The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (60 page)

My mind raced with delusional hope after delusional hope. Unable to stay where I was with the fire and heat blasting our burning bodies, I ran down the cistern with my boyfriend in my arms.

“Stay awake, Killi,” I said to him, my voice tight. I looked down and felt my face twist when I saw the skin on his neck start to lift away from his body. It was peeling off in chunks with every step of my boots. He tried to hide the pain from me but I could feel it in his heart. Fuck, his heart was racing like he was going to have a heart attack.

Right, right, left, right – Fuck, Perish, you fucking asshole.

No, it was us.

We had did this. We had taunted Silas.

This was all my fault.

Killian was going to die and it was all my fault. Because I had to let Killian get his revenge, because I wanted to taste the agony radiating off of Silas.

The cistern was a maze to me, but in my mind I constantly went over Killian’s instructions, and soon I rounded the last bend and saw where he was trying to lead me.

It was a door being held ajar by a rusted pipe. It was a thick door that looked not only blast proof but fire proof. So quickly I ran into the room and kicked the door stopper out of the way.

I heard it shut behind me but I was already eyeing up the quad I saw parked in the middle of a room full of supplies and boxes. The quad itself had bags tied to it and guns but...

“Reaver?” Killian’s weak voice sunk my heart and made my mind halt its desperate delusions that I could get him out of this alive.

“Don’t worry... we’ll... we’ll be out of this soon,” I said hastily. “Just, hang on, Killi... just hang on...”

“Stay still.”

I looked down at him and when I saw those blue eyes staring at me, glassy but alert, my composure dissolved into nothing. I gave a strangled sob and shook my head.

“No, Killi... we can escape... we have a quad,” I choked. “I can take you to... to Skyfall.”

The boy gazed up at me and I saw his face had turned the grey; his lips were tinged blue and peeling off of his face. I could smell the burning; I could smell charred flesh and I could feel the wetness from the blood leaking out of his fatal wounds.

And his heart...

I could hear his once rapid beating heart start to slow.

“Stay still,” he whimpered. “Hold me.”

I sunk down to my knees, not because I wanted to fulfil his request but because I could no longer stand. I sat on the warm concrete and shifted until I was tucked into the corner of the room with him. Then I held that boy tight to my chest and rested my forehead against his.

The sounds of the building burning above us were drowned out by his quickened breaths and the small whimpers he let escape from his lips. I could feel those shallow but rapid puffs of air hit my cheek.

I looked at him, every part of me wanted to close my eyes to try and force us away from this place but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t stop looking at him; I couldn’t stop analysing every part of his face. That beautiful face like he had been carved from marble, with eyes so blue it was like he had stolen the stars from the sky.

Eyes that had once held laughter, love, hope...

Now they were wide and staring... they were...

They were scared.

My teeth clenched and I tried to tighten my grip on him, only to feel his small frame writhe under my hold. His body was a ruin, his arm charcoal and blood; his thigh and side open and exposed. He was so burned, fuck, he was so burned.

I was going to lose him.

Oh my god, I’m going to lose him.

“It’s okay...” Killian whispered. His voice was getting weaker.

His voice was getting weaker.

“Promise me something...”

“No!” I cried. My eyes started to become blurry. My face burned, everything burned. “Don’t... I’m not promising you anything. I… I’m not. I can’t – Killi, I can’t.”

Killian’s lips pursed before they twisted in a grimace as he tried to raise his good hand. I looked down and saw it was balled in a tight fist. He raised it but before he could reach out to touch me I took his hand and held it. It was burning hot and I could feel his rough skin shift around in my light touch.

He opened his mouth to try and talk but I shushed him. I didn’t know why I did. I wanted him to keep talking... didn’t I?

Or maybe I just didn’t want him to cause more pain.

“Promise me...” Killian rasped. “You’ll leave me when I’m gone. Please.”

“Shut up!” I cried. I pressed my forehead against his and let out a sob, tears falling onto him. “Please... shut up.”

“I love you, and... and I remember you now,” Killian whispered, then his eyes shut tight and I felt his chest shudder. “Just... hold me, then... leave. Baby, you’ll be stuck here for twenty years. You’ll...” Another pause and I watched in horror as he took a shaky, congested breath. I looked down and groaned. Underneath his shredded clothes I could see crimson red skin and black.

“Reaver?” he suddenly cried. His face twisted in pain and I held him close to me.

“Shh... it’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay... I’m here. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here.”

I’ll be here forever.

I will never leave you. I don’t care if I burn. I deserve worse.

Another loud snap above us that I could feel vibrate the walls. I glanced up and saw the ceiling shift and move as the lab above us continued to burn. I ignored it and fixed my eyes back on my boyfriend, only to see his once alert and vivid eyes start to fade.

“Killi!” I screamed. The force behind my scream woke him up, but as he jumped from surprise he also cried out from pain. I drew him back into me, feeling my mouth fill with copper from biting down on my cheek and lips.

What do I do? What do I do?

I tried to shift myself to standing. The only solution my mind gave me was to take him out of the cistern but at my movement Killian whimpered and his pulse jumped. I swore and shut my eyes tight and looked around the small room.

“Talk to me...” Killian whispered.

“I don’t know what to say!” I cried. “I... I have to get you out of here. Killi. I know it hurts but –”

“Tell me about...” Killian paused. He took in another sharp breath and coughed; I saw blood sprinkle on my hand. “Tell me the story about... about when we first met.”

My face crumpled and I shook my head, but as I did I felt his pulse start to slow and I knew it would be soon.

