Friday Flash: Pirate's Bay Part 2

We continue with our Friday flash fiction story from Pirate's Bay. Part 1 is here.

Carlton is dealing poker and his stubby fingers make the whole affair a mess. If you don't get two cards at once, the single card he manages to pull from the deck slides off the edge of our table.

The guards always seem to take a special interest in our games. It starts with a pair of them but more soon join. They pace around our table looking at each of our hands and then smile or frown depending on what we are holding. None of us are certain they've figured out the game.

The tall guard, the one with the tree-trunk arms who carries the long staff, he was walking behind Thompson a week ago and stopped. His face brightened and he called the other guard over. They both studied what Thompson was holding and started chattering to each other in a happy tone. Thompson turned to look at them and pulled his cards to his chest. The rest of us shoved our cards to the middle of the table and Thompson threw his hand down, face up. It was mixture of hearts and diamonds that added up to nothing. He just smiled and put a tick mark in his column on our ledger. One more win and he'd be tied for first.