by Quil Carter
When Adler rose I felt the chair lean back as Nero clenched it. “Adler?” he called. Then he let out a vicious Fuck! when Adler walked towards Kiki.
“Hey!” Nero yelled. “What do you want not to hurt him? Hey!” I watched as Adler walked past Kiki and picked up something metal on a nearby table, a table that was covered in tubes and machines. He looked at the camera, the smug yet rancour smile still plastered on his face.
“What do I want? You betrayed us, I will take nothing from you,” Adler replied. He walked up to the cicaro, who was bound tightly to the black computer chair, and grabbed him by his hair before wrenching his head up.
Kiki looked up at him, his orange eyes disconnected and far away, and his mouth slacked and open to help him breathe through what looked like a blood-filled nose.
“For your own future self-preservation I’d leave him be,” Nero bellowed. “Immortality lasts a long time, buddy.” My chair tilted back further, and then he slammed his hand down on it.
I knew exactly what he was going through. This was reminding me of when Killian and I had been Perish’s prisoner. The feeling of being helpless while some batshit insane asshole was torturing someone you loved.
Killian was immortal, but Kiki wasn’t. What bad feelings I felt over the little cicaro, who was a pretty nice kid, were lost however.
Because I was enjoying seeing Nero in misery. It was just another note to make in my book of Nero. I always knew I could use Kiki to get back at him, but the more information I got the better.
Kiki’s lips trembled and his eyes focused enough to look up at Adler. But then they looked down at the device Adler was holding and he whimpered and started shaking his head back and forth in a way that told me he recognized what it was, and he was scared of it.
I saw a flicker of electric blue from the device and realized it was some sort of Taser, but a smooth cylinder, not one I had seen in merchants’ caravans. Kiki gave out a frightened cry, like a scream a wild dog gave when you were beating on it, and got it into a corner, then Adler plunged it into Kiki’s crotch.
I’d never heard a more horrific scream, but it was drowned out by Nero’s bellow of rage. The poor fucking cicaro went rigid, his eyes so bugged out I thought they were going to pop out of their sockets. He went as stiff as a board, and when Adler pulled the electric prong away, I saw not only a growing wet spot from the kid’s own piss, but more char marks and a hole in the crotch which showed blackened and red burnt skin.
Kiki let out a choked sob and he started shaking his head back and forth. “Master?” Kiki sobbed. He cried out again, more agonizing sobs breaking up his howls. “Master. I’m sorry!”
Another bellow came to join in with the screams, making a tempo between the two of them that, in the cockles of my heart, I did quite enjoy. Nero’s lower registers mixed in with the tenor screams from Kiki did make a wonderful song, but unfortunately, I had to keep my poker face.
But I would make it my goal to draw out the same scream from Kiki. Perhaps with Killian underneath him, his cock already deep inside, and my own sliding in on top of it. We’d fuck him hard and bloody and we wouldn’t stop until we coaxed the same alluring chorus from them.
“It’s okay, Kiki-weeki,” Nero choked, drawing my attention away from my fantasy. “I’ll get you out of there. Okay, baby boy? Master’ll save you, just hang on for me, okay? You know I’m good for it.” He let out a frustrated cry. “What the fuck do you want, Adler?”
Adler chuckled. He grabbed Kiki’s hair again and shook him with an amused cackle, before shoving him backwards. Kiki only sobbed quietly to himself, and Adler left him and sauntered over. He sat down in the chair, like he hadn’t even gotten up in the first place, and smiled darkly.
“What do I want?” Adler said nonchalantly. He looked down, where I think Killian was, before he bent down out of sight.
Killian shrieked, a gut-wrenching shriek full of pain that soon became distorted from a build-up of fluid, blood or saliva I didn’t know, I just knew he started choking and gasping.
Nero’s angry cries were now mingled with mine before they were followed by the sound of the chair being thrown to the ground. I had jumped to my feet, unable to just sit here and watch this happen, and ran to the metal door.
