Take A Walk With Me (One-Shots and More)

Bar Stool

#1 of the Overthrown mini-series

The chatter of the bar died down as the door swung open.

Adam paused, setting down a glass he was polishing. It was Saturday - the bar was always busy, always loud as patrons rough-housed and joked. It was never silent.

Yet now, it was.

A small-framed man walked through the door. Adam's eyes immediately went to the lance through his belt, and the tattoo on his neck: a broken skull. It was the universal symbol for the League of the Crushed, a faction of assassins hellbent on destroying the tyrannical rule of the government.

"Three. Whiskey." The assassin perched himself on a stool as Adam noticed the unusual color of his eyes. They were deep red, the color of the blood he spilled. A few silver pieces clattered down on the bar, and Adam took them. He was aware that his patron's gazes were locked on him.

Silently, he prepared three glasses of rye whiskey, setting them one after the other in front of the assassin. When he was done, he stood there, eyeing the newcomer. "What business do you have here?"

"Can't I come for a drink?" The assassin smiled at him, throwing back a glass. It was gone in a minute.

"Not when you're disrupting service like this." Adam shot a look at his customers, who began to return to their previous conversations. "What's your name, kid?"

The nickname fit. Despite his scary class, the boy seemed to be younger than Adam. His skin looked softer, and he still had a childish air around him.

"You," the assassin began, pausing to down the second glass of whiskey, "may call me Ty. I have a preposition for you, Adam Dahlberg."

It wasn't strange for people to know his name, Adam knew. He did own a tavern, and for as many rumors as he heard, he knew there were half as many spread about him. However, something about 'Ty' knowing it unnerved him.

"Which is?" He pressed, fiddling with the money in his hands.

"I know your secrets." Ty looked up at him with cold eyes. His voice lowered. "You're quite the killer. I'd like to have you on this side of the war."

"What war?" Adam met his eyes, a smile playing on his lips. The government, headed by a King who beheaded all who opposed him, was hated by most, and it was obvious an uprising was inevitable. Tensions had been growing for quite some time.

"This war."

"What's in it for me?"

The assassin finished his third glass with ease. "I don't reveal to King Dickhead that you've been killing his noblemen."

"I've done no such thing," Adam replied, beginning to wash the glasses with his cloth. It was a lie. Starting years ago, he had slipped various, slow-acting poisons into the drinks of unwary loyalists.

Ty seemed to detect this.

"If you've done no such thing... Why was there arsenic in my second glass?"

Adam froze. While the League of the Crushed was pro-rebellion and anti-government, he found it hard to trust any assassin. Of course, he had underestimated the training some undertook. He had heard stories of young recruits building up tolerance to various poisons to avoid situations like this one. He had not suspected them to be true.

"That's what I thought," Ty smiled. "Meet me in the wharf at dusk, past the slave quarters... And if you see any Fire Hearts, put a bullet in their skull for me." He got up, turned on his heel, and hesitated. "Especially if it's the one with the golden slave's tags. He's especially ornery."

With that, he left.

Adam could do nothing but stare.

----

Short and sweet. There's gonna be a few of these. I'm super excited for this series.