by Quil Carter
Tiberius had also returned to school, but earlier in the week. Tiberius, unlike Todd, seemed to have taken our threats seriously, or Nero’s anyway. When I walked into our shared English class he actually nodded towards me in some manly ritual of recognition. I was shocked by this display so I nodded back, secretly marvelling at my brute brother’s persuasive skills. My brother was becoming quite a force to be reckoned with.
After the class was done I rose and exited first. I walked towards the cafeteria with my lunch pack in hand. The cafeteria food had long lost its charm, and the sengils were more than happy to make a lunch for me that was a little bit more edible.
I met up with Sacario and the two of us sat in our usual spot. He had already laid out his sengil-packed lunch and was staring at it with shining grey eyes. I had the feeling he was once again in disbelief over his change of lifestyle.
“It’s just steak and cheese, Sacario. It’s not like they packed you Kobe beef,” I said with a smirk. I noticed that the sengils had also packed Sacario a bag of Skittles. I hadn’t told them to do that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d already made friends with them. Sacario made friends with everyone.
“I don’t know what Kobe beef is, all I know is I want it in a sandwich now,” Sacario said. He picked up his sandwich and took a huge bite of it. I stared at him as he chewed. I’d been teaching him proper table manners and he knew he’d get his knee kicked if he talked to me with his mouth full. Silas might’ve left, but proper eating etiquette hadn’t left with him.
“I’ve gained a good five pounds already, I think,” Sacario said after he’d swallowed his food. “My clothing is starting to actually fit and I’m almost big enough to use one of the actual belt loops, instead of having to create my own.” My friend lifted up his dark green button-down to show me where he’d made a hole for the belt. He was quite skinny, but most Morosians were.
“That’s real food for you,” I said. But then, being a prince, I felt myself inclined to defend the Morosian diet. “But at least you guys have tact to eat. Just think of the greywastes, they just eat each other.” I bit into my sandwich, but as Sacario laughed at me, I realized this was arian steak.
“People they know,” I said flatly. I looked at my sandwich, caramelized onions mixed in with thin strips of good arian meat. Arian was rarely called human meat. It was kind of like how cow was called beef, except arian was a common term for human since we started having subhumans roaming around the wastes. I’m sure Silas would think of a proper name for it someday.
“I want to go to the greywastes one day,” Sacario said with a gleam in his eyes. “My biggest dream is to go to a grocery store that’s never been scavenged, get a grocery cart, and just fill it with everything I’ve seen on TV. Yeah, so it might be all stale and weird-tasting, but it’ll be filly minion compared to the crap I got in Moros.”
Filly minion?
Oh filet mignon. Yet another Sacarioism.
We continued with our inane lunch conversation then packed up our bags to walk around outside for a bit. It was a beautiful warm day and I could use a puff or two of Sacario’s pipe. I’d been sneaking tokes of weed during break and lunch, it really had been helping me get through my classes. I also wanted to walk by the office and ask if they’d heard anything from Ryan. I was starting to worry that he’d quit or something. If he did, I’d order him back to work. I was a prince and that was in my power.
Or perhaps I should just go to his house and confront him. If he’d regretted what he’d done…
No, there was no way he could regret it.
“Look at that, the prince and the pauper.”
My head turned towards the whispered voice, a whisper that was so quiet I wouldn’t have been able to hear it if we were inside of the school. Thankfully though, we’d just exited into the back field of Skyland High and I could hear quite well.
And it was none other than Mario, Todd’s boyfriend, and beside him, the bandaged big-mouthed idiot himself.
They both looked startled that I’d actually heard them. Maybe the chimera enhancements weren’t common knowledge. Either way, they were both fucking busted.
Amusingly, even though Todd looked terrified, Mario didn’t seem to care, which led me to believe that he may not know where Todd’s injuries had come from. That would make sense, if something had been happening between Ryan and Todd, obviously the naïve boyfriend wasn’t going to know. I bet that shitsnake had made up some stupid fucking story to explain his wounds.