I started pounding on it, blind rage seeping down and covering my eyes before muffling my hearing like I had been plunged into the deepest of oceans. “Open it up!” I screamed. I hammered on it and pulled on the handle, dried blood flaking off into my hand. “Open it up and fucking face me!” I kept yelling and continued my assault on the door. When Nero finally grabbed me and started pulling me away I was clawing at it so hard I was leaving streaks of blood where my fingernails had peeled back.
“Come on. We’ll get him eventually, Ducky,” Nero said to me, his voice harsh and determined. “We’ll fucking get him. We’ll torture him together. We’ll…” Nero swore and dropped me. He wiped his hand down his face, before he turned and drove his fist into the wall. It went right through it like it was paper and when he pulled out I saw pink insulation and wires.
My body was heaving, and I kept looking around as if expecting something to magically appear that could help us. I found myself unable to concentrate, unable to answer him back. I wanted to run in every direction, but in the same vein I wanted to stay absolutely still so I could gather my thoughts back, find a way to sort this shit out.
“We just need to sweet talk,” Nero whispered, “and once we gain his trust… he’s ours.”
I didn’t know how but I managed to nod.
Nero clapped me over the shoulder. “We’ll show him just what happens when he fucks with chimeras.” And he turned and walked back into the office. Without wanting to, I trailed behind him… and Adler was waiting for us with a smile.
He was holding up Killian’s head as Killian kneeled down beside him.
Killian’s eye was glassy, and there was fresh blood trickling down his mouth. He was completely incoherent.
But now in the background I saw another man. It was obviously Spike, not just because he was the only other man in the mansion that Nero mentioned, but because he had blond hair gelled into spikes and a fucking spiked collar around his neck. On top of that, he had black eyeliner from the looks of it, anything else I couldn’t see from the distance and the camera quality.
“You,” Adler said, and he looked directly at me. “Let’s play the honesty game. Let’s see if you’ll tell me the truth. What’s your name, brother?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” I spat. “I was here to rescue Nero. I didn’t have a fucking problem with you. You and your asshole guardian tried to burn me and my boyfriend alive. You two were the ones to start this shit, not me. I was only trying to save him.”
Adler’s expression turned hostile. “We were the ones starting shit? We didn’t know who the fuck you were. We were doing the same thing we do every festival and nothing more.” He glared at me, and I fucking glared right back. “You were the ones to break into my fucking home. You’re the criminals here, and you will get treated as such.” He shook his head. “I’m a very nice man. But when you fuck with my home, you fuck with me; and you don’t want to fuck with me, my friend.”
The poker face was starting to wear as he continued to speak. I didn’t know if I wanted to burst through those doors and shake him, calling him a fucking moron, or laugh until my heart gave out.
“What do you want, Adler?” I said to him. “If you want us to leave, give us Kiki, Killian, and Ceph and we’ll leave.”
Adler’s expression didn’t change. “I have no reason to trust you. Mantis trusted Nero and he was gearing up to betray us and let the filth King Silas know I’m alive. I was told all about him and what my destiny was supposed to be. If he had it his way, I would be turned into him and made into a sex slave. No. You will never leave Turris.”
“We’re not staying,” I snapped at him, quickly reaching the end of my rope with this asshole. “Look, buddy. You may not know m
e, but you only have one fucking small window of time to talk to me before I fucking get pissed, and you don’t want to see me pissed. For your best interest, you will send up Killian and the other two, and you will let us leave. You have one warning. One fucking warning.”
Adler chuckled, and that laugh to me was like nails on a chalkboard. My teeth clenched and slowly slid from one side of my mouth to the other. Not only was I at the end of my rope with this bastard, he was lighting the end of it like the tightened tip was a fuse.
“I’m so intimidated,” Adler hissed. “I’m fucking shaking with–”
“Reaver Dekker,” I said, cutting him off. My tone was flat and without emotion, barren words coming from a dry mouth.
Adler smirked at me, his hand still wrapped under Killian’s chin to hold him up. “Oh, I know. I know all about you, brother dearest. Are you as dark of a chimera as Elish says?”
