For a second, the woman remained upright. Then her legs buckled and she fell backwards. She rolled down the stairs with several clattering thuds before she landed on the larger space of the next floor down with a loud boom. The silence that followed seemed to suck all the air from the stairwell.
A second later, the call of two women burst into the area. They came from the first floor rather than the roof. Hopefully the Queen had no idea of any of it.
For a moment, the women paused as they looked at the corpse of their fellow guard. “What the fuck?” one of them said.
Both Flynn and Dan moved around a side of the stairwell each so they were out of sight in the shadows, and out of their path should the women come down. Hopefully they’d come down. If they went to the roof, it would be almost impossible to sneak up on the Queen.
Before the women made any other choice, Flynn freed a buckle from his crossbow harness—it hung down from where he hadn’t strapped it around his waist—and he threw it at the door leading in the direction of the foyer. It made a loud ting!
The thunder of the two guards’ footsteps rushed down towards them.
From his position, Flynn couldn’t see Dan, but they both knew what to do. After putting his crossbow down and resting it against the wall, Flynn pulled his machete free and moved alongside the stairs at a crouch, back to where he’d just come from.
The first of the two guards reached the door and grabbed the handle. Before she could pull it open, Flynn and Dan jumped from the shadows at the same time.
Dan buried his knife in the top of one of the guards’ heads and Flynn drove his machete through the temple of the other one. Two wet squelches and both guards dropped.
Heavy breaths rocked Flynn’s body and he listened for the sounds of more guards. He only heard Dan breathing opposite him. A look up at the top floor and he said, “I need to get my crossbow before we go up there.”
After Flynn had retrieved his weapon, he met Dan back at the bottom of the stairs. They didn’t speak, but when he led the way, Dan followed behind.
The click of their feet against the metal steps echoed through the hard and cold space. But Flynn also heard the maniacal call of the Queen on the roof. Any small noise they made would have been drowned out by her insane ranting.
At the first floor, Flynn moved to the door leading out into the police station beyond and looked through the small window. It seemed clear. Hopefully the two guards they’d just taken out were the only ones on that floor.
Flynn stepped over the guard he’d shot from the ground and continued up to the roof as soundlessly as possible.
The door leading to the roof had an outline of light from where it hadn’t been fully closed. When Flynn reached it and looked through the small gap, he saw two guards standing on the other side. The Queen marched up and down in front of them and they both watched her as she addressed the crowd below.
Yet again, Flynn raised his crossbow, ready to fire. He stood aside so Dan could peer through the gap. After Dan had pulled away, he nodded. They knew what they had to do.
Another deep breath did little to calm Flynn down. It all rested on this moment, how could he possibly hope for calm? If they took the Queen down, then the people from Home could finish this. An image of Rose in the watery pit ran through his mind and he quickly shook it away. It wouldn’t help to think about her at that moment.
Flynn grabbed the metal door handle and counted down in his head.
Three …
Two …
Chapter 49
One.
Flynn yanked the door open, flooding the corridor with the bright light of the July day. Thankfully the sun shone behind them. They didn’t need to be blinded on top of everything else.
Both guards turned around, and before they’d even looked at him, Flynn shot the first one in the temple, blood exploding away from her as the bolt entered one side of her head and exited the other.
A second later, the bolt from Dan’s crossbow flew over his shoulder and took the other one out. It too went straight through her head.
No let-up in his pace, Flynn ran across the gravel-covered space and jumped the two collapsing corpses. He rushed at the Queen, the crunch of his footsteps ringing out, the sun on his back.
The vicious woman glanced at Flynn and then shoved the third and final prisoner from the roof. He cried out as he fell, the loud crash of him landing on the trailer cutting his yell short.
Before the Queen had raised her guard, Flynn gave her a hard shove and sent her the same way as the prisoner. Her high-pitched scream rang through the derelict city as the crowd dropped to a new level of silent. Like the man before her, it ended with a loud crash. The usual cheer from the spectators never came.
Heavy breaths ran through Flynn as he walked to the edge of the roof and looked down at the fallen woman. The Queen lay on her back, three glistening spikes puncturing her skinny body. Her dead eyes stared a glassy obsoleteness. Except …
Flynn stepped back, stumbling as if dealt a physical blow. A sea of faces stared up at him from below. They seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Then the people from Home emerged from their hiding places like he’d instructed them to do. He had to speak before they attacked.
“Where is she?” Flynn called out, his shout running through the town as he backed even farther away from the edge of the roof. “Where’s the Queen?”
The people of Home stopped. Flynn scanned the crowd. He couldn’t see her. “Where are you, you vicious bitch?”
She had to be downstairs. She had to be in the crowd somewhere. Just as Flynn turned around to head back into the building, Dan flew past him. Shoved forwards with a hard thrust, he stumbled, fell, and slid towards the edge of the building. For a second he looked like he’d hold on, his slide over the gravel slowing down. But it didn’t slow enough and he toppled out of sight.
Flynn grabbed the handle of his machete, but the Queen moved too quickly for him. She raised her sword so the point of it sat millimetres from his eyeball. The sun glistened off its polished blade.
