by Quil Carter
He was gone. My Finn was gone. There would be no shifting of the blankets as he inched his way into my arms as I tried to sleep, no more cute jealousy that had him huffing and snipping whenever he felt threatened by Julian.
He never had anything to worry about; I belonged to him, as he belonged to me.
But now he was gone, and… never again would I see him. Never again… would I hold him.
Out of all the deaths I’d experienced in my life, this one seemed the most real, this one was the rawest, the best testament to the cruelty of mortality.
“Love, breathe. You have to breathe…” He pulled away from me, my body just a heap crumpled in on itself, and put his hands on either side of my head. “Breathe, love.”
A strange calm seeped into me, starting at my brain then leaking down my head and neck like it was candle wax. The odd feeling, tingly and cold, but yet comforting like a thick blanket, wrapped around my tight chest and eased the binding strands until they loosened.
It put me into an almost trance. I was still conscious, aware of what Silas was doing, but the sharp edges had been sanded down. Instead of my agonizing crying, I only wept, and Silas released his hold on my head and took me into his arms again.
He’d made me calm with his own abilities. Those strange abilities that he’d never named. He could creep into your head like black smoke, probe and push until he knew every feeling you had, and he could also shut your mind off with a mere twitch of his hand. Whatever he was, he was the most powerful man in the world. And today… I was relieved to have him as my master. The only rock I had to catch me as I fell with what had once been my perfect world.
I don’t know why this was happening to me, and I knew deep down the self I was last week would hate the me now. But the person I was before Finn had died, could’ve never fathomed just how destroyed he’d be by his sengil’s passing.
No, I will never only call him my sengil again. He was my partner, and I will die hating myself for denying my feelings for him. What a piece of shit I was for even downplaying it to my family. If he was here… I would tell the world how I felt about him.
But he wasn’t. Finn was dead. He was the newest death in a string of losses starting when I was a young child.
“There we go…” Silas whispered in a tone that clung to the last vestiges of his second-hand heartache. “You’re scaring me, my poor boy.” He ran his hand up and down my back, but even though I had been comforted by his embrace… I found myself disliking his words.
“Can you speak to me like I’m an adult?” I asked quietly. “Not a child having a nightmare.”
Silas pulled away, and I expected anger in his eyes, some characteristic lashing out of the Mad King.
But Silas, after staring at me for a moment, nodded, before his eyes deflected. “I’m sorry, Elish. I… didn’t even realize I was doing it.” He rose and extended his hand to me. “Sit on the bed with me.”
I obliged and rose. I sat down on the bed and Silas sat beside me.
“I need to know who did this, Silas,” I whispered. I think I knew who it was though. It was whatever remaining Bratvas there were. Without Ivan to keep them in check, they lashed out, they lashed out like a dying animal given one last burst of adrenaline.
It couldn’t have been Ivan or his family. Nero said he’d killed them all. But while I investigate this, I would be speaking with Oniks.
“Elish…” Silas began, already I didn’t like where this is going. “I’m going to ask you to trust me right now. I’ve been through this before… I’ve been through this before many times.” He put a hand on my knee and rubbed it.
“But he…” I didn’t know if I should say it, it was stupid to bring him up, but I found the atmosphere between the two of us different than it was before. I was talking to Silas as Silas, not the manic king. I believe I was safe, and if I wasn’t? Who cares. “He killed himself… no one killed him.”
Surprisingly, Silas only nodded, but a brief flash of hurt crossed his face, but it was dismissed. “It wasn’t just Sky I lost, Elish,” he said, and deeply he inhaled. “I’m quite old, and the friends and loved ones who I’ve had to say goodbye to… I would need more than two hands to count them. Some of these men were my brothers, others my lovers… All of them I had to learn how to live without, even if I thought life would not be worth living with them gone.” He turned to me, and when I looked at him, the surprise I was already feeling from his unprecedented candidness with me, multiplied with the earnest hurt I could see in his eyes. “Many of these people… were murdered. Many of these friends, these lovers, were taken before their time by cowardly people either wanting to hurt me, or because these men, in their opinion, were too powerful to live. I wanted to kill them; I wanted to peel their skin from their bodies, and when I finally got the chance…” His eyes flared, then narrowed. “It was my first step in the long process of healing.”
