by Quil Carter
The next thing I knew Nero was dragging me towards the door, Keela in front of him calling for our driver to come to the front of Alegria. I couldn’t think properly, I was angry, unworldly angry for what Finn had done to Julian, but there was also a new anger surging forth… this one attached to confusion and frustration. Because I had no idea what the hell was happening, and why my sengil, the deceptive little shit who’d gotten my boyfriend raped, was now in the hospital… apparently after getting jumped.
“The hospital… they scanned his chip,” Nero explained when we were in the black car heading towards Lexington Hospital, the hospital for the elites and the one that Finn was apparently being treated in. “They say two construction workers found him beaten to shit and… and left to die.” Nero sniffed, his arm was around Keela now, comforting the sengil. “Silas… Silas is in his room with the kids. I was just about to get him when you came up the stairs.”
“When was he brought in?” I asked. My mind was racing, yet staying perfectly still. I was on a treadmill and everyone kept pressing buttons, making it go faster, slower, incline, decline… and I was at their mercy, for all I could do was run, run, run.
What was going on? What the fuck had happened while I was gone?
Finn… he must’ve set this up. Or did the greywasters turn on him? Either way, I’m going to kill him for doing this to Julian. I will unplug that little bastard for hurting my boyfriend.
“I’m not sure, but he just got out of surgery and that’s when they scanned his chip… so maybe a couple hours ago?” Nero said. “Keela said he’d been going out more recently, a few times he volunteered to take Ceph out to the park.” Nero’s teeth locked, just as my own jaw tightened. So he had been going out while I was at work. He, of course, never mentioned such things to me. How long had he been stalking Julian? “I’m going to find those fucking people who jumped him… you and I’ll do it together. We’ll fucking kill them.”
So much anger in his voice, my brother hated with a passion any man who picked on those weaker than him. Nero might be a psychopath, a cruel human being who thrived off of causing pain, but he wasn’t a bully. At least not anymore. He gave his victims the opportunity to fight back, and he never picked on those who were helpless.
The car pulled in front of the hospital and the three of us got out. I looked ahead at the private entrance to the building, and saw a doctor waiting for me.
The doctor held out his hand as he approached me. I shook it quickly and looked inside the building. “Is he awake?” That was all I cared about in that moment. He needed to be conscious right now, because I was going to make that little yellow canary sing.
“Yes, he is,” the doctor said. “He’s on the second floor, in a private room. Room 2.” The doctor paused, I looked over at him and saw hesitation on his face.
“I don’t think he’ll want to be the one to tell you… I’m sorry Prince Elish, but the men who jumped Finn… they violated him as well.”
I stopped, the anger and confusion continuously fighting for dominance in my head. Behind me Nero swore and Keela cried No! but my eyes were on the doctor.
What the hell was going on?
“That will be all, thank you,” I said hastily and continued to walk ahead. I spotted the nearest elevator and quickened my pace, tunnel vision making nothing else matter but getting to that bedroom.
Behind me a remote phone rang. I heard Nero pick it up as I pressed the button for the elevator. My mind darkened further when Nero greeted Silas. All of this could be traced back to him; he was the puppet master, and I the marionette. And oh was I fucking tired of him yanking me around.
“O-okay,” Nero said. “I’ll just–” He didn’t finish his sentence. “Hung up on me. Asshole.”
The elevator doors opened, but Nero put a hand on my shoulder. “Silas wants me and Keela home now. I don’t think he knows you’re with me.”
“Good,” I said. “Go distract him. I have to be with my sengil right now.”
Nero nodded, but his mouth pursed to the side like he was unsure of my deadpan attitude. Eventually his need to follow Silas’s orders overrode whatever uncertainties were floating around in his mind, and he turned with Keela and left.
I got into the elevator, and pressed the button for the second floor. The door closed, and the elevator lurched and began rising.
My fists were clenched, and my body so consumed with heat I thought flames were going to shoot out the moment I opened them. I was beyond seething; the anger had taken control of my body and it wasn’t even leaving me the ability to breathe properly.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. I was greeted by a nurses’ station in the center of a large room, with patients on their beds making a half-circle around them. There was a hallway continuing through the station, where I believe the private rooms were.
Without speaking, I walked through the room, murmuring voices whispering my presence to each other, but none dared speak to me.
I saw the second room as I passed through the empty beige hall, and heard inside voices.
One of them being Finn.
The second… it took me a moment, but I realized it was the headmaster of Autumnhome, the estate the sengils were raised in.
Just hearing his voice… I was exhaling smoke by the time I pushed the door open.
Finn jumped at the door swinging violently. The boy was lying in the hospital bed with a blue blanket drawn to his waist. Like I’d expected, he was beaten black and blue, almost as bad as Julian had been beaten. They even shared a bloodied nose and split lip, though Finn also had a ring of black around his left eye.
There were scratches on his hands too, defensive wounds.
I’ll put a few more fucking wounds on him.
“Get out,” I said to Headmaster Harris. The old man, his bald head hidden under a pot pie hat, looked at me bewildered.
“Master Elish…”
“Now!” I snapped. Finn sucked in a whimpering breath, one that I could hear shake his lungs.
