Page 65 of Dalla's Royal Guards

The boy’s eyes flicked between him and Ludwick, wild and uncertain. The gun shifted toward Harlem, then back.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Harlem said quietly.

The boy shook his head, backing toward the shadows. And then he was gone. Harlem turned, his gaze following the boy as he disappeared around the corner before he turned back to Ludwick. He squatted next to the assassin.

“Who sent you?” he asked.

Ludwick released a hoarse laugh. His head rubbed against the dirty concrete as he shook it back and forth. Harlem tapped his pistol against his leg.

“Can you believe this? Killed by a fucking kid with a piece of metal,” Ludwick muttered in a strained, pain-filled voice.

“Who sent you?” Harlem repeated.

Ludwick’s tongue came out, and he licked his dry lips. His eyes were growing cloudy as his heart pumped the blood out onto the ground. He shook his head again.

“Is-is it… true?” Ludwick whispered.

“Is what true?”

Ludwick’s mouth opened and closed and his throat worked up and down as he tried to force the words out. Harlem kept his eyes focused on Ludwick’s face. His pallor was beginning to turn blue.

“You-you… can’t… di?—?”

Harlem bowed his head, cursed, and rose to his feet. He looked over at the other dead man. Walking over to him, he used his foot to roll the man over.

Arnold. Another mercenary for hire.

He looked towards the end of the alley where the kid had disappeared. He needed to find him. The boy had been smart, calm, and resourceful in the heat of a deadly confrontation.

Most likely that meant he was someone of significance somehow, young though he was. An agent of change.

Harlem tucked his pistol behind him and walked toward the end of the alley, glancing back and forth before he returned to his bike.

Three days later, Harlem stood outside an abandoned building. That’s how long it took him to find the kid. He cautiously entered the structure, climbing the stairs to the third floor.

There were six apartments on the top floor. Five were missing doors. He entered the sixth one. He paused when he saw broken shards of glass sprinkled in front of the door. The ghostly shells of broken lightbulbs lay against the wall.

The simple security feature was impressive for a young boy. He sidestepped around it, avoiding a carefully placed old newspaper that covered a hole in the floor. Another trap for an uninvited guest.

He scanned the room. It was devoid of furniture. The paint was peeling off the walls, and parts of the ceiling had either collapsed or were barely hanging. Faint spots where photos had hung stood out along the wall. He could see the lime green linoleum in the kitchen was filthy and rolling up where the glue had come undone.

He walked into the kitchen. There was no water, no food, no power. The place felt deserted, but he knew it wasn’t. He could sense that the boy was there.

He exited the kitchen, walked down a narrow hallway, checking each room as he went. In the last one, he found the boy, sitting on the floor, the pistol in his hand, staring out of the window on a makeshift pallet of old blankets.

“I was expecting you sooner,” the boy said, not looking at him.

Harlem walked over to the window and stared down at the street. The boy would have seen him entering the building. It was a good spot.

“You weren’t easy to find,” he replied.

The boy shrugged and looked down at the pistol in his hands.

“Are you going to kill me?” the boy asked in a quiet voice.

Harlem folded his hands behind his back. “Right now I don’t see a reason to.”

The boy looked out the window again. “But you will, if you think you have to. I saw it—in your eyes.”