This puzzled me. If he was saying that revenge made him feel better… why was he telling me to trust him when I asked who had done this to Finn?
Silas seemed to sense my confusion. “Elish, love, if I tell you who it was, you’ll run headfirst into danger and you’ll probably get killed.” His hand on my knee slid up, and he took my hand. “You’re not strong enough right now. I’m not going to tell you because I don’t believe you’ll wait until you’re healed to do what I think should be done to them. So I’m asking you to wait until you’re well, then together.” He squeezed my hand. “Together as a family, we will destroy them for taking away your partner.”
My partner…
My Finn.
I didn’t want to wait… I didn’t want to have to wait to kill who did this to him.
“I’ll tell you this though,” Silas went on. “The man who pulled the trigger is dead. Julian, Garrett, Nero, and Ellis killed him. Julian and your first gen brothers and your sister all ran to the building he was on top of, and they ripped him limb from limb. He’s dead.”
That should’ve been the confirmation I needed, but it wasn’t. I didn’t know which group he belonged to, the Bratva or the Jackson family. I had to know just who was responsible for not just Finn’s death, but my own attempted murder as well.
And there was something else, the elephant in the room. If it was the Jackson family… it would mean that this was directly my fault. Because this would’ve been blatant revenge on my attack on Ivan’s caravan.
But who was I kidding? Finn had been mine to protect, and he had died in my arms. Either way, whoever it was that pulled the trigger, Finn’s death was on me.
Just like Cristos’ death had been my fault…
And Ryan’s.
“They’re good siblings…” I said quietly. “Since I got my mind back… I’ve tried hard to be a good big brother to them, to make up for the previous twenty-five years I fucked up. They’ve always been there for me, and I hope they know I’m always there for them too.”
Silas’s eyes filled at this. “You’ve been a wonderful brother,” he said. “If you want to talk about fucking things up with people… I think I take the gold medal for that.” He sighed. “I don’t believe I’ve ever thanked you for giving me a second chance, or a third chance, or a fourth chance…” He laughed dryly, and wiped his eyes. “The last six years we’ve spent together, ever since your implants were disabled, it’s been our best six years. I felt like… I had what I’d always wanted to have. Not just an heir, but a friend, a man I could depend on.”
But all of that had stemmed from my ulterior motives… It wasn’t that my hatred for him had dissipated, it was only because I realized I couldn’t win if I faced him head-on. I learned… that the only way I could ensure my survival and Finn’s, was to control the beast without him knowing, and when I wanted to punish Silas for an injustice done to me or my seng– my partner… I did it in the shadows, with no trace of my own presence.
However, in that time, not once had he threatened Finn, and now I had no hatred left for Silas inside of me. I was too…
empty. The garden was unlit and barren, not even hate could grow there.
What a terrifying thing… to be so numb. I was right when I was younger… loving things will only end up with me being hurt. But even with that said, I would never deny that loving Finn was a mistake; however, I do know now, that I will never love again. It’s too painful, this thing called love, too scary, and something that I realized I had no control over.
And from now on, I will have control over everything in my life. I won’t allow myself to be hurt in such a way ever again.
Maybe that was the answer? If I did ever fall in love again, if that warmth eventually resurrected this dead heart, I would control every aspect of it. I would make sure I was never hurt again.
But that being said… eventually the cruel talons of time would take my love from me, and I would be staring at an urn on my mantle for the rest of my life.
Just like Silas. Even if I controlled everything, even if I did everything right, time would kill him. Time kills all but the born immortal.
Then I realized something, a revelation that hit me so hard it was as if it had reached inside of my throat and ripped my beating heart from its protective case.
