by Quil Carter
I didn’t want Elish to be sad, every time I’d seen him sad it was when I was hurt. Elish was fucking perfect. He was a god and I was a shadow; a serpent that was lucky enough to be allowed to curl up under his feet. I wasn’t worthy of making him feel that emotion… fucking no one was.
I bowed my head and felt a tear run down my cheek. I squeezed my eyes tight and quietly cried to myself. There were so many emotions pulling my guts out. Not only was I feeling empathy for what Elish was going through… but I also think I was sad knowing that he wasn’t going to bust through this door to save me.
No one was.
Everyone thinks I’m dead but Kerres and the guy who took off so quick I’d barely gotten a chance to say hello. He just… healed me and bolted.
“You know what I want?” Kerres shouted back to me. “You know what I fucking want, asshole?” I ducked, knowing what was coming, and sure enough, I was right. Kerres’s fist hit my jaw and then the side of my head. I didn’t know if he composed himself enough to open the fist, or if he was just wanting to hit me differently, but the next several blows were open palm but just as forceful, smack upon smack on my head until I felt something spasm inside of my brain.
The seizure came swiftly. It was as if someone was grabbing onto my brain stem and yanking me backwards into that dark limbo. It forced me into darkness, and in that void I felt a million little electric prongs shock my body, making my muscles spasm and twitch.
Then the pain came, and I screamed. I expected to hear Kerres’s panicked voice, and his arms on me to try and take the seizure away, but I suffered alone and in darkness until it eventually subsided.
After the last spasm left my body I was a crumpled heap of nothing. I opened my mouth as wide as I could and gasped like a dying man, filling my compressed and aching lungs with as much air as I could get.
“Maybe this is what I want…?” I heard Kerres say faintly. “Maybe I want to see you suffer as much as you’ve made me suffer these last few years.” His hand grabbed my chin and tilted it up. “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it… chimera scum.” He shook my chin, but I was too exhausted and out of it to say anything back, even though inside I was blazing. “Maybe I’ll keep you in here, and let you burn alive when I bomb Skyland. I have the weapons to do it; they’re in Irontowers and I know where.”
I know where they are too, asshole. I groaned and tried to roll onto my side to breathe better.
“At least you’re finally being honest with yourself,” I rasped. “Still loving me was just a mask, isn’t it? You want to torture me.” Torture me for falling in love with a man he could never compare to. “I might be chimera scum… but you’re just as bad, Crimstone.”
I got a punch in the eye for that. Pain shot through me and filled my head with a throbbing buzzing sound. “You’re worse than chimera scum, you’re a chimera’s whore,” Kerres snarled. “You were kidnapped, Jade, fucking kidnapped by Elish. He physically abused you, he mentally destroyed you, he raped you, and when you told him you loved him… he abandoned you in Moros.” My lips pursed as old wounds got ripped open, wounds I had healed long ago. “And yet you fucking follow him around on the leash he still has you tied to.”
“And what’s my alternative?” I snapped. “Get beaten some more by you? What are my fucking options, Kerres? You let the Crimstones make you into a bad-tempered, insane loose cannon.”
“I saved your fucking life!”
I spat a mouthful of blood. “Thanks,” I said angrily. “Thanks for saving me, just so you can tie me to your bed and beat the shit out of a chained chimera. Call me a fucking whore–”
“YOU ARE A WHORE!” Kerres screamed this so hard in my face I felt his spit on my lip. “How many of your fucking brothers have fucked you, whore? Huh!?
“I’d rather let Silas fuck me than have your slimy, fucking–” This time when Kerres hit me I felt myself get wrenched further away from my conscious. I would’ve been comfortable there, or anywhere besides this fucked up madness I had woken up in, but then I felt his hand press up against my groin.
This was enough to shoot my mind back into my body, and like a boulder being thrown into a cold lake, I felt myself coated head to toe in frigid water.
“Y-you’ve got – got to be kidding me,” I rasped. I pulled away from him but my boxers stayed where they were, firmly in his grip. “You’ve seriously… got to be kidding me, Kerres.”
