by Quil Carter
Julian was quiet, his face a windstorm of despondency.
“I swear, if I find out this is all because of jealousy I’m going to knock out your teeth,” I said coolly. “He’s a damn sengil not my boyfriend.”
“Will you be sleeping with him?”
Will I be sleeping with him? I’d never thought of that. “Silas slept with the three we had all the time. I’m assuming when Silas says we take care of every need…”
Julian made an angry noise, pushed me away and got up off of the couch. “What?” I said, my patience lost. “You do know all my brothers and Silas are sleeping together now, right? It’s just how our family is.”
“And do you sleep with them?”
“You know I don’t.”
“But you’ll be sleeping with the–”
I got up, quite done with this, and headed to the door.
“Where are you going!?” Julian cried, his tone was surprisingly desperate. He ran over to me and grabbed my arm as I opened the door to the outside hallway.
“I’ve had a long two days and I come here to relax and spend time with you, not to put up with your attitude and argue,” I said, my voice still cold. “My life is what it is. If you’re going to have a problem with it, it’s better we find out now than if I ever was to take you as my boyfriend.”
“No, no you… you can’t leave you just got here!” Julian pulled on my arm. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to all of this, alright?”
“I understand that and have noted that fact,” I said. I turned around, the boy clinging to me like his hands were Velcro. There was desperation in his eyes, and I felt for him, but there was something that needed to be said. “Julian… I’m Prince Elish, and you know what life I lead. I’m not saying I’m going to jump into bed with the damn kid. I have no idea what’s going to happen. All I know is that if you have a problem with any of this… you need to tell me sooner rather than later.”
Julian didn’t say anything back. He only looked at me with an expression of sadness that chipped away at a heart that so desperately wanted to remain calcified.
But I didn’t let it show on my face. Maybe it was because it had been a long couple of days, or maybe I was just so fucking tired of dealing with my home life, the fact that Julian was forcing drama into what had been my only refuge from this terrible existence, had soured me this evening. I didn’t come here for this. I just wanted to spend time with him.
“Tonight I want you to think long and hard about whether you want this,” I said. “You know my family, and you know that being in a relationship with me means that it won’t be conventional. It won’t be a walk in the park, and it’s already going to take all of my efforts to hide you from Silas, lest he fry you alive like he did Ryan.”
Then it hit me… without even realizing it I’d touched a raw nerve.
Why was I even considering being in a relationship? Silas will…
No, I said I would guard him… that I’d guard Finn.
But what if I fail?
I realized my words had fallen off of the edge of a cliff. Although my thoughts were running at high-speed through my head, I was, in reality, staring blankly at Julian.
At this beautiful, handsome, intelligent and quick-witted man…
Who also had no idea what he was getting into.
“I can’t risk it,” I whispered. “I can’t let him hurt you.” I turned around, my heart falling to the floor and being kicked with my quickened footsteps. “This was a mistake. All of this was a mistake. I won’t even be able to protect my sengil… let alone you. Please, forget you ever met me.”
“NO!” Julian suddenly cried. “Elish… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please, don’t leave. Don’t do this… I understand. I was just upset. Please!” He began to cry which startled me, and before I could turn around, he was grabbing my arm and sobbing.
My heart broke, and the confliction inside of me reached a critical level. I didn’t know what I was truly feeling, what I wanted out of this. So badly did I want Julian in my life, but I was scared because every time I let someone in… he killed them.
But why should I be miserable for my entire life because of him? I was fifteen now… I was bigger than him, stronger than him, and as a child being small and powerless was the justification I got for why I put up with this.
So why was I still putting up with this?
I turned and Julian dove into my arms and clung to me. And as he sobbed uncontrollably on my shoulder, I put my arms around him and closed my eyes.
“I think it’s me that has to do some thinking,” I whispered to him. “I’m tired, worn out, and conflicted. I can’t make life changing decisions now, not here. I need some time to… give this all some thought.”
“When will you come back?” Julian’s voice wobbled as he spoke. “Just promise me you’ll come back. You’re the only good thing in my life. That… that just makes me act crazy sometimes and I’m sorry.”
“I… I don’t know…”
“I need to know!” he wailed.
Jesus christ… was this what being in a relationship was about? Shouldn’t he be happy that I was giving this serious consideration and not just lying to make him feel better? It was like they wanted to be lied to and if I didn’t indulge them they clung to me and wailed like their entire world was crumbling between their fingers. Why did they have to be so needy?
͠
Well, Jade?
͠
“Fine… three days,” I said hastily, vastly uncomfortable with what was going on. I didn’t like him in this state, it was unsettling and strange and I just wanted him to stop acting so insane.
Julian sniffed. “… two?” He looked up at me, his eyes red from his crying and his nose running, most likely attributing to the wet patch I could now feel on my chest.
“Okay… two days,” I sighed. I shook my head and took him in for a hug. “This is a lot for me right now. You coming into my life so suddenly, it’s a lot for me. You… you know what I’d just fled from when we met, I was a suicidal mess. Plus, I have the sengil coming, two new siblings and one not even four-months-old… you must understand I just need a few days to get my head on straight, figure out what I’m feeling and what’s safest for you. I’m doing it because I care about you and I only want you safe.”
