by Quil Carter
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I had been going about this the wrong way. I couldn’t be the man in a boat valiantly trying to fight the current… I had to be the man letting himself get swept downstream, watching out for rocks and white water, learning to navigate the river… instead of paddling fruitlessly to calmer waters that did not exist.
For I was in this river, like it or not.
And the way to master this river, was to learn it.
Learn its weaknesses. Learn its strength.
Learn its twists and turns, deep water and shallow.
And while you’re learning…
“Build a better boat,” I whispered. I looked up at Julian.
And he was smiling at me. “You can do this,” he said. He reached over and grasped my hand firmly in his. “You’re smarter than he is, Elish. You’re bigger than him in every way there is. He’s almost two hundred years old, either engineered by men who didn’t have a shadow of the technology you have, or just some random genetic mutation. Either way, you’re better than he is, and you’re intelligent enough to start learning how to work the strings of your very first puppet.”
It would be a challenge, there was no doubt about that. But this wasn’t something that could be rushed. I had to be patient and I had to take things slow.
And if there was one attribute that Elish Dekker had… I was patient. Silas couldn’t be underestimated. He was a mastermind and even though I was a man, my age held not a candle to his one hundred and ninety years in this world, the living world and the dead world. Therefor, I had to learn my puppet and learn him carefully.
Then I realized something.
“Ever since I was younger Silas was always upset about how I never wanted to spend time with him,” I said to Julian. My eyes were staring forward, yet I could feel them twitching inside of my head, like they were trying to read the influx of information my brain was throwing at it. “Multiple times… he would come into my room drunk and try to engage me. Not even sex, he wanted to talk, to…” My mouth stopped moving when I brushed upon a distant memory.
A memory that I quickly realized was a gold mine.
Silas and I, our trip to the outlands; the house he’d stayed in before the war.
“Do you know why I come down to your room drunk like that? Because I don’t have the balls to do it when I’m sober. It takes alcohol for me to work up the confidence to talk to you.”
“I’m the King of the World… and yet being rejected by you… it breaks me,” I said, repeating Silas’s words in a hushed tone. My hand raised and cupped my mouth, all I could do was stare out the window, my body becoming flushed with a giddy excitement that almost had me jumping off of my chair.
Why didn’t I see this before? Why did it take all these years…?
Silas was fallible… but not only that…
“I’m one of his weaknesses,” I whispered. “If I get close to him… act like this altering has made me want to spend more time with him… I can learn him. I can learn his flaws, and not only that, I can use them to control him, to get him to do what I want.”
Julian’s smile widened when he saw the expression of awe on my face. It seemed a strange expression on someone who looked as rough as he did, yet his eyes still had him at fifteen. “Paddle with the current,” he said with a nod. “And while that current is taking you this way and that… learn it.”
I nodded, and took another inhale of the cigarette. My mind was reeling, there were so many new thoughts and ideas, each one I was excited to try out.
It was an intoxicating feeling. As if my surgery had physically lit lights inside of my head. Areas of it that had been shrouded in darkness, were now bright and illuminated, crystal clear and vivid enough for me to explore them thoroughly. And now that I was finally touching on all parts of my brain, I was uncovering a mental gold mine.
I was back, and I was looking forward to testing out this intelligence. Yes, I would have to do a lot of shit I didn’t want to do… but in the end, my life would change.
Possibly my immortal life. Which was why it was important to be patient. I would be setting up a game board to last for centuries, and this time in my life would be shaping how Silas would be treating me for the rest of my existence. I had no choice; I had to make sure he treated me the way I deserved.
I rose from the chair. “I’m going to the surface,” I said. “This rancid-smelling room lost its charm an hour ago.” I turned and began walking towards the rickety stairwell that had led us up to this floor.
I didn’t fall through the floorboards and break my neck, even though the amount of give the wooden boards were giving me made me wonder why not. Eventually, I stepped outside and into daylight, and began looking around for that helicopter.
Why wait? I was ready to make my first step, I was eager to test myself and test my own mental and emotional limits. The task ahead excited me, which was bizarre considering what lay ahead, but I was just… I was just fucking ready for the challenge.
“Don’t worry… I can’t hear the helicopter,” Julian said as he stepped through a shattered glass window and out onto the paved entrance. “We’ll keep an ear out for it.”
My eyes turned to the sky, eagerly I scanned the horizon to look for the black figure and the blades chopping the sky. “I’m not hiding from it,” I said. I walked to the middle of the road and stood at the tip of a piece of pavement sticking horizontally out of the road. “I’m ready to go home.”
“Already?” Julian sounded amused by this. “You just woke up yesterday. Don’t dive into this too quickly, the best thing you can do right now is give yourself a few days. You’re riding on adrenaline and that’s feeding your impulses.” He appeared below me, a smirk making a dimple appear right above his neatly trimmed beard. I remember those dimples; I used to kiss them often when I saw them. He was so different from that boy, but still… his aura was Julian through and through. “Never dive in when you get these plans. Give yourself a few days for it to sink in. You’ll find yourself coming up with new ideas and strategies.”
