The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (57 page)

He held Killian’s hand as they slowly walked down the hallway towards the room. Perish squeezed it and gave him another smile. “When the time comes, I want you to go through that door. Go right, right, left, right, and you will reach a thick metal door. Inside it is a quad you can ride right out of here and a duffle bag that is green that has in it things I want you to take, okay?”

Killian stared at him blankly. “Right, right, left, right.”

Perish nodded and kissed his cheek. “That’s right, baby. Ride the quad straight and eventually it will lead you to the end of a large sewer, after that you’ll be in the plaguelands. Keep riding straight, that will take you south west, out of the radiation. I even put a map in the big pocket of the duffle bag. An easy one for you to read.”

The boy, still looking half-dazed, nodded. “You’ll meet me there, then?”

Perish’s chest shuddered as he took another breath, months of steeling himself for this moment and he still couldn’t grab proper hold of his emotions. Unlike Silas, Reaver, and so many others, he didn’t have the strength in him to harden the churning feelings right now. Seeing the boy staring at him with such sad confusion, and knowing what he was about to ask him to do, was slowly tearing him apart.

“No, love, we’re going to have to say goodbye now,” Perish whispered. “I’m going to have to leave you.”

Killian’s face crumpled and immediately Perish put his arms around him and held the boy to his chest. Tears streaming down his cheeks as he bit his lip to keep himself from breaking down.

He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. “There is a flare gun inside of that bag. Once it’s dark I want you to shoot it up into the air. There is a man who is a friend... I mentioned him before. Do you remember Mantis?”

“Don’t leave me. Why does everyone leave me? I... I don’t want to stay with Mantis. Why can’t I stay with you?” Killian’s voice was broken, full of fear and made shaky by the tears Perish knew were running down his own face.

“Because you don’t belong to me, sweety. You’re not mine to keep,” Perish whispered to him, clutching the boy to him tightly. “You belong to someone who loves you very much. I know your mind is a bit scrambly but you’ll remember him as soon as you see him. Once you remember Re... him, you’ll...” Perish chuckled. “You’ll probably hate me for a while.”

Killian pulled back; his eyes red and his cheeks streaked with tears. “I love you, why would I hate you? Why... why are you doing this?” He looked around and pursed his lips. “We have everything down here. Why can’t we... stay. I’ll stay with –”

Perish shook his head and Killian stopped mid-sentence. The weight of the boy’s words wore heavy on the doubts he still had. The doubts that told him that he could stay down here with Killian, spend the rest of their lives making each other happy.

But that was a fool’s dream. A dream that could never be realized.

You’re not mine to keep, love, and I know eventually our happiness would pass. Even if I took you for myself, we would only be tormented and tortured, chased and hunted, until the ends of the earth. By both the man who loves you, and the man who wants nothing more than to see you dead.

And eventually you would get your mind back, and you would be nothing more than my prisoner.

You’re Reaver’s, not mine.

Over two hundred years, and that was the most painful thing for me to have to accept.

“You’ll understand one day, Killian.” Perish put his hand back up to Killian’s cheek. He wiped away a large tear slipping down the boy’s pale face. “And when you do understand... I want you to know: you made the last of my days the best ones I had ever experienced.”

Killian stared at him confused. “You’re... you’re immortal, Perry. Where are you going to go?”

Perish withdrew his hand and turned to the control panel embedded in the wall beside the door. With his heart racing he pressed a button and flicked a small switch.

His eyes flickered up as there was a low whirring sound. And though the metal panels inside of the room didn’t move, Perish could feel the pull as they snared his energy in their field and urged him closer.

“I’m going to go be with my brother; he’s been waiting quite a while for me,” Perish whispered.

The scientist wiped his forehead with his sleeve and for what seemed like the hundredth time today he took a deep breath for courage. With Sky’s memories reassuring his nervous brain, he tried to calm himself down.

I’m not even scared for what I am going to do; I’m not scared of the darkness I know is coming. I hurt inside because I have to leave Killian now. I have to leave him alone and know that once that door closes... I will never see his face again.

I love you, so much, Killian.

“Okay... it’s time... this will help your pain,” Perish whispered. He reached inside of his pocket and pulled out a small pill of morphine. He put it to Killian’s lips and obediently the boy opened his mouth. Without even asking what it was he swallowed it. His blue eyes, as blue as the summer skies of Perish’s childhood, staring at him in fear and confusion.

“You’re going to feel a lot of energy, and see a lot of light... but do not be scared it won’t hurt you anymore.” Perish reached behind his neck and took off his chimera necklace; he started to fasten it around Killian’s neck.

“In about ten minutes it will all be over.” Perish’s voice caught in his throat again. “Now listen carefully, Killian; this is what you need to do after the light fades...”

I stared at him, blankly and confused, watching his mouth move as he told me what strange thing I was going to have to do after. I didn’t understand it, but he was an immortal and it wasn’t like he was going to be away for long.

He seemed so... sad, and every time I disagreed with what he was asking me to do he started to cry again, so I agreed. Whatever made him happy. He was all I had left in the world and the only man I could trust. I remember he had said that to me again and again at the surface.

Perish loved me and I trusted him, but why was he asking me to do this to him? What was going to happen in that room?

“I love you,” I said to him, just because I wanted to make him happy, but once again I screwed up because he started crying again.

Don’t cry, Perry...

He held me again in his arms and though my body was tender and sore I let him squeeze me tight. I squeezed him back and this time when he pulled away... he kissed me.

I pressed back and opened my mouth just slightly. He opened his and together we kissed, our arms wrapped around one another.

