Death Flag

“I am— What?! I-I’m not that young!” she exclaimed.

  “Then why did you start the fight?”

  “I didn’t! He did,” she called back defiantly. “Is that what he’s going around telling everyone? That I’m obsessed with him? That I won’t leave him alone? That I can’t live without him?”

  Madison considered that for a moment as he decided how to answer. “Don’t know,” he answered frankly. “Maybe? It’s possible. I was just teasing you, but it sounds like you have a real lover’s quarrel on your hands to deal with.”

  “Hmph! Is this your idea of fun?” she asked angrily. “This is probably the only chance you’ll ever get to talk to a girl, isn’t it?! You have to wait until one is sick and can’t run away from you before you can get up the courage to—”

  “Don’t,” he warned, cutting her off before she could continue.

  “And why not? You’re just some guy who can’t even—”

  He silenced her a second time by standing up in the water and stepping out from behind the rock. He was thankful for the fact that his lower half was covered by the water and that she couldn’t see anything, but he really didn’t care at that exact moment.

  Shayna shrieked as soon as she saw him. It was a high-pitched, piercing scream that echoed off the stone walls and carried on. She immediately tried to cover herself with her arms, though nothing was visible underneath the water anyway. “Pervert!” she screamed. “Pervert, pervert, pervert!”

  Madison just shook his head and sat back down against the rock, smugly satisfied with the reaction he had received. He heard what sounded like her dunking her head under the water, and after about a minute, he heard her come back up. Strangely, however, that was it. She didn’t scream again, and he never heard her get out of the pool and leave. He sat as still as he could and strained his ears, but he couldn’t make out a single noise.

  “You’re not going to leave?” he asked, all of the playfulness gone from his voice. “You’re going to stay in a hot spring with a pervert?”

  “I-I can’t,” she answered back meekly.

  Madison sat upright. Well, that’s a sudden change in personality. “Why not?” he asked curiously. “Did you hurt yourself again?”

  “No, I . . .”

  Madison waited.

  “If . . . If I get up and leave, you’ll be able to see me! You’ll get a good look at me like you wanted, you pervert!”

  Madison barked a laugh. “Why would I want to see a little girl naked?” he asked derisively. “Trust me: You’re way too young for me to even care about.”

  “I am not that young!” she screamed, though not nearly as loudly as before. She sounded defensive and offended. “Why does everyone keep saying that? I know I’m small but . . . Ah! Pervert! Stop thinking about me naked!”

  “Seriously?” he asked exasperatedly. “You’re the one who brought it up! And are you sure you want to be accusing me of anything? I really did save your life.”

  There was a pause. “You mean you’re that guy?”

  He repeated the words slowly. “That guy.”

  “The new guy.”

  “Unless there’s more than one, or unless you’ve had someone save you twice today already, then yes. I’m that new guy.”

  “Why did you do that?” she asked, anger entering her voice once again. “Why would you—”

  “Why would I save you?” he asked incredulously, interrupting her. “Why would I stop someone from beating you from within an inch of your life? That guy did everything short of spitting on you, and he might have if he had kept going. By the way everyone has reacted so far, I may as well have stood up and declared I have two heads or something.”

  “I didn’t need your help,” she said crossly. “I was just fine without you butting in. You ruined everything.”

  He’d had it all explained to him, and he’d run over this same ground with everyone that he’d talked to so far since it happened. It was insane, and it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. “Yes, I’m sure,” he began, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You totally had it under control. Absolutely. One-hundred percent. And you had such a wonderful view of the ground from your stomach while you coughed up blood . . . Wow, now that you mention it, what was I thinking? How could I have stopped that? I don’t know what your deal is, but you need to get over it.”

  He stood up, fully prepared to march off past her and let decency be damned, but she stopped him before he could even take a step.

  “Wait!” she cried. There was a short pause, and she said, “You’re new, so I understand that you don’t get it. You don’t know how things work around here, so I—”

  “No,” Madison declared, interrupting her. “I don’t. And I’m not sure I want to. I— Oh, to hell with this.” He came out from behind the rock and waded across the pond, directly past her, and stepped out, making his way into the bathhouse. She yipped in surprise and plunged under the water as soon as he made a move, but he wasn’t interested in her. He’d had about as much as he could take. He wasn’t angry. He was just . . . dismayed. Put off. He was tired of trying to justify saving a life, and he didn’t really feel like arguing with the person whom he had protected about it.

  He found his clothes piled up in the corner where he left them, so he pulled his scorched pants back along with his boots, barely taking the time to lace them up, and then stalked out. He’d had enough. Whatever purpose he had in being there, it had been done. The burns on his chest and abdomen were little more than fleshy pink patches at this point, and though he couldn’t see his face to check it without a mirror, it felt better as well. It didn’t feel nearly as tight and stretched anymore, and it didn’t hurt to touch it, so he assumed it was at least partially healed.

  “Damn,” he cursed when he realized what he had done. He had left in such a hurry that he had walked right past her without having his arm and hand wrapped. And, even worse, he didn’t have anything on hand to cover it up with at the moment. He unconsciously rubbed his wrist with his other hand, quickly trying to puzzle out what he should do. He might be blowing the entire thing out of proportion. He wasn’t even sure that the symbol there meant what he had been told it did, but he really wasn’t keen to find out either.