A look into her cold eyes sent a writhing twist of revulsion through Flynn.
The Queen tilted her head to one side. Tight lips and a vicious scowl, she muttered, “Move and I’ll cut your fucking eye out.” She smiled. “It looks like you’ve lost this time, Flynn.”
Chapter 50
A few metres from the edge of the roof, the Queen motioned for Flynn to move towards it with a flick of her sword. The sun dazzled him as he tried to look at her. He ignored her instruction.
A sneer on her angular face, the Queen said, “You had to come back for that little slut, didn’t you?” She spoke loud enough for the people in the square to hear her. “Once we had her, we knew you’d be close by. We also knew we just needed to set a trap. And look, you fell for it.” A shake of her head. “God, I pity you. Another weak man motivated by his cock. When will you boys learn?”
“I may be a weak man motivated by my cock, yet I wouldn’t fuck you, would I?” Flynn said to her.
The Queen pulled her sword away, stepped forward, and threw a backhanded slap across the side of Flynn’s face. Light flashed through his vision from the impact, and he tasted his own blood, but he held his ground.
A check over his shoulder into the square, Flynn saw the people from Home put their weapons away and withdraw. Because of the drama on the roof, no one had noticed the near attack from Home. They could still get out of there undetected.
A bitter grin on her sour face, the Queen flicked her sword towards the edge of the roof again.
Flynn remained still.
“You think I’m going to push you off?” the Queen said.
“Of course.”
The Queen threw her head back and laughed at the blue sky. While she had her attention on her own glee, Flynn looked at the hunters in the square. Many of them smiled with her.
“Believe me, honey, you’ll wish I’d thrown you off the roof by the time I’m done with you. Now
we may have lost Mistress, but I can be oh so much crueler than she ever was. I can take you to the edge of death and bring you back again so many times you won’t know where you are. You’ll question your own mortality, only accepting it because of the excruciating pain that will keep you rooted in reality. I can make it last for years, and believe me, I will.”
Nausea clamped Flynn’s stomach tight. Panic fluttered through his chest.
When the Queen flicked her sword again, Flynn turned around and moved towards the edge of the roof. Still being careful to hold far enough back, he kept a good metre of gravelly space between him and the fatal drop. He looked at the people of Home. They remained in the crowd. They clearly hadn’t given up yet.
“This, ladies and gentlemen,” the Queen said, “is what we call a traitor. You’re going to see what happens to traitors over the next months and years. He’s going to be an example of the consequences of crossing me. I opened the royal complex’s doors to him and he betrayed us. He’s killed Mistress and all of my royal guards. Who knows who he planned to kill next after me had I not stopped him. Probably all of you. What do you have to say for yourself, traitor?”
When Flynn looked out over the crowd, he noticed movement in the building on his right. Someone shifted through the shadows of the first floor. It took for them to travel through a splash of light for him to recognise who it was. Larry.
The crowd continued to stare up at Flynn, waiting for him to speak.
“Well?” the Queen said and pushed the tip of her sword into his cheek.
The sharp point stung and Flynn drew a short breath. “Notice how we only killed the royal guards.” The crowd continued to stare up at him. “If you’re not a royal guard, a hunter, or the Queen, you have nothing to fear from me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” The Queen pushed the tip of her sword deeper into the side of his face and Flynn felt a trickle of blood run down his cheek. “You’re in no position to make threats.”
Another glance to his right and Flynn saw Larry poke his crossbow out of the window. No more than about twenty metres separated him and them. The best aim in Home, if anyone had to make the shot his life depended on, he’d choose Larry.
“Just you wait,” Flynn said.
The Queen laughed again, so vigorously she threw her head back and thrust her pelvis forward.
Only an inch, but her laughter had pulled her sword far enough away from Flynn’s face. He took his moment and dropped onto the gravelled roof.
The crack of a crossbow being fired rang through the square. The bolt landed with a whomp.
Flynn looked up to see the hole in the centre of the Queen’s miserable face. Blood belched from the large wound as the vicious bitch’s legs buckled, dropping her into a heap.
Flynn jumped to his feet and screamed from the rooftop to the people from Home, “Now!”
They drew their weapons as one and yelled as they closed in on every hunter in the crowd.
Chapter 51
It took just minutes for the people from Home to kill every hunter in the square. Maybe some of the crowd were hunters before Home’s residents attacked. Maybe they’d dropped their weapons when they understood the situation. But it didn’t matter, they’d cut the head off the snake. As long as their loyalty to the Queen had been abandoned with their will to fight, then they had every right to live.
What could have been a volatile and bloody situation hadn’t yet erupted. The sun’s heat pressed into Flynn’s back as he looked out over the crowd, sweat lifting on his brow. They looked nervous, like they worried it could still turn sour for them.
The people of the royal complex outnumbered their counterparts from Home by at least three to one. If they wanted to fight back, they could. But the people from Home were armed, and a war wouldn’t end without serious casualties. Flynn had to take control of the situation.