“I am not just a chimera,” I said to him. I averted my gaze from the screen and looked at the little black webcam. “I am the clone of Silas Dekker and Sky Fallon. A born immortal with every chimera enhancement, and almost every ability available to the family. I am the perfected version of you, who was sent away after being deemed defective. I am the end result of decades of research and I, unlike you, am the one created to be Silas’s partner. I was raised in the greywastes where I trained to kill immortal chimeras from birth by my friend and ally, a man you apparently know, Elish Dekker, and my fathers Lycos Dekker and Greyson Merrik.” I moved closer to the camera. “You have one chance, Adler Dekker, to release my property back to me, and release Nero’s property back to him. I will not ask you again. And if you deny me what belongs to me, you will be smoked out of your lab like the rodent you are, and you will be killed.”
I stared at the camera, and heard Nero give an impressed whistle behind me, then I turned back to the monitor.
There was no smug look on Adler’s face. He was staring at the screen, his eyes narrowed and his jaw tight. His hand slid away from Killian’s neck, and my boyfriend, dazed and out of it, shifted backwards so he was away from Adler’s touch.
“If you threaten me again, this beautiful boy’s brains will be painting my walls,” Adler said coolly. “I call the shots here, not you. I have your partners and the slave boy, remember that.”
“I was not engineered to love, merely dominate,” I said back. “Kill him. I can find another.” I motioned to Spike who was still standing in the distance. “I love them blond, maybe him?” I smirked when Adler’s eyes narrowed just slightly, before he caught himself and they hardened back to granite. “I’m done shooting the shit with you. Either tell me what your end game is, or fucking rot down there for all I care. I have things to do.”
Adler regained himself enough to laugh. “Spike… why don’t you fuck Killian in front of this cam. Show the scary chimera just what we do to mouthy children. My eyes widened and my breath was taken from me.
He wouldn’t fucking dare…
Adler laughed at my expression. “Oh, I have a great many things I plan on–”
Suddenly Killian’s unfocused eyes shot to Adler, and a fraction of a second later Killian jumped to his feet, raised his bound hands, and threw them over Adler’s neck. Killian pulled Adler backwards off of his chair, and I saw sneakers and jeans before he toppled onto the ground.
No way. No fucking way!
Killian went down with him and I heard Adler shouting and bellowing, calling for the blond one behind him who ran over and started trying to pull Killian off of him. I saw a flash of Killian’s face – and it was coated in blood.
At the exact same time Nero and I burst out laughing.
“Go, Killian!” Nero hollered, and as he shook and slapped my shoulders I started cheering Killian on as well. I felt a rush of pride as Spike dragged Killian away, before Killian jumped to his feet, blood indeed coating his mouth, and swung his bound hands towards Spike. The strength behind the blow successfully threw Spike off of his feet.
“Get ‘em, Killer Bee!” I yelled as loud as I could so he could hear me. Killian was pulled to the ground by Adler, and though I wanted to jump through the screen to help him all I could do was egg him on. “That’s my boy! That’s my Killi!”
Killian’s head popped up, he looked at the camera. He managed a smile, but his eyes, heavy with worry, stole the joy right out from under me.
I kept my own smile for him, but already my heart was being weighed down. “I’ll come get you as soon as I can, baby. I promise. Just–” I looked behind him when I saw quick movement, and saw Adler on his feet, his face twisted in rage and his eyes boiling in their sockets from anger. He had a gash on his neck and shoulder, staining his navy shirt purple as it flowed freely down his skin.
“Killi, duck!” I yelled, but it was too late. Adler swung the metal Taser-like cylinder, the width of a flashlight, at Killian’s head, and it hit his skull with a sickening crunch.
“Fuck… FUCK!” Nero screamed beside me. “NO! ADLER!” Nero yelled, but all I could do was stare, seeing only the top of Adler’s head, his bent over back, and the metal baton being swung again and again; each time it appeared on the camera’s feed, it had more blood on it.
“NO!” Nero cried. I was shocked to hear real, uncensored despair in his tone. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Nero was showing this emotion over Killian? “FUCKING CUNT! NO! FUCK!!!” Nero ran out of the room. I could see the blood flying up, it was sticking into Adler’s hair.