  Why is this damn thing even there? He glanced at it and studied the dark purple and black markings. It didn’t make any sense. Why was everyone here freaking out about it? And why did it show up on that flag in the testing room . . . I wonder if she actually saw it when I rushed past her. She dove under the water pretty quickly, so I doubt she did. But still . . .

  “Hyah!”

  The sudden shout jolted him out of his introspection and reminded him where he was. He jerked around toward the sound of the voice, some sixth sense he didn’t know he possessed warning him that danger was coming. He started ducking down even as he turned around, and he barely managed to twist out of the way of a fast-moving black blur as it whizzed by him. He heard the clang of metal on stone as the weapon crashed into the white stone building behind him and fell to the bricks harmlessly with a series of clinks and clanks.

  He looked up from a crouch and saw Shayna standing in the doorway to the bathhouse he had just exited from, soaking wet, dripping water, and she looked pissed. She had apparently gotten dressed in record speed and decided that hurling a knife at the back of his head would be the best course of action for whatever reason.

  This girl really is flippin’ crazy. “What the hell was that?” he demanded, rising to his feet.

  “Pervert!” she screamed, pointing at the door behind her. “You intrude on a woman’s privacy and didn’t think that there would be a repercussion?!”

  Madison sighed. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with her at the moment. “I’m injured, you’re injured, and neither of us really seems to be in fighting shape at the moment. Can’t we put this off until another time?” He didn’t actually expect for her to accept such a simple proposition, but it didn’t hurt for him to try.

  “Shut up!” she shout
ed.

  She dashed forward from the doorway, swinging her remaining knife at his exposed abdomen when she was close. He automatically stepped back and out of the way, letting her rush past him. He was completely unarmed, he was half-naked and wearing flimsy, tattered clothes, and he was stuck within a confined space. The last thing he wanted to do was get into a fight with her: she was trained, she had weapons, and she was angry.

  Madison assumed that he had dodged the attack, but it immediately became apparent that he had never been her target. She rushed to the other side of the patio, retrieved her knife, and then rushed him again.

  “Seriously?!” he shouted again. She swung once as she drew close, a horizontal slashing attack aimed at his chest, and when he dodged back out of the way, she allowed her momentum to spin around in a full circle and stabbed down at his shoulder with her other dagger. He only just barely managed to stagger out of the way by twisting his body around at an incredibly-awkward angle as he backed up.

  Batshit crazy. Batshit flippin’ crazy. He looked around furtively for something he could use to defend himself. He glanced at the door to the bathhouse and saw that it was still standing open, and he briefly thought of making a dash for it and locking himself inside. Before he could make a decision, however, she pressed in on him again. She directed two quick jabs at him, first at his thigh and then slightly higher at his stomach, and began pushing him back again.

  “Damn it!” he cursed. He backed up into one of the lounge chairs, and quickly realizing what it was, he jumped to the side and simultaneously flung it forward at her. The chair was much heavier than it looked, so it didn’t do much more than flop down between them, but it gave him just the split second he needed to settle his mind on making a run for it. He instantly turned on his heel and sprinted toward the open doorway, his bare feet slapping hard against the stone pavers as he went.

  He caught sight of her flinging something at him from the corner of his eye, and he quickly hit the deck, diving forward. He felt the flesh tear away from his knees and his hands as he caught himself on the stone pavers, but he pushed the pain out of his mind and scrambled back to his feet. He had already felt far worse than that today, so a few scrapes weren’t going to distract him.

  He had just started to push himself to his feet when he saw her tiny form land a few feet in front of him, and he instinctively heaved his body back in the other direction, scrambling away from her.

  Well shit. So much for making it out that way. He furtively looked back over his shoulder, carefully keeping her within the corner of his vision in case she attacked, but realized that he was too far away from the main building to make it back inside that way now.

  “Don’t mock me!” she shouted and advanced on him once again.

  Madison began backing away again, each time just barely avoiding her thrusts. Eventually, however, he was too slow to pull away. The blade of her knife just barely sliced across his chest as he moved away too slowly, and a thin red line was drawn behind it as it cut through his skin.

  He felt the blade slice into him, but he was so hyped up on adrenaline at the moment that it was only a distant pain. A quick look down confirmed what his brain had already told him: it was worse than the scrapes on his hands and knees, but he wasn’t going to die from it anytime soon. It was enough to make him bleed, but that was about it.

  I’m not getting tired, but I can’t keep this up forever either. I’m eventually going to run out of room to— He saw an opportunity, and he took it. She had cut across his chest after a combination of attacks, probably hoping to get lucky and catch him off guard again, but he saw it clearly as it happened this time. She overextended just a bit too far with her swing, and he took advantage of it. He instantly struck out with his opposite hand and shoved her shoulder away from him. She continued on in the direction she was already traveling, propelled even further by his additional force, and nearly collided head-first into a large stone planter before she caught herself.

