Aedes pushed himself harder, exploiting the small arguments between his pursuers to gain distance.
"Run, run, run!"
The voice in his head urged, fueled by the memory of his mother's smile and the impossible promise of the key. He vaulted over a large ventilation unit, his bare feet slapping painfully on the rough tar surface.
Finally, he reached the edge of the last traversable rooftop. He skidded to a stop, his eyes wide with stark horror. A sheer, ten foot gap separated him from the next building, which sat impossibly high above the unforgiving alley below. It was a fatal drop. He was trapped.
"No…"
The heavy, uneven breathing of his pursuers announced their arrival. Jasper and Carl landed heavily on the roof, trapping Aedes against the suicidal drop, their faces grim and sweating.
"You see... I told you... the kid would run out of road eventually," Jasper wheezed, clutching his chest as he struggled to stand upright. "My lungs feel like they're full of hot sand, and you're still back there moving like a wounded turtle, Carl."
"Shut your mouth about my pace when you almost let a street rat suffocate you with a bread bag," Carl snapped, his voice thick with exhaustion. "We wouldn't even be in this mess if you had snatched a key earlier like the rest of the crew did!"
"Oh right, tell Our King that your cheap shoes make this chase long! We are the only ones left without a key, and if we don't bring that we are as good as dead."
Carl wiped his brow and pulled a serrated combat knife from a sheath at his belt, the metal gleaming under the moon.
"The King doesn't care how we get it, as long as we have it before sunrise," he muttered, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Jasper. "But here's the real question: which one of us actually gets to keep it and walk through those doors?"
Jasper pulled a heavy iron baton from his coat, his expression turning predatory as he glanced between Carl and the silent boy. "Let's make it simple: whoever peels the key off this homeless brat gets to claim the spot in the Tower," Jasper suggested with a cruel, jagged grin. "He's trapped like a rat now, so why don't we see who can catch him first?"
The wind howled between the skyscrapers, a cold, indifferent witness to the slaughter about to unfold on the roof. Aedes backed away until his feet hovered ove. His breath came in shallow hitches, and the key felt like a lead weight in his trembling pocket.
"Look at him shake," Jasper sneered. "The 'lucky One' of Season Two can't even hold his own knees steady."
Carl adjusted his grip on the serrated combat knife, his posture shifting into a low, predatory crouch. "Stop talking and end it, Jasper. I'm not going back to the King empt -handed. If you won't take him, I will."
"Please..." Aedes managed to wheeze, his voice cracking.
The air changed instantly. The chase was over. Jasper moved with terrifying speed and swung the baton low. Aedes tried to scramble back, but the iron hit his ribs with a sickening crunch. He collapsed, the air leaving his lungs in a silent scream.
"Too slow," Carl muttered, stepping in as Aedes tried to crawl away. He kicked Aedes in the stomach, sending him rolling toward the ledge. "You're a waste of a key. You don't have the soul of a player. But we do— we are professional killers, the perfect players for the Tower."
The men moved together like a brutal machine. Aedes was a ragdoll in their path, his face covered in bruises and his blood staining the gravel. He felt the cold edge of Carl's knife graze his cheek, leaving a thin line of fire. He knew he was going to die. He closed his eyes, and his mother's smile flickered in his mind like a dying candle.
Jasper reached down, grabbing Aedes by the hair and hauling his head back. He pointed his middle finger mockingly at Aedes's eye, preparing for the final blow.
"Say goodbye, rat."
In the moonlight, Aedes's vision cleared for a split second. His gaze locked onto the man's hand. There, tattooed in black ink on the back of Jasper's middle finger, was a Spade with the number 9 inside it. He glanced at Carl, who was reaching for the key; on his finger was the same Spade, marked with the number 10.
The world stopped. The wind went silent.
Aedes's mind fractured as a hidden door in his soul splintered open. He was suddenly back in the past, tucked into a suffocating hole in a wall, his tiny hands covering his mouth to stifle his sobs. Peeking through a crack in the wood, he saw his mother on her knees. Surrounding her were dozens of men in black, all flashing that same cursed symbol: Spades. Numbers. Letters. A deck of killers.
He remembered them stabbing his mother repeatedly. He remembered the man at the center, the one with the King symbol delivering the final blow.
The grief that had kept Aedes a hollow shell for ten years suddenly curdled into a black, toxic venom. The trembling in his limbs didn't stop, but it changed. It was no longer the vibration of fear; it was the hum of a ticking bomb.
"I remember those marks… Spades." Aedes whispered. "Y-you kill mother."
Jasper let out a confused grunt. "What are you mumbling about, boy?"
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Aedes screamed.
It wasn't a child's cry; it was a shriek of primal agony.