by Quil Carter
To my surprise, he extinguished his cigarette and walked over to the bed. He laid down beside me and put his arms around me. My heart soared as he kissed my head.
Then he whispered in my ear, in the most calming, loving voice, “If you ever call me that again, I’ll break every single bone in your body.”
I giggled and nestled myself into his chest. I fell asleep as I had done the previous night; to the sound of his breathing.
When I woke the next morning, Reaver was gone.
Chapter 20
Killian
I didn’t panic at first. I ignored the growing pit of anxiety in my stomach and ate half of the Good Boy we had saved for breakfast. I put the can away and brushed my teeth as best as I could and rinsed my mouth out with my share of water.
I swallowed the remains from brushing with a shudder and started putting everything away. Reaver would be back soon. He had probably found some good scavenging areas while he was patrolling and was delayed. Maybe I had woken up too early for him.
But I went to grab his drugs on the kitchen table, and felt a chill go through me. His Dilaudid powder was still here. Five lines had been left untouched, the other five nothing but yellow residue left beside a plastic straw.
My mind thought back to the previous night; he had done those five while we were talking…
He hadn’t done any more after I fell asleep.
He had gone out patrolling after I fell asleep.
My heart was in my throat. I ran my fingers along the table and picked up the straw, the five lines taunting me. When he started snorting the drugs he would continue the entire night so he didn’t crash.
Reaver had never come back from his patrol, he could have been gone hours.
He must’ve fallen asleep.
Yes, I said to myself with so much confidence my brain forced my heart to believe it. Reaver fell asleep. He had been up for days now. He would feel mad at himself when he woke up, but he would be fine.
Maybe he left you behind?
Maybe you got too close to him, he scared himself with how much he was revealing to you. Reaver shut himself down, and decided the only way to maintain who he was, was to leave you to die in Donnely.
“Fuck you, brain!” I said angrily to myself. I walked over to the window. The sun was shining through it, leaving the dingy apartment bright and exposed.
Everything was quiet…
The tone of the city felt different under my growing apprehension. The rows of windows looked like eyes, or gaping mouths. Each one open and staring at the invader that had come to rob them. I was a single person in a city that once held thousands.
NO I WASN’T! Reaver was here too.
I turned away, unable to look anymore. I sat down in Reaver’s chair and inhaled all five lines of the Dilaudids. Then I slammed the sniffer down and sat back down on the bed. I pulled the blanket over myself and shifted my weight into the corner of the mattress. I sat still and listened. Any moment I would hear him come up the stairs. I wanted to run out the apartment door and look for him… but he said stay, he said never leave without him. He told me to stay home, stay safe, stay safe…
The drugs made my anxiety reduce. I dug into Reno’s bag and pushed the coke aside. That I wouldn’t do yet, it would make me paranoid as Reaver warned. I did find his baggy of Dilaudid powder and sat in the far corner of the mattress with a spoon and continued to wait.
I hated my mind and where it was taking me. The thoughts that swam in my head were maddening, a confusing torrent of questions, theories, and fear… lots of fear.
They kept replaying in my mind, and the only thing that could numb them were drugs. I did a lot, until my nose was plugged and my throat was full of the sour Dilaudid taste. I don’t know when it was, maybe two or so hours after waking up, that I cried for the first time.
When I’d had enough of crying, I just started to feel mad at myself. How useful was I right now? I got up and shoved the baggy in my pocket. I tried to dry my eyes as best I could. I felt like such an idiot, such a useless wuss. I put on my assault rifle and looked out the window again.
Still nothing, still silence, still quiet… fuck, I was starting to hate quiet.
“REAVER?” I suddenly screamed at the top of my lungs. “REAVER?”
Reaver… Reaver… Reaver… my shrill and panicked voice echoed off of the buildings and fell silent. No one answered, just ghosts below me, not even an animal, not even a hopper. Just silence.
