, but I had to see him. I had to confirm to myself that he was alive. That this had been a nightmare, some terrifying dream.

  Oh god, let this just be a dream. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.

  I pushed open the door to my bedroom, and saw the unmade king size bed in the middle of my bedroom.

  But that wasn’t all I saw. As I walked in, I saw the thrown off blanket the morning he got up from bed, leaving the blue bottom sheet bare. There was even… an indent of where his head had rested on the pillow.

  Then I walked to his side of the bed, and my eyes lowered to see a pair of neon green boxer shorts on the floor. They were ones I had taken off of him the night pre
vious.

  The last time we’d been intimate, only four days before.

  No, he can’t be dead.

  “Finn?” I called. I heard Silas choke behind me, but I was already walking to the en-suite bathroom. “Finn?”

  The frozen knife lodged in my chest twisted, snatching the air from my lungs. I steadied myself against the counter top of my bathroom, and began to breathe heavily.

  No. He’s not dead.

  “FINN!” I suddenly screamed, tears sprung to my eyes, and a tightness in my throat made my face twist. “Finn?” The last one came as a desperate choke, a single plea to the universe to return him to me.

  He belongs with me. He doesn’t belong in darkness, he’ll be scared.

  It was my job to protect him.

  I looked up, and my eyes met my own in the bathroom mirror. Staring back at me was a man lost, a man with blond hair that was unbrushed and messy, and deep purple eyes that were looking everywhere, yet hadn’t moved an inch.

  I didn’t recognize this man. He was a stranger to me, an imposter, a stand-in, the real me… I believe he had died three days ago.

  Then my eyes broke my own gaze and looked past me. I saw Silas behind me. He was leaning against the door frame with a hand clasped around his mouth. His shoulders were trembling, his grief-twisted face crimson and his squeezed shut eyes were dripping tears.

  I made it two steps into my bedroom before I dropped to my knees, then I let out a cry that I never wanted to hear again.

  Silas came, he threw his arms around me and held me. I clung to him hard.

  “Oh, Elish,” Silas sobbed. He tightened his hold on me as I cried into him. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  It hurt, the realization that Finn was dead physically hurt me. It wasn’t just the pain from the gunshot, my heart was aching in my chest. I knew what it was, I knew why; it was because my heart, one that Finn had mended with a careful hand, was dying.