'What is this? What is happening? Where am I?'
Many thoughts began to run through Jesper's mind, and many emotions bubbled up in his chest.
It took a few seconds for him to remember where he was at the moment, or who he even was.
He was not sure what was happening and was in a complete state of confusion and fear.
But then, his brain shifted into a state of tachypsychia. The chaotic emotions were slowly pushed aside as he began to realize that he was not in a situation where he could afford to waste time pondering.
He was in danger right now.
Despite the distorted sense of time, he tried to force himself to grasp… and think about the present outside his head. He needed to, first of all, survive the immediate threat he was in, before he could later question what in the name of the gods was happening.
Fortunately, the throbbing and ringing in his head dulled just enough for him to be able to hear the two men.
"Look at the tattoo on her neck. It certainly looks like Nikolai's brand. You think Nikolai sent them?"
The lean man asked as he finished tying Yar's hands in front of her. He was referring to the tattoo of a coiled viper on her neck, which marked her as property belonging to the most famous slaver in Frankenfurt.
"I do not know, and it does not matter," the other man replied, still pointing the gun at Yar. "Just tie the scrawny fellow. Batiz wants them alive. He wants to question them back at the warehouse among other things, so we will find out the truth then."
The lean man gripped Yar's hair and yanked her head to the side to get a clearer look at her tattoo. Then, his eyes shifted to her terrified, freckled face for a heartbeat before he finally let go of her roughly.
He then turned and began taking steps toward Jesper lying on the ground.
Crouching low, he grabbed Jesper's arm to wrench it behind his back, but just as the rope touched his skin, Jesper groaned and said weakly, "Wait. Wait a minute. Something really strange is happening to me right now, so can you just… give me a second to get my head straight? Please? For my sake and yours."
"Eh?" The man paused, and his grip on Jesper's arm loosened just a fraction as he arched a brow.
"What are you babbling about, rat?" He glanced back at his partner with the gun, and a scoffing laugh bubbled in his throat. "How hard did you hit him? I think the blow to the head scrambled his—"
"Really hard." He was still speaking when Jesper cut with the same dazed voice. "The old man hit me so hard that I think… I am going insane."
He groaned and slowly began to push himself up to sit.
As he did, the man with the gun shifted his aim from Yar to Jesper's chest, and his finger tightened on the trigger just in case.
The lean man who was crouched was not afraid of Jesper, of course. He had a knife in his hand, so instead, he was more curious about what the skinny looking brat was trying to pull.
When Jesper was fully sitting up, he rubbed the side of his head and winced. Then he groaned, "Gosh. My head hurts so much."
He wasn't lying, and even as he was now seated upright, the fractured fragments of memories in his head were still piecing themselves together.
He opened his eyes and looked at the lean man, then at his terrified sister, and finally at the fat man behind her who was now pointing the gun at him.
In that split second, he had already also scanned his surroundings, but unfortunately, there was nothing he could use as a weapon.
A frown began to slowly spread across his face.
'There are a few pieces of broken wood on the ground from the gunshot earlier, but they are too far. I won't make it in time. I also do not have anything in my pocket that I could use. Ah, what to do? What to do? Think, think, think.'
His mind went into critical thinking mode.
In less than three seconds, he decided. 'First things first, I need to stand. They will not kill me immediately because, according to them, Batiz wants us alive. If I keep talking like a crazy fellow, they might just let me stand out of stupid curiosity.'
Jesper exhaled deeply, then looked at the man with the gun and smiled.
"Do you old men want to know something interesting?" he asked.
He began to rise from the ground in a dazed, sluggish manner, looking like someone who was still concussed.
He kept his hands extended slightly to signal he was not a threat. Then, he put his hands together and held them out toward the lean man as if he were finally offering himself to be bound.
With his eyes still on the fat man, he cocked his head to the side, and his grin widened as he added, "You see, the thing is… I really, 'really'~ hate people pointing guns at me."
The smile slowly disappeared and his light, crystalline blue eyes went cold. "It did not end very well for the last person who did that."
Hearing that, the fat man scoffed and barked at the lean man. "What are you waiting for? Hurry and tie the bastard up before I put a hole in him!"
The lean man let out a bubbling laugh. He straightened, and as he reached out to tie Jesper's hands, he jeered, "This lad has really gone mental!"
While they spoke, Jesper was deep in racing thoughts.
'The guy with the gun seems more cautious than this other fellow. I do not know how many out of the six slots were loaded on that revolver, but he used one earlier. He does not want to kill me, but shooting is a natural reflex when he is already pointing the gun. I just need to get him to empty the rest into his partner.'
Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion before Jesper's eyes, which shifted from the man with the gun, to the one in front of him.
'If I hit the underside of his jaw, this lean fellow will be knocked unconscious.'
He took a breath and exhaled in an attempt to dispel whatever anxiety was building up in him.
Then…
Just as the rope began looping around his skin, like someone who had done it a million times, Jesper lunged upward and hit the underside of the man's jaw with the crown of his head!
The expression on the lean man's face was one of shattered shock as his teeth slammed together with a sickening crack.
Then, without wasting a beat, Jesper hooked his fingers into the lean man's collar and jerked the thug's stumbling body in front of himself like a human shield.
In the same breath, he dipped his other hand into his cloak and pretended to pull out a revolver.
In that moment, out of a blind, reflexive panic, the fat man's finger squeezed the trigger before he could even realize it was a bluff.
Jesper pivoted, swinging the lean man's weight into the line of fire just as the first bullet tore into the man's lower back.
Another followed, then another, until the hollow click-clack of the hammer hitting empty chambers echoed through the tavern.
Jesper's ears twitched when he heard the sound. Then, without hesitation, he let go of the dead body. It took a lot of effort for him to hold it up in the first place, considering that his current body was the malnourished frame of an eighteen-year-old.
That aside, it was interesting to note that when the man had begun shooting, Yar had panicked at first. She yelled and subconsciously scrambled to the side. Then, her panic immediately shifted from herself, to her brother's safety.
But when she saw what he had done, and the fact that he was safe for the moment, she quickly looked away and took two steps to the side. Even though her hands were bound in front of her, she grabbed the nearest wooden chair.
…The fat man finished shooting. When he realized the cylinder was empty, he snarled in frustration and reached into his belt to take out a knife.
He began walking towards Jesper when a wooden chair suddenly smashed against the side of his head.
The chair shattered into a spray of splinters and the man staggered sideways, his vision swimming as he clawed at the air for balance.
Seeing that opening, Jesper quickly reached and picked up the dead lean man's kindjal.
Before the fat man could recover from the concussive blow, Jesper closed the distance, and without any hesitation, he drove the dagger deep into the soft underside of the man's jaw, angling it upward toward the brain.
He didn't stop there and pulled it out halfway out, before plunging it back in and twisting the blade.