The Suicide King Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 3)

by Quil Carter

  But then Elish’s thoughts took a dark turn. The smiling face of Jade started to fade and like a cruel inner voice reminding him of the real realities of his life with Jade, he saw the look of despair on the boy’s face whenever Elish had been cruel to him, and the fear in his eyes when Elish became violent.

  I used to hit that boy and feel gratification when I did it. I loved knocking him to the floor whenever he had the audacity to challenge me, and when he’d come crawling to my feet on his hands and knees, begging me for forgiveness after, it filled me with sadistic joy. I enjoyed it immensely as I enjoyed seeing everyone around me submit to me. I drank in the boy’s terror and loved every tear he shed from my hand. I licked his blood and fed on his fear and misery, and I tempered and trained him until he himself became steel.

  There were times when the boy deserved a sound beating, all my brothers did at times, and yet there were other incidences when the only reason I beat him mercilessly was because I hated how he was making me feel. I so despised that boy for making me love him.

  And I hated him for giving Silas a tool to use against me, when I had systematically eliminated all weapons the Ghost could use on my body and mind. From not having a partner of my own, to growing my hair long as a decoy. Jade was my Achilles’ heel and that parasite of a king knew it, as did my entire family.

  Elish closed his eyes, but he was unable to shake the image of Jade on the floor, his chest heaving and his mouth open and gasping. There was blood running down his nose and mouth, staining the carpet. It was a scene that had played out many times before, Jade had been disobedient and like a dog he’d been disciplined for it.

  And my chest would shake with adrenaline over his fearful pleas spilling quickly from his lips. His tone would be high with real fear, and his yellow eyes wide and terrified. I’d leave him bleeding on the floor and I would go back to my laptop, or go into my room, deliberately ignoring his crying… then he’d crawl to me with his tail tucked between his legs, making cautious movements and shrinking down if I myself moved.

  I beat him, but because I had destroyed everything he’d ever had, and I had isolated him from the rest of the world to make myself the sole person he could go to… he’d crawl to his abuser for comfort.

  I’m a terrible person.

  And I did not deserve that boy.

  This sudden conclusion filled Elish’s mouth with bitterness. He swallowed down the constriction that was tightening his throat and crushed more pills. He inhaled them and closed his eyes, but all he saw was that boy bleeding on the carpet.

  Suddenly Elish let out a scream of anger. He picked up a crate of empty wine bottles and threw them down onto the caravan’s wooden floor, smashing the crate like a thrown egg, and shattering the glass bottles inside.

  Broken glass went everywhere and he felt shifting as the bosen became anxious. Elish clenched his teeth and let out another cry, then he raised his fists and started punching the broken glass bottles. With every hit they sliced his hands, but he cared not, blood sprayed all around him and shards of glass flew through the air, but still he rained blow after blow down; mournful and agony-filled cries coming forth from his lips until he let out one last sob and folded his hands behind his neck. He pressed his hands against the back of his head, his mouth open and his face twisted in remorse, then he closed his eyes, feeling blood running down his neck and chest.

  When he opened his eyes he saw Jade sitting in front of him, the boy’s image blurred from his own tears. He looked as he did in his prime, during the several months they spent together in happiness after their game had concluded. His hair was longer and curling in the back, his pale face healthy and his thin lips the most beautiful shade of pink.

  Elish choked and raised a lacerated and bleeding hand to touch the boy’s face. To run his fingers down his warm cheek, to feel Jade’s head tilt towards his hand, one last time.

  But the boy only smiled, before he disappeared from Elish’s vision, only the shocked eyes of the greywasters peering into the caravan remaining.

  Chapter 22

  Elish

  Elish rolled over on the double bed; the smell of old blankets washed in bar soap and a room cleaned with Pinesol and bleach filling his nostrils. The aroma sat there stagnant, making a home inside of his nose with no intents of departing.

