by Quil Carter
“I wish they’d add more soundproofing,” Finn said with a yawn. He was lying in bed half-asleep and fading fast. I wanted to go to Julian at one, which was only an hour away; Finn would have all three infants at six in the morning so he was sleeping early. “Nero stomps around like a tap-dancing horse.”
“He’ll be gone soon,” I said. “I believe he’s heading to Cardinalhall tomorrow too.” Finn and I shared a smile at this. “Once the children…” My words were cut off when my remote phone rang.
I glanced at the clock. It was rather late, wasn’t it? But when I picked up the phone and checked the call display, I saw that it was Perish.
Tomorrow I was supposed to spend time in the lab, perhaps he needed to cancel. “Hello?” I said when I’d accepted the call.
“You need to get here now.”
My movements paused and my eyes became wide. That was Perish’s voice… the old Perish.
It was happening again… he’d gotten himself back. “What’s going on? What am I supposed to fix?”
“Come the laboratory now. We’re going to Kreig,” he said, his tone the gravelly rasp that I’d only ever heard on him.
“N-now?” I stammered. I rose to my feet and made eye contact with Finn. “It’s past midnight…”
“Elish, come to the lab–”
Suddenly there was a light knock on my door – the bottom fell out of me.
“It’s too late,” Perish whispered. “It’s too late… it’s too late… it’s–” His voice began to change, the rasp left it, the grainy sands that seemed to tumble around his vocal cords sifted away. “It’s too…” Another knock, and Perish fell to silence.
Then the higher octave tones of the Perish I knew today, said nervously to me: “Tomorrow? Not tonight… not tonight…but tomorrow. It’s too late for you now. We tried. Okay, good night, bye bye.”
There was a click… then silence.
And all I could do was stare at the door, wondering just what the hell had happened. But rapidly, my mind snapped back into place, and the first thing it ordered me to do was open the door.
Because I knew that knock.
Sure enough, I was right, and it was only when I saw Silas standing in front of me with a bottle of Jack Daniels, did the fear of King Silas being in front of me outweigh the heavy confusion of Perish’s phone call.
“It took you long enough, love,” Silas said with a strangely coy smile. “Am I interrupting something?” He walked past me, the bottle of Jack going to his lips. I looked over Silas’s shoulder towards my terrified sengil, and immediately began sifting through all of my knowledge of King Silas to try and figure out a way I could get Finn out of this.
Nothing good has ever happened during these late night visits, not when he’s been drinking.
Silas put his hands down onto the bed and leaned forward towards Finn. “Do you think I wouldn’t notice the infatuation you’ve had today with my first born. Did you make a man out of him last night, love?”
I inhaled sharply, the air inside of my lungs burning me. He just had to do this, didn’t he? Was I just a target for him when he was bored? “I did not,” I said coldly. “Is there something you need, Master?”
Silas stood back up, and as his eyes dug into me, he put the bottle of Jack to his lips and another swig went down his throat. “You haven’t yet?” he said when the bottle broke his lips. A smirk appeared, one heavy with derision. “You really are picky, aren’t you? I bring you a perfect pure boy barely fifteen and you let him blow in the wind?”
“It’s not something that interests me often,” I said, my voice frost. “When the time is right, it’ll be done.”
“It’ll be done…” Silas murmured. He slammed the bottle down onto my night stand, then to my disdain, he crawled onto the bed towards my cowering sengil. “You sleep next to him though. Don’t you, Finneus?”
Finn stared at him, scrunched up and terrorized like a mouse in front of a cat. He was sitting up in bed now, nothing on him but purple boxers. “I – I do,” he said meekly, his gaze suddenly shifting away from Silas, but like they were magnets, Finn’s eyes kept flickering back. “I’m honoured that he lets me.”
“Indeed, I bet you are,” Silas said quietly back. He reached out a hand and brushed one of Finn’s spiral curls away from his face. “And you wait patiently for him? At your age it must be maddening not to have some release. Those hormones just coursing through you.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “How long since you’ve given yourself some relief, love?”
