Page 41 of The Last One
“Kai, this is no place for you! Get back inside!” Jadon yells.
The surviving soldier shouts to the sky and charges toward me.
“Are you gonna talk, Jadon, or are we gonna fight?” I swing the hoe in time for the blade to hit its mark—the soldier’s nose—and the impact from the strike makes the handle vibrate.
The soldier collapses before Jadon.
Jadon’s eyebrows rise. “Guess we’re fighting.”
I shimmy my shoulders. “Look at me handling a weapon that isn’t even supposed tobea weapon. And you’re welcome.”
He frowns.“For?”
“For saving your life.” I run past him, then yell back, “Don’t worry about me. I was born to do this.”
Those words—I was born to do this—burn like acid in my throat. I didn’t come out of my mother’s womb knowing how to take a hoe and make it a deadly weapon; I know this much is true. Yet here I am, wielding a hoe like it’s as natural as breathing.
The remaining soldiers have spotted what we’ve done and rush toward Jadon and me all in one wave.
Jadon and I glance at each other one last time before we’re submerged in chaos. I give him a wolf’s smile. “Ready?”
“Show me what you got.” He winks at me before he charges into the fray.
11
Acting fast, I swing the hoe again, this time with enough force to wedge the blade into a soldier’s forehead. I grip the handle tighter and kick the now-dead man’s chest, freeing my weapon for more work. In the pandemonium, I spot Narder the jailer, spiked iron ball in hand, hiding behind a stack of crates, his expression a mix of fear and distress. The coward sees me marching toward him, and he doesn’t know whether to sneer or shriek. He makes his choice, squaring his shoulders. “You should’ve picked my bed.”
“And you should’ve run the moment you saw me,” I spit, my breath hot.
Narder swings his spiked ball at me.
I duck.
He grabs at my dress.
I stomp on his foot.
He yelps, but his cry is lost in the noise of fighting.
I swing my garden hoe.
But he knocks me off-balance, and I miss him with my swing.
I scramble away from him and find my footing.
He swings the flail again.
I dodge, but the ball catches the sleeve of my dress. Heat crackles up my arm, and the spikes gouge long lines into my skin. I grab a wood shield from the ground and swing it just as Narder whips his flail at me. The ball embeds into the wood, cracking it.
Narder yanks, trying to free his weapon, not paying attention to the hoe’s blade in my other hand. My weapon finds its mark, right in his throat. Blood spurts from the wound, and he howls, falling to the ground, clutching at his neck.
Before I turn back to the chaos behind me, I spot a ring of giant keys hanging from Narder’s belt as he thrashes on the ground. “I’ll take these,” I say, grabbing them. “Tah, bitch.”
He doesn’t respond as life drains from his panicked eyes.
I straighten, catching my breath. Where am I? Where’s the jail?
Over there. Way over there.