Where was my Reaver? This place was empty. Did he fall? No, Reaver never fell… he was a master running and jumping like an acrobat. Did he fall asleep? That was the only thing that made sense.
HE LEFT YOU!
NO!
I hated my brain, I hated my brain so much… he wouldn’t leave me, he couldn’t have left me.
I… I didn’t deserve it… did I?
Or maybe I did. I had gotten too close to the sociopathic horror that is Reaver. I had made a chink in his armour and to save himself from being exposed as a nice funny guy, he had left me in Donnely to die. Telling Greyson and Leo I had been killed in an accident.
That made the tears come…
“Just shut up! SHUT UP!” I screamed out loud, fully realizing that I was screaming at myself. He wouldn’t leave me. Reaver liked me, he had held me every night since we left. He’d kissed me. He’d told me the name his dad had given him.
He’d revealed too much, and now he’d pushed himself away. He’s gone, long gone, probably back in Aras by now. Right this moment he’s pretending he’s upset and telling Greyson the old lady killed me.
I took some more drugs and sat back down, the assault rifle digging into my back as I leaned back into the chair. I let the drugs hit me and calm me down.
He’ll be back
He left you.
My head tipped down, until my forehead was resting against the kitchen table. The drugs were coursing through my system now, trying to kill the snapping beast of doubt, though with every victory three monsters appeared in its place. It was like a virus in my mind; the longer I let it sit the more it bred and grew. Too much time had passed now. I wanted to open my eyes and look out the window, to see if I could tell the time of day, but the drugs had made my arms heavy and my body relaxed and slack. I stayed there with my eyes closed, my overactive mind going everywhere I didn’t want it to go.
And all there was, was silence around me.
I eventually started to come out of my high, though I wasn’t sure how long I was out for. All I knew was I was still alone, and there was a puddle of drool under my face.
My heart seemed permanently clenched. The anxiety in my stomach had turned into a creature of its own, eating me from the inside out. Asking questions I couldn’t answer, and when I didn’t give it the answers it wanted, it made up its own.
I stood and went back to the window. Nothing had changed, everything was still quiet, like it had been quiet for the past couple of years when the labs left, and two hundred plus years beforehand when… everyone had left.
Had my sentry left too? If I did walk back to Aras would he be waiting for me with his gun pointed at my head? Would he be on the wall waiting to snipe me before anyone noti-
The quad.
I had to steady myself as a dizziness rushed through me. That would be my answer. If the quad was still here, Reaver was still here. If the quad was gone… he had left me.
Both realities terrified the hell out of me.
I didn’t want to know. I looked at the mattress and was tempted to just curl back up in to it but I pushed past the desire. But I mustered up all the courage I knew I didn’t have, and walked down the hall and then the stairwell.
When I reached the blown-out glass of the lobby windows, my heart thudding like a jackhammer. I felt like I was going to pass out. I took a spoon tip of drugs for courage and walked into the street. Fresh air washed out the smell of must and mould that was all around the building.
“Reaver?” I called, my voice a pat
hetic cracked whimper. “Reaver?”
I walked down the street, my footsteps echoing like my voice. Last night it had been both our footsteps… now just mine.
I swung the bags across my shoulder and dug my hands into my pockets, walking towards the alleyway where Reaver had parked the quad. With every step the monster in my stomach continued to gnaw at me. Would I see it? Would I see it?
I put the bags down when I got near the alley and tried to take in a breath, but my chest was too clenched. I pushed through the dizziness, the fear, and the foreboding and walked into the dark alley towards the dumpster.
Right behind the dumpster, untouched and brimming with supplies, was Reno’s quad.
My reaction surprised even me. Every bit of doubt that Reaver might have abandoned me turned into hatred for myself for thinking that of him. Every bit of belief I had that he had fallen asleep vanished with the fact that hours and hours had already gone by. He had never left, he had never come back, he had been gone for hours and I had been in the fucking apartment thinking he had left me to die. Not checking the quad because I was too chicken shit, or too stupid to think about doing it.