“Oh, Killi...” I whimpered. “Don’t leave me here. You can’t... I’ve barely had you. We’ve almost been apart for months. You can’t, Killi Cat... you can’t.”

I saw him close those beautiful blue eyes. And as the silence descended on us, the fire raging upstairs and for all I knew right outside the door, I think I realized that was the last time I would ever see them.

I closed my eyes too, as tight as I could. I held him to me and started to slowly rock him back and forth.

“I remember when I brought you with me to sentry... on top of the east watch building. I was so nervous to have you near me, so... uncomfortable because I didn’t quite understand what I was feeling. Your hair was soft and blond, your face perfect in the moonlight. You were so... inquisitive, and it helped us talk because I didn’t know what to say. I was so worried about scaring you away,” I whispered, feeling his shallow breath on my lips. “I was this... bad guy and here you were wanting to be beside me. I didn’t understand why such a beautiful boy would look twice at this... antisocial idiot that was me.”

“But you did. And the prospect that you might like me the way I liked you scared the fuck out of me but... it also changed me. It drove me to do things I wouldn’t normally do, like... like when I asked you to be my boyfriend,” I sniffed and a sob broke my lips. “How about it? That’s how I asked you, but you said yes. You said yes and after that... we shared our first kiss.”

I leaned down and kissed his peeling lips and felt his small frail body give the smallest shudder. “I will remember our time in Aras together, those couple of months before... this. I’ll remember late nights watching movies. I’ll remember drug nights with Reno, and dinner at Leo and Greyson’s. I’ll remember the first time you crawled over to me in the middle of the night and I didn’t plan on pushing you away as soon as you fell back asleep. I remember when I realized... I was in love with you.”

I took in a deep breath. “I love you... and I will do everything I can... to be with you soon... Killi Cat.”

The silence fell onto the room like the world had disappeared around us. The only explanation I could give as to why it suddenly got quiet was that time had ceased to go forward. That the fabric of the universe had frozen, halted in its continuous rhythm, in response to what had just happened.

For as I spoke those last words to him I realized there was no longer any breath on my face. No longer a weak pulse sounding in the depths of my hearing. There were no more blue eyes, a colour unseen in this world. No more laughing, smiling boy to naive for his own good.

The world had frozen, and time had frozen.

Because Killian Massey was dead.

I rocked him back and forth, even though I knew he couldn’t feel it. I talked to him even though I knew he couldn’t hear me – but mostly I cried. I cried until his grey face was soaking wet with my tears and my mind was nothing but a useless snare of disconnected cords.

He was so light in my arms, light because what had made him my Killian was now gone. He was now just a physical body... but still I knew I would never leave him.

Killian was dead.

Killian was dead.

How could he be dead?

I sat with him in my arms, backed into the corner of the room. I didn’t even care when I heard the metal snap around me, and I cared even less when the room started to get warmer. The flames of death would be a welcome reprieve from this agony I was in. With open arms I would take my twenty years of flames, because the pain of fire would be nothing compared to the eternity I would now spend without the love of my life.

And when I one day emerged, I would make it my mission to find out how to kill immortals. Because there was no part of me that wished to join the outside world. I was Killian’s guardian; I was his protector, and I had failed. I had no will to live without him. I didn’t even want to know what life would be like without my Killian.

I looked down at his still face and blinked away the tears stinging my eyes. My soul crushed inside of me when I saw his balled little fist on his chest. I had been holding it but I must’ve stopped while I was crying into him. It was clenched so tight; he must’ve been in a lot of pain.

I don’t know how much of my mind remained; I felt shocked into a half-sane stupor. A part of me knew that I was in shock. I could only hope the shock didn’t wear off before the flames consumed me. If I could die while I was still stunned, I would take it.

“My little Killibee,” I whispered to him. I shifted him around so I could have a free hand and stroked back the remaining blond strands of hair he had on his head. My poor boy had lost a lot of his hair but he was still beautiful, maybe even more so now.

I ran a finger down his cheek and traced his jaw line to his ears, half-expecting him to open his eyes.

And when he opens his eyes, I’ll tell him... I filled up the loader tub with hot water for us to bathe in, because we were covered in blood, dirt, and C4 residue. I would see him take off his shirt and I would stare like an idiot because I was a fool in love. Though I hadn’t realized it yet.

My eyes closed again and I let out a long breath, feeling the heat start to fill the room. The flames were closing in around us, ready to consume us both. He would be ashes in my arms and so would I... but it also meant beautiful... beautiful silence.

I will go wherever you go. I just hoped you were some place quiet.

Where you could be happy, without pain and without fear.

Where you weren’t feeling this heat I could feel around me.

I opened my eyes and furrowed my brow. I looked down at the dead body of my boyfriend and stared.

I slowly realized it wasn’t the room getting hot...

It was Killian.

I raised my hand and lightly pressed it against Killian’s cheek. One of the few areas not burned.

Oh my fucking god.

His body was...

No... no, Reaver. Don’t... don’t torment yourself with... those thoughts.

He didn’t.

Perish couldn’t have...

Quickly I pulled my hand away and lifted Killian up off of me. I gently put him on the floor and rolled him onto his stomach. I shifted onto my knees and exposed the back of his head. The area where I had felt...

Where I had felt staples, before Silas had told me Perish had killed himself.

And there were... over a dozen of them stapled from one ear to the other.

I stared at the back of his head in shock, as the pieces slowly started to come together, gathering like magnets to form a picture that, even in my most insane thoughts, I hadn’t even thought as possible.

Perish... Perish...