The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (54 page)

And I well… had exploded. Literally.

My mouth pulled down as I veered off of the road towards the three buildings, all three surrounded by telephone poles in various states of falling over.

The radiation was something new, something I had never felt close to doing before. It was also something I now had to control. Elish was suppose to teach me that but I guessed it all came down to just sheer will and discipline.

That I could do, or at least that’s what I told myself.

I jumped off of the quad and turned it off, giving the engine a much needed cool down. I looked around the first house for any signs of visitors but there were none. Without wasting time I checked the second and finally the third.

It stopped like I had physically hit a wall when I saw the boot prints. Immediately my mind started locking itself down as my gaze swept the prints I now recognised as Killian and Perish’s. I walked inside, ignoring the hammering thrums of my heart.

“Killian?” I shouted. I stopped and listened but I heard nothing back. I wasn’t expecting to hear anything though, these prints looked days old.

Days old… possibly a week but the greywastes preserved prints as good as the moon during the dry seasons. We hadn’t had any rain or anything since Elish and I had seen the snow on the Coquihalla. So it could’ve been longer, but still… I was heading the right way and he was still alive. That was enough to bring a small glare of light to my dark mind.

Then another sign. I walked over and picked up a tipped over can, smelling the corn before I saw it. I brought it up to my nose before taking the spoon and shovelling some of it into my mouth. It was still good, so it couldn’t have been too long. The radiation might’ve preserved things but once it was open the bacteria would get to it, and if not that, the radrats or the bugs would. This can hadn’t been found yet, it tasted fine.

I ate it and with one last visual check of the house I walked out and made a mental note that the boot prints were heading back towards the road. Then I got back on the quad and chucked the can behind an old and very charred camper van. Feeling better than I did before I revved the throttle and carried on towards the highway.

Where were these signs? I knew they could be another day’s ride away but I was anxious to get into these plaguelands. I wanted to fucking find him now, not tomorrow, not the next day. I needed that boy in my arms soon.

I tried to math out in my head how much time I was saving being on the quad but my math had always been restricted to what I could count on my fingers. Leo had tried teaching me mutiplifractions or whatever they were fucking called but it never clicked in my head. You didn’t need to do a math problem to blow someone’s head off.

With my eyes peeled in every direction, I didn’t even notice the gas gauge quickly going down under the full-throttle speed I was pushing the quad. I made it another four hours before the quad started to lose speed. I gave the gauges a glance hoping it was just a small rise I was going up and swore when I saw the orange ticker hovering on empty.

This made me grit my teeth but I was taking it over a hill. The terrain in front of me was more flat and with that flat area the gas chamber wouldn’t be on an incline. It wouldn’t be much but really any time on this quad was bonus time. I would be able to catch up to Killian and Perish hopefully before they got to their destination.

I’ll use every last fucking drop of that gasoline.
I leaned forward on the four-wheeler and sped down the road, still no yellow signs but at least I knew I was in the…

There are no words to explain the spasm of horror and anger that ripped through my body when I saw a figure perched on top of a concrete barrier off to the side of the road. A slender figure with shining, wavy blond hair, dressed in a leather jacket with a red shirt underneath. He was crouched down with his arms hanging off of his knees, watching me with a grim expression on his flawless face.

My first desperate reaction was that the corn had been spiked and I was hallucinating but I knew better. I killed the engine on the quad as my eyes burrowed into his emotionless face and jumped off of it, immediately reaching for my gun.

“Put it away, we don’t have time for that,” Silas said as he rose to standing. He reached behind him and grabbed a red container. I could smell it from here, it was gasoline.

If I had killed this man’s fathers, if I had raped his boyfriend after trying to rape him I would have dropped the gas can and booked it back to Skyfall. But showing that he wasn’t afraid of me and still the king that ended the world, he jumped down with the gas can, landing quietly only ten feet from me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snarled, raising my gun and pointing it at him. “Get the fuck out of here and leave the fucking gas can while you’re at it.”

Why did he have it in the first place? He would never want to fucking help me save Killian.

“We – don’t – have – time – for – that!” Silas spat. Though he stayed in place and didn’t move another inch. The king I had once known as Asher brought an anger to my veins that made me feel like my blood was on fire. I was shaking with rage as I pointed the gun at him and every inch of me wanted to pull the trigger, take the gas can, and run.

So I clicked the gun to automatic, fully prepared to shoot him in the head, when there was a different click behind my own head.

Silas looked past me and nodded to someone, someone that couldn’t have existed because I hadn’t heard him approach and no one ever got the drop on me.

I saw a flicker of black out of the corner of my eye and another one to my right. Feeling the hair start to prickle on the back of my neck I decided to turn around to face who had gotten the jump on me.

I recognised them right away, there was no way in hell I couldn’t recognise those two.

Sanguine was to my right and Jack to my left. Sanguine with the same smile I had seen in his photos and Jack with his hands clasped behind his back. Sanguine was pointing an assault rifle at me, and Jack was just staring at us.

“I’m not fucking going with you.” I whirled around to face Silas. I felt a flushed heat come to my face as I looked past him down the road I was suppose to be driving on. “I don’t have…”

Silas walked past me, seemingly feeling more confident now that Satan’s lapdogs were behind me. To my absolute perplexity he walked up to my quad and started taking the gas cap off.

“I’m not taking you anywhere, get that out of your mind right now,” Silas said. His voice was odd. It was tight which was something I hadn’t seen in him before. For a moment I dropped the anger and confusion I was feeling, and to further shock myself, I lowered my gun. I don’t know why, or if it was even a good idea, but I did it.