The mind-numbing fear hit me like a ton of bricks. I fell to my knees and started screaming for him.
Reaver was gone, Reaver was hurt, Reaver was dead, Reaver was missing… where was he? Who got him? Someone got him, he would never fall, he would never get himself killed. Oh fuck, where was he? What happened to him?
“REAVER?”
I grabbed my bags and just started running. I ran down the street, looking in every store we had scavenged. I didn’t care if someone heard me; if someone else was here it meant they probably had Reaver. Let them hear me, I’d kill all of them. I just wanted to find him.
My feet hit the pavement hard. I weaved in between cars, even jumping over the hoods of some of them to get down the congested street. I didn’t know where I was heading, or what direction I should be going. I just screamed and ran. If I slowed down, my reality would catch up to me. The reality that told me that Reaver was the toughest guy I knew, and it would have had to be something major to keep him from coming back to me. To keep him from killing it with one well-aimed shot.
Nothing could bring Reaver down… he was untouchable. Oh god, where was he?
When my legs were too exhausted to support me, I fell to my knees and cried, right in the middle of the street. I didn’t know where I was by now, or what time it was. I was just quiet, cold, and scared.
I threw up, though nothing came up but sour bile and stomach fluid. I heaved and gagged until stars sprang to my vision, and I had to just sit there and try not to puke again.
There was no sign of him. No boot prints in the dirt that had blown in from the wastes, no cigarette tips… there was nothing.
I wandered around like the lost dog I was. In the forgotten ghost town. Donnely all looked the same, it was just a grey, broken maze. The same shops, same apartment buildings, the same street signs, long dead telephone and electric poles. Every street was the same as the next, each building had been painted with the black streaks of mould and mildew. Each window had been blown-out, broken, or was missing altogether. The cars lined up, or smashed into each other, strewing their rusted innards around the road like disembowelled rats.
I was lost but I didn’t care. I knew he wasn’t coming back to the apartment. No… I had to find him and bring him home… like he brought me home.
I had to be brave.
I slunk down, watching my dust-stained boots step one in front of the other. I wasn’t brave. I was many things, including as good as dead, but I wasn’t brave.
“Reaver?” I called again.
Reaver… Reaver… Reaver… my echo said back to me.
I reached into my bag to get the cocaine out. I needed more energy to look for him. I dug around for the bag, when my hand hit something hard.
I tossed the canvas flap off to the side to see what it was, and pulled up Cat Wings.
He had been reading it last, he read to me… he read to me and one of the first things in my brain was that he had abandoned me to die. He’s out here somewhere hurt, or dead, and all I could think about was me.
I burst into tears again and tossed the book and my bag. I inhaled a sob, hot tears and snot streaming down my face when my breathing started to become laboured. I knew what was coming, and I hated myself for it. A few minutes later I was in a full-blown panic attack.
I couldn’t breathe properly, every time I tried my chest blocked it. In desperation I fumbled through Reno’s bag until I found the blue pills Reaver had shoved into his own stash. He had told me these were for my panic attacks. I shoved three in my mouth and chewed.
They tasted disgusting but I kept chewing. My dehydrated mouth was dry and chalky but I managed to swallow all of them.
I crawled to the side of a building and tucked myself up by a rusted mailbox. I curled up as tight as I could, gasping for breath like a dying rat. I was still gasping when my mind started to go numb, and then went dark.
I woke up feeling drunk and disconnected. The anxiety, fear, and worry for my boyfriend were still there, but it was buried in a sea of just… I don’t know, but I was gone. I felt gone, I felt… gone.
I grabbed my bag and stumbled on. Calling for Reaver, calling and calling even though my throat was sore and raw. I told myself I needed to find the quad and drive back to Aras. I had to get Leo and Greyson, I had to get Reno. The three faces that seemed almost farther away than Reaver’s. Aras seemed like a world I used to know, now behind me like my factory town. A place I would never see again, with voices of friends I would never hear.
