The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) (11 page)

His eyes widened as I lifted up my shirt so I could show him my war wound. “Holy shit... we heard what happened in Aras too. King Silas shot the mayors and it’s under legion law now. Are you going to settle here? You don’t have any family?”

I have tons of family, just my biological family is doing their own thing and my real family is off being heroes.

I shook my head. “I’ll be staying here until I heal up I guess. This seems like a friendly town. Aras was too far off to be a drop-in town like this place. You guys get a lot of travellers?”

Since Aras was so far away from the other greywaster towns and too close to the blacksands we didn’t really get people dropping in. If you came to Aras you usually stuck around or were looking to settle.

The kid nodded and brushed his hair away from his eyes. Sandy-coloured hair on a triangle shaped face, gaunt from missing too many meals, like a proper greywaster.

“Yeah, most of our money is from travellers,” he said. “The locals have their own taverns and the travellers or merchants have separate ones. You came to the right one.”

I took another drink, the cold beer doing a number on my mood. There really wasn’t many things alcohol couldn’t cure, at least temporarily. “Yeah, some little girls pointed me in the right direction.”

This made him laugh; he had a cute laugh. “That’s Tiara and Misty, my cousins. Most of the shops here are run by some cousin, or aunt, or uncle. We’re the Saint James family.” He held out his hand. “And my name is Jesse.”

I snorted and with that I got my first narrowed eye look. I waved a hand at him. “Sorry. Jesse Saint James sounds like a comic book hero or something. Are you a super hero, Jesse?”

“Far from it!” Jesse Saint James tipped back in his chair and waved one of the lady bartenders over. “Get us some meat chips, Maya.”

Oh, meat chips. Ground up rat meat mixed together with salt and flour, pounded and cut into chips and then deep fried. In Skyfall we had potato fries but here we made due. I wouldn’t say I missed greywaster food but the nostalgia was still there.

And he was being friendly which I appreciated. I had a knack for picking out the more cordial of greywasters and if they were cute, well that was just a bonus. Anything to try and snap me out of this slump.

Maya came back with a plate full of brown chips which I shared happily with Jesse, also insisting on paying for it but he haggled me down to me just buying him his beer.

Over the next couple of hours hanging out with him I learned that indeed a couple of our residents had abandoned Aras in favour for a free town. None of them were my friends though which I was almost glad for. I didn’t want to have to tell Sadii, Matt, or any of the other sentries that Reaver was a mutant, clone fugitive, and we couldn’t find Killian.

Which was another thing that I learned. The Legion had been coming in and out of Tintown and the smaller surrounding communities looking for Reaver Dekker, Perish Dekker, and Killian Massey. Which I obviously knew nothing about. They had a rather big bounty on their heads, over ten thousand dollars. Though that was pocket change to my ex-fiancé.

By the time the bar was closing we were too drunk to do much besides tell dirty jokes and laugh at the other drunk patrons.

“Where are you sleeping tonight?” Jesse leaned up against the closed bar; his frozen breath falling from his mouth in short puffs of smoke.

I shrugged. “Got a hotel somewhere? Probably there.”

“I’ll walk you there, my Grandpa runs the place,” Jesse said with a smile. He took a step and stumbled. I had no motor-skills to help him though, so I concentrated on keeping myself up.

We stumbled our drunken asses over the cracked pavement, leading down to a tall three-storey hotel. One of the tallest buildings in Tintown, it towered over the other smaller structures.

A small bluelamp hung its welcome in front of the grey wood building. Each sun bleached piece of paneling a different combination of grey than the one next to it. It looked solid and well repaired though, so I trusted it.

I walked in. Grampa Saint James looked up from a worn-out green chair facing a tube TV and rolled his eyes. “Who did you find, Jesse?”

“This is Reno. We’re friends now.” Jesse smacked me roughly on the back. “He needs a hotel room and I’m showing him where it is.”

