by Quil Carter
I dropped my cock and leaned back to try and catch my breath… my brothers and Silas doing the same.
But I wouldn’t even have time to do that.
Swiftly and surely… the shame found me, it found me and it flooded me, horror and embarrassment on its heels.
What the hell had I just done? Oh fuck, what’s wrong with me?
“Let Garrett have a turn love,” I heard Silas whisper through short gasps of air. “We have all night.”
I stared down at my cum-covered hands, now trembling from the panic of what I’d done. I felt nauseas, like I was going to either scream or throw up. What the fuck had I done? He… why was I here? He was going… he was going to take me soon. Silas was going to fuck me… I couldn’t… I can’t…
I jumped to my feet, the panic now making my heart race like it had been injected with needle full of adrenaline. The shame, mixed in with the fear and embarrassment, controlled my movements now, and those movements were telling me I had to run, I had to run. I fucking had to get out of here… I had no control here. Silas… I couldn’t let him…
“Silas?”
“Let him go, love.” I heard him say as I unlocked the door with shaking hands. “I won’t let him ruin my first time with my boys. He’s… he’ll take some time, but don’t worry I’ll–”
I heard nothing more than that, with my pants being held up with my hand, I got the door open and burst out into the hallway. Then, with the party goers looking at me with expressions I couldn’t see with the strobe lights, I ran towards the double doors.
CHAPTER 27
I stayed in my bedroom for the rest of the evening, and when I woke up that morning my own trepidation kept me from emerging and going upstairs for breakfast. Instead I ate a half of a sandwich I’d stored in the mini-fridge and concentrated on my studies.
Whenever I would hear the distant voices of whoever was downstairs my heart would leap up and lodge itself into my throat. My body would freeze and turn to ice with the anticipation of a knock coming, or worse, the jingling keys of King Silas.
Fifteen years old and still a coward scared of his king. But it wasn’t beatings or having things thrown at me that I was afraid of, I knew how to deal with that and had applied my knowledge to reduce the amount of long term trauma being regularly beaten by your master eventually brought; him having sex with me however, I didn’t know.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide down here forever, but I had full intention of riding it out for as long as possible. I had enough food to last me for the rest of the day, and I had an en-suite bathroom to take care of any other needs.
I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to move out on my own. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? I was counting down the days.
It was the evening of February 8th, the day after our birthday, when there was the first light knock on my door. I knew that knock, it was Garrett.
“What?” I said to the door. I was taking a break from my studies to do some research on chimera enhancements. Perish and I had been tweaking the genetic alterations made to enhance eyesight and were trying to come up with a more reliable method of manipulating the genome to reduce the failure rate of said enhancements. It was like unravelling a puzzle so I saved it for when I need a break from my college studies.
“Are you okay?” Garrett asked. I could tell my brother was trying to sound as submissive and meek as possible, the equivalent of a pack animal showing its belly. “I’m worried about you…”
I sighed and turned a page on Perish’s notes. “I’m fine.”
“Why won’t you come upstairs then?”
I paused for a moment, trying to think of something to say that would cease all further questions. “I just don’t want to.” I didn’t really come up with much.
“Can I come in?”
“No. I want to be by myself.”
Garrett sighed. “You know… he’s right–” His words faded before falling off altogether. A silence fell between the two of us for almost a minute, before he mumbled quietly. “Do you even like us?” This was followed by a sniff.
I looked towards the closed door, and I wished Garrett could see the look I was giving him. “What kind of question is that?” I said irritably. You’d think I’d have proven that I liked Garrett just from the audacious acts I did with him last night.
“You just… you act like you hate us. You act like you’d rather have skewers shoved underneath your fingernails than spend time with your family.”
“All this from last night? You certainly–”
“No… for the past fucking… for the past fucking fifteen years almost,” Garrett responded, faint hints of steel in his voice. “Silas is trying to bring us all closer together. Which isn’t only important to Skyfall, since he’s giving us more and more responsibilities every year and we need to be close with each other to be on the same page, but to also bring us closer together as a family. Silas… Elish… you have no idea how much you hurt him.”
My fucking brain exploded at this. And for a moment, as the rage rained down on me like brimstone, I saw red.
“Me hurt him?” I jumped up off of my bed as I yelled this, I saw Hugh out of the corner of my eye run under the bed. “Are you fucking joking?”
I stalked to the door, Garrett’s sniffing now assaulting my ears like fingernails on a chalkboard. “I’m fucking hurting him? How about all the fucking shit he’s done to me?” I shoved the door even though it was still closed. “He’s been torturing me since I was a fucking child, and has steadily been upping his fucking game ever since I became old enough to realize what kind of person he is. Someone who decided to not drink the fucking Kool-Aid.”
“Elish… don’t… don’t talk like that. Just be–”
But I cut him off. I wasn’t done. “If you want to be his fuck slave, go ahead. I have principals and I have integrity and he’s not going to fucking touch me.”
My ears rang from the intensity of my own voice. I was enraged, my entire body was a single pulse, and red was rimming the edges of my eyes. I suddenly felt like a caged animal inside of a pen. I had to get out of here. I had to run, be outside, I couldn’t stay inside of this prison for a moment longer.
