As Jasper gripped his hair, Aedes coiled his remaining strength and snapped his head forward with the force of a closing trap. His forehead slammed into Jasper's nose, the sound of breaking bone echoing across the quiet rooftop.
"My nose!"
Jasper cried, clutching his face as he stumbled back, blood spraying through his fingers and staining his clothes.
"You little piece of filth!"
Carl roared, lunging forward with his serrated blade. Aedes didn't move like a starving boy anymore; he moved like a feral beast. He caught Carl's wrist mid air, twisting the arm with a sickening pop that forced the man to his knees. Aedes snatched the knife from Carl's failing grip and, in one fluid motion, buried it deep into the man's throat.
Carl made a wet, gurgling sound as he collapsed, his life blood soaking into the rough gravel of the roof. Aedes turned his cold, dark gaze toward Jasper, who was still gasping and trying to wipe the blood from his eyes. The boy approached him slowly, his bare feet leaving red prints on the tar surface. Jasper scrambled backward until his spine hit the brick of a ventilation shaft, his bravado completely shattered.
"W-who are you?!" Jasper stammered, his voice trembling with a terror he had never felt before. "How do you know about the Spade? Oh hell no... you aren't just some starving kid. Are you one of the killers sent from the House of Cards?!"
Aedes leaned down, his face inches away from the man who had just been mocking him. "I was a very real homeless boy the night you Spades murdered my mother," he whispered in a low, freezing rasp. "I should thank you for bringing my memory back. That missing piece... now, those ten years of starving will be replaced by hunting every last one of you down."
Jasper's eyes bulged, the color draining from his face until he was as pale as the concrete beneath him.
"Ten years... your mother is— OH SHIT!" He let out a choked, terrified wheeze as the realization hit him. "Wait, wait! I was just a Nine! I only followed orders from the top! If you want the King, if you want the man who did it, he is already using a key to enter the Tower!"
Aedes grabbed Jasper's arm, putting agonizing pressure on the broken elbow until the man shrieked in pain. "Tell me now! Where is he?" Aedes snarled, his voice vibrating with a decade of suppressed rage. "I will kill him before he even sets his foot inside that Tower!"
"FUCK! I—I swear on my life, I don't know where the King is hiding!" Jasper cried out, the sound echoing off the cold brick of the buildings. "Only the high ranking Face Cards actually know his face or his location! We are just trash to him, simple pieces on a board getting orders from a shadow!"
Jasper looked over at Carl's limp body and realized they had made a fatal mistake. They hadn't been chasing a helpless victim through the city streets. They had walked directly into a slaughterhouse led by a monster they had helped create.
"This kid... he is powerful... he is a demon..." Jasper whispered to himself, his mind breaking. "PLEASE SPARE ME!"
Aedes increased the pressure on the man's limb, the sound of popping tendons punctuating the air.
"I wish my mother could have screamed that to you too."
He whispered into Jasper's ear. He didn't feel any pity as he watched the light fade from the man's eyes, leaving only the cold hunger for the rest of the deck.
In stark contrast to the cold rooftop, a different kind of sanctuary sat high above the city. Inside a sprawling, ultra modern bathroom, the air was thick with the scent of expensive jasmine and rising steam.
Patricia Perfeccion lay submerged in a high tech bathtub that glowed with a soft red light. Her head rested on a plush waterproof cushion as automated jets massaged her shoulders. With chilled cucumber slices over her eyes, she tried to let the warmth drown out the city, but she couldn't silence her thoughts.
Images from the morning flickered in her mind: the chaos of the final key, Aedes's grime-streaked face, and her impulsive decision to let a "street rat" into the pristine leather interior of her vehicle. She had driven him away to safety— an act of mercy that felt increasingly like a liability.
"How is that kid even still breathing?" she wondered. "Hmm… or is he even breathing now?"
The rumors were already swirling in the industry, players were being hunted for their keys, and the body count was rising. The production team and the Tower developers were working overtime to bury the reports of murders, keeping the "Fantasy" image clean. She knew that boy was a walking target the moment she let him out of her sight.
A memory of the boy's sudden, genuine smile when she handed him the snacks flashed across her mind. It was a look of pure, raw gratitude she rarely saw in the plastic world of the world. Feeling a sudden, hot wave of embarrassment at her own sentimentality, she snatched the cucumber slices from her eyes and tossed them across the room.
"Ugh, what am I doing?" she hissed, splashing water onto her face as if to wash away the thought. "I'm going to have to scrub twice as hard just to get the phantom stench of that homeless boy out of my pores."
She reached for a sleek, waterproof data pad sitting on the marble ledge.
"Let's see if that little charity stunt actually paid off," she murmured, her voice echoing against the polished porcelain walls
Her thumb swiped across the screen, scrolling through the night's trending hashtags. At the very top of the feed, a video of her ushering Aedes into her "Raspberry Rhino" had already racked up millions of views and a flood of heart emojis.
She watched herself on the screen, the practiced look of concern, the elegant way she shielded the "unfortunate" boy from the mob. A small smirk played on her lips. The image was perfect. Her impulsive act of charity was already paying off in publicity, cementing her status as the Tower's most compassionate star before the season even began.
"Look at those comments," she whispered, scrolling through the endless praise. "'A literal angel,' 'The only star with a heart'"
However, as she scrolled further down, her eyes caught a comment with an unusually high number of likes that halted her thumb mid swipe. She read it aloud, her voice turning… brittle.