Which meant Mario hadn’t learned to be afraid of me yet.
Awesome.
“Do you want me to make you look like your slut of a boyfriend, Mario?” I said coolly. The two of them were leaning against the metal bleachers, behind them were several groups of school kids milling around and pretending they couldn’t hear our exchange. There were no teachers outside though, but even if there was it would mean nothing to me.
“You can leave my boyfriend alone from now on,” Mario replied back. “I hope Silas whips you in front of a roaring crowd when he finds out what you did to his best officer’s son.”
Oh, so he did know what I did to Todd? I kind of liked that better.
Mario’s eyes flared with anger when this made me laugh. “Oh, Mario. I didn’t know you had a sense of humour,” I said with a smile. Fuelled by the fear on Todd’s face and the audacious anger on Mario’s, I walked up to him and tried to tickle underneath his chin. Mario recoiled from this and jerked his head away. “If anything, Silas will be sending your little whore to Stadium for daring to say such garbage to me.”
Mario’s lips pursed from my words. “Yeah, great high school experience when you have King Silas and your retarded hulk brother defending you.”
“Mario, enough!” Todd suddenly snapped. He grabbed his boyfriend’s shoulder and wrenched it back. “He might be easy to take down but he has his entire fucking family behind him. I told you to fucking shut up about it.”
Mario shoved him away. He had real undiluted anger in his eyes. I think his hatred of me went further than the altercation between me and Todd, and I was about to be proven right. “He fucking hurt you,” Mario turned and snarled at him, his fists clenched enough to start a tremble. I found it amusing he was pissed at me hurting his little cocksucker, and yet he looked close to slapping Todd across the face. “You saw the cowardly prick as I did. He’s fucking weak without his family and nothing but a bully. They’re all bullies, just like the fucking king!” Mario’s face was beginning to turn as red as his hair, the ginger fuck was really getting worked up. “I’m sick of it. It’s one thing if he’s being an asshole to us while high up in Alegria… but he’s in our fucking world now. He’s on our turf, and I’m sick and tired of that family taking whatever he wants from us.”
I snorted. “I’m on your turf?” I laughed. Sacario and I exchanged amused looks. “I’m taking what I want from you?” I couldn’t contain the guileful laughter rolling from my lips. “Oh, you foolish, dumb little man. All of this is mine, don’t you see? And everything that is yours belongs to me too.” I looked around this bright sunny day, at the faded blue sky, the grey sun, the birds I could hear chirping. “This world belongs to me, boy.”
Mario was one with rage, and by now a crowd had started to gather around us. Nothing phenomenal, just a dozen or two students trickling in to see the exchange for themselves. “I don’t belong to you, and neither does my boyfriend,” he said through clenched teeth.
“And what about Ryan? Can I keep him? I had a wonderful time with him on Saturday,” I said, keeping my wan smile. I didn’t get any reaction from this, which made me chuckle. “I had him over for a study session… however that wasn’t all we ended up studying.” I was treading dangerous ground and I should be keeping my mouth shut, but my lips and my tongue had been lubricated by Mario’s rage. I didn’t just want to win this fight, I wanted to destroy both Todd and Mario.
Oh did I ever feel alive in this moment.
And when I saw Todd�
�s eyes widen, just as Mario’s jaw twitched from the strength of his clenched teeth, I even felt a twinge lower down. Some odd sexual thrill that only pushed me to go further.
I couldn’t stop now, even if I wanted to.
My eyes shot to Todd, who had been quiet during this exchange. I brightened my smile and took a step towards him. “Does Mario know about your personal relationship with the professor?” I asked innocently.
Yes, I really had only faint theories about what had been going on between Ryan and Todd. I wanted to believe that it was only Todd pursuing the professor, because I didn’t want to think such things about Ryan… but at least if they were true, I had a pocket full of ammunition.
“I’d shut my damn mouth,” Todd said in a harsh whisper, a dangerous one.