If I left it would be with Reaver, and Reaver was gone. Gone, gone, Reaver was gone. The key to the quad was gone too I think. Maybe it was in the bag?
I looked at the bag, blinking slowly. I then turned my gaze towards the street. It all looked the same, all the streets.
My blurry eyes tried to read the street sign, but whatever it said I didn’t remember… I had never felt this fucked up in my life.
“Reaver? Reaver?” I called, I took another step but stumbled. I tried to get my balance but I ended up falling down onto the pavement. I turned onto my back and looked to see a twist of metal by my feet, from a car I think. I told myself I didn’t know out loud and got back up. I carried on walking. I think I was drooling.
I wiped my face. Yeah, I was drooling.
Greyson would eventually come, and Leo. They would help me find him. Maybe he got locked somewhere? I tried to shut up to see if I could hear him but I still heard nothing.
“Reaver?” I whimpered, my eyes never stayed focused in one area. They darted around from one building to the next, from window to window, doorway to doorway. Expecting to see his face, his beautiful, perfect face looking down at me. His black eyes, with the tiniest dark brown flecks, and his perfect hair, also so dark brown it seemed black. Long in the front so it fell over his eyes, but cut short in the back. Perfect to kiss and stroke.
His perfect eyebrows, shaped with just a small arch to them, and his little ears… one of which had just been knitted back together. And that body. I had seen him in just his shorts when he had made a bath for us in the loader bucket. Pale, firm, and flawless. The coldness of his chest; I could feel it warming under my touch.
My heart hurt, I was so worried about him. I would give my own life just to have him be okay. He couldn’t be dead, no, no one could kill him, he was invincible. He was trapped or… or something.
We had just started our life together… he couldn’t be gone now. I just got him.
I slept in a clinic that night. By the time the darkness had come to Donnely I was exhausted, still high and drunk on the blue pills and so terrified my mind had seemed to shut itself down. I hauled my worthless body onto a patient’s table and slept with my assault rifle beside me. I dosed myself with more pill powder and more of the blue pills so I would be able to sleep until morning. I didn’t care if someone found me; at le
ast they would bring me to Reaver, one way or another.
I woke up cold in the dark, musty room, alone and in silence. The silence was starting to drive me mad.
I dug into some drawers before I left and found a couple of scalpels and a few pens. I would give them to Doc, I decided in my burned-out mind. I put them into my bag and left my temporary shelter behind.
Reaver had now been gone a day.
I wasn’t hungry, and anyway, the food was gone. I had left Reaver’s can of Good Boy in the apartment. All I had was a half a bottle of water. I drank a few mouthfuls as I walked down the street. I tried to call for Reaver but my voice was hoarse and sore from all the screaming I had done the day before.
What was the use? Reaver was gone.
I took more drugs. I didn’t know what else to do. Every time my nose would clear up to an acceptable level, I snorted more, until everything in front of me was a muddled haze of minimally interesting things. I couldn’t feel anything anymore, and that’s what I needed to survive.
So I walked. Sometimes I cried, sometimes I fell, sometimes I just sat on a bench and stared at the buildings across the street. I was lost in the city that seemed to get bigger and bigger with every street I walked down. I was deep inside of it. Where it was obvious no one had been in decades.
I had no plan, I had no idea of what I was supposed to do. I was a coward from Skyfall, with barely enough survival skills to keep me alive in Aras. I had no food, barely any water, and a quad that might have well have been on the moon. If it had keys in it.
I stopped in front of a restaurant and sat down on an overturned payphone stall. I took my last mouthful of water and tossed the bottle into the middle of the street. It gave a clink and bounced a few feet, before resting up against a fallen motorbike. The bike was covered in cancerous rust, and worn down to the point where it was barely recognizable.
I wished I had my guitar, just to make some noise. My voice was raspy and broken; if Reaver was looking for me all he would be able to hear were my footsteps and my heartbeat.