Page 10 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

August

I’d slipped up earlier by being too slow to respond to my name. I knew it, and Keaton knew it. He didn’t, however, from what I could tell, know I knew he knew. It was all getting unnecessarily complicated.

It had forced me to fall back on a distraction tactic as old as time: sex.

Or at least the promise of it. Keaton certainly hadn’t been able to take his eyes off me, and the tent in his jeans said the last thing on his mind was names.

I just needed to maintain the facade for a few more hours and everything would be golden.

Literally. I was already thinking about who might be interested in buying that ring.

We’d built a fire in the room with the fire engine, the concrete floor making it less likely to spread than anywhere else in the building.

The gap in the metal shutter also provided ventilation.

Although that same gap meant keeping one eye open and weapons within easy reach in case anything squeezed itself through there, whether animal or biter.

I’d shared my food, dinner comprising dried and cured meat.

Keaton seemed grateful, but I doubted he’d look back the next day and think, well, at least I got a meal out of it.

The firelight threw his face into stark contrast, making an interesting face even more interesting.

When he caught me staring, I feigned a coquettish embarrassment before wrenching my gaze away.

“So…” Keaton said after I’d stared into the flames for a couple of minutes without speaking. “How about you tell me something about yourself? Just to pass the time.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about little Tobias? Where you grew up… your family… that sort of thing.”

I had as many growing-up stories as I had fingers on both hands. I pondered which one Keaton would appreciate, or if not appreciate, which would have him feeling the sorriest for me. “There’s not much to tell.”

“There must be something. You didn’t pop out of a cabbage patch.”

I laughed, lacing it with just the right amount of bitterness.

“I may as well have done.” I shifted my position to sitting cross-legged, hands resting lightly on my knees.

“I was abandoned as a baby. Not in a cabbage patch; that would have been more scenic. In a graveyard. One just outside a community.” Last time I’d told this version of the story, I’d been left at the foot of a lion statue.

The time before that, it had been someone’s doorstep.

It was fun coming up with different variations on a theme.

“It was a freezing cold night,” I said. “It’s a miracle I survived. ”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get eaten.”

“That, as well. Apparently, I was silent. Like I somehow knew that if I cried, it would be the end of me.”

“Who found you?”

I had to be careful here. If I claimed it was a Mr. and Mrs. Breeze who’d found me, Keaton would immediately become suspicious. “I don’t know. I got passed around a lot as a child.”

“Passed around? What do you mean?”

“As in no one really wanted me. An extra mouth to feed. That sort of thing.”

“I’m sorry.” Keaton sounded genuinely sad about it.

I shrugged. “It’s fine. As soon as I was old enough to look after myself, that’s what I did.” I held my hands out toward the fire. “It taught me a valuable lesson.”

“What’s that?”

“Independence… the need not to rely on others.” I pulled the bag I’d retrieved from the bike closer. “Hey! I’ve just remembered what else I’ve got in here.”

Keaton leaned forward. “What’s that?”

I pulled out the half bottle of brandy and shook it, the liquid inside sloshing around invitingly. “Wanna drink?”

Keaton’s lips curved into the biggest smile I’d seen from him during our brief acquaintance. “Do biters like to bite?”

We passed the bottle back and forth for the next hour while I made more stuff up to fit my tragic backstory, and Keaton told a few stories of his own.

His consisted mainly of being born and bred for the army with little thought throughout his childhood of doing anything else.

For every large gulp of brandy he took, I had a tiny sip.

Sometimes, I didn’t even do that, barely wetting my lips with it.

It didn’t take long before Keaton got good and loose, his eyes lidded and his voice slurred.

The bottle was nearly empty, most of it in Keaton, when a scream pierced the night. “Biter,” I said. “We should probably move to the bedroom where we can at least put something solid between us and them.”

Nodding, Keaton climbed to his feet. He stumbled, and I caught his arm. “Steady there, big guy.”

“’Big guy!’” He laughed. “You’re a funny one, Tobias Breeze.”

I stamped out the fire while he weaved his way to the door and the stairs that lay beyond.