Well, dangerous to him.
“He was doing a good job shutting it for me the last time he was over.” I smirked. “If you know what I mean.”
It looked like Todd did know what I meant, because he stalked right up to me and wound back his fist.
But to my delight, the chimera instincts just starting to awaken inside of me, kicked into gear. I ducked the blow, then punched Todd in the gut, making him let out an oof, followed by a drop to his knees.
However, before I even had a chance to get up, Mario was on me. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and wrenched my head up, then delivered a quick hit to my jaw, right below my ear. Mario dropped me after, but as I jumped to my feet I saw Sacario’s fist also flying, and this blow did knock the asshole onto his ass. He fell to the ground beside Todd, and Sacario and I towered over them.
“Fight! We got a fight, baby!” I didn’t recognize the voice, but his enthusiasm was like adrenaline through my veins. They wanted a fight, did they? Well, they’d get a fucking fight.
“Get up,” I snarled. I kicked Mario in the side then walked a circle around the two of them. “Get up and act like a fucking man!”
Todd glared up at me, fury staining his face and bringing a beast-like shine to his eyes. The man looked half-crazed, and his boyfriend certainly didn’t look any better.
I loved this! “Get up!” I raised my voice. I quickly glanced around and saw the crowd around us growing. They were coming in all directions and slowly closing in on us, like black oil consuming a pristine ocean.
Todd and Mario both rose to their feet. It was amusing how similar their facial expressions and stances were. They were standing like twins, their heads lowered, their shoulders tight, and both clenching fists that seemed made to break jaws.
Sacario chuckled beside me. “I missed this. We don’t get this where I come from,” he said bemused. “I love you, Elish. You’re the best.” He looked to me and grinned, and when I looked back at him, I rolled my eyes.
That single action would be a mistake that would haunt me for many years after. Because the moment I took my eyes off of Todd and Mario, they took advantage of it.
I didn’t see the knife until it flashed in the sunlight. I looked to my right and shouted at Sacario to get back, but just as the words left my lips, the knife propelled forward, ripped itself through Sacario’s green shirt, and embedded itself into his stomach.
Everything suddenly became quiet.
Everything… but me.
“NO!” I screamed. I pushed Mario away from Sacario, a knife coated in red blood going with him, and turned to my friend.
Sacario had a blank and confused look on his face. He looked at me, then to his stomach which was being held with a trembling hand. There was… there was blood dripping between his fingers, and it was coming fast.
Sacario held up his hand, and his eyes grew large when he saw the amount of blood that was pouring from the wound. “Elish?” he whimpered.
There was movement, my head turned and I saw Mario and Todd push through the crowd to run away. “Restrain them!” I snarled. I dug through my backpack and pulled out my phone. I could see a handful of kids running towards the entrance, but I couldn’t count on them getting a teacher, and I didn’t need a fucking teacher anyway.
While the atmosphere around me exploded in panic, I pressed speed dial on Dr. Liam’s remote phone and handed it to the first person I saw. “Tell him a friend of Elish has been stabbed,” I said to her. I couldn’t waste my time talking to Liam, I had to help Sacario.
I ripped off my shirt off and pressed it against Sacario’s stomach. My friend was on his knees now, heaving breaths ripping from his chest. “You can’t panic,” I said to him. I looked up and felt fear when I realized he was looking grey. “Sacario, calm down. It’s not that bad.” I didn’t know if it was that bad, all I knew was that my damn shirt was becoming saturated in blood. He was bleeding too much. Fuck, this was too much blood.
Sacario’s blood-slicked hand grasped mine, and he clenched it as I put pressure against the wound. His breathing was rapid, short desperate puffs that reminded me of the ones I’d had before anxiety attacks. He wasn’t calming down and I needed him to, the more he panicked, the more blood he would lose. I couldn’t fucking lose my first friend… Oh fuck, what the hell did I let happen?
I can’t let Sacario die.
