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My reward was a slight loosening of his grip. A return from agonizing to just painful. “Do you know what we drink in the army?”

“No.”

“Anything we can get our hands on. We’d drink paint stripper if we thought we could get a buzz from it. So that gnat’s piss you were trying to pour down my throat was never going to have much of an effect on me.”

He’d been acting. Convincingly as well, the realization making me feel sick. He’d known I was going to make a move, and he’d lain there waiting for it. Damage control, my brain screamed. Come on. You’ve faced worse odds than this and come out on the other side. Look at last night when he thought he had the measure of you. You showed him then, and you can show him again. “I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding.”

“Do you?” I didn’t like the thread of amusement in Keaton’s voice. “What don’t you think I’ve understood? That you tried to get me drunk, so I’d let my guard down? Or that you were going to steal my ring and then sneak out of here, leaving me high and dry?”

“I wasn’t.”

Keaton shifted position so his knee pressed into my back. It gave him an even better grip on my arm. Not that he needed it. “The truth, Tobias. Although we both know that’s another lie. Whatever your name is, it’s not Tobias.” I stayed silent. Lying brought pain. I was a fast learner. “So why don’t we start with your name? Your real name.”

I could tell him anything, and he wouldn’t know any better. My mind had gone blank, though, all my previous aliases deserting me, and only one name hovering at the forefront of my mind. What did it matter if he knew it? We’d go our separate ways. Sooner rather than later, given how pissed he was at me, and then our paths would never cross again. “August.”

“August what?”

“Why do you need to know my last name?”

“Humor me.”

“Stoll. S-T-O-L-L.”

“Why are you called August?”

“Because I was born in August, and I guess my mother didn’t have much of an imagination.”

“Your mother that abandoned you?”

I winced. Talk about your lies unraveling right before your eyes. My silence must have spoken for me, Keaton letting out a laugh. “Jesus! That was a lie too. You really are a piece of shit, aren’t you?”

“I don’t owe you my fucking life story,” I said from between gritted teeth.

“Then you should have told me that rather than feeding me an absolute load of crap.”

“Can you get off me?”

Keaton snorted. “No, I don’t think I can. You can’t be trusted.”

“What do you think I’m going to do?”

“I think you’ll go for your knife. You know, the one you sliced my neck with last night.”

That’s exactly what I’d been planning to do. “Hardly sliced. It was a nick. You did worse to yourself by grabbing it. And you broke into my room.” There was something of a sullen child in the way I said the last part.

Still keeping a tight hold on my arm and presumably ready to apply pressure if he needed to, Keaton ran his hand down each of my legs until he located the knife, divesting me of it in one simple move. “Do you have any other weapons on you?”

“No.” Keaton forced my arm up once more. “No. Jesus, no! I’m telling the truth.” Sweat dripped from my forehead onto the mattress. “I only carry an axe and a knife. That’s all I need.” Keaton was silent for a moment. “Now what?” I asked.

He gave a humorless laugh. “I think we’re at something of an impasse.”

“Let me go and we can talk,” I urged. “You can’t keep me like this all night. No matter how much of a kinky fuck you might be.” It was the wrong thing to say, the jibe earning me another few seconds of agonizing pain. “I get it,” I panted. “You’re in charge. Message received and understood.”

Keaton shifted slightly, giving the impression he was looking around the room, presumably to scope out where I’d left the axe. It left me with nothing to do but lie there like an obedient doll. If we were keeping score, Keaton and I were now even, both of us having fallen foul of underestimating the other.

And then the pressure on my arm was gone. I’d like to say I jumped up right away, but the truth was that after being forced into an awkward position for so long, with nausea still lingering, it took time to straighten myself. By the time I did, a crossbow bolt was aimed squarely between my eyes.

Keaton also had my axe tucked in his belt. I couldn’t see my knife, but I assumed that was somewhere on his person as well. “Is that really necessary?” I asked, massaging my sore shoulder to force some feeling back into it.