Free The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) by Quil Carter Page A

now. I suspect Lycos has been hiding things from me.”
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 38
     
    Killian
     
     
     
     
     
    “Drink...” I whispered, kneeling below him with a cup of water in my hands.
    The slave, who I learned was named Danny, took it from me and gave me a smile.
    “Thank you,” he whispered. Like the other two, we always kept our voices down. Perish’s moods came and went like the tides, and I didn’t want to make him mad.

Mr. Fallon was several paces ahead of us, his assault rifle slung over his back and Reaver’s M16 at the resort behind us. I had nothing on me now, no weapons or anything I could use against him. We were in the middle of the greywastes, veering off the highway days ago, and only he would be able to defend us from ravers or radanimals.
    Perish had emptied my satchel and tossed away my drugs, my pocket knives and even the medication Elish had given me for my night terrors. He had even found his chimera necklace which I had taken off of his body back in Donnely. I got a lot of hell for that one.
    Now I was nothing more than a slave, though occasionally Perish would tell me to walk beside him so he could talk to me. For the most part though I stuck behind him and walked with the three remaining slaves: Danny, Edward, and Teejay.
    It was hard to keep pace with Perish. He was powering ahead of us, rifle in hand, taking long strides that were almost impossible to keep up with. He was keeping at a grueling pace that the slaves struggled to maintain.
    So I was trying my best to keep their health up.
    Perish glanced behind him and I saw his face twist in discontent. “I suggest you don’t waste too much time watering them,” he quipped with a sneer. “I would be surprised if they even made it to where we’re going.”
    I ignored him and passed the blue cup to Teejay. He seemed to be the weakest one of them all; I had already given him some extra socks I had.
    “Drink... hurry...” I whispered.
    Teejay’s nervous eyes glanced behind me. Suddenly his eyes widened and a moment later I saw a hand appear, smacking the cup out of his grasp.
    I whirled around, my rage for Perish outweighing the cold fact that this wasn’t the Perish I knew.
    I pushed him hard. “That wasn’t fucking necessary!” I snapped. “It’s water and he can drink as much –”
    A hard backhand threw me off of my feet. Teejay caught me, and with the other two slaves help, they steadiest me.
    Perish’s cold, icicle eyes stared me down. His face holding a caustic malice that I had only seen on this Mr. Fallon . A look that held with it a sanity I had never felt more uncomfortable with.
    It was eerie... watching this happen to him and me only a spectator witnessing his decent from the sidelines. This neurotic genius, my half-crazed scientist with a nervous tick but such a sweet disposition when he was around me.
    Now... now? Now I couldn’t understand just how someone could change so much, not just mentally but physically. How could a man to who I knew every tick, eye-shift, and movement become such a stranger to me? No longer rubbing his hands, no longer unable to make eye contact. He now stared me down with two slabs of ice for eyes, ones that held a coldness that rivalled Elish’s.
    I bit my lip, refusing to whimper as my cheek stung. I couldn’t stop the tears springing to my eyes though.
    “Stop being so fucking weak,” Perish snarled. He grabbed the blue cup and threw it at me. “It is a marvel that Reaver deals with you at all. Get up. We have more ground to cover.”
    “Alright,” I whispered. I rose and Danny handed me the cup back. I put it into my satchel and all four of us picked up our pace.
    There was acres of forest ahead of us, long, thick black trees that rose several storeys into the air. Thousands of them, some even able to support leaves though they were so thin and dry even the slightest touch broke their papery skin.
    Below the expanse of trees was the grey ash of the wasteland but it was