  He hated that smell. The dreams he’d have of Jade, of holding him in his arms and taking in his scent, no matter how vivid, were uncovered as fake as soon as his senses became sharp enough for him to smell that room. There was no escaping reality it seemed, not even while he slept.

  Slowly Elish opened his eyes after one particularly heartwrenching dream, one that had him holding the boy in his arms. It was the last time he held the boy while he still had his mind; the last night before Kessler came.

  And even though Elish knew that he would eventually see headlights on the horizon, and the sounds of the legion vehicles, he cherished that dream anyway.

  Every moment.

  Elish squinted his eyes and his metal lock box came into his focusing vision. He stared, with more awareness than he felt comfortable with, and wondered if he could continue the dream where he left off.

  Or perhaps if I close my eyes now, I can control the dream… I can change the past and kill Kessler as soon as he steps off of that plane.

  If only it could be so.

  If only.

  Elish got up, the room dark around him thanks to a blanket he’d hung up over the paper thin curtain, and relieved himself. He looked over his now healed hands but saw that in several places there were raised bumps from where his resurrection hadn’t pushed out the glass. He sat down at a small table, only big enough to fit a chair on either side, and sniffed ground up Dilaudids through his rolled up money. After he picked out the glass with a pocket knife, he went back to bed with a bottle of vodka and closed his eyes. The drugs would be kicking in soon at least.

  The false comfort started behind his eyes, and leaked to the back of his head like someone was pouring liquid warm onto his face. It pooled like water flowing into a dam, and once it overflowed and spilled over the edges, it sunk into his veins, joined his blood, and spread to the rest of his body. The center of the drug-induced warmth was his head, however; and he let the intense high cradle him and wrap him tightly in its blanket. He found the drugs to be the only arms he felt like he could crawl into without judgement, so he did, with his eyes shut tight and his knees drawn up to his chest.

  But no drugs could silence the boy’s voice, and inside he debated his own masochism when he found himself replaying every word Jade had ever said to him, good and bad. He found himself now treasuring every acidic nip, every shouted insult. But instead of remembering the flares of anger that accompanied the boy’s disrespect, or the cold satisfaction and the smirk that followed when Elish knew he’d gotten to him, in Elish’s memories he only threw his arms around Jade and held him tight to his body.

  The boy’s voice seemed so clear and ringing, but Elish was saddened to realize that every day that went by, the voice was changing. Like he was replaying a video cassette so often it was wearing and distorting, but instead of becoming something different, Jade’s voice was becoming Elish’s.

  He’d replayed Jade’s memories so many times it was now his voice he was remembering.

  And for that, a new sadness rooted itself in Elish’s chest, and its vines wrapped around his bones and embedded their roots.

  The fear that he was going to forget Jade was all too real. He was immortal and he knew the realities of that. Once feelings he had felt so strong would become faded and washed out, and with every day he woke up, the short few years where Jade was a part of his life would get farther away.

  Elish swallowed a lump in his throat and blinked away the stinging that had appeared behind his eyes. He closed his eyes and drew up Jade’s face, and as if his mind had decided to take advantage of his own inner fear, it cruelly made Jade’s image faded and full of inconsistencies and holes.


  All of the pictures he had of the boy had burned up in the fire. The only records he would have would be the ones Silas was in possession of. Cruel videos he kept out of pure sadistic enjoyment: Jade and Sanguine having sex, the wedding which Nero had filmed happily, and other ones he most likely wasn’t aware of. The photos perhaps he would have more luck on… but even those would be old ones. Jade had been away from the family for quite a while.

  His memory will fade, as it did with the other men who once claimed my heart. Early in my years, when I still had a heart to claim.

  Elish got up, unable to stand the thoughts so cruelly infecting his mind. He did more of the drugs on the small table and sniffed them up his nose, in a desperate effort to make them hit faster.

  The drugs were a saving grace now; however, they were a double-edged sword. Every time Elish inhaled them, or swallowed down the pills, he was rolling the dice.

