Restart Again: Volume 1 by Adam Scott (pocket ebook reader TXT) 📕

lazily spun a half-full keyring in his hand. Both men stopped when they reached our cells. The man with the keyring began sorting through the keys, while the other stood in the middle of the hall, apparently keeping guard. Casually, he turned his head towards me, and the look on his face told me he did not expect another prisoner.

“Oi!” He yelled, elbowing his buddy with the keys. “What’s he doin’ here?”

“Ah, fuck ‘em. Dungeon trash.” The man with the keys replied, laughing to himself.

The first man walked up to the bars of my cell. “You go on ahead and forget we were down here.” He tapped his helmeted temple and gave me an insistent look. “Understand?”

“What do you want with that one?” I heard my voice reply cool and collected, as though someone else were speaking.

The guard looked taken aback. “Did you not hear what I just said? Turn your head the fuck around, and I won’t bash your face in. You understand that?”

“Aye.” Casually, I leaned up against my cell wall and stared off into space past the guard.

The conversation had woken Lia. “A-are you coming to take me home?”

With a snide laugh, the man with the keys responded. “No, sweet thing. The boys upstairs want to have a look at you.” He settled on a key and moved to her cell door. “If your Daddy keeps doin’ what he’s told, and YOU do what YOU’RE told, maybe we’ll take you home at weeks end. ‘Spose that also depends on just how well you do.” He put the key into the door and turned hard, shifting some well-aged tumblers. “Oi, shithead! Come over here and help me with the girl!”

The man watching me turned and stepped across the hall to assist with the door. In one swift motion I lunged from my cot, crossed the cell, and put my hands around my door’s lock. Mana shot down my arms and suffused the lock in a second flat, and I activated the rune. It glowed with an angry orange light, and I could feel the energy draw from my reserves. The metal under my hands began to vibrate, and the internal mechanisms began to fracture. No, NOW! I flooded the metal with a tidal wave of mana far greater than I had before. The small cracks turned to fissures, and the metal splintered between my fingers with a loud crack!

Hearing the sound, the closer man turned and saw me standing over a small pile of metal fragments. “What the fuck are you doing?” He shouted at me, taking a step towards my cell while drawing his sword. I reared back and kicked my door at center mass, flinging it open to catch him in the chest. The sound of the wind leaving his lungs hissed as he toppled sideways. Drawing my sword from an unseen hip scabbard, I strode into the hall as the guard with the keys had successfully opened Lia’s door. He had only just begun to react to the noises behind him when I held my blade up to his throat.

“Lia. Out here, behind me. Now.” I pulled the guard out of the way, easily overpowering his weak attempts to break free. Lia complied, scurrying out of the cell to hide further down the hall behind me. “Good. Close your eyes.” The look on her face was one of pure terror, but she obeyed. Satisfied, I moved my head to my current prisoner's ear. “Now, why don’t you tell me exactly where you were planning on taking the girl.”

To his credit, the man continued trying to fight. “Fuck you!” He aimed a headbutt back where my head was, but I was already moving, having anticipated that mode of attack. I pressed the sword harder into the flesh of his neck, now drawing tiny drops of blood. Every breath he took was painful, indicated by the terrible rasping sound he was making. “They’re goin’ to kill you for this, bastard!”

“No, they aren’t.” I replied calmly, drawing the blade hard across his throat. A dark red wave gushed from his neck as I let the man fall. He clutched in vain at the wound, trying to stop the giant spurts of blood from pulsing out. With a hard kick, I sent him toppling into Lia’s now empty cell.

Turning to the man on the floor, I was surprised to see him propped up against the wall clutching his side. Clearly, the door had done more damage than I had initially thought. I crouched down to eye level and he recoiled pitifully. “Don’t kill me!” he cried out, holding his other hand out in front of his face.

I cocked my head to one side. “Why would I kill you when you know so many things that I want to know? No, you’re too useful to me at the present moment. If you’d like to stay that way, and not go the way of your friend there, you can start telling me what you want with the girl.”

“W-We was just comin’ down to get ‘er, for the boys upstairs. It wasn’t my idea, honest, they just said I had to come down and bring ‘er up.” He was trembling as he spoke, his earlier gruff tone long forgotten. His speech began to slur as he continued. “She’s just down ‘ere until ‘er Pops falls in line. He wasn’t payin’ the tolls, a-an’ we had to do somethin’ to change his mind, elsewise other folks might stop payin’ too.”

Sighing, I nodded. “Yes, I know that. But what did they want with the girl right now?”

The man averted his eyes, talking now to the floor. “I-I don’t know.”

The tip of my sword whipped up to his chest, flicking droplets of the dead guard’s blood onto the man’s face. “You’re shit at lying.” He looked back up at me, eyes wide and face completely pale. “Try the truth this time.”

He gulped hard, looking around in desperation to find anything that could save him. “T-they