“Sic… look at me.” I put a hand on his prickly chin and lifted it.
In the split second before our eyes met, I reached inside and found myself. I stripped my mind of my own panic and worry, and instead adopted an air of control.
I had to be strong for him, even if inside I was screaming.
Sacario looked at me, his eyes pleading.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said to him softly. I stroked his hair back, his greying forehead clammy, and forced a smile. “Trust me.”
Beside me someone knelt down, and as I turned to her, the audio of my surroundings, something I hadn’t even realized my brain had blocked out, came back with vengeance.
Todd and Mario screaming and demanding to be let go, people shouting and talking in scared tones. It was chaos around me as much as it was chaos inside.
“They’re on their way,” the woman who I’d given the remote phone to said. She put the phone into my bag and closed it. “The hospital is only a block from here. We’ll be hearing sirens…” Her voice trailed and she tilted her head. I adjusted my hearing, the noise of the crowd overloading my enhancement, and heard the faint wail of an ambulance siren. Hearing that sound, that confirmation that help was coming, made me able to breathe again.
Sacario will be fine. “See? They’re coming,” I said to him. Sacario, his hand trembling over top of mine, nodded. It seemed like he was trying to speak, but his teeth were clenched, all that came out was a scared whine.
“It’s okay,” I said again. I didn’t know what was happening inside of me, but seeing my funny, carefree friend this scared was doing things to my insides that I hadn’t expected, nor could I explain. It was unjust that someone like him was going through this. Unlike many people in my life, Sacario had never hurt anyone; he was a good person whose life goal was to make me laugh. This man was my friend, my first real friend, and because of Todd and Mario… he might die.
Sacario might die.
Just like… Cristo.
“Fucking let us go!”
But unlike Cristo… I was no longer helpless.
Those two were going to fucking pay.
“Get back! Come on now, make room!” I felt so much relief when I heard the commanding adult voices I thought I was going to collapse. Instead, I remembered myself again and gave Sacario a confident smile.
I looked up and saw two men and a woman dressed in hospital scrubs, a paramedic, and two thiens holding a stretcher. I gave one last smile to Sacario and stepped out of the way to let them do their work.
But as soon as they gathered around Sacario, medical supplies in hand, that smile faded. With the knowledge that I’d done all I could for Sacario, the fear that was reigning supreme inside of me… was swiftly replaced with rage.
However, this rage wasn’t a kind of rage that I’d expected. I was bracing myself for a Nero-
like meltdown, for me to charge at Mario and Todd with fists swinging and a manic scream on my lips, a willing puppet to that uncontrollable fury that had you seeing red.
I was still full of rage… but my physical body was refusing me to act in the typical ways that someone in my shoes would act. Instead I was overwhelmed with a strange calmness, a cold tranquility that confused yet fascinated me.
I swept the crowd, now packed tightly together with shared looks of terror and fear, and looked past them to three burly men and a normal-sized one, restraining Mario and Todd.
The men were none other than Tiberius and several of his friends.
“Prince Elish, are you coming with us?” a man asked. I turned and saw he was the only emergency responder remaining, the others were jogging with Sacario on the stretcher.
“I’ll follow in my own car,” I said to him. “I’ll be there shortly.”
The man nodded, quickly bowed, and turned to catch up with the others.
That was it then. Sacario was in the hands of the best doctors in the world.
Which was good, because I had business to take care of.
I leaned down and picked up the knife that Sacario had been stabbed with. There were gasps and nervous noises in the crowd, and the few people who were standing in between me, and Mario and Todd, jumped back as soon as I’d turned around.
“Elish!” I didn’t look in the direction of the voice. It was a teacher, I suspected it was Professor Cavana. “Give me the knife, Elish.”
“I suggest you stay back, Professor,” I said, my voice so casual even I was surprised by it. “It would be unwise to interfere with a punishment.”
“Elish… even Silas has trials before Stadium. Please, give me the knife.”