Exhausted and weak from his spent adrenaline and the relief of killing the Queen, Flynn trembled as he lifted her limp form. Fortunately she didn’t weigh much. Her feet dragged through the gravel on the roof as he pulled her across to the edge. The collective attention from both sides watched him in silence.
Flynn looked out over a sea of anxious faces and shouted, “Here’s your leader.” He yelled out from the effort of launching her from the roof and followed her fall most of the way down.
However, by the time she’d connected with the trailer at the bottom—the loud crash exploding through the square—something else had caught his attention. In the chaos of his fight with the Queen, he’d completely forgotten. But now, as he looked down, he nearly lost the strength in his legs. Another skewered body lay on the trailer.
“Dan,” Flynn muttered and looked out over the square. In amongst the crowd was one solitary figure. Even with the dense press of bodies, he picked her out instantly. She stood there, frozen in time. She’d already lost her three children and now this. Tears soaked her cheeks.
As they stared at one another, the air left Flynn’s lungs in a hard exhale. What could he say to that?
Chapter 52
Where chaos had swirled through Flynn’s mind, everything now began to settle. Sobered by the sight of Dan on the cart and Sharon’s clear grief at the loss of her husband, he then looked at the prisoners also skewered on the medieval device. Even the decoy Queen had died unnecessarily.
Flynn scanned the faces below. Many of them looked pale and scared. Their lives were now in the balance. At least, he wouldn’t blame them if they thought that.
When Flynn saw Brian, he found the bearded man staring back at him, like most of the faces below. To ask anything of him took a great effort, the words sticking in his throat. After a cough to clear it, he tried again. “Can you please go and free Rose for me?”
All of the guards and Maggie knew the location of the pit. At present, Flynn couldn’t see Maggie in the sea of faces, and Sharon didn’t have much in her. Fortunately, Brian nodded at him and exited the square.
The crowd continued to watch Flynn. He looked down at the cart again, the dead people nearly robbing him of his resolve. Then he looked at the Queen. At least one of the bodies deserved to be there. As he lifted his head, he drew a deep breath and pointed down at her. “We did this because she had her sights set on Home. We had to take her and her guards down to alleviate that threat. I’ve seen what she does to communities, and I couldn’t let that happen to anyone else. She had to be stopped, no matter what.”
When Flynn paused, silence swept through the square. Every person there listened to his every word.
“We have no beef with the people from the royal complex. Her crazy decisions aren’t a reflection of you.” Flynn scanned the crowd. “Now, I’m sure there are still hunters in amongst you.”
Many in the crowd looked around as if trying to find the people Flynn talked about.
“But we don’t care about that. We understand you didn’t have a choice in whether you served the Queen or not. I’ve experienced what she was prepared to do to the people who weren’t loyal to her, so I understand your decisions. But you have a choice now. You can make a fresh start. We didn’t want to kill anyone, but if you’re a threat to us, we’ll do what’s necessary to end that threat.”
A deep breath to steady his nerves, Flynn inhaled the fresh meadowy breeze. His elevated position on the roof allowed him to escape the dusty stink of the town. “The Queen told you she left the bodies of those who died in the games for the people who live in this city.”
The crowd remained silent.
“Those people were her and those she kept close, the royal guards and the hunters. The games weren’t about giving one person a chance, they were about slaughtering nineteen for the Queen and her mates to get fat on. Although we have no beef with the hunters, if there are any left, you might want to keep an eye on them. The likelihood is they’ve tasted human flesh and might want to again.”
If Flynn tried, he’d probably be able to pick out what hunters remained in the crowd fro
m the way the others now looked at them. But he didn’t care. They weren’t a danger on their own, and from the angry glares thrown at them, they’d be more than punished for their crimes.
“You have a choice how you move forward from here. You have a community that belongs to you now. You have no leader. How you run your community is entirely at your discretion. Just know you have a chance to prosper with that vicious bitch dead. Make the most of it.”
Nods moved around the square and the previously tense crowd relaxed a little. They seemed to trust Flynn’s words.
“Also, I understand the Queen didn’t let anyone have children. You now have a chance to live normal lives. To have families. To work together as a community. You can serve one another rather than oppress.” Flynn pointed across the rooftops of the town. “We’re going back to Home soon. I won’t be there, but I’d imagine if you come in peace, there will be trade to be had. We need to move forward as a species. The past twenty years have all been about violence and hostility. We need to give our children something more.”
A few people shouted out, making affirmative noises at Flynn.
“We need to be the change we want to see in the world.” The words choked him as he thought of Rose and her suffering.
“Good luck,” Flynn said to the crowd as an abrupt ending. He turned away from them, jogging across the gravel roof to the door leading back into the police station. On his way, he retrieved his crossbow and machete. He had to get to Rose.
Chapter 53
Several dead bodies littered the stairs. Flynn jumped them one at a time as he ran. Whatever happened, he had to get Rose out of that cursed pit. Then he could rest.
The creak of the door’s hinges called through the ground floor of the police station. The slap of Flynn’s feet echoed through the hallway.
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