I heard the cloth crumple under his fist, then the sound of him smelling my fucking boxers. More cold washed through me, freezing my blood and locking every muscle in place.
No, I don’t care how fucked up he was in his brain… he wouldn’t do this to me. Kerres was in there somewhere, I had seen glimpses of him before.
“I hate you,” Kerres whispered, his voice was cracking as if it was being roasted over the flames inside of him. I could smell the smoke on his breath, the anger, the three years of pining, stalking, pursuing; the three years of convincing himself that I was Elish’s prisoner, that I was a chimera’s slave that he had to save. He’d joined the Crimstones to try and free me, he’d climbed up twenty-two flights of stairs to rescue me from the brother who had vowed to kill me.
Then he carried me through the smoke and flames to save me.
No…
Not save me.
I clenched my teeth and screamed through them when I felt Kerres’s penis push against me. I thrashed my arms up in a useless attempt to hit him, to get his heavy breathing away from my ear.
Never to save me.
Only to pay me back personally – for everything I had done to him.
“Kerres!” I screamed. A rip of desperation went through me when he grabbed my left leg and pushed it back. I tried to rear my right leg to hit him, but as soon as it recoiled he punched me again in the face.
And as I laid there, stunned, he pushed himself into me, drawing a bellowed scream that tore my throat and filled it with blood.
“I fucking… hate you,” Kerres cried. His voice switching from one born from hell, to one of agony. He thrusted his hips and broke me further, and a second scream rang from me, this time doubling me over in hacking coughs as I choked on my own blood.
Kerres didn’t care, and if he did, the brain damage that I knew was controlling him wouldn’t let him feel it. He was gone; Kerres was gone – but I knew that, didn’t I?
The pain was unimaginable. Each thrust he made was like he was wrapped in sandpaper. I could hear my own flesh rip, and I could feel the wet blood fill me as he tore me apart from the inside out.
“I took your hand when you were ten years old.” He said those words through teeth locked tight, through lips trying to form the words his mouth wouldn’t allow. “I fucking did everything for you. I waited for you; I tried to help you.” His voice started to rise, and with that his thrusts became harder. I cried out and tried to kick him a second time, but he only punched me again; this time filling my nose with more blood. I could feel it pooling in the back of my throat.
“Kerres, this isn’t you!” I cried, before attempting to breathe through the blood slowly choking me. “K. K? It’s J… it’s J,” I stammered. The flickers of anxiety were starting to burn inside of my chest again, and like previously, they quickly multiplied. “K, baby? Baby K? It’s me.” While I pleaded with him, I tried to push down the panic and remain calm.
Calm? I was choking to death. I was being raped. How can I be calm?
“KERRES!” I sobbed. “Stop! STOP!” But he wasn’t stopping; he was only speeding up.
I closed my eyes, my dark world now nothing but the sounds of his wet penis fucking me, and the panicked, desperate gasps that were searing my lungs. I started sobbing hysterically after that, and as I did, I realized I could feel his cock pulsing and twitching as he came inside of me.
I let out a pitiful whine and turned my head to the side. I tried to muffle my tears, solely to save myself the embarrassment of him seeing me cry because of this.
“J?” a faint voice whimpere
d. I heard him let out a confused cry and he pulled himself out of me. “Jade? JADE!” he suddenly screamed hysterically. “I’m sorry. Baby, I’m sorry. Oh my god…” I felt his hand on my backside and a horrified gasp. “No, no, no… no…” The hand removed itself from what I knew was a massacre down there, and I felt tears dripping down onto my chest. “I didn’t mean to… Jade, oh fuck. Jade, baby, I’m sorry.”
Then a hand was placed on my head… and the hood was pulled off.
I squinted and saw Kerres looking down at me, his brown eyes wide and framed by the whitest eyeballs I had ever seen. His hysterical look seemed to make him glow; I’d never seen anyone look so horrified.
Kerres’s expression dissolved when he saw me. I saw a mop of red hair, and then his face buried itself into the crook of my neck. He started to cry.
I stared up at the ceiling, brown rings from water stains looking like the rings my master’s coffee cup left behind on the marble coffee table. My eyes remained fixed on them as Kerres lost himself on top of me.
