Black River Rising

Chapter Two: What Times are These?

Chapter Two: What Times Are These?

The situation couldn't have been much stranger. After a few tense moments of staring, in which the boy refused to speak, Shelly rushed around the bar and grabbed Hyatt by the shoulder.

"You need to move him upstairs Hyatt. There are too many people here."

That was true. The patrons were all starting to mumble and whisper behind their hands, and the last thing Hyatt needed was them questioning the boy's strange speed... or worse, how Hyatt had managed to catch him. Glancing at his brother, Hyatt nodded to the crowd, then sat the boy on his feet.

"Don't try to run, kid. You won't get far."

As Hyatt rounded the bar, dragging the now completely expressionless kid behind him and heading for the stairs, he heard Roland and Bobby addressing the onlookers.

"Alright ya drunkards, nothing to see here!"

"Everything's under control now, Hyatt'll know what to do."

Hyatt had no clue what he was going to do. As he made his way to his room with his would be assassin in tow, he was completely overwhelmed by how absurd this day had become... and it wasn't even five o'clock! He was just starting to consider calling the Guard (low on his list of things he wanted to do) when from behind him, the boy spoke up.

"It's true what they said. You're like me"

His voice was muffled and small, but he sounded so sure. Hyatt stopped in his tracks and turned to face the kid, who still had tears in his eyes, as well as something else. Something alarmingly like hope. The drab old tan walls and worn out carpet that Hyatt was slowly bleeding on completed the strangeness of the scene. He was angry, and his arm hurt, but it was obvious that this kid did not want to be here.

"Not out here, Kid." Was all he said before turning and moving off down the hall, still pulling the boy after him, but more gently than before.

Hyatt's room was simple. The Black River Inn had once been a mid to high scale hotel, and had rooms for all kinds of guests, from single travelers, to families, to the lush governor's suite on the top floor. Bobby and Shelly had once tried to give Hyatt the governor's suite, but he declined joking that his blood had never been that blue. He liked his room, it sat on the sixth floor, and had a view of the harbor, the fishing boats, and the market.

Over the years he had decorated sparsely, but with some personal touches that let you know who it was that lived there. Like the old Gibson guitar in the corner, or the collection of first edition novels on the shelf, or the one wall dedicated entirely to different kinds of knives. Throwing knives, medieval daggers, hunting knives, and a couple of rare Mongolian skinning knives that he kept mostly as a joke. The room was entirely his, a resting place.

Usually, everything made sense here, yet when the two were inside and the door was safely locked behind them, Hyatt found himself once more at a loss for words. This was not the first time someone had tried to kill him, or even to assassinate him, but having it be a scrawny child who clearly would rather be anywhere else; That was a new one on him. Thankfully, or maybe not, the boy spoke first.

"Are you going to kill me?"

Hyatt raised an eyebrow. Maybe the wall of knives was a bad idea.

"Damn, kid. I don't know who sent you after me, but they obviously don't know me very well."

"But you've killed people before."

He had to laugh at that, a slow bitter chuckle as he pulled the sheet off his bed and wrapped it around his arm. Shelly would chew him out for that later, but right now, it was all he had the energy to do. When he looked back at the boy, standing there in his room thin as a bean pole and looking like he wanted the world to swallow him whole, Hyatt vowed to find whoever had set this poor brat after him, and show them first hand why people feared his name.