The Suicide King Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 3)
Page 8
Now I had broken out Nero and Ceph, and Nero and I had spent the last five hours mixing and pouring quick set concrete. Not for his and Ceph’s crypts, but for that mysterious man we’d accidently set free. There would be no hiding what I had done.
Soon I would be sending the three of them off to hide, and I myself would have to stay behind to pick up the fallen pieces.
“I’m thinking of taking him into the plaguelands,” Nero said. Half of Ceph’s hair had been cut away now, only three inches of it remained. Nero looked at me and I saw his lips pale as he pursed them together. “Sangy… I can’t let you stay here while we fuck off. You gotta come with us.”
At this I shook my head. “I cannot run from him, Nuka. Silas loves me, you know he would never do anything permanent.”
Nero took in a cautious breath and exhaled it out of his mouth. He continued to cut Ceph’s hair and I continued to feed him.
“I know Kingsly loves you but… he was real pissed that I…” Nero patted Ceph’s shoulder and I knew he didn’t want to bring voice to what he’d done to Reaver. Not that Ceph would care, but it would lead away from the conversation. “He might take out the anger on you… or, well, I know he will.”
“Nonsense,” I said with a wave of my hand and a reassured smile; a smile that was as fake as my own confidence but I wore it regardless. “I’ll be fine, lovely. You just take care of your husband and your cicaro, and don’t worry about me.”
The look that Nero gave me told me that he was unconvinced, but behind that look I knew he dearly wanted to trust that I had everything under control. He wanted to leave with Ceph and Kiki but he couldn’t until he reassured himself that I would be okay.
I knew I wouldn’t be okay but perhaps King Silas’s anger towards me would deflect his attention from my brothers. Not just Nero, but his anger towards Garrett keeping the secret of Reaver’s location from him too. Hell, maybe the family I arranged to have stranded will come back with Reaver in tow, and Silas will forget all of our disobedience for a while.
I kept my smile and handed Ceph half of a hamburger. “You just do what needs to be done. I will handle everything… I have brothers who will aid me if Silas decides to punish me.”
“What if he encases you too?” I was surprised at the fear that laced Nero’s words.
But it only made me push my confident stance. I shook my head before getting up to grab Ceph a napkin, he was still missing his mouth. “Silas would never do that to me. You know he… he would never do that.”
“Kingy has been acting pretty nuts lately though,” Nero pointed out. He tried to make eye contact with me when I walked back in with a hand towel but I refused it. “You’ve seen it… he’s been driving himself crazy trying to get Reaver.”
“And he went into the plaguelands to get Reaver,” I said to him back. “For all we know he has Reaver, and he’ll be content for the next hundred years. Love, we have no idea what happened in the plaguelands and Kiki has already told us everything he knows. We just don’t know and I don’t know either; all I know is that I have to get you, Ceph, and Kiki on a Falconer and far from here. I am king now and I have Skyfall to run and, like I said, I will not hide from him. Please…” I walked up to Nero and kissed his cheek, my nose filling with the smells of spice and shampoo from his and Ceph’s bath. “Just give me one less thing to worry about and leave with Ceph and Kincade tonight. I’m going to try and come up with a plan, and in three day’s time, once the concrete is hard enough and I’ve had time to scuff it up, I will start looking for the group myself.”
My voice hung in the air before it was consumed by the silence of the room. I watched my brother, staring worriedly at the back of Ceph’s head, take in a deep breath before he let out a sigh.
“I’m taking a remote phone and an Ieon,” Nero said after the silence had been around us for at least a minute. “I’ll turn the phone on every odd-numbered day at six for an hour. Even if I get a single ring from you I’ll come back to Skyfall and get you. I don’t care where he has you or what he threatens… just call me and let it ring once and I’ll be coming. I swear on Cephy’s life, you know I will.”
I rested a hand on his shoulder and pecked his cheek. Though as my lips broke away from his prickly skin, Nero turned his head to me and the two of us joined in a deep kiss.