Lie, Finn. Fucking lie, Finn.
No.
I sighed internally from defeat. Don’t lie.
He’ll know. He always knows.
And Finn knew this too.
“Last night.”
Silas’s lips pulled back from the cigarette now in his mouth. “Really?” he whispered. His fingers raised and he pinched the cigarette to make an ember. “Tell me all about it.” Then that same hand slipped down the covers and disappeared.
I couldn’t watch this anymore. “Silas,” I said. I walked over to him and his head turned towards me. “Can I call Nero or Garrett for you? Or Kirrel…” I took in a deep breath, and swallowed what little pride I had. “Master… you’re scaring him.”
“I don’t give a shit, I own him.” Silas grabbed Finn’s chin and turned him towards his face. “Am I scaring you, little bird?” he said through a mouthful of smoke.
“Silas…” I grabbed his shoulder and pulled it back. “Stop.”
Silas wrenched his shoulder back and gave me a look of cold steel. “Touch me again, Elias, and your new sengil will be cleaning the blood off of the ceiling.” He turned back to Finn. “Take your boxers off and get out from those blankets.” He grabbed the bottle of whisky. “Tell me just what you did last night.”
My mind was reeling, my fucking body burning like molten lava had been dropped down from the sky. This was my worst nightmare coming true again, but instead of Silas forcing himself onto me… he was going to do it to my sengil. My sengil who had been just like me only several weeks ago.
Finn, his shoulders shaking, pushed the covers off of him, his purple boxers going with it. He sat on the bottom sheet with his head cowered, and his long, willowy limbs tucked close to his body.
“He wants to kill me right now. Do you know that, love?” Silas suddenly said. His back was to me but I saw his hands raise; he was removing Finn’s shirt, the cigarette smouldering between his fingers. “I can feel the hatred radiating off of him, it’s an aura around him. Such a cold one too. You know what though?” As the anger ate me alive, Silas slid his shirt off and it fell to the floor. His pants were already unbuttoned. “He won’t do shit. Because he knows if he does… I’ll have to dominate my little prince.”
Silas leaned in and cupped Finn’s genitals with his hand. “And the best way to do that… is to take someone he loves.”
My lip peeled back over my clenched teeth. It was causing me physical pain not to scream, not to charge him and throw him out the damn window.
But I couldn’t. I could only watch. Because Silas was right.
He would kill him.
Once again I was helpless. Fifteen years old, taller than him, stronger than him, and here I remained helpless as he forces himself on my sengil. Just like he did to me, Silas was adding another virgin notch to his bedpost. That’s all we were to him.
Why couldn’t he just fuck me again, instead of Finn?
My eyes suddenly focused as that thought snatched me out of my living nightmare. I looked to Finn, now being lewdly groped by Silas. The king’s pants were off; he was naked in front of him.
If I could do this right… it would work.
I was made to be his whore anyway. Every male chimera would eventually be his, and we would carry that scar with us until our deaths.
I removed my clothing, but it felt more like I was taking off my armour. I hated how vulnerable he made me feel; I hated how every time I found
myself crawling out of these deep pits of depression… he was always there to step on my fingers.
“Silas,” I said quietly to him. His head turned to me and I grabbed it, then pushed my lips to his.
There was no hesitation, no surprise recoil or shocked gasp, his lips accepted me fully and his hand wrapped around my neck to pull me to him.
“Come around, have we, Elias?” he whispered. Internally I screamed when he grabbed me between the legs, but I hid it on my face. I instead nodded, and opened my mouth to accept his tongue.
When I opened one eye, I saw that the space that Finn had occupied had already become vacant. The last I saw of him was a slight movement coming from the closet door. Finn was safe at least, and if I could distract Silas properly… he would stay safe.
This was my life.
CHAPTER 37
I don’t think I’d ever needed him more than I did tonight. My body was aching, it was difficult for me to walk, but the hurt I was feeling the strongest was internally.