“What happens if you decide this is all too much… and you leave?”
“If I leave… it’ll only be to protect you,” I whispered, the prospect chilling my heart but also filling me with a solidarity that told me my words were serious.
Julian burst into fresh tears, but I couldn’t reassure him… all I could do was promise myself I’d never let him be in danger on my account. I would keep him safe.
With me. Or without me.
It was a long walk home, and I found myself deep in thought as I travelled the several blocks to Alegria. My mind was a storm, chaotic seas crashing against a small raft that held Julian cold and huddled inside. I felt a monumental amount of responsibility for him, and as I climbed up the steps of Alegria. I realized that protecting him trumped everything, and if that meant protecting him by ending our friendship, and what future evolutions that friendship may have, I would do it.
He’d hate me for it… but I’d do it.
When I walked into the apartment, I realized that all four of my siblings were awake, and Sacario had come to visit as well. Sacario, Nero, Garrett, and Ellis were on the couch and Ceph, seemingly having the time of his life, was bouncing around, wide awake, in a Jolly Jumper. The living room looked like a disaster area with empty baby bottles on the coffee table mixed in with drug paraphernalia, dirty plates, some with bits of food on them, and a lot of garbage. That reassured me at least, it meant that Silas still wasn’t home. I was the neatest out of my siblings, Garrett was no slob but if he was around the other two he’d rather hang out with them than clean. Those four sengils couldn’t come soon enough. I’d missed having others clean up for me.
Sacario, Nero, Garrett, and Ellis
all turned to me and gave me matching shocked looks. “Where… were you? You were out?” Ellis asked, confused.
Shit. I was so deep in thought I’d completely forgot to sneak in through the downstairs entrance. I spent so much time in my room that my siblings didn’t think twice about me disappearing for the evening, and they were used to me not answering the door even if they did need me for something.
“Just out for a walk,” I said as I took off my shoes. That was the easiest excuse and not far-fetched considering I wasn’t at Julian’s apartment for that long. “Why’s Ceph awake?” As I walked closer Ceph realized I was here and let out an excited squeal. He began bouncing up and down, getting some good air underneath him. I have memories of being inside of that very jumper, Silas had to attach it to a support beam in the ceiling because our strength, impressive even as infants, kept breaking the attachments. The same had been done for the three that had been installed several weeks ago, and now that child spent hours in the thing just bouncing and laughing, bouncing and laughing.
“No idea,” Ellis responded. “At least it means he’ll sleep better tonight.”
I needed something to help sort my mind after what had happened between me and Julian, so I sat in between Garrett and Ellis. I looked at the drugs littering the coffee table and began to choose my poison.
“I brought some opiate powder,” Sacario said. He looked quite stoned. My best friend for almost two years pointed at some powder in a small white pestle. “It’s relaxing stuff, perfect for my wound up little pumpkin.” He reached over and made a motion like he was pinching my cheeks, even though he was a good three feet away. “I thought I told you to bring me along for your damn walks.”
“I walk to get away from you people,” I said. I shifted myself back as Sacario slid off of his chair like he was made of liquid and began tapping the opiate powder onto the coffee table. I let him do his work and watched the television until he was done. They were watching Survivor, season three from the looks of it.
“There you go. Nasally it’ll hit you faster and you look like you need it,” Sacario said. He leaned himself forward, then used the momentum to propel himself backwards and up onto his feet, then he sat beside me on the couch. There really wasn’t a lot of room, but I hadn’t seen Sacario in about four days since I was busy at the lab, so I allowed it.
My brothers, even Ellis, had taken drugs nasally but usually I just swallowed my opiate pills. No real reason why I didn’t do it the other way, maybe I just didn’t like how junky’ish it made me feel. But tonight I didn’t really care.
I snorted some of the powder and sniffed it up. When I leaned back on the couch Sacario put his arm around me and nestled himself in. Sacario was quite touchy and loved squishing himself up to us. My brothers loved that about him, he even did it with Ellis, strictly plutonic of course but Ellis, who was used to being shunned from family snuggling, enjoyed being included in things.
“Aww, now I want to be on the couch,” Nero whined. “Siccy, come here! I want snuggles.”
“You want snuggles come here. I’m spending time with my Eli-Eli-Bo-Beeli.” Then he began to whisper the rest of the song. “Banana fana bo feeli.”
To my exasperation the others joined in. “Mee mi mo meeli… Eli!”
We all settled in on the couch together, and although when I first entered into this apartment my mind was spinning, I found myself relaxing and enjoying the time I was spending with my small family. The drugs hit me nicely and helped sand off the edges of the issues that were consuming my thoughts, and my brothers, sister, and Sacario talking amongst each other, mostly about what was happening on the television, distracted me from the worst of my troubles.
I needed this. I really did. The hours went by with us all engrossed in the television show, doing drugs together and eating all of the snack food in the house. Ceph eventually passed out in the Jolly Jumper, and after a diaper change (Garrett’s duty since it was his night to have Ceph), he was moved to his room and the door was shut.