“If I’d have figured out how to make immortals…” I said in a harsh whisper, the realization gutted me. “I could’ve saved him. I could’ve… made him immortal.”
Silas was still, but there was an increase in his heart rate. In this room of silence, I had been able to hear both of ours spike then slow, spike then slow, a steady beat in sync with one another, but both thrumming to their own individual song.
“I would’ve let you,” he said quietly, in a tone that told me he was surprised at his own personal realization of this fact. “I… I just wanted to see you happy. You…” He choked and his hand rose to his mouth. “You’ve made me so proud during these last six years. I would’ve allowed you.”
“I’ll find a way,” I said, and a determination took me. No, it wasn’t determination… it was desperation. I was desperate to make sure this never happened to me again, or my siblings. I didn’t want them to go through this too. “I’ll never leave that fucking lab. I’ll find a way.”
Silas suddenly wrapped his arms around me. He squeezed me to him and sniffed away tears. “You must; I can’t lose my babies,” he choked. “It’ll destroy me. It’ll destroy me and I’ll never be able to recover.” His grip tightened, a grip that told of unescapable fear.
A fear I now understood.
“I’ll find a way. I swear, I’ll find a way,” I said. I already lost Finn. I will not lose another.
Silas broke his hold on me, and as he pulled away, he nodded. “I’ll do everything I can love. Just tell me what you need. If you need to kill me to research my brain. Anything, Elish. Just tell me what I have to do.”
I nodded too, and my eyes travelled to Finn’s dresser, still full of his clothes. Clothes that his gentle hands had put away, not knowing he would never get a chance to wear them.
I will never go through this again.
CHAPTER 61
“Elish… Manti brought pizza back for lunch… come take a break with us,” I heard Sacario say behind me.
My eyes were stinging from staring at the sample of Silas’s brain through the high-powered microscope, and my healing gunshot wound throbbed from me being hunched over my desk for the past three hours. My back wasn’t any better, and in truth there was a gnawing in my gut that reminded me I hadn’t had breakfast, nor had I remembered to take the pain killers Kirrel had prescribed me.
But I wasn’t going to tear myself away from my research. I had new samples of Silas’s brain and the compulsion inside of me forbid me from leaving my desk.
Or perhaps if I left my desk, if I took a break and broke that hyper-focused state I’d been in for the last five days, my mind would wander to places I didn’t want it to go… and I couldn’t handle that at this moment.
Tomorrow was Finn’s funeral. His body had been cremated and the ashes had been given to Silas last night. It would be a small affair, and I had asked Silas for it to only include my first gen siblings, Tyler, Keela, and Kirrel, and Headmaster Harris, who had loved Finn like a son.
I was supposed to write his eulogy, but I was too fearful of losing myself. This wound inside of me had been bound in hasty bandages, wrapped a hundred times in a desperate attempt to make it so I could function. When I was working, I was fine, I didn’t think of it, so I worked and I didn’t stop, my life now revolving around the secrets of immortality and nothing more.
That was my goal in life now, and since Silas had allowed me back into the laboratory five days before, it was all I had done.
I hadn’t been home since Finn had died, and when Silas asked gently if I wished for him, Garrett, Nero, and Ellis to pack up Finn’s things to make it easier on me, I refused the offer. I wasn’t ready yet, one day I would be, but that day would not come soon.
“Elish? It’s meat lovers with mushrooms and jalapenos… loads of them.” I heard Sacario approach, and then my office chair tipped back as he used his hands to press down on it. “Who wants some pizzles? Oh, Elish wants some pizzles.”
“Get away from me,” I said. “I need to work, and I told you, you’re in your thirties, stop talking like an imbecile.”
Sacario huffed, and there was scraping as he pulled up a chair. “Then you stop being an imbecile. You need to eat, bud. You can’t science on an empty stomach and I think you and that office chair are starting to fuse into one.” To my annoyance, he put both hands on my head and began petting me like a cat. “You can either get up and eat, or I’ll keep annoying you until you’re pissed off and I’m crying. Then I’ll just go get Garrett, Perish, and Mantis and sic them on you.”