Headmaster Harris gawked at me for a moment longer, then he nodded his head and walked out the door.
When it shut, I turned to Finn, a haze of red framing my eyes and slowly closing in. “What did you do to him?” I said in a cold whisper. “What the fuck did you do to Julian?” I slammed my hands down on the bed. “What did you do?”
Finn stared back, his eyes as wide as an owl and his face drained of colour. He was terrified, the silence of the room making his thrashing heart echo inside of my head. But I didn’t need silence… I fucking needed answers.
“I asked you a fucking question!” I snarled. I grabbed Finn’s shoulder and he screamed. I shook it, the boy dissolving into sobs. “What did you do to Julian?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Finn suddenly cried; he began taking in rapid breaths, his lungs hyperventilating. “It wasn’t me… it fucking wasn’t me!” His head bowed, his shoulders trembling and his hands shaking violently. “Julian did this… Julian and his damn greywaster friends did this.”
“Don’t you fucking lie!” I snapped. I dug my fingers into his shoulders, so far in I felt them break the skin. “You did all of this. You got him raped. How the fuck could you do this?” I wanted to hit him, and it was taking all of my self-control to restrain myself.
“I didn’t! Master Elish, please believe me,” Finn sobbed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner… I’m sorry. You said you loved him. You said you loved him and I just wanted you to be happy. I didn’t want you to know who he really is.”
Even though I was being burned alive by my rage, the words that came from Finn’s trembling lips made my breath stop in my throat. “What?” I said, my voice dropping. “Who… he really is?”
“Prince Elish…”
I turned around and saw Headmaster Harris in the doorway. He stepped in, even though I’d just told him to leave, and closed the door lightly behind him. “I suggest you sit down for this.”
I stared at him, the fire insid
e of me being quenched by those seven words. Suddenly, the room seemed to grow cold. “What are you talking about?”
Headmaster Harris stood at the foot of Finn’s bed, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing a blue plaid shirt and grey trousers being held up by suspenders.
I remember this, because I remembered every detail of this day.
“This boyfriend of yours…” Harris started. He cleared his throat and looked up at me. “His name is Julian?”
What did this have to do with him? What did any of this have to do with him?
“Yes,” I said, my voice a low whisper.
Harris nodded and shifted his weight. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Elish. But whatever Julian has told you… has been a lie.” Again he shifted his weight, again he cleared his throat.
“Julian… was the last sengil that King Silas cut from the program, not even a year before you took young Finn home. Silas saw Finn as a better fit for you … and the king arranged for a pleasant couple to… adopt Julian. It seems… and I’m dearly sorry, Prince Elish…”
I swayed, and had to steady myself on Finn’s hospital bed.
“… but it seems Julian had trouble letting go of the dream of being your sengil. It appears… it appears he ended up making it his mission to still be beside you… to be your boyfriend instead.”
What the hell was he saying…?
This couldn’t be true. How could any of this be true? What he was saying… it had to be a lie. There was just no way Julian… my Julian, would do such a thing.
“You… you have the wrong person,” I whispered. Finn whimpered beside me, and I saw a bruised and scratched hand lay on top of mine. “That’s not my Julian. You are mistaken, Headmaster.”
The purple tin… that had been there when I’d needed it the most. It helped me before I even realized who it belonged to, and ever since then… I hadn’t been alone.
I’d been loved, valued. He’d… picked up the pieces that had been shattered.
All of this was a lie?
“I’m sorry, Prince Elish,” Headmaster Harris said quietly behind me. “Even when he was under my care… Jules… he had trouble with lying.”
Jules.
I dropped to my knees, the room beginning to spin around me.
The woman I murdered. The woman and her husband.
‘You… don’t tell me you killed Jules too. Is that the rules now? Is that how it works?’
Jules.
She was referring to Julian all along.
Julian…
They didn’t abuse you at all… did they?
I was…
I was your pawn. I was your damn assassin.
“Elish…” Finn sobbed. He rubbed my hand, it was still resting on the bed but I was on my knees. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak.
Every time I tried to process this information, more proof was thrust into my unwilling arms.
His jealousy for Finn…
Finn was right. Julian had done this to him.
And he’d faked being attacked… he’d faked being raped.
But not only that…
“Julian tried to kill you… didn’t he?” I whispered.
Finn sniffed. “He was there when his friends raped me,” he said. My eyes closed tight. “He left, telling them to kill me once they were done. Two construction workers heard me screaming and the men took off running.”
“Why were you out there?” I asked. My eyes opened, the insanity in the back of my head hoping that I would open my eyes to find myself in a different dimension, a different time, place, anywhere but here…
Anywhere but here.
“I’ve been sneaking out…” Finn admitted with a wobbly voice. “I’ve been trying to find Julian. I realized after you got shot… that Julian was putting you in danger. Master Elish… it was Julian who manipulated and lied to those greywaster immigrants that night you got shot. I realized it as soon as you told me the story. He riled them up and sent them after you… I think he did it to make the fake attack on himself more believable.”
Fake attack…
The bruises from his so-called abusive father.