We were on episode seven when Nero’s remote phone rang.
All of us jumped when we heard it. Who would be calling him?
“Maybe there’s a problem at Cardinalhall? I don’t know why they’d need me specifically though,” Nero said as he jumped to his feet and jogged over to the credenza by the hallway, where his remote phone was vibrating against the hardwood. Garrett paused the television and we all watched Nero pick up the phone and glance at the call display.
His brow furrowed. “It’s… Perish.”
Perish? The first thing I thought of was why Perish hadn’t called me. Why would he need Nero? But then I realized with a pit in my stomach that I’d left my remote phone at Julian’s. I’d… fuck, I’d left my entire messenger bag there. I was an idiot.
“Hey, Per,” Nero said. The living room became quiet as we watched Nero and all of us chimeras could hear hurried talking on the other end of the line.
Then Nero’s face fell, and immediately paled. His indigo eyes shot to us and they widened.
“I’ll… we’ll be… be right over,” he sputtered. Nero looked as if he was about to pass out, and terror ripped through my body when I saw his hand shake as he pressed the end call button.
Oh god. The twins. Don’t let this be about the twins. Please, please don’t let this be about the twins.
“Perish… Perish was working in another room,” Nero stammered. “Elish… the twins are gone. The twins are fucking gone.”
“What!?” I cried and behind me Garrett and Ellis cried the same thing. “How can they be gone?”
Nero ran to the door, and we followed him. “I don’t fucking know! Perish has the thiens coming, the lab is on lockdown but… it… he says he was in the other room for an hour, hour and a half… he doesn’t know how long ago they were taken.”
I ran behind Nero, terror gripping my heart. I heard Garrett and Ellis cry things behind me but my mind was reeling, I couldn’t hear them. What was going on? What the fuck was going on?
Nero opened the double doors and burst out into the hallway.
To my confusion however… he suddenly stopped, and the expression on his face was a déjà vu of the one I’d just seen… dumbstruck terror.
But when I ran through those same doors and turned to towards the elevator, I stopped as well.
Walking towards us, his eyes distant, his face lost, was Silas.
He was holding Artemis and Apollo in his arms, both twins naked, not even a blanket on them, and Silas was walking slowly towards us… not even looking up at us as we all gasped and ran to him.
It wasn’t until Nero and I were beside him that he looked up at us. The king mumbled something to us, something that I wasn’t even sure were real words, and clutched the babies to his chest.
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him, scream in his face over what he’d done. It was April, but it was still cold at night, the West Coast shook off winter late in the year. What if he’d fucking walked home!?
Oh god, what if he’d walked home? I had to get the twins away from him.
And that meant I had to remain calm.
“Silas, give me the twins. I need to get them warm,” I whispered to him, forcing a gentleness in my voice that was hiding behind it a blind rage.
Silas’s eyes widened when he heard my voice. He turned to me, and when our eyes locked I saw an overwhelming expression of pain, of a deeply imbedded sadness that, in any other circumstance, would make the world and all other things around me vanish.
“Elish…” Silas whimpered. His eyes filled with tears. “Elish…”
I didn’t know what was wrong with him. Or why he’d reacted that way with me. Either way, I didn’t care. I had to help my brothers, the twin boys that I myself had artificially created in a petri dish, had implanted into their steel mothers, had watched grow from little lumps to babies with a head of thick silver hair and large purple eyes.
Little brothers who shared half of my own
genetics.
I reached out and gently took the first baby, unsure of which one since we’d only been able to tell by where their umbilical cords were attached to the device that acted as a womb. My tense body gave a pensive sigh of relief when Silas allowed me to take him from his arms, but my chest clenched when I felt that he was chilled.
“Nero. You’re the warmest, put him under your shirt and sit on the couch with a blanket. I’ll follow you with the other one.” I took the second baby, and as Silas began sniffing and quietly weeping, I looked to Ellis and Garrett. “Garrett, bring him inside, try and get him into his room. Ellis, call Perish and tell him the twins are safe.” The two nodded and I followed Nero inside of the apartment.
Nero sat down on the couch and half-laid down on it. I helped him put both babies onto his chest and brought two of Ceph’s fleecy blankets to throw on top of them as well. I heard Ellis talking with Perish as I grabbed a thermometer from the bathroom, and just when I was about to grab Nero’s phone to call Dr. Liam, Sacario walked into the apartment with the doctor following behind.
Before he could speak, Garrett exited Silas’s bedroom. “He says he drove from the laboratory to here. He didn’t walk all the way with them.”
That was a relief. “He’s fucked out of his mind,” I told Dr. Liam as he approached. “He barely knew where he was.”
Liam nodded and knelt down in front of the couch. He felt the forehead of the closest baby to him, and then the second. “There’s no fever. It doesn’t seem like they were exposed for long.” He turned each baby over to check how their cords had been clamped. It looked like he’d done it properly at least.
“They both look good,” Liam confirmed. “Nero should be fine until they heat up.” He glanced over to Sacario. “Make them both a bottle, once they’re alert they’re going to cry.”