The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 2 (The Fallocaust Series) by Quil Carter Read Free Book Online

away and wiped his nose. “What is it, Reaver?”
    I looked at my bare feet, black from dirt. I pivoted one and twisted it around the ground.
    “Why...” I stopped. I shouldn’t ask that of him, even back then I shyed away from any conversation that might lead to uncomfortable emotions. Instead I put the shoe down that I had found and ran back outside. So I didn’t have to see such an uncomfortable sight, from a man I held so much respect for.
    Even mayors... even big badass dads have emotions...
    Elish wasn’t Greyson, but without realizing it I had started to see him as a figure of strength, endurance, and stoicism. He put it forth without effort and I had gravitated to it. I trusted him, without realizing it or knowing when it had happened, I trusted him with my life and that of my boyfriend.
    So when I walked up behind him and we stood side by side, I got the same coy feeling that I had gotten when I was a child. The feeling that I was witnessing this man, seemingly carved from the ice flows of hell, show the small hints of vulnerability.
    A state that would only ever be brought forth by the fear that his pet, his young husband, was in mortal danger.
    Danger I had put him in, Killian too.
    Elish’s eyes scanned the black trees and grey rocks below and around us. His jaw tight and his movements stiff, dressed in greywaster attire with an assault rifle on his back. I hadn’t seen him like this in years and now that I knew who ‘James’ really was I looked at this chimera in a whole different light.
    I glanced behind him and when I saw Caligula, Nico, and Reno out of earshot I turned to Elish.
    “I’ll find him, I promise. I’ll fix it, alright?”
    Elish didn’t move, only his jaw tightened more but he didn’t speak. I knew he wouldn’t, and in truth, just saying those words had made my ears go hot. I was feeling... not just guilty for possibly putting the boys in danger, I was feeling like I failed the most important task, at least in Elish’s eyes, that he had given me.
    I lost the damn cicaro.
    This filled me with frustration and rage. I had never been the self-loathing type, or at least I never saw myself as that. But this heavy burden of emotion on my shoulders was crippling me. I was the Scourge of the Greywastes, the Raven, and the Reaper. Now I just felt like a fucking dirty piece of shit, not just a failure who couldn’t even keep Killian and Jade safe, but a beaten down victim of Nero Dekker. Some fucking idiot who let all of this happen because he didn’t think.
    I didn’t fucking think.
    I killed Timothy because I didn’t think of the repercussions.
    I fucking travelled with slavers because I was desperate to protect Killian from the Legion closing in on us.
    I even left Jade with Perish and the slavers because I was more concerned with getting away from those bickering idiots. I could’ve and should’ve brought Jade with us to charge the Ieon and I knew it.
    With a swallow I tried to push it down, though like I was swallowing a bone my own self-hatred stuck in my throat. Though there was nothing more I could do but mentally beat myself up, and I wasn’t that kind of guy. Loathing got you nowhere; it made you hate yourself and made others hate you. I had to stop being a fucking pussy about it and pull up my fucking bootstraps.
    I was the Reaper. And though I will still make mistakes – I will fix them.
    I-will-fix-them.
    There was a crunching of snow, Nico came running up to us. “I got bad news...”
    Both Elish and I turned around at the same time.
    “What is it?” Elish said sharply, his eyes hard.
    Caligula had been on the phone with Kessler for several minutes now. The call coming in while we were landing the Falconer, a few miles from where Killian, Chally, and I had branched off towards Mariano.
    “Kess is assuming that Reaver is hiding in the Death Canyons near Cardinalhall. Which is good for us; it will take them weeks and weeks to comb it to the Legion’s satisfaction