Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

It must have been hidden under his mattress, or tucked into his meagre belongings, because he’d only been in the room for a few seconds. In that time he’d managed to retrieve the backup weapon — a crude cutlery knife that would do the job regardless — and he swung it at King with desperate abandon.

All notion of minimising the damage fell aside.

King’s life was on the line.

He threw himself back into the door frame and narrowly missed the blade hacking into his face. The only light in the room came from a tiny window beside the bunks, and the metal glinted in the lowlight. King rebounded off the doorway and snatched hold of Grayson’s knife hand. The other arm was useless, hanging limp by his side, the wrist broken.

King tried to simply smash the intact limb into the bunk frame and spill the knife from his grip.

Grayson ripped his hand free with surprising strength.

Inhuman strength.

Bodhi was firing all his nerve endings, tunnelling his focus. He was tapping into the primal survival instinct, and he used it to break free from King’s hold.

He geared up for another wild slash.

Enough, King thought.

He backed up a step, putting himself just out of range of another swing, and pulled Grayson’s first switchblade from his own pocket.

He flicked it open.

Grayson lunged.

Eyes wide, face oily, teeth clenched together.

He came down with the knife from ceiling to floor, an effective approach to a two hundred and twenty pound target in a confined space. There was little chance he’d miss.

King dropped to the floor, as if cowering away from the stabbing attempt, which he effectively was. The key to survival in life-or-death situations is abandoning your ego. It might look exciting to try to parry the lunge with his forearms, but there was a significant chance he’d lose a hand in the process.

Grayson’s knife slashed through the air inches above King’s hunched back.

Missed by next to nothing.

But it doesn’t matter if it’s an inch or a mile.

A miss is a miss.

King rolled and swept Grayson’s legs out by slamming his shin into the delicate ankle joint, sending the disciple spilling to the floorboards. The man landed on his back and came close to knocking himself out by lashing the back of his skull against the hard floor, but he stayed lucid. He scrambled, coming up into a sitting position for another slash of the—

King shoved the switchblade into the left side of his chest, tearing through into his heart.

Grayson’s pupils swelled to a crescendo and he broke a couple of teeth from their gums by clenching them in his death throes.

King left the knife in his chest to prevent massive blood loss. That way, the room would avoid the crimson pools of a crime scene. King kept pressure on the stab wound, his hand wrapped around the hilt, and looked into Grayson’s eyes as the man died.

Under his breath, he muttered, ‘What is it about this shit that makes them kamikazes?’

He wasn’t expecting a response.

Grayson sucked in a deep, rattling breath, then blood ran out through his teeth as he said, ‘Because dying doesn’t matter when you feel like this.’

He smiled as he slipped away.

64

The sun was close to touching the horizon as King went into overdrive.

There might be witnesses around within seconds, so he wasted no time. He burst into action, slipping Grayson’s unblemished kitchen knife under the mattress of the lower bunk, then returning pressure to the switchblade in his heart.

He got his hands under the body’s armpits.

Grayson was close to two hundred pounds, but it was light work for now.

Adrenaline was a potent stimulant.

King steeled himself and dragged the corpse out into the hallway. He looked left, then right. The door facing the prairie was closed tight. An orange glow spilled through the window set above the door handle. The door facing the commune was still half-open from where Grayson and then King had thrust it open. King could see a sliver of the central buildings, and a decent chunk of the open space between them, but so far no one had populated it. All it would take was a single disciple stumbling onto the scene and King’s cover would be shattered.

The vein in his neck throbbed double-time as he dragged Grayson down the hall.

He found a door set between two of the rooms and tried it, hoping it was unlocked.

It swung open.

Supply closet.

There was barely enough space for the body, and someone would find it eventually, but it was the best on a list of bad options.

He dumped Grayson beside a large mop in a five gallon bucket of dirty sudsy water. The bucket hadn’t been emptied yet from the day’s labour, and someone would do that eventually.

Leaving the building with the dead man was out of the question. The bunkhouse was positioned on flat ground, distanced from its surrounding buildings, and any exit he took would expose them to anyone on this side of the commune. They’d be seen. There was no way around it. And the rest of the rooms were bedrooms and bathrooms, which would be populated well before someone checked the supply closet.

The corpse was a ticking time bomb.

King looked down into Grayson’s wide eyes, unseeing and unfocused.

Who put you up to this?

Dane?

Maeve?

Elias?

Or any of the other two hundred followers, potentially envious of the newcomers, jealous of the attention they were receiving despite the lack of work they’d put in on the grounds.

He had endless questions, and zero answers.

So he forgot about it. What he couldn’t control didn’t matter. Right now all he could do was stay alive, regroup with Slater, Violetta, and Alexis, and figure out when to strike.

They’d have to do it fast.

Aim to overwhelm.

King elected to go find the others and swung the supply closet door closed, sealing Grayson into darkness.

Revealing the rest of the hallway leading out to the commune.

There wasn’t as much light anymore.

King looked over.

Dane Riordan filled the corridor.

65

King’s heart jolted but he didn’t outwardly react.

Without missing a beat, he ran