When Nero broke away he looked me right in the eyes. I hadn’t seen that much apprehension and nervousness in decades. “You better know what the fuck you’re doing, Sangy…” Nero said. “I know you love Kingy but I’ve been around him longer, and I know he’s bordering on snapping again. You know what happens when he snaps…”
We all knew what happened when Silas snapped, most of us had the mental scars to prove it.
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured him for what seemed like the hundredth time. Perhaps this repetition was because I needed to reassure myself. “He cannot kill me and he would never put me in concrete.” The reason why I was so sure of this was because of my own traumatic past. Silas knew what I had endured in the greywastes, and he knew the horrible consequence of triggering my psychosis. I had issues with my brain, and though a lot of those problems had been repaired when I had been made immortal, both from immortal healing and surgery, I still suffered lingering issues. Silas was ravaged with guilt over my past, and I was confident he would never do something that would exacerbate my problems.
“You’ve never seen him snap as bad as I have… and we’re heading towards a big one, I know it,” Nero said. “And if he finds out… what else I accidently did… freeing that dude…”
His voice trailed to nothing and only silence followed his words. We both stood in this silence and I knew he was thinking the same things that I was.
“Do you think… he’s dangerous? I mean, Nero, he had… Silas, Valen, Jade’s… empathic abilities…”
Nero bit the bottom of his lip. He tilted Ceph’s head to the side, his haircut now finished, and started to trim his beard in preparation for shaving it. I stared at him, analysing his face and wondering to myself if I was going to get a response. It looked like I was going to be kept waiting because Nero continued to cut off Ceph’s scraggly beard without saying anything back.
I wasn’t that impressed with his lack of response, but when the last thick patch of reddy-brown hair fell onto King Silas’s granite floor, I found myself temporarily forgetting our troubles, and instead, smiling.
In front of me was the Ceph I remembered. Square face, dark green, inquisitive eyes, ears that stuck out just a little bit too much and a thick neck that Nero used to love to kiss and nip.
He was back.
“Hey, Cephy baby,” Nero said sweetly as he rubbed the stray strands from Ceph’s face. He gave his husband a playful smack on the cheek before grabbing his chin. “Fuck, I knew you were in there somewhere. You looked forty with that damn beard.”
Ceph scratched his cheek and looked down at the hair that surrounded him. And there was a lot of it as well. The sengil nature that had branded itself into my bones over the last thirty years made me sigh at it, but then again, I was technically king so I would just make Juni and Luca clean it up for me. Those two had been enjoying each other’s company, and bodies, with their masters gone and it was time for them to expend their energies elsewhere.
“I think I’m starting to… come back to reality,” Ceph said as he rubbed his squinting eyes. “I just feel like my head is in a fog.” He wiped both of his hands down his face and tried to get to his feet, Nero helped him. “It’s really been… thirty years?”
“Yeah… but that’s a good thing that you think it’s been shorter, peaches,” Nero said with a supportive smile. “I bet you’ll be good as new in a few days and some quiet in the plaguelands will be the best thing for you.”
Quiet in the plaguelands… now that sounded good right about now. What was I going to do when they left? I had been pushing down the apprehension rather well, but like a spider in an open glass jar it kept trying to crawl out.
My head shook and Nero sighed again. I put the plate down in front of Ceph, who was petting one of Silas’s cats, and walked to the window.
It was dark outside and Skyfall in front of me was carrying on as normal. King Silas’s people below had no idea that their king was stranded in the plaguelands, or that all but a small handful of chimeras were gone from the only radiation-free city in the entire dead world. They lived their simple lives and carried on as normal, whereas I was up here, as King Sanguine, watching the sand in my hourglass start to collect at the bottom.
But though the sand was eternal, never to run out, none of this mattered in darkness, none of this mattered when you had no eyes to see it, and here I was… facing the prospect of living my own concrete nightmare.
