by Quil Carter
“Roger. Be careful,” Ceph said.
The entire left-hand side of the stairwell was collapsed and could collapse further, but I was skinny and could contort my body like a ferret. I weaved myself around the shards of wood and slunk up the stairs. During my careful ascent I saw nails embedded in the walls, confirming my theory that they’d manufactured a nail bomb. Reaver was always my creative killer, but his fucking nail bomb came dangerously close to killing me, and possibly his precious little Kicky.
The entire hallway on the main floor was destruction. I’d figured it had been detonated with C4, but there wasn’t as much fire as I thought there would be, so I wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it had destroyed the hallway wall which had the kitchen on the other side of it. I could see right through the pink insulation, now coated with drywall dust and smelling like gunpowder.
“Kiki…” I called down when I saw smoke billowing from a couple places. “Grab a fire extinguisher and make sure nothing’s burning. It’s hard to see in this smoke and dust.”
“Okay, I’m just coming up right now,” Kiki called behind me.
I nodded and coughed into my hand. “Reaver?” I called, but I knew if he was around he would’ve been down here already. But then where was he?
My gaze took me to the kitchen, past that would be the hallway where Adler’s bedroom was, and underneath that bedroom was where me and Mantis had been held prisoner.
And where I’d heard those noises…
Then I was moving, my legs taking me, almost without my consent, towards the bedroom. I ignored the voices in the hallway, ones belonging to Ceph and Kiki as they tried to get through the smoking debris, and continued on my way.
I pushed the door open, and my eyes widened when I saw the destruction I’d heard. Broken furniture, tossed clothes, vases, files… the entire room had been trashed. I could even see holes in the walls, obviously from fists, angry fists.
I took another step in and my nose twitched. It smelled like… sweat and lubricant.
Like I was walking my own path of damnation, my boots took me to the bed. At this point I had no thoughts inside of my head, only tunnel vision to observe the evidence I was starting to see gather.
Blood speckles on the sheets…
I pulled a blanket back and saw streaks, and the tinged outlines of dried cum. I put the blanket back where I had found it and walked to the other side of the bed.
Nero must’ve brought a man here, like I’d thought.
I nodded to myself. I looked down at the front of the bed and my boots crunched down on porcelain. I looked down and saw that right beside the vase was a bloody machete. I picked it up and used it to push the pillow away. There was more blood underneath the pillow, but no binds or signs of anyone being tied up.
I turned to walk out of the room, but then I stopped. Still without a thought in my head or a quiver in my heart, I looked down and saw a pair of black boxer briefs. I picked them up, and looked down at them.
They were Reaver’s.
Reaver who never slept naked, not unless we’d just had sex.
And especially not with… Nero here.
I looked down and realized there was another pair of boxers beside the ones I’d just picked up.
A larger pair.
Brute chimera size. And whereas all the other clothes had been covered in plaster dust, debris, dirt from the room being trashed, these ones had been placed on top of the mess and recently.
Like last night.
Calmly, I placed the underwear down onto the blood-streaked bed, then picked up the blue pair and did the same. I laid them out nicely, and folded them; my pulse steady, my breathing calm.
So Reaver slept with Nero.
My boyfriend, who had been falling apart for the past several months… had sex with the man who raped him.
Reaver had sex with someone else, and not just anyone else…
“Killian!” I heard Reaver’s voice exclaim, sounding excited and out of breath. I heard the door slam against the wall. “You fucking broke out? I knew you could…”
I slowly turned around and saw Reaver smiling at me. He was sweaty and his hair was messed up. He was injured too, his shirt was blood-soaked with a tear on the shoulder that looked to have been a stab wound.
But that wasn’t what I was focused on.
It was the hickies all over his fucking neck.
The emotions that had been too extreme and damaging to hit me initially, flooded me with such a force it felt like the world was ending again. It was a dam bursting when there was only a small hole for all of the water to escape through. It overwhelmed me, electrified me, and filled me with such a blind rage I announced it with a manic scream.
And as Reaver stared at me blankly, I raised the machete and charged him.
Chapter 37
Reaver
Earlier that day
I resisted the smirk when I felt Nero’s lips lock onto the side of my neck. The seal broke with a pop, and was replaced by his tongue. “He can wait one more minute,” Nero whispered in my ear. “Bend me over the desk, give it to me.”
I batted him away, the room we were in heavily saturated with blood. “I’ve been waiting too long for this,” I said to him, but when he kissed my neck the heat returned to my already exhausted and sore body.
But then I shook my mind clear of it. No. I was already feeling on top of the world. I was already feeling my old self flow through my veins. Anything after this would be sex with Nero and I wasn’t a cheater. It was going to be bad enough explaining why I had to do this to Killian without him turning homicidal.
Another kiss. I leaned down, both to get my neck out of the way of his mouth and to turn on the desktop computer. When I rose, I looked behind me and smiled at the two horse heads propped up on coat racks behind me. I’d wanted to add some of the Blood Crow’s heads to the mix but Nero had talked me out of it. We’d use that ace for later.