Kerres pulled away, and with trembling hands he reached down, past my line of vision, and I heard a jingle of keys. I watched as he pinched a small silver key, and with sobs breaking his lips, he crawled to the side of the bed and I heard him start to unlatch my cuffs.
The rattling sound of chains being drawn over metal could be heard, and then a pressure was released from both of my cuffs. I moved my hands until they were in front of me, and looked down at the blood-stained palms. There was a vicious ring of red now circling my wrists like a bracelet, dripping down my pale skin to join the rest of its friends.
“J?” Kerres put a hand on my shoulder. “C-come on, baby. Say something.”
Say something?
My eyes narrowed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Kerres suddenly go rigid.
“Say something?” I said through my raw and tortured throat, my voice sounded like coarse gravel. I barely recognized it. “You… want me to… say something?” I heard Kerres choke, but I didn’t look at him, not even when I saw a hand fly up to his head. I kept my own eyes fixed on my bleeding hands, and I watched them make a fist.
“I’m free, Kerres,” I said, and I slowly swung one foot over the bed, and then the other. Only when I stood did I turn around and see Kerres now on his knees with his face tensed. Both hands were on his head, clenching his fiery red hair from the physical pain I knew he was in.
I liked what I saw.
“You made the grave… grave mistake…” I took a step towards him, and found a smile come to my lips.
Kerres narrowed in my vision as my eyes squinted contently. I smiled wider, just to make sure he could see the metal canines I had implanted, and all the other metal teeth I’d gotten from when the Crimstones had tortured me.
“A grave mistake, love.” I tightened my fists, and with my movements, Kerres shrieked. He looked up at me, and his mouth fell open at what he saw. I saw his pupils narrow, and when I was close enough to see it, I saw my own ebony black eyes stare back.
I put a hand out and touched Kerres’s cheek. “I hate you, Kerres. And this isn’t the madness talking; I fucking hate you. I was with you for six years and I felt more for Elish than I’d ever felt for you after five days with him. You’re nothing but a gutter rat, a terrorist, an insane, pathetic excuse for life, and I’m quite tired of you popping up in my life like a fucking COCKROACH!”
I dug my fingernails into my own palms and pushed this invisible mental force into Kerres. The entire time I did this, I watched him, and because I was watching so intently I saw the first gush of blood spray from his ears; a sickening, low squishing sound, one only chimera hearing could pick up, immediately following.
Kerres cupped his ears and let out a horrific scream. I watched his bulging eyes burrow into my own, tracing my face for any signs of mercy. Then he drew down his hands, looked at them, and let out a low moan when he saw all of the blood.
“J?” Kerres whimpered. His lower lip began to tremble, and soon the rest of his body followed suit. The tremor swept him like a shockwave following an explosion, and after several seconds of shaking, he slumped down onto his side.
Pathetic.
I turned my back to him and immediately found what I was looking for, a nice size knife. I knew it wouldn’t be far; this house was just so full of weapons. My family would be happy to have them back.
“J?” Kerres said again, his voice a weak cry.
I smirked at this.
“I’m not J,” I said, my tone dropping. I pushed the blade into my index finger and started twisting it around. “I am many things, Kerres, but I am not J.”
I turned around. “I am Jade. I am slumrat. I am the Shadow Killer.” I loomed over him as he lay there trembling, his own terror surrounding him like he’d pissed it himself. “I am Biter. I am brother. I am Catullus…” I gripped the knife in my hands, and as the anger ripped through me like an intense orgasm, I stabbed him in the chest.
“I am Cicaro.”
Kerres gave out one last wailing Swan Song, his hand flying up to try and pull out the knife. He struggled with it, like he was the wrong man in front of Excalibur, and as he tried to pull the handle with bloody fingers that kept slipping, I grabbed his neck with both of my hands and started squeezing.
“I am Maritus.”
I started strangling him, a part of me urging me to look away as his brown eyes bulged out of his head, but I realized as I kept my gaze fixed on him, that I wanted nothing more than to see the light finally fade from his eyes.