Not only had I freed Nero and Ceph… we’d accidently freed someone that Silas had kept secret from all of us.
He’s going to do worse than kill me.
No… no, he wouldn’t do that to me. I dismissed my anxiety with a deep swallow and found myself standing up straight, as if all of Skyfall were watching me through the window.
I stared out into the night, seeing the lights twinkle and the headlights go up and down the street like rows of soldiers holding torches. I tried to find peace in this lit-up darkness, but all I saw was my anxious reflection.
But then I looked past my reflection, to the living room behind me. I saw Nero with Ceph in his arms, arms that bound themselves around Ceph tightly. Nero’s eyes were closed as he held him, and as my ears adjusted I picked up the rapid thrumming of his heart.
Yes… this is why I did it. I turned around and smiled at the two of them, then quietly walked to the couch they were both sitting on. As I approached, Nero opened his eyes and returned my smile.
“I’m going to take him to my apartment in Skytower and quickly pack us some things,” Nero said, then he looked towards Kiki who had been the silent wallflower for most of the evening. “Kiki will be fine but I obviously can’t bring Elliot, the radiation will kill him, so I’m going to tell him he can stay with Artemis and Apollo. You’ll keep an eye on him, right?”
I nodded. “Yes, of course. The twins would be more than happy to have another sengil to ravage.”
Nero smirked at this and stood up. “I’m going to try and think of a way I can get Kingy’s favour back, so not only can I keep Cephy but I can stay out of the box as well. I’m not sure what yet, but who knows… if you have any ideas tell me, if not…” Nero shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know he’s never putting Ceph in there again.”
Nero took Ceph’s hand and helped him up, and I felt my own heart pitter-patter in my chest. There was a question that kept running to the front of my mind, but whenever I brushed a hand over it, it retreated like a sea anemone. Though if Nero was leaving now… I wouldn’t get the opportunity to ask for quite some time.
“If there was a way to get Silas help…” I began as I followed Nero to the door. “… but it meant Silas would be gone for a long time recovering, and it would mean us… having to overpower him to do it, force him to take our help… would you?”
Nero froze at my words, and like they had brought with them the chill of the Arctic, everyone around me seemed to freeze as well.
Even me.
“You… I thought…” Nero turned around and I was shocked to see hurt in his eyes. “I thought you loved Kingy, Sam. You – you want him gone too?” The pain on his face broke my heart in two, and before he even finished his sentence, I was shaking my head.
“No… not…” How did he know this? Had Elish already spoken to him? “Not in the way you think. I don’t want him hurt, or miserable, or encased in concrete… I want to get him help. I want…”
“What Elish wants… so Elish got to you? What the fuck did he promise you?”
“No!” I found myself saying back sharply, his accusatory tone digging up both guilt and defensiveness. “Elish did not get to me. If he got to me why would I abandon him with the others?” I swallowed down a bitter taste in my mouth. “I don’t want to hurt him like Elish does. I love Silas dearly as I know you do. I want to get him help; I want to help him finally put Sky behind him and perhaps find someone for him to love, someone besides Reaver.”
Nero looked at me skeptically; Ceph just looked confused and lost.
“Sangy… I know nothing of your plans but I’ve been hearing Elish’s bullshit since the night he smashed Kingy’s head in after Jade’s party. I know Silas encased me in concrete but I fucking deserved it… and…” Nero looked at Ceph. “… if I hadn’t been so scared of what state Ceph would be in, I could’ve given Reaver to Silas and I know Silas would’ve given me Ceph as a reward. All of this shit I did myself… none of this was Kingy’s fault. It was me.”
I took Nero’s hand in mine and held it. “My plan isn’t a plan, love. Elish wants to be rid of Silas and he thinks with some clever manipulating he can get the family to go along with it. But I know you, as I know Garrett, Jack, Ellis, and many others… we don’t want Silas permanently gone; we love him and we see how sick he is. So tell me… if there is a way for us to… force him to receive our help… or if there is a way for us to find someone to make him happy… will you go against Silas’s wishes for it? You know if we can find him a partner he will thank us, and we can all live with our own partners and be happy.”