I ignored Garrett’s light whimpering and got changed into suitable outside clothes and also a pair of shoes. I didn’t know where I was going to go, or what I was going to do… I just needed to be on the surface for a while, some place I could breathe.
I pushed the dresser back to its spot and then I opened the door.
And froze.
Standing in front of that door, was King Silas, and beside him with his hands clutching himself, was Garrett.
‘Elish… don’t… don’t talk like that. Just be–’… Quiet? Thanks for the half-hearted warning, brother.
And a split second after those thoughts were said in my head, Silas slapped me right across the face. But the moment my head snapped back, he slapped me a second time, then began to rain blow after blow on me as I stumbled backwards into my room.
“You fucking think you’re better than me?” Silas suddenly screamed at me. “You think you have the right to fucking talk about me like that? I MADE YOU!” Silas lunged forward and grabbed my neck with both of his hands. Garrett behind us screamed and I heard him yell for Nero.
His hands locked around my throat and I began gasping for breath. “You got your fucking punishment and you move on! That’s what I taught you!” Silas was hysterical, absolutely hysterically. “You have no right to hate me!”
Even though my brain was bursting with pressure, throbbing and screaming for air, I felt rage at his words. I have no right to hate him? Was he fucking insane?
Silas let go of my neck and I fell to the ground, discomfort shot up my ankle but it was my head and neck that were making me dizzy with pain.
“I have no right?” I said, my voice broken and dry from his hold on me. “What punishment was I atoning for when you killed Cristo in front of me?”
Silas loomed over my f
allen body, his fists locked traps and his teeth clenched and bared in anger. “Cristo deserved it,” he said coldly. “That was his punishment, not yours.”
“Bullshit,” I said snapped. “You let Nero cut him down like a dog in front of my eyes, you sliced out his tongue so he couldn’t say a word to me. You wanted me to see it happen. And I know why: I loved him more than I ever loved you, and you fucking–” Silas raised a fist and punched me in the face, my head snapped back and the back of my skull hit the wall behind me.
“You scream at me that I have no right to hate you…” I lifted my hand to my nose and touched the blood now trickling down my mouth and chin. “You’re insane to look back on the last fifteen years and still wonder.”
Silas glared down at me; he was visibly shaking. Behind him I saw two silhouettes in the doorway, I knew it was Garrett and Nero.
“And you’d do well to look back on the last fifteen years and see every god damn time I tried to improve our relationship… every fucking time I tried to reach out to you and got nothing in return but a turned back and a closed door,” Silas said lowly. “I’ve tried with you. I’ve tried to mend what was broken, but the great, holier-than-thou Elish Dekker will have none of it.”
“My apologies,” I said coldly. I put a hand against the wall and used it to help myself rise. “It seems the permanent mental and emotional damage.” I raised my hands so he could see the cigarette burns and other scars from his abuse. “And physical damage… is inconvenient to my family. I find it so oddly fascinating that the person who has beaten me unconscious and left me for dead is crying about how much I hate him. You’re fucking insane.”
“You want to know why I hit you? Why I hurt you?!” Silas yelled. He grabbed my arm as I walked past him and when I tried to yank it back he pushed me hard. “Because every time I see that disdain in your fucking eyes, that better-than-you attitude, your hatred of spending time with me… it makes me want to hurt you. It makes me want to make you feel how you fucking make me feel every day.”
“Something we can agree on,” I said as I walked past Garrett and Nero and into the living room, my hand was cupped over my nose but blood was spilling through my fingers.
“I – I…” I heard Garrett stammer. “I think if you two sat down and talked about how you hurt the – the other one… you could–”
“Shut up, Garrett,” I, and to my surprise, Silas, yelled at the same time. I quickly made a break for the lower apartment’s door, the elevator was my salvation, I just had to make it to there.
“You’re not allowed out of this damn apartment!” Silas suddenly screamed right when I walked into the hallway. I picked up my speed until I was in the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby.
“FINE!” I heard Silas scream. “FINE! Fuck off then and don’t fucking come back.” I saw him burst through the doors as the elevator door was closing, his face was red, his eyes wild. “Get out and fucking stay out!” And just as the doors closed, I saw him burst into tears and fall to his knees.
This extreme reaction jarred me. I’d expected him to keep screaming and threatening me… not to show genuine despair.
It only proved just how insane Silas was. He must be so used to everyone bowing to him, being afraid of him and letting him get away with everything, that he could no longer conceptualize someone not going along with his delusion.
And I refused to go along with it. I refused to be a god damn slave, abused and mentally tortured then abused some more when it comes to light my hate for him. That was insanity, pure insanity.
I got to the lobby floor, my hand still being held up to my nose, and made my way towards the glass entrance to Alegria. The two thiens guarding the doors turned and gave me mutual shocked looks. But they knew better than to say anything to me about it, so they remained in their silence. Silence was survival when you were working inside of Alegria… and with Silas.
The night was chilly, and as a plume of vapor spilled from my mouth I saw flakes of snow fall around it. My eyes travelled to the sky above me, thick white snow clouds were peeking out between Alegria and the trees and buildings that surrounded it.