And the sound… the sound of a blunt object fracturing a skull.
Thunk thunk thunk.
I knew that sound well.
Adler grabbed the webcam and pointed it down to the floor. I saw Killian, the impact had popped his left eye out, the one that had been shut from the swelling. It stood out as the only white thing on a face that had been beaten beyond recognition. His nose was crushed, his lips lacerated from his teeth going through them, and the side of his head was the texture of ground meat.
There was so much blood too, mixed in with bits of hair and scalp, and a lot of shattered bone.
And Killian was still alive. I saw his mouth struggle to open; his body seizing and twitching. There was a lake of blood inside of his mouth, with shattered teeth swimming around the red pool like debris after a flood.
Even though I knew he would come back, the fact that Killian was still alive physically hurt me.
Then the metal cylinder was swung down one more time. It hit his jaw and knocked it out of place, Killian made a small gurgling whine, the pooled blood now running down his mouth with the bits of tooth.
He blinked his remaining eye, then with a sharp, congested inhale… he died.
I looked away and reached down to the desktop… and turned it off.
With automatic movements, I grabbed the chair I had been sitting on and steadied it underneath the recessed lighting above the bedroom. I got onto it and pulled out the small black microphone and severed the cord. I left it dangling, and took the chair into the hallway.
I passed Nero, who was hammering on the metal door and screaming, fucking screaming his head off. He was manic with rage, completely in berserker mode, and that would be the last thing the laboratory, and all those in it, would hear.
I got onto the chair and pulled out the microphone in the hallway, and moved to Adler’s bedroom and pulled that one out as well.
I found one more in the living room, Nero still screaming. None in the kitchen, none in the other hall. I found one in the entrance and pulled it. Then one in the hallway upstairs but none in the other rooms. I even paused and tuned my hearing, but once I unplugged the other electronics I could hear nothing. No secret video cameras, no more microphones.
There would now be no one eavesdropping on us inside of his mansion. I was alone with Nero while Adler, Spike, and eventually Mantis, crawled underneath my feet like roaming croaches.
And they were about to learn just what it meant to fuck with chimeras.
Chapter 30
&
nbsp; Reaver
When I came back downstairs all was silent. I walked into the living room, severed microphones dangling from my hands, and saw Nero hunched over on the couch, a cigarette being held to his lips.
I grabbed a cigarette from the tin on the table and lit it. I sat beside Nero and took a long, long drag. While filling my lungs with the taste of a BlueLeaf Recon Series opiate cigarette, a family favourite, I gave Nero a sideways glance.
Nero was staring at the cold fireplace. His indigo eyes were heavy, yet staring, and his face was holding no mask, only showing naked grief mixed in with rage. He wasn’t moving, and the cigarette tucked between his pointer and middle finger had a half-inch of ash on the tip.
“Why do you care?” I asked simply. “You didn’t know him.”
Like my words were hot water thawing the ice that had frozen his body, Nero leaned over and dashed his cigarette into the urson paw ashtray.
“I don’t like seeing my brothers sad,” Nero responded and held the cigarette up to his lips. “And you kind of know when they found someone permanent. I’m protective of you fucks, especially the little ones. Always have been.” His lips slowly pursed, and he blew the silver smoke out like his mouth was a vent. “You should probably just leave. I’m going to be calling Silas. I’m turning that cocksucker in to him, and we’ll see what kind of song he’ll sing then. I won’t tell Kingy I saw you.”
I took a drag of my cigarette and felt an inner struggle going on inside of me. The waves of rage that had vibrated through my body, until my flesh had become calcified, those feelings met with a fresh confusion that Nero’s honest words brought with them.
Nero slapped my knee. “I’m not sorry for what I did to you. Because I can’t say I wouldn’t have done it differently, because I wasn’t future me back then, I was past me.” I had to shake my head, he certainly didn’t have the linguistic talents that Elish had. “I had a great time even though I knew you didn’t, and if I knew it would fuck you up so much I’d have toned it down. They just toted you as being this fucking demon monster, so I just went all out, and it was great, honestly. I can’t get it out of my mind. I loved it.”