My plan to get him sloshed had worked so well he’d left his crossbow behind.

It was tempting to leave it there, but that was too obvious.

Scooping it up, I followed him. I’d lit a candle in the bedroom, the flickering light casting the room in shadows that danced and weaved.

Keaton lay on the same bed he had earlier, his eyes already closed. I leaned the crossbow in the room's corner farthest from him. “Your crossbow’s over here.”

“Thanks.”

The thanks was slurred. This was too easy, which bothered me.

Why? Was it because I liked a challenge and I’d assumed he’d put up more of one?

Or because I actually liked him? I tamped down that thought before I gave it oxygen.

Yeah, not that. I had many faults, but being a soft touch wasn’t one of them.

“We should probably put something in front of the door to block it,” he mumbled.

And make my imminent escape into the night far more difficult? Not likely. “Don’t worry. I’ve mastered the art of sleeping with one eye open. And I’ll take the bed closest to the door. Anyone coming in will have to go through me first.”

“Okay.”

Keaton sounded like he was already three-quarters asleep.

Leaving my boots on, I swung myself onto the bed I’d said I was taking.

Rather than lying down, I propped myself up, my head resting against the wall.

After a few minutes, I turned my head to contemplate Keaton’s still form.

The ring was in his jeans pocket on the right.

I knew that because he had a habit of putting his hand in that pocket to fiddle with it, the habit, as far as I could tell, something he wasn’t aware of.

Keaton slept on his back, which was perfect.

It should be child’s play to slide my hand in and relieve him of it.

How would he fare once I’d left him on his own?

He’d be pissed. I didn’t doubt that. But I was thinking more from a practical point of view.

Did he have any idea where we were? It didn’t matter.

He was a soldier, and soldiers were resilient.

If he didn’t know, he’d work it out. He had to be used to navigating by the sun.

He couldn’t walk back to Birmingham, but there were closer communities.

Keaton would have to be extremely unlucky not to stumble across one.

Assuming biters don’t stumble across him first.

Not my problem. He was nothing to me. Less than nothing, really.

He was a man who’d broken into my room the previous night intent on taking what everyone else had paid for rather than using the ring in his possession to barter.

A thief. A man as bad as I was. No guilt required.

And he should be grateful I was only going to take the ring.

Someone truly evil would take the crossbow and leave him defenseless.

I might not know how to use it, but it would be easy to find someone who could, who’d pay generously for the pleasure of owning a piece of kit like that.

I waited another ten minutes to be on the safe side.

“Keaton? You asleep?” Nothing. I repeated his name, louder this time.

So far, so good. Wait? Or strike now? How long did it take someone to fall into a deep sleep?

Having never carried out a study on the subject, I had no idea.

I let another five minutes pass before easing my feet off the mattress.

I was thankful for the light of the candle as I took silent steps toward the bed where Keaton lay.

He’d been too drunk to realize I’d never blown it out.

Once I had the ring, I would. It would make it doubly difficult if he woke and tried to follow.

Keaton had an arm over his face. Approaching on the right-hand side, I crouched by the side of the bed, the pocket I needed to access now at eye level.

I took it slow, barely breathing as the tips of my fingers grazed the fabric.

The key was not to panic, to keep my fingers steady, to ease them in and then keep my movements just as controlled on the way out.

No noise. No fuss. No drama. There was a time for drama, and when it was required, I excelled at it. But now wasn’t it.

My fingers came into contact with metal, and I smiled. I hooked it with the tip of one finger, and it slid forward. One more inch and it would be out of Keaton’s pocket and in my possession. How much would I get for it?

Keaton rolled toward me. Fuck! Just rolling in his sleep, my brain said. Withdraw. Wait. Bide your time. Go again.

Except his movements weren’t those of a sleeping man.

Or a drunk one. And by the time I’d worked that out, he’d dragged me onto the mattress and had me trapped beneath him, one arm twisted up behind my back.

I tried to struggle, more to calculate the range of movement left to me than any concerted effort to escape.

The answer quickly became obvious: none.