  Sometimes the drugs would throw him into an agony-induced rage. The despair would claim him and slay him, reaching down his throat and grabbing his heart before ripping it out through his mouth. The pain was so profound, he would most often fall to his knees and lay on the floor until he could slip himself a suicide pill to quell the anguish eating him alive.

  Elish opened his eyes, the pills doing their work and rendering him almost too out of it to move. He stared at the turned off television, and rested his hand on the collar wrapped around his upper arm. He stroked it slowly and swallowed with a trembling throat.

  I could have had him immortal months ago, but, once again, I had to double down and gamble with the last chip I held in my hands. After losing everything else, I offered up the last thing I had… and I had lost.

  Now I am nothing. Nothing but a drunk and a drug addict, passing the days in a dark apartment waiting for death. However death will never find me. It has claimed Killian, and it has claimed Jade, and yet it passes me by each time.

  Reno was right, they deserved life and I do not.

  There was a knock on his door sometime later. What time it was he didn’t know, he never paid attention to whether it was day or night; but there was a thin strip of sunlight on the wall behind the television, so it must be sometime during the day.

  Elish got up, his bones cracking and popping; he slipped on a pair of leather gloves, and opened the door.

  Max was standing there, holding a bag in one hand and a book in the other. When he saw Elish his face grew concerned. “I thought I told you not to try dying…”

  “I thought I told everyone to leave me alone,” Elish said dryly, but for some reason he stepped away from the door and let the boy walk in. “Is it time to leave?” The timeline was hazy now, but he remembered coming into Mariano. He had lost a lot of blood from cutting his hands on the glass but had refused all offers of medical help in favour of retreating to a room at the inn.

  “No, we’re still waiting for the big caravan to come in,” Max responded. He put the brown bag, which smelled like pub food, down onto the small table, but kept the book. “Once we buy the supplies from them we’ll be going first thing to Mantis. You’re lucking out again. It’s more wine.” Max chuckled at this. “Well, wine plus some other shit.” Then he looked at Elish and the concerned look re-appeared on his face. “How are your hands?”

  Elish sat down on one of the two chairs in front of the table. “Fine,” he said flatly.

  “You really scared Mom, and the mercenaries wanted to leave you behind… I know you’ll probably hate me, but I told Mom, just Mom, that your husband died. So she’s kind of understanding now.”

  Elish’s mouth pulled at this but he said nothing. He’d be rid of all of them once he arrived in Mantis.

  But what was the point in going to Mantis? To drink and get too stoned to feel anything in a different apartment? Elish had no answer to that, but it was where he felt compelled to go, so it was where he would go. What happened after that he did not know, nor did he care.

  For once in his life he had no future plans.

  “So… um.” Max sat down and put the book he’d been carrying on the table. He looked at Elish and indicated with his eyes for Elish to take it. “I saw this in the shop and bought it for you.”

  Elish picked it up. Its front was soft worn leather, a chestnut brown, and when he opened up the book he realized the single line pages were empty. “I kind of… I like writing songs like I said, and once I had a friend who bought me a book and I taught myself how to write. I don’t know if you know how to write, but if you do I thought it might help for you to… you know, write stuff since you seem so sad.” Max scratched the back of his head, his cheeks reddened. “If you don’t know how to write, I’m sorry. But you could learn, or maybe draw pictures or something.”

  For a moment, Elish just stared blankly, trying to wade through the thick haze to gauge how he felt about the boy’s offering. Max continued to stumble over his words as he did this, tripping and falling like he was tumbling down a dictionary rather than a flight of stairs.

  “Why do you care?” Elish found himself saying in a low tone. Then his purple eyes lifted from the blank book to Max’s flushed face.

  The boy’s eyes, green, shifted from Elish’s and he shrugged his left shoulder. “Every time I go near you I just feel this overwhelming sense of sad. I’m not a monster or anything… I feel bad and I just wanted to help. Maybe one day when I’m at the lowest point in my life, someone might help me, right? Today you, tomorrow me for all I know.”

  Elish set the book down. Then he saw a rough hand set a rollerball pen on top of the soft leather cover.