The skeptical look didn’t disappear from my brother’s face, if anything it only became more prominent.
“You know I am bound to Silas,” I said to Nero, then I squeezed his hand. “As I am bound to you. Give me your word. Let me know I have you as an ally and I can move forward with this. If I know I have you… I can feel a bit more confident confronting the brothers Elish has already swayed to go along with me.”
“But what can you even do?” Nero asked. “Reaver fucking hates him and the smart chimeras haven’t been able to clone Sky. How can you say you can help him or send him away to make him well?”
Lies laced my tongue but Nero knew me and I wouldn’t insult him by lying to his face. “I don’t know yet…” When Nero groaned and turned from me, I pulled his hand back. “But I will figure something out,” I said hastily. “I have been living with King Silas for thirty years and he’s been my master, my lover, my king, and my friend, for almost fifty-one. I know his secrets and what secrets I don’t know… I know where to find them. I can figure out how to help him, and I know I can find him someone.”
“He doesn’t want us,” Nero said bitterly. “Elish tried and he got spat on for his efforts and he was never the same after. Silas doesn’t see us as being good enough to be his lovers. He just wants Sky and Sky’s clone hates him, and the smart chimeras can’t clone another. That’s it for the born immortals besides Perry, and Silas’s fucked up Perish’s mind so much he’s gone retarded.”
Then, like two wires were touching inside of my brain, each not realizing the other one was live, something occurred to me. It was something so obvious that I was sure my subconscious had been leading me there the entire time.
What if that man in the tomb was another born immortal…?
I dearly wanted to talk to Nero about my theory, but I knew that would be the equivalent of talking to a brick wall. No, no, I wouldn’t get anything from Nero, perhaps this was information I would be having to find myself. And it looked like the perfect opportunity had fallen onto my lap.
I was alone, and I was king.
“Just promise me you’ll always be my ally,” I said to Nero. I raised his large hand to my lips and kissed it.
My brother’s eyes softened for me and his hand slipped from mine to cup my chin. I followed his guidance until my lips found his again. He kissed me with a gentleness rarely seen between the two of us. When we were intimate it was masochism and sadism’s finest hour; we rarely made love unless I was having a ba
d night with Silas and needed him, but right now he was treating me more like his husband than the one standing beside him.
“I love you and I will say again what I’ve been saying since you were little: No matter what happens, it’ll always be the two of us. I would never go against you, Sanguine, and I will follow you into whatever darkness your psychotic and crafty mind leads you. I trust you more than Elish, more than Silas, fucking more than my own mind. But, Sanguine…” Nero let out a tense breath, like he had been holding something back the entire time we’d been talking. “… you have a bad habit of becoming a martyr.” Nero looked to his side where Ceph was standing beside Kiki, both of them watching our interaction. “And I love you for it… you’re so self-sacrificing it hurts my heart. But please, puppy, don’t get involved with trying to fix Silas, because many have tried and… many have failed. And when you’re in the fallout zone when Silas explodes from having his heart broken… people die, people get encased in concrete, just like Ceph did when Silas flipped out over baby Adler dying. If you’re near him when he reaches that explosive point… Sangy, he’ll wipe your existence from our lives. He’ll–” Nero let out a frustrated growl as I started shaking my head rapidly back and forth.
“He wouldn’t do that to me,” I said simply, then I gave him the same reassuring smile I’d been conjuring since we’d taken Ceph out of his crypt. “I know what I’m doing, Nuky, I really do. I will find a way. I have Alegria and Silas’s computers at my fingertips and a world of secrets I can uncover. I’m quite confident I can find something. If Elish can find a way to destroy him – I can find a way to heal him.”