Everything… was fake.
Everything but the guilt that had disembowelled me all the times my actions got him hurt.
I rose on shaky legs, but I had to keep both hands on the bed to keep the room steady. The shock inside of me was disabling many of my emotions; I felt just… I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe the feeling; all I knew was that I never wanted to feel this way again.
Julian…
I was going to marry him. I loved him. He made me laugh… he made me feel like… I was important.
He was my reason to live.
My reason to love.
“I apologize for… scaring you, Finn,” I whispered. I looked at my sengil, my loyal-to-the-bone sengil, and rested a hand on his cheek. The boy’s face twisted and his eyes shut at my touch, and as his body shook, tears slipped down his cheek. “I’ll… do whatever I can to make up for… for what I let happen to you.”
“I’m sorry, Master,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just wanted to see you happy.”
Yes, I know, love.
I know.
I nodded to the headmaster, then turned and left the hospital. Finn called my name as I walked down the hall, but I didn’t turn around or slow my steps. I continued walking, then I walked down the stairs, to the exit… then into the awaiting black car that was parked in front of the building.
CHAPTER 44
“Take me home.” I said to my driver. And as Skyfall swept past me, I stared out the window and searched my mind for any residual feelings. Any sign that I was still alive.
But I found none.
There was nothing left inside of me, what had once filled my heart was now dirty and stepped-on on the floor, and the organ itself sat empty, pale of colour, void of life, just a useless muscle waiting for the man who bought it with blood money, to consume it.
I’d been played. I’d been taken for a fool. The entire time my eyes were focused on King Silas’s continued torture and deceit, when really I should’ve been watching the boy I’d chosen to walk in my blind spot.
Julian…
I loved you.
With all my heart… I loved you.
My mind was in a fog as I walked up those stairs to Alegria. I didn’t know what was going on inside of my head, why I wasn’t throwing things, screaming, yelling – Why wasn’t I acting like any man who’d been played, betrayed, taken for an idiot… would act?
I was just… dead inside.
There was nothing, only cold silence, and I wished then that I could stay in this stunned state forever. I dreaded being conscious once this protective coating of shock wore off and I had to face these emotions currently building inside of me.
Maybe if I was lucky, I’d be dead by then.
Finn was better off without me. Look at what I let happen to him, and the horrible shit I’d accused him of doing.
I walked into the elevator, and pressed the button for my apartment. I let it take me high up into the sky, the digital display showing me all the floors I was passing.
Then it slowed, and it stopped.
One foot in front of the other…
I walked into the apartment, and saw that my bedroom door was open. The first thought that I had was that Julian had heard about Finn being in the hospital, and since his only witness wasn’t dead…
I checked, and indeed he was gone. All that was left of Julian’s presence was a faint bloodstain on my comforter, and the imprint of where he’d been lying down.
“Elish… come up here.”
Silas’s voice.
And a tone that was heavy with warning.
Yet the turned off computer that was my mind, paid no attention to the alarm bells ringing their loud warnings. I walked up the stairs without hesitation, seeing first Ceph, Apollo, and Artemis in a play pen in the middle of t
he open apartment.
Then I glanced to the right, towards the living room…
… and I saw Silas standing in front of the couch.
Julian, a beaten wreck behind him.
Silas was smirking at me. He was fucking smirking at me.
But that wry smirk, that fit his features like those two piercing green eyes, wasn’t what I was looking at.
My eyes shot to Julian, and unlike Finn who was terrified and confused, the moment my boyfriend saw the expression on my face, his own dropped to the bowels of terror.
“Such an interesting thing I found–”
“Shut up,” I snapped as the king began to spin his sweetly poisoned words. I wasn’t in the mood for his cajoling torture, or for any of the games he was ready to make me play.
I stalked up to Julian, past Silas who seemed stunned by the short execution of his latest plan, and faced my boyfriend who was cowering on the couch.
“Who the fuck are you?” I said in a harsh whisper. “You better tell me the truth, and you better tell me the truth quickly.”
Julian looked up at me, his navy blue eyes drowning themselves in tears. “I don’t know what Finn told you… but he threatened to lie if I–”
I raised my hand and smacked him across the face. Julian’s neck snapped backwards, his eyes shutting tight and his face dissolving. He inhaled a hard breath, then said to me in a whimper: “You know me, Elish. I’m… I’m Julian. I’m your boyfriend. I’m the man you lo-”
“NO, YOU’RE NOT!” I suddenly screamed. I grabbed him by his shirt collar and shook him. “Tell me the truth! For once in this god damn relationship… tell me the fucking truth!”
Julian keeled over when I let him go, and began to sob. “I love you,” he cried softly, his tone a plea. “That hasn’t changed. Baby… I love you.” He looked up at me with tears streaming down his face. “I loved you before I met you… and I’m in love with you now.” He grabbed my hand, and though I tried to pull it away, he grasped it hard. “I – I have problems. I have something wrong with my brain that makes me… that makes me do these things. But you can help me?” As I stared down at him, my body a cadaver, he gazed back up at me with his own eyes full of desperation. “You can help me get well. Right? We… we can start new…”