“This is what’s happening.” Silas looked past me and held out his hand. Jack handed him the gas can, already open. “I’m going with you to Sky’s laboratory.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” I said lowly, though I let him pour the gas into the quad. Once I shot all three of them I would be needing it to take me to the plaguelands.

Silas didn’t miss a beat, like a pit crew he handed the gas can back to Jack and took a soda bottle of oil from Sanguine. “Reaver, listen carefully. I know you were raised a savage but you can listen, yes?” His emerald eyes flickered up to mine. He… he looked so much like Asher.

Of course he does, he was Asher, you idiot.

“Perish is implanted with Sky’s O.L.S,” Silas explained. I was about to tell him I already fucking knew that but I realized that would lead to the questions of how I knew it, so I caught myself and decided I had to play dumb.

“This has made him extremely unstable. This isn’t about him hurting Killian. What is in that laboratory is a machine and a room that has the power to start another Fallocaust. To envelope the world in another strong dose of radiation. Not only will Killian die in that explosion, Skyfall will be in danger and Aras. Everywhere, Reaver.”

I stared at him, feeling a thousand ways of saying I didn’t fucking care if the world died again crawl on my lips, but all I cared about was that Killian would be in the center of this explosion.

“I don’t want this to happen and you don’t want Killian to die.” Silas screwed the lid back on the quad and took a rag from Sanguine. He started wiping his hands. “You have no idea where the laboratory is, do you?”

My teeth clenched. I wanted to say yes but my inner greywaster was being overshadowed by the reality of my new situation.

Two dogs were fighting inside of my brain at that moment, a moment that I never thought I would see. Face-to-face with my old friend Asher, the King of the World I now knew as Silas Dekker. A man to who I hated more than anyone with the possible exception of Nero. A man that I was going to one day permanently kill.

I was in the company of enemies, with the born immortal I was cloned from standing directly in front of me.

Who knew where Killian was. Who had just told me that he was in immediate danger.

What choice did I have? My stomach seemed coated in brine, leaving a sour and unpleasant taste in my mouth. This was against my nature. Every fiber in my being was telling me to grab my gun and get as many bullets into Silas as I possibly could. But I knew I couldn’t, I knew I had no choice.

I looked behind Silas, down the stretch of road, as if anticipating in that moment to see the explosion that would spread radiation over the entire world – again. Everyone else I didn’t care about; it was that boy who made me swallow my pride and my anger.

It had always been about him.

So I
was
growing up.

“How do I know this isn’t a trap?” I said to him. I was confused when I saw a fleeting hint of relief come to his face, though a moment later it was gone.

“You don’t,” Silas said. “You wouldn’t believe any reassurances so why bother? I’ve laid my cards out on the table, Reaver. This goes above my games, above my desires for you…” He handed the rag back and I saw his eyes narrow. “I don’t like this either, but he has Sky’s O.L.S, he has a piece of… him. I am proposing nothing but your help in stopping Perish and retrieving Sky’s O.L.S from his brain. You will get Killian and after that what you do is your issue.”

“You’ll take me after I have him,” I said darkly, before shooting poisonous glances at the two demon-chimeras. “I can take you but these two need to piss off. Three against one and I’m fucked. Don’t think I don’t –”

“They’re not coming.” Silas cut me off. He jumped on the quad and shifted himself backwards to make room for me on the front. “They’ll slow us down. They have orders to make it back to the Charger plane I have a days walk from here. Just me and you. You can take me, you’ve demonstrated that. Get on the quad, Reaver, this has already taken too long.”

He paused for a second, his face darkening even more. “We make a good team, we proved that when we outran those ravers. No matter what complications our relationship –”

“There is no relationship!” I snapped. I heard chuckling behind me and I whirled around wanting to punch the silver-haired one, fucking Mr. Chuckles over there, right in the mouth.

“No matter how complicated we are, we make a good team. Together, you and I, Perish and Sky don’t stand a chance. You have little option, Reaver. You can walk and spend ten days at full chimera speed until you get to the lab and another two weeks before you actually find the entrance. Or you can get on the quad and we’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon.”

Tomorrow afternoon? My stomach felt full of butterflies, or wasps anyways. The anticipation of seeing him… of seeing Killian.

With Silas beside me.

Greyson, what would you do?

I sighed and shook my head. What choice did I have? I had never had a choice, even if this was a trap… I knew he had my balls in his hand once again. He was right, I didn’t know the exact location of the lab and if it was still a week away…

“Alright,” I said bitterly. I holstered my gun and got onto the quad, with a turn of the key the machine rumbled to life. “Let’s go.”

“Goodbye, loves, I’ll be back soon… don’t leave the Dead Islands until I page you. Keep safe.” I heard Silas say over the quad. I didn’t want for the other two assholes to respond. I tightened my grip on the throttle and sped away.

I had nothing to say to him, and feeling his body so close to mine was making my skin crawl. I didn’t want him behind me where he could easily pull out a knife to kill me but as I rode on I put those concerns to rest. If Silas was going to take me back to Skyfall, he would’ve done it while those goons were around.

Though when I saw his hand appear, two hours of silence down the highway, my entire body tensed in anticipation to whirl around and attack him. But as I looked I saw he was handing me goggles.

“Fuck off,” I spat but he only pushed them into my arm. I grabbed them with a grind of my teeth and steered the quad with one hand as I put them on my head and over my eyes. I could see better this way, those fine grains of greywaste ground were starting to irritate my eyes.

Silas was being quiet which was a credit to him, but I couldn’t get my head on straight knowing he was behind me. Silas Dekker, Asher Fallon was behind me, inches away from my back, from my throat. I couldn’t believe I was letting this happen; it went against all my natures both as a greywaster and a chimera.