A hangman comes to Tyche: Part 8
In which a cat breaks out of jail
If you’re just joining us, jump back to part 1.
"Someone has to fill the cell, Taggard." Sharp smirked at him from the other side of the energy bars. "As for your little pet...." His smirk turned to a scowl as the kitten slipped through the gap and sauntered over to Taggard.
The kitten's pink tongue licked the tip of his nose. Taggard smiled despite the pain in his jaw from the beating Sharp and his guards had given him when they found Nita was gone and they couldn't find her.
"And we'll have your niece by morning. She might be in time to see you hanged from your own noose."
Taggard peered cross-eyed into the kitten's green eyes. The noose had never been his, but he didn't respond to Sharp, recognizing the baiting for what it was.
He heard a loud exhale, then Sharp turned. The lights in the cell block went out, leaving only a shard of moonlight that cut across the floor and fell on the kitten.
"Grim," he said, remembering Nita's name for the animal. The cat licked him again.
Slowly, gritting his teeth against the tender bruises, broken ribs and raw lacerations, he sat up and scooched himself against the wall. The kitten joined him, trembling as it nestled in the crook between his leg and torso.
"Reckon I'll be dead this time tomorrow." Taggard's eyebrows pulled together. The thought saddened him. It would've been nice to get to know Nita better, to drink whiskey with Rebeka again, to be back sailing the black. But a sense of peace blanketed him — he wouldn't have changed his actions tonight.
Without thinking, Taggard stretched his arm out to pet the cat and winced as pain shot through his side.
His hand went to the spot, as if that would help. Instead, it landed on a bulge. His stomach sank, as if it were filled with sand. He reached into the pocket and pulled out the bauble.
His mother's key. A relic from her past, one Sharp had already killed for, in his quest to find it.
"Jacks." His voice was barely the breath of a whisper. If he had this on him tomorrow, Sharp's hunt would be over, and Taggard knew in his bones that would be bad.
He stared into its starry depths as he stroked to cat, the pain forgotten.
"What am I going to do?"
The kitten mewed and peered at his face, as if offering an opinion ... or an idea.
Taggard's fingers went to the kitten's collar.
He removed the collar and inspected it. With a combination of teeth and willpower, he pried open the ring on the top of the wire cage that held the bauble. He looped this through the buckle on the collar before closing the ring the same way, much to his jaw's chagrin. He examined his handiwork and deemed it passible. His thumb stroked the metal square on the collar where a name would go. Empty.
He took off his belt and used the prong of the buckle to scratch the metal. Grim.
Then he cinched the collar on the kitten again despite the animal's protests.
He sat there for a few long minutes, petting the kitten's soft grey fur as he worked up courage and determination. Eventually, as the moon shard ticked the hours past midnight, he shoved himself to standing, one arm holding the cat as his teeth ground back a groan.
Exhaling, he lifted a leg onto the cot.
Then the other.
The window wasn't big enough for a person to fit through, but a cat — a kitten — could fit.
Taggard set the cat on the ledge and stroked the space between its eyes, which were fixed on him.
"You need to go, Grim."
The cat licked his hand.
"Sharp will kill you if you're here tomorrow. And this...." He flicked the bauble. "He can't find it."
The kitten mewed.
"You need to get to the port. Find your way onto a ship leaving this place."
The cat stepped close and rubbed its jaw on his chin.
"Go, I didn't save you so you could just get killed."
Green eyes studied him for a few seconds, then the cat leapt off the ledge onto the street below, seemingly none the worse for having been kicked into a wall earlier.
It stopped across the way and looked back at him, its eyes flashing reflective green.
"The port. Off planet."
The cat flicked its tail and started loping down the street — towards the port.
Taggard watched until it was out of sight, then he slipped down onto the cot.
"One of us should get off this planet." He closed his eyes, and within a few heartbeats was asleep.
Stay tuned for part 9, the finale to this Lyra Cycle origin story. Feel free to share if you know someone who likes scifi stories.
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