“Come on! At least let me suck it one more time. I put up all your fucking duct-taped nail bombs on the lab door for you,” Nero said, his voice trailing a whine. “Come on! You didn’t tell me when the last time would be. I didn’t get to savour it.”
“It wasn’t for your enjoyment – it was therapy.”
“Does that mean I get to charge you money?”
“It means you broke it, so you fixed it,” I muttered, and the Windows XP screen came into view. “Alright, shut the fuck up. I don’t know how they have this computer wired.”
I started clicking around but I saw Nero’s finger come into view. “Remote access,” he said. “Team Viewer, click that. We use it all the time in the military. If he has it set up that it syncs automatically, if his computer is on it’ll fire up.”
I nodded. “Good. I hope they get a good fucking view of what we’ve done.”
“Teach him to piss off the Don, eh, Corleone?”
I smiled when I saw the Team Speak program icon. I glanced at the webcam and back at the screen, wondering what I’d see.
“Indeed… I think I’m about to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” I moved the mouse over to the Team Speak icon, but paused when another window automatically popped up and started to load.
It was an email system.
“This is Mantis’s email…” Nero murmured behind me, and as it started to load the emails inside of it, I paused when I saw a familiar name.
Perish Dekker.
A lot of Perish Dekker emails… all of them sent within days of each other.
Backup files 1/100.
RE: Last wishes.
To be forwarded to my family.
To be forwarded to Silas.
For Skytech’s future.
Back up of my video to Killian.
Back up to my video to…
My mouth went dry.
… to Reaver.
“None to Nero? What an asshole.”
“Be quiet,” I whispered. I swallowed hard and decided to tell him what had been on my mind. “Killia
n told me before Perish made him immortal… that Perish put something inside of his head. It was some sort of thing with wires coming off of it…” I let out a tense breath and the cursor hovered over the email. “We’d been meaning to go to the plaguelands house after this to look through Perish’s stuff… to see if he put something in him to make him act… different.”
Nero shifted his weight. “Well, click on it then.”
“Get out of the room first… I don’t want you around for this. Go make some more nail bombs for the door.”
He let out a growl before clasping a hand on my head and shaking it. Then he turned and left the room, leaving me alone with an email in front of me that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read, and a video attached that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch.
But if this meant my answer to what had been making Killian act differently… this would be the best time to know. I was starting a new life today, and if what was on this computer was what I thought it was… maybe Killian could be starting his old life right along with me.
Plus we were with a scientist who could take out whatever the implant was. And if Mantis refused… Kiki mentioned Sid.
I clicked on the email and it opened up. The email didn’t hold anything groundbreaking, just ‘second copy’ and Perish’s name. I clicked the video and let Windows Media Player pop up, and I held my breath.
And there was that bastard. He was sitting down on a chair in a laboratory, the laboratory he’d eventually die in.
Perish looked groomed and bathed, but he also was hollow-faced and haggard. The journey he’d forced Killian to take with him had done a number on his body. But he’d hid it as much as he could with a crisp new lab coat and a shaved face.
“Reaver…” Perish glanced at what I guessed was the computer screen before looking at the webcam. “This video is for you, and only you, so please… tell Killian to leave and make sure he’s not listening to this.”
Perish paused and leaned back in his chair. He let out a long breath and pulled another laptop onto his knee and clicked around on it for a solid minute.
“Okay, that’s enough time… pause this if you’re still fighting him tooth and nail.”
I smirked and at the same time Perish did too. We both knew Killian… really well.
“Okay, Reaver…” Perish took in a deep breath, and I could tell right away I was face-to-face with the real Perish, not the damaged one that had been created through Silas’s abuse and the fact that he was missing a chunk of his brain. This was Perish Fallon, who he used to be.
“First off. I want to apologize for what I had to do to Killian to get him to this point. I knew from an early time that this was what I’d eventually have to do, but I didn’t know what Sky would make me do in exchange for the information on PCE. Prolonged Concentrated Exposure. In order to get the information from Elish’s laptop, I had to play Sky’s game, and yeah, he was no better than Silas… worse actually.” Perish ran a hand over his short black hair and rubbed his nose. “What I’m about to tell you… you have to know. There is just no two ways around it, brother. You have to know this. You need to know what to look out for… and just who you’re dealing with now.”
The bottom dropped out from under me, and nausea and dizziness both took their place inside of my churning stomach.
I tried to push it down. This was just confirmation… this was a good thing.
Perish reached to the table the laptop he was speaking to me was on, and I saw him get out two small vials with a quarter inch of blood in each of them. He held up each one to the screen and I saw a KM on one and a RD on the other.
“This is Killian’s blood,” Perish said, and to the other: “This is yours. I got it while we were in the greyrifts apartment.”
Why does he need mine?
“This laptop is one that is wired to the ACL, the Arian Compliance League, and it has admin privileges… I want to show you something, Reaver. Something I… didn’t even think was possible.” Perish opened the vial of my blood and unwrapped a dropper that looked like one diabetics’ used. He dipped it into the blood and slid it into a machine out of sight.
I heard a beep and Perish picked up the laptop again – and he turned it towards the screen.