I rubbed my nose and sniffed, blood still trickling down. I held my sleeve to it to try and stem the flow and decided to walk towards the Skytech laboratory. I had no intentions of visiting the twins tonight, but I needed a direction to walk in and that was the only one I could think of.
My feet took me down the dark and quiet sidewalk, the same walk that I had made shortly after Ceph was brought home. How many times had I walked this path? I had a feeling that I’d be making this same walk many times throughout my life.
It helped relieve the anxiety that had been taking hold of me in Alegria, the need to just escape. Unfortunately for me, it ended up being an actual escape, not just one for a little fresh air.
I sighed and looked down the deserted street. My mind kept replaying Silas falling to his knees crying. It enraged me, but it also confused me to no end. The things that he said as well.
He says my attitude was why he hurt me? That didn’t make sense at all. He was a fool if it was a mystery to him why I hated him so much. Ask the men he killed, ask the scars on me and the broken teeth. That man was insane and an idiot.
Then my shoulders slumped and the self-hatred came back to me. That horrible voice in my head that hissed at me that it was my fault, that I had driven Silas to hate me.
That I was nothing, and I was Silas’s slave. And soon he’d take me physically, just as he was mentally and emotionally. There was nothing I could do about it, I belonged to him.
He was the fucking king of the world, the bringer of the Armageddon. What was I? Who was I? A fucking genetically engineered monster that didn’t even have real parents.
A lump formed in my throat and a wave of despair took hold of me. All of my anger vanished, as did my hatred for Silas, and I began to feel lower than dirt.
Why did it even matter what I felt towards Silas? I wasn’t even human. I had no rights. Silas was the ruler of the world, an immortal being who would be alive forever. Who was I? I was nothing. I wasn’t even capable of making my own creator like me.
Before I could stop them, tears began to fall down my cheeks. Out of shame, I ran into an alley and sat down beside some trash cans, where I belonged, and drew my knees up to my chest. Then I buried my face into my crossed arms and cried.
I wish I could run away, but how could I escape the king whose claws of influence extended all throughout Skyfall and the greywastes that surrounded it. Most kids, when they wanted to run away from home, once they got a few miles away they were in new territory, with new people who didn’t know who the hell they were. They could defect and escape into the greywastes and start a new life with people who had no idea who they were. These kids could be anyone they wanted to be; they could make up new identities, new pasts. Just become… someone else.
But me? Not only did my purple eyes give me away to everyone who saw me, being the only person on the planet with them and all. But I was the heir of King Silas, the man who ended, and now ruled, the world. How can I escape him?
I’ve heard of some men and women killing their parents after being mistreated, freeing them completely from their abusive lifestyle. I didn’t have that option either, my master, my king, my ruler, my creator, was immortal… and never would I be able to escape him.
My brothers and my sister seemed happy. Sure, Garrett and Nero got mistreated as well, Nero acted out violently many times with Silas and those who governed and watched over him in Cardinalhall and the Skyfall military base, and Garrett was beaten on occasion for being weak… but they never let it poison them like it had poisoned me.
Even Ellis, who was getting pushed to the side more and more with the male chimeras maturing, seemed okay with her relationship with Silas. She buried herself in her military and thien training, she concentrated on becoming as strong as she could. Silas was proud of Ellis because she was smashing all expectations that he’d had
for her. Their relationship was solid.
My siblings all seemed to be okay, or at least dealing with their issues successfully. Why couldn’t I?
Because I couldn’t get over what he did to me. I couldn’t turn a cheek to it. I was more important than that. I was his heir, not just any chimera, the first one, the golden boy… and that knowledge had given me something dangerous.
Dignity.
They were happy being slaves. I wasn’t. Maybe through all of this complexity, it all boiled down to that: I wasn’t happy being his slave.
I wished to be ignorant like my siblings, ignorance was bliss and those three were living in paradise. They didn’t care about what Silas did to them, they saw him as their master and he could do as he will.
That being said though, they didn’t receive near the amount of abuse that I did. Perhaps if they had been left for dead and violated on the floor of the lower living room, they’d feel this same black poison in their hearts.
I wiped my eyes once I was done crying and blinked away the tears, then I looked up, the dark, musty-smelling alleyway surrounding me.
Wait…
My eyes fell on a purple tin resting only a few inches away from my feet.
A purple tin with red and blue swirls, about the size of a cigarette pack.
I stared at it for a few moments perplexed, then jumped to my feet and looked around wildly.
“Hello?” I called. The alleyway was clear on both sides, only trash cans and dumpsters pushed up against crumbling brick could be seen. I even looked up to see if I could spot a ladder or a fire escape, but there was nothing. The mysterious person was gone.
I leaned down and picked up the tin. Yes, it was the same one that I’d seen during that fight with Silas. So it was no coincidence… that tin had been planted there deliberately for me to find.
But by who? Someone was following me. Someone was wanting to tell me something… or send me some sort of message.
I opened the tin and saw it stuffed with Kleenex again. I removed the Kleenex, but to my surprise, there was a white powder resting at the bottom of it.