Skyfall seemed shrouded in a different kind of darkness tonight, not just from the moonless night, but a darkness that coated the city in a black film, making all things around me monotone and dull. It weighed on me as I made my way to Julian’s house, making my heart heavy and my shoulders slump.
Here I was, again, walking down a dark, deserted street. Nothing had changed, and I was a fool if I thought that anything would change.
The frustration that this brought was immediate, but because there was little I could do, I shoved it down with the rest of my negative feelings. The space where I stuffed these emotions was filling however, it was like a grain sack packed to bursting that would one day explode everywhere.
It was getting harder to let him do this to me. But if I rebelled it would only mean another beat down by him, another mouth of shattered teeth and broken spirits.
At least I could escape for the day tomorrow. And perhaps distract myself with figuring out what the hell was wrong with Perish.
A day in the Kreig lab, deep in the greywastes? Sure, keep me there for a month and I would be happy. Though I would be bringing Finn with me.
My boot hit something that bounced across the sidewalk. I glanced up to see what I had hit, my mind everywhere but where I was walking, and smiled faintly when I saw I’d kicked a rather familiar purple tin.
“Oh, what could this be?” I said. I couldn’t hold back the smile as I picked it up off of the ground. I certainly was lucky. “Something from my secret admirer?” I opened up the tin, its small hinges making a squeaking sound, and peered into it.
There was a small slip of paper. Of course the first thing my self-hating mind assumed was that it would say something along the lines of ‘Fuck off I never want to see you again.’
But it didn’t. I opened up the slip of paper and read out loud what it said.
“Would you like to go on a date?”
The smile turned coy, and I was embarrassed to find myself flushing. “Yes,” I said to the darkness. I looked around to see if I could spot him, but the yellow streetlight above me made it so my night vision wouldn’t kick in. I could see no better than a normal arian. “I would love to, my mysterious admirer.”
I heard the sound of boots slamming onto concrete. He must’ve been hanging out on top of one of the awnings. Was that how he’d followed me before I met him?
I smiled when I saw Julian. He looked beautiful this evening. But didn’t he always? Julian had his dark brown hair brushed back, only allowing several strands to fall over his navy eyes, it was freshly washed, smelling of perfume, and the patch of facial hair at the bottom of his chin had been recently shaved.
And it appeared he was dressed for a date as well. Julian walked towards me with polished black shoes on his feet, black trousers with a crease in the legs being held up with a red belt, and a matching red dress shirt underneath a leather vest.
I had to laugh. “Here I brought you some money, but it appears you’re quite well off.”
Julian said nothing, he only leaned into me, at the same time sliding a hand behind my neck, and pulled me in for a kiss.
But I pulled away. “We… we can’t in public,” I whispered looking around nervously. I knew Silas was asleep but there were cameras all over Skyland, and because we were on the same road as Alegria, more thiens per square block than anywhere else.
“No one’s around,” Julian murmured, and his lips met mine a second time. “I missed you yesterday. I need to make up for it.”
I indulged him, even though it was making my heart knock around in my chest. There was little I loved doing more than kissing him; I even loved it more than the other things we’d been recently doing in between the sheets.
“What’s wrong?” Julian asked when our kiss broke.
How did he know? I gave him a puzzled look. “How…?”
“I know you…” Julian’s smile faded. He pulled me into the alleyway adjacent to us and into both darkness and privacy. “Did something happen?”
I let out a breath through my nose. “Didn’t you have a date for us?”
It looked for a moment that he wouldn’t let me get away with dodging his enquiry, but after a moment I think he understood that what had just happened was the last thing I wanted to talk about. So Julian’s smile returned, and without a word, he took my hand and began leading me towards his apartment in the abandoned skyscraper.
“I was doing some exploring,” Julian said as he pulled me along. The looming and ominous skyscraper, over twenty-storey’s tall, towered above us. I sensed a great deal of loneliness from that tall building, as silly as it sounds, it was surrounded by bright structures, alive and full of life, whereas it remained abandoned and forgotten, maintained so it would not fall to ruin, but void of any life besides rodents and insects.