I sighed and turned off the microscope. “Very well,” I said. “There isn’t much I can do until I get Silas here anyway.” Silas and I had been speaking, and he would be submitting himself to research for the next several days. We had some new theories we were trying out. Perish and I were both planning on experimenting with pulses of electricity. We’d tried stimulating the brain with electricity several years ago, but our results had been poor. Now we had several new machines at our disposal that would lower the voltage, and Perish was also planning on adding radiation to the mixture as well.
Our goal currently was to replicate the switch in Silas and Perish that triggered their brain coming back to life. I knew that if we learned that trigger, we could replicate it and add it to our own brains.
Sacario and I walked into the lounge room, the smell of pizza intensifying enough for my stomach to grumble its protest further. Surrounding the two half-eaten pizzas was Perish, Garrett, and Mantis, all three of them discussing our current project through mouthfuls of food.
Mantis spotted me first. Dr. Zamir’s son had become the spitting image of his father, including the black-framed glasses in front of grey eyes, thick dark eyebrows, and a square-shaped face that was covered in sparse facial hair. Mantis was a good friend of mine, and Silas considered the entire family to be friends of the Dekker’s.
“Well, I suppose I’ll be buying the coke-cigs,” Mantis said airily. “I bet Garrett that Sacario would fail in retreiving you, and I had a three-to-one on Sacario coming back with bruises on him as well.”
“Indeed,” I said and I sat down. I took a piece of pizza and accepted a bottle of ChiCola that my brother slid me. “Has everyone cleared their schedule? It’s about to be a gruelling week for us.” I was more than happy for the distraction. I knew the reason why Silas had agreed so easily to this research project was because he knew I needed an escape.
Silas had been… amazing. How strange it is for me to say such a thing when our past is filled with such horror. But it was what it was, and I found myself no longer cringing away from my master’s attention or his presence. Admittedly, and I do find this difficult to admit, I… may even enjoy having him around.
It was strange… it was strange in a time where I felt so empty, to
have this light in my life. I was thankful for it, because I feared myself that I would end up staring down the barrel of a shotgun, but it was still a revelation that was hard to swallow.
But in the same vein, I didn’t care how strange it was. Since Finn’s death I was living hour to hour, and any reprieve from the claws of pain clutching my heart and tightening my throat, was welcome with crushing relief.
“I work too much to have friends outside of the lab,” Mantis said with a chuckle. “Don’t worry about me, Elish. I’m your work dog until I die, you know that.”
Sacario nodded too. “Craig has been given the heads up. He knows how important this is to you, Eli. We’ll crack this immortality bullshit, don’t you worry. You’ll be a scary ice god in no time.”
This made Garrett’s eyes become bright. “Can you imagine not being able to die? I just can’t, it seems so… unobtainable, and yet we’ve been living amongst two gods since before we were born.” He looked over at Perish, the supposed god was picking at a pile of Jalapenos, one that Mantis had made since he didn’t care for them. “Perish promised me one day he’d take me to Germany, but Silas gave me a flat-out no until I’m immortal. Want to come with us, Elish? Nero already said no, he seems to have it in his head we’ll crash into the ocean and be stranded for the next three hundred years.”
“Well, that is a possibility,” I said once I’d swallowed my food. I was eating as fast as I could so I could go back to my office chair. “I wouldn’t mind if the chance comes up but I don’t believe Silas will ever let us go, even when we do become immortal.”
“I can always dream,” Garrett said. He dabbed his mouth with a carefully folded napkin. “Do you want a ride home with me once we’re finished for the day?”
I shook my head. “I’ll be staying late again.”
Garrett sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t but alright… Silas might be requesting you home though, he’s been quite worried about you.” He glanced at his remote phone as if expecting Silas to call this second and demand me home, but then a despondent look took him.