  She turned and looked back up at him, growling at him for the second time.

  “That’s just adorable, you know,” he teased as he backed away, keeping his hands up in front of him. “It’s so cute how you swing that thing around too. Are you even old enough to play with knives without adult supervision?” Life-threatening fight be damned. He was going to get in his shots where he could, even if they were only verbal.

  She launched herself at him again, but he was ready for it. The one advantage he had overlooked was the fact that he had a much longer reach than she did. Even with her carrying a knife, she only had a slight advantage in that realm, and it was only a slight one if at all. So, rather than jumping back and completely out of the way when she swung for him, he dragged his feet a little and stayed just inside of her reach and aimed a blow at the arm she was carrying the blade with. His fist snapped up like he was punching someone, but rather than do any real damage, it simply stopped her attack and shoved it back at the same time. She had the advantage of having a weapon and training when he didn’t, but he was still strong enough to stop her attacks as long as he could reach her.

  She seemed to be slightly dazed by the fact that he had thwarted her attack, so he stepped slightly closer and shoved her away from him. Whatever surprise she might have felt didn’t last long. She seemed to come back to her senses as she danced back over the patio a few steps, her arms waving about wildly before she was able to catch herself and regain her balance.

  “We can do this as long as you want,” Madison taunted. “You got lucky once”—he touched the spot on his chest just below where she had cut him and felt blood there—“but it won’t happen again. Why don’t you just take your little toys and run on home? Hmm?”

  She leveled a smoldering gaze on him, her eyes filled with anger and defiance. “I hate you,” she growled. “Just shut up and die already!”

  She leapt forward again, but it was as if something was dragging her down this time. Her movements were slow, and it seemed like she was dragging an extra weight with her that hadn’t been there before. Madison stepped toward her, easily catching her wrist before she could even finish her first attack. He jerked her hand up and away from him, and without letting go, he punched her as hard as he could in the center of her chest with his opposite fist. She grunted a loud ‘oof’ as the air was driven from her lungs, and she fell to her knees, sucking in rapid, shallow breaths.

  He jerked up on the wrist he still held, almost pulling her off the ground completely, and twisted back on her arm. “Drop it,” he said harshly. She struggled briefly but quickly realized that she wasn’t in any position to fight back. There was a brief moment of tension as she came to terms with that fact, and then she let go of the knife’s handle, allowing it to fall to the stone patio. He kicked it away from them, sending it to the opposite side of the patio from where the other had landed, and finally dropped her. She collapsed into a small, fetal-position ball as she sucked in air.

  He stayed put where he was, standing over her, to make sure that she didn’t try anything else. There was a chance that she might try to pull him off balance, but he knew from pushing her around that he had a serious weight advantage on her and doubted that she could, even if she tried. There was an off-chance that she might try and grab one of the knives, but they were both far enough away at this point that he was confident that he could stop her before she ever reached them.

  He took several deep breaths of his own to help calm himself down. He was practically on edge, and he didn’t want to do anything rashly. He really didn’t want to hurt her: he just wanted to stop her from hurting him. If she had kept going the way she had at the beginning, one of them would have been seriously injured.

  She finally looked up at him through a tangled mass of black hair after she started to get her breath back. There was still defiance and anger in her eyes, but there was also something else now that he couldn’t recognize. He followed her gaze back to what she was looking at and realized that she was staring directly at
the back of his wrist where the skull was tattooed.

  Great. Well, so much for keep that hidden for very long. Good job, Madison. You almost lasted a full day without letting that secret slip out.

  “I-I . . . Wh-Why is . . .?” she stammered. He wasn’t sure if it was because of what she saw or because she was still out of breath, so he just let her work it out on her own. “Wh-what . . . why . . . I . . .”

  “Are you done?” he asked pointedly, changing his mind and deciding it might be best to just ignore whatever questions she had for the moment.

  “Wh-what?” she asked, clearly dazed.

  “Did I really hit you that hard? You didn’t hit your head, did you?”

  “What? No. What’s your problem?” she asked, suddenly snapping out of it and averting her gaze.

  “Oh, good. I was worried I might have broken another rib or something. I wouldn’t want to actually hurt you after saving your life once already even if you did attack me without any reason.” He really stressed those two phrases, leaning forward over her for added emphasis. “You’re going to get seriously hurt one day if you keep this up.”

  “Fighting is life at K’yer Utane,” she replied firmly, repeating the same mantra that had been thrown at him all day.

  “Oh, no,” he corrected her. “Not the fight. I meant the fighting and losing part.”

  She glowered at him, those old emotions flickering through her gaze, and he was actually afraid that she might try attacking him again for a brief moment. “What’s your problem, anyway?” he asked. “Do you always walk around half-cocked, waiting to go off on someone just because they looked at you funny?”

  “I don’t like people like you,” she answered flatly.

  “So you said. Actually, the word you used before was ‘hated,’” he countered.

  “Why would you tattoo that there?” she asked, pointing at his left wrist.

  Yeah, you’re definitely from around here. Way to avoid the question and ask another. Oh, well, two can play at that game. “If I let you up, are you going to attack me again?”