“I am a fucking chimera,” I said to him with a smile. His mouth opened in a soundless scream and his blood-soaked hands grabbed my wrists and desperately tried to pull me off of him. “And I was merely waiting for you to give me the opportunity to show you how much I can act like it.” I leaned down and kissed his bottom lip, tense and thin from his muted cries, before I leaned down and drew my tongue around the blood that had collected on the knife.
“You taste like shit,” I growled as I licked my lips.
Kerres’s eyes started filling with blood; they were bulging now like angry boils on diseased skin. He clenched his teeth, and I saw that he’d forgotten to tuck in his tongue. As he desperately clawed my hands with less and less strength, I saw his teeth sever the tip, fresh blood immediately running down his lips.
I leaned down and took the tongue tip into my mouth, and as Kerres’s hands dropped and his blood-filled eyes rolled into the back of his head, I began to chew.
I stood up and looked down at Kerres’s still body. I felt only one thing as I stared at him.
Fucking satisfaction.
“Time to go find my husband,” I said to him, and I began to turn around. “Goodbye, Kerres. I won’t–”
The words flew out of my throat and I stopped in my tracks.
There were two people in the doorway, both I recognized. One of them was Gage… and the other one was my older brother, and fellow stealth chimera… Theo.
Gage was giving me a look of pure horror, his mouth open and his mismatched eyes filled with shock. Theo on the other hand, was looking at me like he’d just discovered his new god.
“We’re here to save you,” Theo said with a brightness to his voice. He grinned, showing off his homemade pointed teeth, before he elbowed Gage in the side. “That’s a stealth thing. Don’t worry too much about it.”
“W-why…? Why did you do that?” Gage stammered. His hands were cupping his mouth in a way that made me think he was about to throw up.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Theo said with a cocked eyebrow. “I can smell rape from a mile away.” He strolled up to me, the same swaggered walk that Sanguine had perfected, and craned his neck back with his hands on his hips. “You broke free, obviously.” Then he picked up my free hand and made a smacking sound with his lips. “Bound and chained. Good job, dead boy. Ready to depart then?”
“He raped you…?” Gage’s strained voice asked. He walked to Kerres and put a hand on his head, then his ey
es widened. “He’s… he’s almost dead.”
Theo chuckled. “I’ve known him for like two hours and I can already tell he’s going to be interesting company.” He clapped me on the back and started opening Kerres’s drawers.
“What are…” I paused when Theo turned around and handed me a pair of blue jeans from Kerres’s drawers, and a red t-shirt.
He helped me unfold them. “I have a jacket you can use… wow, slumrat clothes suck. We need to get you something more pretty, even if it’ll all get covered in dust. I was dressed in worse but I managed some clothes in Black Tower. The sengils are out… long story.”
Then my mind snapped back into action. I looked down at the jeans, then met Theo’s eyes; they were glowing like crystals from the faint light coming in through the curtains.
“Depart?”
Theo smiled wide, and I had to shake my head at the horrible things he’d done to his once normal teeth. I’d only seen Theo three times and we’d never been alone together, Elish made sure of that. What I knew was that he was a stealth chimera like Sanguine, Jack, me, and the little chimera Hunter, and that he worshipped Sanguine and Jack.
Theo followed behind me as I walked to the bathroom. I had to get this blood off of me, and Kerres out of me.
“Silas has Sanguine locked away in the greywastes,” he said, his voice echoing in the bathroom. “In a place of his nightmares. After that, I must take him back to Skyfall and hide him from Silas. Silas will do nothing and look nowhere; I have never seen him so depressed.”
I turned around and looked at Theo, puzzled. “A lot of shit happened while I was out… didn’t it?”
Theo shook his head, the corner of his mouth rising like it was attached to a string. This one had a disturbed look to him, Sanguine’s eyes seeped his dark nature but Theo? He unsettled me, and his aura, if I remembered correctly, was no better. “Oh, dead boy, you have no idea.” We both heard Gage retching in the kitchen; Theo chuckled dryly. “Any idea where your master is? You do realize everyone thinks you’re dead, right?”