When he pulled away, he took a step back; his chest rising and falling with a deep breath. He looked at me and I looked back. We stayed with our eyes locked, neither one of us looking away.

There was a click behind us which drew both of our vision away from each other. He turned around and checked on a gauge of something on the control panel and nodded to himself.

“Are you ready, Killian?” Perish gave me a smile that I knew was fake. He swallowed hard and opened the door to the metal-plated room.

“No,” I whimpered. I didn’t want to be alone, and I didn’t want to go out into the greywastes. I wasn’t going to either, no matter what he said. Once I did what he asked, once I opened the door after he was finished, I was going to stay until he came back. I refused to leave him. You don’t just leave someone you love.

“Come give me one last hug,” Perish whispered. Immediately I ran over to him and dove into his arms. He squeezed me so hard I thought my ribs were going to break. I held him back and blinked away the tears still falling down my cheeks.

“I love you, Killian. You’re going to be something amazing, I promise you,” he whispered.

“I love you, Perry... I love you,” I whispered back. I shut my eyes tight and buried my head into the crook of his arm. “Please, don’t do this.”

He pulled away, leaned down and gave me a kiss on the lips.

“Goodbye, sweety. Thank you for showing me mercy. Thank you for loving me through my madness, and thank you for showing me there is still good in this world.”

Perish turned from me. He walked into the room and turned around, his hand on the metal door. He looked at me; his blue eyes heavy and full of what seemed like a thousand emotions at once.

Our eyes locked, dark blue and light blue, and as he slowly closed the door he smiled at me and mouthed one last I love you.

Then the door closed.

Chapter 61

Reaver

              I could feel the quad start to lose power and I knew that this time the four-wheeler wouldn’t be able to be resurrected. It had been pushed hard over rough terrain for a long time and if overheating wouldn’t kill it, the fact that we were once again running out of gas would.

Silas was quiet when, with one last pathetic whir, the quad died underneath us. I jumped off with a slew of curse words shaking my head.

“We’re not far now,” Silas said jumping off too. He grabbed onto the quad and started rolling it off of the road beside a baked-black median. He clapped the dust off of his hands and looked around the deserted plaguelands.

“How long?” I asked. Not wasting any time I started walking down the old road, now streaked with black char marks and holding a large amount of stray gravel. On either side of us were large mounds of hardened metal and spikes of rebar sticking up out of the ground. This entire place had been burned to a crisp, only the thickest of metal seemed to have escaped the white hot flames. This place was the plaguelands, though I had no idea how the radanimals they were suppose to have here actually survived, though Silas did say this charred terrain was limited to the city.

“A couple of hours now, I think.” Silas’s head shot to me and I knew he had heard the spike in my heartbeat. “It’s behind one of these metal mounds. Our lab was underneath a large skyscraper.”

“Why didn’t it burn?” I kicked a scorched black rock with my foot and watched it bounce along the ground, eventually it stopped in a large pothole and settled on top of a chunk of median.

“It did, it burned to cinders,” Silas replied. “The previous lab was completely gutted but somehow it didn’t collapse. Sky re-built this one, though I didn’t find out he did until much later.”

Even hearing his voice made me unsettled and on edge, but when I was quiet my thoughts nagged at me like a splinter stuck in my eye. My worry for Killian was cannibalizing all of my emotions and in this present situation hearing Silas talk outweighed driving myself into insanity worrying about that boy.

I heard his soft boot steps behind me, quiet like the ghost he was. It wouldn’t be soon enough that I stopped being in the presence of him. Though I wasn’t sure what was going to happen after I got Killian. If he had it in his mind that he could kidnap me and take me back to Skyfall his head would be resting at the bottom of the pothole like Kessler’s.

Faster boot steps until he was walking side by side with me. I twitched my mouth to the side though I didn’t voice my displeasure.

All the screaming and ranting in the world over him being with me, and physically close to me, wouldn’t change that I needed to find Killian.

Though it continued to make my mind reel that he was unguarded right now. My tongue was sore and bleeding in some places from biting down on it; the pain helped focus me.

“Stop doing that,” Silas said darkly.

I gave him a sideways glance; I hadn’t done a fucking thing.

“Stop bleeding.” He glanced back at me and his eyes narrowed as they locked on mine. “Stop tempting me. I can smell it in your mouth, have some self-control.”

“Or why don’t you just go fuck yourself instead?” I replied in a cold tone. And just because I honestly couldn’t help it, I bit my tongue harder, letting the coppery blood flow into my mouth.

Silas twitched at this and inhaled a deep long breath.

“Yes, words are all you have since you’re such damaged and ravaged goods.” My heart jumped a second time and I felt a cold heat start to creep up my neck, pooling in my ears and behind my eyes.

“I can only hope it was videotaped.” His eyes shot to mine, though I was staring forward, trying to wipe my mind of all the emotions that were a wellspring inside of me.

“I will show it on one of my Skyfall channels. Reaver gets raped bloody by –”

I spat the blood right on his face. Silas recoiled back, shutting his eyes out of reflex. Then just as he was opening them I reached up and backhanded him right across the mouth.

He didn’t fall, but he gasped and took a few steps back. I stopped and crossed my arms, daring him to attack me.

Silas glared at me; his own trickle of blood starting to drip down his nose.

“My apologies.”

I unfolded my arms. I wanted to give him a confused look. I wanted to take him and wring his neck for this odd state he seemed to be in. Take him by his stupid blazer collar and shake him back and forth until he started acting like Asher again.