  “You’re rather thoughtful for a greywaster,” Elish replied. “Most of the ones I’ve met, they’re hardened already. They don’t trust anyone, let alone feel empathy towards them.”

  Max seemed amused by this. “I shot a merc in the back of the head when he hit my mom just last year, man. I stalked a merchant who ripped us off and cut his throat. We ate well for a week. Don’t take this as me being soft. I just… I don’t know… for some reason you stand out to me.”

  Elish’s brow furrowed at this. He reached to his belt and pulled out a small pocket knife. Max gave a questioning look as Elish unfolded it, and that look only intensified when Elish made a ‘come here’ motion towards Max’s hand.

  “What are you doing?” Max asked cautiously, but trustingly he gave Elish his hand.

  “Not making the same mistake twice,” Elish said, and he took the boy’s hand firmly in his. “I am going to draw blood. You’re a greywaster, you’re tough enough to deal with it. If you don’t ask me further questions and close your eyes… I will give you fifty dollars.”

  Max blinked, then he closed his eyes. “You can get a hell of a lot more out of me for fifty bucks,” he said, but his tone was nervous.

  Elish didn’t answer back. He pressed the tip of the knife to the inner area of the boy’s middle finger and cut it. Max sucked in a breath and grunted as Elish squeezed the wound to extract the blood; then Elish put his lips to the wound quickly and ran his tongue over it.

  “Holy…” Max opened his eyes and pulled his finger away. He looked down at it and his chest shuddered, his heartbeat spiked as well.

  Elish ran the blood along his mouth and shook his head with a sigh. “You’re a greywaster. I thought as much but I’ve been fooled before. I–”

  Suddenly Max grabbed the collar of Elish’s jacket and pulled him forward. Max pushed his lips against Elish’s and kissed him.

  Elish immediately broke the kiss, and like a rapid strike, he grabbed the boy’s chin.

  “No,” Elish said, in a tone that held such a dangerous warning it was as if, for the moment at least, he’d become the chimera he’d once been. “If you ever do that again, I will kill you.” Elish’s violet eyes seared the boy’s own, reducing whatever fleeting feelings he’d had to cinders. Max melted underneath the glaring threat and stayed a puddle of embarrassment right where Elish had left him.

  “You’re going to hate me now…” M
ax said, and slowly wiped a hand down his face, a streak of blood was left behind from where Elish had cut him. “I just thought… why did you…?” Then he seemed to remember the rules for receiving his money, so he paused and instead continued his self-loathing. “I just fucked it up, didn’t I?”

  “There was nothing to fuck up,” Elish said. He rose and sat back down on his bed and picked up his bottle of vodka. “You can leave.”

  “Can I stay…? Please?”

  “No.”

  “But I’m lonely. Come on. Please… I’m… I feel sad too.”

  Elish was quiet. His mind taking him back to the campfire the night before Kessler came. How he held his cicaro as he slept, and the last kiss that they had shared. The boy had looked so much older with his beard, and rugged with his eyebrows ungroomed and his hands rough and callused.

  He remembered the last time they’d been intimate, and Elish was drawn further into sadness when he realized that, in a few short months, it would be a year. He’d last taken his husband in the greyrifts apartment, before they had left on that worthless mission.

  I will never feel that boy’s soft naked body against my own. I will never feel like one piece of a two piece instrument, making the most beautiful music as we played each other perfectly. How can I ever be intimate with anyone when it would be nothing compared to what it was like sharing a bed with him.

  I had grown to dislike sex, thanks to Silas’s constant use of it to dominate me, and it was Jade who lit that fire inside of my soul. Before Jade, sex was something I scheduled like a meeting. To call Drake to my office or house to perform on me orally, have one or two orgasms and send him away. Or if I was frustrated about something, or angry, to fuck one of my brothers until I made them bleed. It was only done because testosterone commanded the release and I’d grow, as my brothers would say, all the more insufferable if I didn’t get rid of that tension.