Page 94 of Keeping Sarah

“And now that Rex, who according to you held all the power, is dead, then I guess I don’t have to worry about what he wouldallowme to do to you,” Tantalus said as he stalked to my cell door. “I can do whatever I want. I have all the power, Jac. I’m in control of what happens to you now.” He turned to the guards and barked, “Open his door.”

“We don’t work for you, Tantalus—"

“You don’t work for anyone at the moment, but I know where Rex keeps his money and if you would like to still get paid, you’ll listen to me and open his fucking door!”

The guards huffed, then one unlocked my door.

But all I did was fight the images in my mind of Sarah’s limp, dead body. With a bone knife sticking in it. “No, no, no…”

Tantalus bragged as he swaggered inside. “I’m going to keep you for my pet until I get bored of you. You go ahead and keep saying no—I like it when they struggle.”

Finally, he loomed over me. “What, no comeback this time?” He nudged my foot with his. “Come on. It’s no fun if you don’t fight it.” He kicked my leg, so I pulled it closer to me and away from him.

“The champion, indeed,” he laughed and turned to the guards, while I slowly, quietly inched upward, planning my escape. “Look at him now, boys. Whimpering about his dead consort. A shame the people can’t see him like this—then they would see what their champ—"

I stood behind Tantalus and twisted his head until his neck bones ground and crunched against his spinal cord, killing him. The guards leapt to lock the door, but I was faster. The nearest guard thrust his bone knife at me, but I side-stepped it, turned his wrist the other direction and stabbed the second guard in the gut. He fell. Then, I kicked the first guard, took his knife, and stabbed him in his neck, turning the blade before I pulled it back out.

The second guard—the one I stabbed in the stomach—tried to crawl for the exit, but I flung the knife into his back. He tried to scream and couldn’t, so he kept trying to drag himself to the exit, streaking a trail of blood and viscera on the floor.

I swiped the first guard’s shoes—not a perfect fit, but they would do—and walked to the second guard as he tried to get away. I pulled the knife from his back, and his lungs hissed through the new hole in his back as he suffocated on his own blood. I pilfered his pants and knife, tucking it into the folds of my robe.

I refused to believe Sarah was dead. Not until I saw her body myself.

Baiting Tantalus had been easy but dealing with a house full of guards who had no boss and no rules would pose a challenge. I crept to the top of the stairs and there were no guards. I peeked over the edge of the floor. Evidently, the guards thought their boss’ demise was the perfect excuse to loot his manor. Some of them fought over valuables, but all of them were too busy to notice me at first.

Carefully, I emerged from the stairwell and snuck toward Rex’s bedroom, dodging the guards from room to room. The bedroom was the last place I had seen Sarah, so it was the first place I would look for her or clues. With every step, I prayed she had separated from Rex before he was killed. But before I got to the bedroom, a looting guard spotted me from an office.

I put my finger to my lips and said, “Shh.”

“You can put the knife down.” He laughed and went back to stashing goods in his rucksack, “No one cares, boy.”

“How’s that?”

“Rex is dead. Taking his shit is our severance package. The whole city has melted down over his death. There’s riots in the streets, boy. Faithless is not safe for the living. Take what you can and get out of here. That’s what I’m doing.”

“And what of the dead?”

He shrugged. “Fuck ‘em.” He slung his rucksack over his shoulder and left the office.

I didn’t buy it. There were too many guards for all of them to be in agreement about looting Rex’s manor. I watched the other guards from the doorway, before I made my way to the bedroom. None of them were guarding anything. They were taking it. There were several guards up and down the hallway, too many to avoid for long. Another fight broke out, this time over a pornographic tapestry in the room next to Rex’s bedroom.

The fight was brutal, made worse when one of the guards set fire to the tapestry. “Fine, you want it so bad,there.”

The guard holding it dropped it to punch the arsonist, but he had dropped it onto a runner rug that caught fire immediately. The runner ran the length of the hallway, and soon, the fire did, too.

I ducked into Rex’s bedroom to escape the blaze. Inside Rex’s bedroom, a guard shouted, “Hey, that’s the prisoner! Get him!”

Fuck.

The first guard came at me when I was near the doorway. I crouched as he punched at me, thrust my head and shoulders forward and brought him over my back, then dumped him into the hallway and into the fire. He bolted back toward the bedroom, but I slammed the door in his face and locked it.

I turned around in time to get kicked in the stomach and knocked my head back against the door, falling to the floor. The guard reared back to kick me again, but I punched him in the cock, rendering him doubled over. I stabbed him in the back twice, once in each lung, then pushed him to the floor.

I flung my knife into the eye of the next guard who came at me. He collapsed.

The final fourth guard, who had stayed back the whole time, put his hands up. “I’m just here to swipe some of Rex’s shit. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Then you shouldn’t have gone to work for Rex Terian.” As I walked to the second floor balcony, I kept a knife aimed at the guard, like I was going to throw at him. I shut the doors behind myself and took a breath of the fresh air on Rex’s private balcony.

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