I let out a huff through my nose. I knew he had me again, but I’d never admit that, nor the flickers of embarrassment for inwardly pointing out my advanced patience, but yet I was mentally jumping up and down at the thought of going home and putting my plan into action.
“I suppose I should enjoy this time off from my family,” I said, trying to at least make it my idea. I wouldn’t admit he was right.
Julian glanced up the road and motioned for me to follow. “Let’s go for a walk and we can try and spot some of those irideers.” Irideers? Irradiated deers, I presume. I never did ask Perish what their official names were, for all I knew it was that. “My prince will shrivel up and die if I only feed him canned food and dried meat.”
I gave him a flat look, but all Julian had for me in return was a light laugh and another dimpled smile, then he ran ahead towards the main highway, glancing once behind his shoulder to beckon me to follow.
Luck was with us that day. Late that afternoon Julian spotted a female with her fawn. When Julian shot the side of the fawn’s face off, I’d assumed that he’d missed. But with excitement that vibrated his whole body, he told me that the young ones had the most tender meat and we’d be eating well until I returned to Skyfall. I’d never had irideer before, let alone a young one, so I took his word for it and that afternoon he taught me how to clean and butcher the deer. I’d never done such a thing before, but there was something about killing and cleaning my own food that I liked. I never cooked in Skyfall, the sengils did it for us. The best I could do was boil water for my own tea, and that was only when Finn was cleaning and I didn’t feel like bothering him. I didn’t know the first thing about cooking, let alone butchering.
But he taught me everything with a shine in his eye, admitting afterwards that it made him happy to be able to show me these survival skills. I would never pass up an opportunity to learn, and truthfully, I kind of enjoyed getting my hands dirty. There was something rebe
llious about it, even though the only thing I was rebelling against was my own nature.
Later that night, after the fawn had been butchered and the left-over bones buried far away from our home, Julian lit the fireplace inside of the house. He assured me that the fire would burn hot enough for no smoke to be seen, and that even if there was smoke, it would be difficult to spot.
I wasn’t sure how accurate that was if a Fisherking flew ahead, a Legion plane that was equip with heat sensors. It was specifically used for search and rescue, and also to help track down legion deserters which occasionally did happen. There was no doubt that Silas would be sending the Fisherkings out to look for me, but at least on the off-chance they did somehow see life down here… I could hide myself easily, and they wouldn’t recognize Julian.
The two of us sat on blanket-covered stuffed chairs in front of the crackling fireplace, now supporting a steaming tea kettle on top of a wire rack. We’d both already had two shots of vodka and I was feeling a bit loose of lips, but it was helping my body wind down and relax.
The smell of blood and fresh meat was heavy around me, my own hands washed but still holding dried blood underneath my fingernails and in the creases of my palms. I was exhausted from the day, but even that had me feeling satisfied. I’d put in a long day of work, and it wasn’t just because of council meetings or an outing with the children that had me weary, the fatigue was from me working with my hands, working to feed myself and Julian. It was a different kind of tired, I felt completely fulfilled.
My eyes shifted away from the fireplace when I heard Julian let out a light laugh. He was dusting our strips of marinated deer meat with M.S.G. He’d found a bottle of soy sauce, garlic powder, and honey, and had taught me how to cut the meat into strips to marinate in the teriyaki mixture.
“What are you laughing at?” I said. I reached over when the kettle began to whistle; I had two mugs of tea waiting. They were right beside two coat hangers that Julian had fashioned for us. We would be roasting the meat tonight over the fireplace.
“I’m just happy today,” Julian said. He was smiling still, not an obvious one, just the faint smile he seemed to always have when we were talking. I had caught myself smiling too since we came inside, but I was feeling a bit warm behind the ears due to the vodka. “You’ve amazed me today… and I think you might’ve amazed yourself.”
“You assume a lot,” I said aloofly. I reached over for the water bottle of vodka and took another swig. Probably not the best idea, but fuck it. “I was amazing long before this.”
This made him laugh harder; I rolled my eyes. “You’re happy right now, aren’t you?” he said, his eyes trying to catch the gaze of my own. “I can feel it on you. Come on, tell me why. I know why but…” He shrugged a shoulder with a playful look. “I want to listen to you.”
I really shouldn’t, but the endorphins rushing through me mixed in with the vodka were lubricating my lips. My tipsy mind was encouraging me to speak, I felt talkative tonight. “You know my life,” I said to him. “I work my ass off every day, running Skyfall and working in the lab. But there’s something so different about… killing, cleaning, cooking your own food. I’ve never cooked before, let alone killed my own prey. I’m this genetically engineered super predator and yet I can’t even make a grilled cheese sandwich. Or I’m assuming I can’t since Finn would never even allow me to try.” I chuckled, but turned away feeling embarrassed over showing so much honesty to him. “But today… look at what we did. We killed our own food, went through all the motions and now I’m sitting here waiting to eat it. Council meetings and running Skyfall seems so meaningless when you really get back to your primal roots.”