Grampa didn’t look impressed. He slowly got up on arthritic knees and grabbed a cane. “He looks like he has money. Five bucks a night, twenty a week and seventy-five a month, comes with cleaning services and delivery but no meals.”

Sounded close enough to Deider’s rates so I nodded and we shook on it. Then I reached my hand into my jacket and brought out the money. I might have paid him for a whole month, I wasn’t sure; I just gave him a bunch of money and stumbled upstairs with Jesse.

I walked into the modest hotel room, with full intention to bid Jesse goodbye, but it looked like I was a man who didn’t take flirting well.

What I thought had just been two guys getting drunk and chatting turned into something else quickly as Jesse’s lips locked with mine.

My drunk mind immediately submitted, my own loneliness getting the better of me. It had been a long time since I had even a friend to talk to, longer since I had had consensual sex. My body was craving attention and my mind human affection.

So he pushed me onto the bed and our clothes were soon lost. I looked upon that non-chimera body, with its beautiful flaws and drank him in. He was a slender thing, with sporadic hair on his chest and a normal-sized uncut dick. As stupid as it was I had never had normal, the first dick I had sucked was Reaver, and the first consensual fuck I had had was King Silas. They both had cut, beautifully flawless cocks.

I kissed Jesse and started to rub his dick, pulling the foreskin before I retracted it. Jesse moaned and started sucking on my neck, sending off sparks inside of my chest. He started to kiss lower, sucking on my left nipple before he got to my navel and then finally I felt the soft brush of his hair against my dick.

This... I missed this, I needed this. Though as much as I hated it nothing would ever compare to the sex I had had with ‘Asher’. Though maybe if I had ever gotten the chance to sleep with Garrett...

Garrett...
I flinched and almost pulled back. I had left my engagement ring behind; I had essentially called off our engagement. If he wasn’t willing to let me rescue my best friend...

“Ah – damn,” I groaned. I separated my knees as Jesse’s tongue tested and licked my head, then gasped as he breathed a stream of warm air onto it. Soon it was fully in his mouth and in my drunken, horny, and lonely state, my ex-fiancé faded into the background.

I was a dog and I had never pretended to be anyone different.

My arm flopped over my face, the alcohol permeating my system making my arms heavy. At least I could get hard though.

I closed my eyes and let him take me in, and after that the events of the evening blended into a drunken, hazy blur. At one point I had the kid on his hands and knees, his moans matching my thrusts as I fucked him. Then sometime after that my mind recalled him riding me; his hand rapidly stroking himself off.

The next morning I woke up with a pounding headache, covered in stickiness that I could only assume was cum. I stumbled to the shower before collapsing back into bed. The kid was gone, maybe he hadn’t gotten hit with the hangover bug like us old men got. I never really asked his age but I pegged him at about eighteen or nineteen.

I first checked to make sure I hadn’t been robbed and when I made sure all of my money, my remote phone, and my weapons were still there I decided he must’ve had to go to work. So I stayed in bed and felt sorry for myself and my shitty hangover.

While I was nursing my headache I went over the events of last night and what they possibly could mean. I probably could date that little knucklehead if I wanted to.

I didn’t know if I wanted to though, him being a rebound guy and all of that emotional crap. If I was going to make him my boyfriend then it was only for the sole reason that Garrett had fucking hurt me.

Okay, I knew I was being unreasonable, and I knew maybe I shouldn’t be so mad at him. But when it came to Reaver and Killian’s safety...

Garrett had restrained me and kept me captive just like the Crimstones had. Except he did it in our own apartment, and chained me with his own hands to prevent me from helping with Reaver’s rescue.

I sighed, wondering if I had just made a huge mistake, but what did it matter? I was only here to heal and once I was, I was joining Reaver again. Eventually joining Reaver had been my end goal from the start.

If Garrett had wanted me to marry him, if he had really loved me... he would have let me get Reaver. Hell, he would have helped me.

And with that in my head I crawled out of bed in the early evening. I had started to feel a bit better, or well, I hadn’t thrown up in a couple hours.