I think when I’m older, I might fix it up and live on the top floor.
“All of the floors are still intact, you can still see the restorations that the Skyfall workers put into it. I didn’t even know the abandoned buildings were fixed up,” he said. We began walking up the stone steps, gouges and chunks taken out of them and also out of the grey pillars that held up the ceiling of the covered entrance. There were still marks of war on this building. Silas had erased as much of the war as he could for his own personal reasons, but if you looked hard enough you could still see the scars.
“The buildings decay here quicker than the greywastes,” I explained. “The sestic radiation preserves things and Skyfall is completely clear of it.” I followed him through the hole in the lower window and we started towards the stairs. “Since Silas wants to save as much as he can… he has workers check on the buildings and fix any deterioration they see.”
“I walked past this building a lot during my nighttime walks,” Julian said. We stepped onto the stairs and he began leading me up. The stairwell smelled of a musty odor and was damp, but funny enough, that smell made me happy now, because it always meant I was only minutes away from seeing Julian. “I saw them restoring it a few months before I settled in. So I’m free for a while at least.” He laughed lightly. “I hope you’re in shape, prince. We have quite a few flights to go.”
I eyed him suspiciously. “What do you have planned?”
Julian looked over his shoulder and gave me a grin. He said nothing however, he only tugged on my hand and pulled me along.
However, even with the warning, it was Julian red-faced and gasping for breath by the time we hit the twenty-second floor. I waited for him, half a flight ahead, with a smirk on my face.
“Oh, shut up. I’m not genetically engineered!” Julian said through his wheezing. He leaned against the wall, chipped and curled blue paint coming off on his shirt upon impact, and wiped his hand down his face. “I did this a lot slower when I came up here… you need to restore that elevator for me.”
I laughed and took his sweaty hand when he approached. “It’ll be easier on the way down. I’m assuming this date is taking place on the roof?”
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Julian nodded and managed a smile through his gasping. “Maybe,” he said shyly. He took in a couple deep breaths before leading me up the last set of stairs, a metal door at the top of it. I let him walk ahead and he pushed it open, then led me out into the warm summer night.
The love that filled me when I saw the modest little picnic he’d set up for us, was one that I had never felt before. It was a new and exciting emotion for me to feel, and one so foreign my mind didn’t know how to react.
I’d never… ever… been treated like this.
And I never knew just how much I needed it until I met this man.
“It’s not much…” I heard Julian say beside me. In front of us was a blanket on the ground and two pillows, and in the middle of that blanket was a wicker basket, and two lit white candles, and even a small bouquet of flowers. “But… I just wanted to do something special for you.”
“You… did this for me?” I asked. Over twenty flights up and this was what made me out of breath?
He laughed and pulled me to the blanket. “The heir of Skyfall and he’s surprised at this pathetic attempt at a date? You’re something else.” We both sat down together, but as soon as he was sitting I pulled him onto my lap and wrapped my arms around him.
“I needed this tonight,” I said. “Thank you.”
Julian pulled the basket towards him and opened it up. “I thought since you missed yesterday that you might. I didn’t really want to be right.” He brought out a bottle of white wine and two glasses, then a Ziploc bag full of assorted cookies.
“Yesterday was fine actually,” I said honestly. “I ended up becoming busy and tired myself out. I didn’t wake up like I usually do. Tonight though… tonight was horrible.” I took a glass from him and held it out for some wine. I needed wine.
The concerned face that I’d come to recognize, came back to Julian’s face. “You fell asleep? But… you barely sleep.” His heartbeat picked up, which made me a bit baffled. I expected him to drill me about what happened tonight, not get jumpy over why I fell asleep.
Unless this damn boy was psychic or something. I mean… I had been doing depraved things with my sengil, and Julian had made it abundantly clear that he was not happy with Finn. Or what I would eventually be doing with Finn.