Julian nodded. He reached over and slowly brushed his fingers over my own. “I have to admit… it’s so bizarre having you here… in my world. Over the years, you changed from being my boyfriend back in Skyfall… to being this supreme being, this ethereal god that I was making a pilgrimage towards. At a point in time, I would’ve been horrified at the thought of bringing you to the greywastes… but then I got you here… and I was reminded that you weren’t just my god, you were a chimera, a tough resilient man who keeps underestimating himself.” He looked down at his hand, still brushing his fingers against mine. “You’re just as amazing as I remember and I will be your disciple until the day you kill me.”
Silence followed his words, but the tranquil air, broken up only by the crackling fire and the sound of him picking up one of the coat hanger skewers, was not awkward or uncomfortable. It was warm, and heavy with unspoken emotion.
But even if I could speak it, I wouldn’t know what to say. Because inside I was content and fulfilled… and yet my emotions were at a stalemate.
“I was a wreck at fifteen. I don’t know how I could’ve been that amazing,” I said. I picked up a piece of meat from the plastic container it was marinating in and speared it through the sharpened coat hanger. “You were attracted to the idea of me that they implanted in your head… not so much the boy I actually was.”
“Not at all!” Julian said through a gasp. I was surprised to see that he was actually offended at my statement. “Everything they told me was true… they just didn’t tell me the effects that fifteen years of mental, physical, and emotional abuse had done to you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. It was strange hearing just how much I had been injected into the sengil’s teachings. I suppose it made sense when you looked at the end results, Finn was devoted to me and I knew he loved me with his heart and soul. Tyler and Keela loved Garrett and Nero as well, and Kirrel was obedient to a fault towards Silas. All sengils loved their masters, I just hadn’t realized they’d been priming them to love us for so long.
“I loved you before I met you….” Julian said. His words were now accented by the sounds of sizzling meat as we both put our makeshift shish kebabs onto the flames. “But that love was nothing compared to what I felt after meeting you. Every day I found myself–”
“If you truly loved me you would’ve never abused me so,” I said, my voice cold enough to suck the warm air out of the room. I knew I shouldn’t be saying such things to him, I had to push away the emotions and be level about this… but there was only so much I could take. There was only so much of his shit I could hear before my resolve broke.
“You knew very well what Silas was doing to me,” I continued, Julian’s face tightening with grief as I spoke. “But yet you continually made my life an emotional rollercoaster. The guilt you entrusted on me when your so-called father was beating on you, being absolutely gutted when you’d lied to me and told me Finn had arranged for you to get raped.” I slammed a hand down on the table, the fury swiftly taking me. “That was not love, Jules. Manipulating me into killing an innocent man and woman, getting my sengil assaulted… not to mention putting my fucking life at risk by egging on those greywasters. And that’s just the shit I know about!”
Tears sprung to Julian’s eyes. “I’m sorry!” he cried. “I don’t have a fucking excuse, Elish. I was a cruel, selfish asshole… I manipulated you when I was feeling unloved, when you weren’t visiting me enough… I manipulated you to kill my adoptive father. I admitted all of this and I’m not fucking trying to get out of responsibility. I’m sorry I did it… but my love for you was real.”
The anger inside of me had its tendrils stretched through my limbs, controlling me like a marionette. It was making me want to lay my hands on him; it was making me want to hurt him in the worst ways.
And I wanted to… my fingers twitched towards…
No.
No, anger won’t control me.
I was in control, not my rage, not my emotions.
And I had to prove it.
I inhaled a deep breath, and though embers filled my lungs, I forced a calm into myself and let it rush through my body like cold water. It was difficult, but it was something I had to do. I wouldn’t be all talk; I’d put my money where my mouth was.
I controlled me, not anger, not
depression, not Silas nor Julian, I did – and I will prove it.
I had to be calm for it. And look at me – I was calm.
“I love you,” Julian said, his voice a whimper. “I’ll never forgive myself for what happened with Finn. He didn’t deserve that, and I can only hope he’s doing well now. One day I’ll tell him face to face how sorry I am.”
You’ll never get near my sengil.
But even though my thoughts were caustic, when Julian’s navy blue eyes, currently reeling with grief, met mine, I only had a cold look for him. “Finn hasn’t mentioned you since,” I said calmly. “It was easy for him to forget about you. He never even mentioned you before these events either, not a word when he first arrived or after.” I knew Julian, and I knew his feelings regarding my sengil. He’d been insanely jealous of him at the time of our relationship, and I knew to this day, he still was. Most likely, he thought about Finn often, with hatred and that same jealousy too. And I knew if he thought Finn had disregarded him as soon as Silas had taken him to the greywastes, it would bother him greatly.
What’s worse than anger from your rival? Complete indifference.
But I wasn’t done yet. On the contrary, when Julian’s heart shuddered at my words, it only lubricated my lips and urged me to continue. Julian and Silas both had something in common: I was their weakness. How I felt about them was extremely important to those two, and rejection affected them – just like indifference.
Julian nodded and this was followed by a feathery, dismissive laugh. However, it was only cavalier on the outside; he may be hastily covering his true emotions but his heartbeat was selling him out. It was beating loudly in the backgrounds of his flighty laugh, like a prisoner screaming behind his captors that he was being forced to lie about his safety.