I got dressed and deliberately made myself look good, just to, you know, impress Jesse a bit. Since I was in town and not in the greywastes I could dress a bit better, though ‘dress a bit better’ to the greywastes was a clean’ish t-shirt and pants that didn’t smell like death.

When I decided I was hot shit I strolled out of the hotel into the cold, winter night. I couldn’t help having a small smile on my lips as I walked down the uneven and broken pavement towards the Dust Devil. I guess getting laid did that to a man, it had been a
really
long time.

And I had someone to talk to... finally. A boy I could dote on and love, what Reaver had had for the last seven months, or how many months it was in total since they hadn’t seen each other in a while.

I sucked on a cigarette as I passed the meandering greywasters, walking back home or perhaps to a restaurant for some food. Everyone still seemed so relaxed and at ease, I really could call this place home.

I could hear the faint music and the buzzing of bar patrons as I stepped onto the deck of the bar. I walked in, greeted once again with the smell of stale smoke, and found my usual spot underneath the Tinky poster.

Maya was waiting tables, I called her over and ordered a drink.

“Is Jesse around?” I asked.

She smiled at me, but my brow furrowed as I saw a bit of annoyance on her face. I wondered if he had told everyone we had slept together after knowing each other for about four hours. “No, he’s... made a trip to Springton with his father. He won’t be back for a week at least.”

Disappointment washed over me. He hadn’t mentioned that last night. “Oh, alright,” I said. I gave her a nonchalant shrug to keep up appearances but I was really put out by that news. “Just bring me a beer and a can of something I guess.”

Well... that was unexpected. I didn’t think last night had gone badly but maybe he was the type of kid to feel ashamed after. I was the one who just broke off an engagement to a chimera mogul, if anyone should be feeling ashamed it was me.

So much for not being lonely, I had been so close too.

Maya came back with my food and I ate in lonely silence. A few other good-looking guys came in and were milling around but I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t a slut or anything like that, I had never been looking for the physical side... I was just fucking lonely.

People came and people went. Even a few little kids came bounding in to pick up wrapped packages full of food orders. I sat and watched them; no one bothered me and I didn’t bother them.

Finally I had enough. I paid for my food and went back out into the night, but before I went back to the hotel room to cry a bit I decided to relieve myself in the alleyway beside some trash cans.

But just as I was giving it a shake and tucking it back in I saw none other than Jesse. He was holding a trash bag and wearing his black apron, walking towards the dumpster.

When Jesse saw me he was so shocked he dropped the trash bag.

“What the fuck?” I said, feeling my temper get tweaked. “She was lying? Why the hell are you avoiding me?”

Jesse stared at me, I saw his face pale. “Don’t make a big deal about it... just, ah, I don’t want... I don’t want you talking to me anymore.”

“What!?” I threw my hands up in the air, feeling more than just a bit offended. “Why? I wasn’t that fucking bad. I was drunk!”

Jesse took a step away from me, shaking his head back and forth. His eyes were wide, he looked under an incredible amount of stress. “Just stay away from me, alright? My family runs this town and I’ve already told them –”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” My anger was pressing its toxic weight down on my brain, and the rejection was filling my heart with a bitter feeling. I was getting pissed. “I didn’t fucking do anything to you, asshole. You were all over
me
first; my dick was in
your
mouth, fuck head.”

Jesse’s lip tightened. He looked behind him and then oddly above him. Then without another word he turned to walk back into the white back door.

I stalked up to him and grabbed his shoulder. I pulled him back towards me before shoving him away. “In my town we don’t fucking play mind games,” I snapped. “If I find out you stole something from me, or did something to me I will fuck you up, greywaster. Do you understand me?”

Jesse’s eyes were wide and I could see him trembling in front of the door. The rage was rushing through me though and I couldn’t contain it. I was too hurt, too tired of this shit, and too lonely. I had been being rejected by men all my life, and I had just left the only one who hadn’t.