It was a smiling mugshot of him, and his information beside it. There was also a gold stripe above it with CHIMERA below.
“Your blood shows up as mine.” Perish put the laptop back down. I shrugged at this, wondering if that was the big news, but my dead brother seemed to read my mind. “So what, right? You have a lot of Sky’s DNA, more than I think you realize, but you have Silas’s DNA in you too. Okay… so once again, you’re thinking… why do I care? This is good, I hate Silas, right?”
“Yes,” I said to the screen.
Perish nodded at me. I couldn’t help but get the feeling we were talking to each other live, like Adler and I had. “Okay, I agree. Hi, brother.” Perish smiled, but then he let out a long breath. “Now… here is the twist, Reaver. Here is the problem I was confronted with when I tested your blood… Reaver. Do you remember when I told you the reason why Silas found you… was because I had sent your blood in? What Lycos had been trying to avoid had happened, a lost chimera had been found through his blood.” An electric chill shot up my spine, and suddenly I began to feel cold. “But Reaver…” Perish dipped the tester strip into Killian’s blood and slipped it into the tester. “… it wouldn’t have mattered. It would’ve just shown up… as Perish Dekker.”
What?
He was right… but what the hell was he saying?
“Only… it wasn’t your blood that alerted Silas…” I stared at the screen. I felt like my body had frozen up, that I had been gutted and my insides now lay on the floor.
Perish… stop talking.
“I wish I knew this long ago, Reaver.”
I looked up, my breath now catching in my throat.
The laptop screen that Perish was holding… had a picture of Silas, and on his face was the slightest of smirks.
“Every ACL accessible by the Legion and almost everyone else, would show an error code if they scanned Silas’s DNA, a special code. Not my personal laptop, however. This error code would get noted and sent directly to one chimera to personally check – and one chimera only… guess who?”
“Elish,” Perish and I said at the same time.
“Now, first I need to say this… please don’t bash the computer or my laptop. I know you’re probably mad, but listen to this. Killian isn’t, and never was, immortal, nor was he immune to radiation. Reaver, Killian isn’t a born immortal and he isn’t a chimera. He’s basically the stripped down foundation we use as a base to create chimeras. Killian is what’s called a raw clone and Elish has two more out there. Killian is Silas’s DNA, but his DNA only with nothing else mudding it up but that also means… he’s got the exact same brain as he does. Unaltered by chimera genetics.”
The exact same brain… as Silas.
“As you know by now… I made him immortal, and I made him immune to radiation. I also implanted him with something else, something extremely valuable.” I just stared, my mind shutting down and going numb. I didn’t know what else I could do; I was afraid if I moved I would smash the computer monitor.
How could this be true…? My Killian?
“I implanted him with something called a spiderwire. It’ll make him still age, so he’s not trapped as an eighteen-year-old. Don’t take it out until he’s at least twenty-four. A man’s brain stops growing when he’s that age and, Reaver, you’re going to need these six years to make him not turn into a monster – not turn into Silas.” I stared at that man, and the look he was giving me back seemed to know what I was feeling right now.
My worst enemy wasn’t myself after all. I wasn’t the one who had Silas’s blood flowing through my veins.
It was the monster I’d been seeing kill my boyfriend right in front of me.
I was hoping for an explanation. To tell me it wasn’t just me seeing this c
hange… but I didn’t want this.
“Once the spiderwire is taken out, the brain will stop growing,” Perish said. “Reaver. When I found out this information about Killian… I wanted to take him then and there, far away from you and Skyfall. But then I realized… I had to trust you to do what’s right for your boyfriend, your boyfriend, not mine. If I thought you couldn’t do this, I’d be in California right now and you’d never see us again.”
Perish dropped his gaze and I saw his shoulders rise and fall. “I saw Silas and Sky together, and, Reaver, they were something. They destroyed the world together and they rebuilt it together too. They were two sides of the same coin, the light and the darkness, the sword and the shield, but you could never pinpoint just which one was what. Just like I could never figure out who was more toxic to who.” He looked back up to the screen, his face heavy. “You have a chance right now, to mould Killian, to create a better version of what his genetics tell him he is. I can’t stress this enough, Reaver, if you don’t you two will tear the world apart with your love and hatred for each other. There is no breaking up, there is no being with anyone else, you two will always be attracted to each other. You two will always come back, even if you’re on opposite ends of the earth. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen thirteen born immortals from three continents end up in one small town. There is no escaping Silas and Sky. Which brings me to one more thing…”
Perish’s lower lip tightened. “This is a request from me to you, brother. Forgive Silas for what he did to you, and give him what he deserves.” My eyes widened when Perish held up an O.L.S. “This is my O.L.S, it’s empty now. I used it to make Killian immortal. I will be instructing Killian to take Sky’s out after I am gone. I need you to go to Melchai–” My eyes closed. “–find a man living in a mansion, his name is Adler. He’s your older brother, a backup plan by Elish. The O.L.S will work flawlessly. Implant Adler, just cut his head open above the brain stem and put it in, and then give him to Silas. Let the family be at peace, and use this time to keep Killian, Killian.”