Trains are a nice luxury. They close the gaps, blur the line between city and outskirts. But crossing country on horseback is the way it was always meant to be done. Slow enough to remember how small we really are. To see the majesty you’d otherwise zip right by.

  We crossed the Appalachia—mountains that gave what I was used to a run for its money. Not quite as high or as stark, it was the green which struck me. Endless verdant forests running the slopes up and down.

  Every Tom, Dick, and Harry back in the West were always yapping about the cities cropping up. Hell, Ace never shut his damn mouth about it. They were gonna ruin this for us, or muck up that. No one ever talked about this. Those trees were teeming with life, and every time I heard a leaf crunch, I expected to find us facing off against some terror, only to spot a harmless critter.

  Scariest thing we’d seen in the few days since Golden River was a brown bear, and she was just protecting her cubs. Didn’t even give chase. Maybe we’d hear a wolf or two at night, but they never came close—and none of them were anything but that, wolves. There was enough life here, enough food, that they didn’t have to go trifling with humans.

  I felt like a damn fool, spending every night on vigil, gun ready, haunting over Rosa while her mortal body rested. For so long, the night was a time for the war of survival. Maybe for folk used to living in the cities, but not for us.

  Hunting was relatively easy in these parts. Squirrels scurried all over. Rabbits bred like, well… rabbits. Deer as plentiful here as snakes out west.

  Berries were abundant, so long as you knew which wouldn’t tie your belly in knots.

  Water? There were fresh rivers crammed with fish.

  It was a goddamn cornucopia and made me wonder why anyone ever hitched their carriages and rode to dry, desolate places like where I was grown. Sure, everywhere has its hardships—still, it really got my mind running.

  A gunshot rang out. Leaves rustled as birds and critters fled the scene.

  Rosa let out a boisterous laugh. “Who taught you how to shoot?”

  I squinted down the sights of my rifle, watching tree bark splinter instead of a spray of deer blood. The big old buck skittered away, vanishing into dense forest.

  “I’m used to shooting things that fight back,” I grumbled.

  And that was the truth. I hadn’t had to hunt for food in decades. Last time I shot at a deer, Rosa would’ve been a child.

  She held her stomach and feigned pain. “Then I guess I’m destined to starve.”

  My eyes rolled. All things considered, she was in good spirits after what had gone down. Being away from the clamor of people seemed to be helping, though I’m not sure if it was the quiet or the fact we were the only ones in danger out here.

  “Why don’t you get the fire started?” she said. “You don’t even need the food.”

  “Don’t need fire either.”

  “Well, at this point, I’ll eat a cockroach. Can you shoot one of those?”

  I growled audibly as I took my rifle and sucked back my wounded pride. My ability to aim hadn’t gone and vanished. This was a matter of patience. Gun fights and duels were a hell of a lot different than sitting and waiting for some innocent critter to stop moseying. Rosa needed to eat, but we couldn’t afford to linger.

  Trudging along through thick brush, I focused on the task at hand. Need it or not, I couldn’t stomach the thought of waiting by the fire while Rosa went out hunting and gathering. What kind of man would I be?

  “I used to love hunting,” I said as I sidled up to a tree and watched for movement. “Ventured out. Got a severely needed break from the boys in camp. You always gotta be ready in a crew like that, to hurl clever insults or bat them away. It’s exhausting.”

  “Sounds dreadful,” Rosa mocked. “Poor James, being picked on by scoundrels.”

  “Who said it wasn’t me doing the picking?”

  “You haven’t got a mean bone in your body.”

  “You’re just too used to the gentleman.”

  “Oh, I see. Then I guess you just aren’t clever.”

  “You’re as bad as they were. Now quiet, or you’ll stay hungry.”

  We walked a bit farther. I held up my hand for her to stop, then pressed a finger over my lips. As I set my eyes down my sights, a female deer’s wet nose poked through a bush, rummaging for orts. This time, I didn’t rush the shot. I watched, and I waited, until enough of the thing was visible for me to realize it wasn’t alone. She had her fawn behind her, staggering along on bony legs, barely used to walking.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  They got closer. As easy a shot as ever there had been.

  Still, I waited. Rosa needed to eat if we planned to reach the capital before the rapture, but my finger went truly numb. No thought of mine could get it moving.

  A few more steps, and the mama dear’s ears perked up. It turned and made direct eye contact with me with its pretty, dark eyes.

  “Run,” I whispered as it continued to stare. “Run, you damned fool.”

  Something disturbed the foliage to my left. I swung my sights that way and found myself aiming at Rosa, who held a dead rabbit by the scruff of the neck.

  “Looks like you were too slow,” she said, smirking impishly.

  When I looked back, the deer and her daughter were gone. I breathed a sigh of relief, and at the same time, I couldn’t help but worry. Here we were, fighting for our lives in this cross-country journey, and I was going soft. Survival is survival. There ain’t no half measures.

  “I never liked rabbit,” I lied. Loved the stuff, actually, back when I could love anything.

  “Well then,” Rosa said as she strode right by me. “Good thing it’s for me.”

  * * *

  “We ought to get a move on,” I called over to Rosa two mornings later as I sat by the smoldering coals of our fire and the squirrel carcass that’d roasted above it. My firearms were spread out in front of me in pieces, just about clean.

  “Oh, what’s the rush?”

  I glanced over at where she bathed herself in a fresh-water creek. It’d been a few days since Golden River, and it wasn’t hard to notice how our pace had slowed. The horses got a good rest, and Rosa… a bath? Outlaws on the lam don’t take relaxing rinses, yet here we were.

  “I won’t dignify that with an answer,” I said.

  “But it’s so beautiful here.”

  I couldn’t argue that. Birds were singing their songs in the low sun, shadows and shafts of light dancing through the canopy. Was the kind of place a man like Dufaux might’ve had painted to hang in his home. Paradise, if you will. Our very own Garden of Eden.

  Which got me thinking about Mutt’s tribe, and them being so displaced.

  “Ace knows where we’re going,” I said. “We’ve gotta beat him there.”

  And Death. Death was coming, though I dared not speak its name.

  Water splashed, then trickled playfully. I glanced again, and there Rosa was, sauntering out of the creek, skin glistening and wet. I dropped my gun’s hammer roll pin into the dirt from my lack of focus, and I struggled to rectify the issue while avoiding her completely.

  “After everything we’ve been through, can’t you manage a little bit of joy?” she asked as I listened to the sounds of her clothing herself and worked to clear the pin of debris.

  “Joy is for fools.”

  She crouched behind me, reached around and guided my hand away from my gun.

  “Then call me fool,” she whispered, mere inches away from my ear. I couldn’t feel it—damn my senses—but saw a single finger slide along my shoulders before she took a seat next to me.

  “Your guns work fine, James,” she said, exasperated.

  “Until they don’t.”

  “Not sure what they’re going to do for us anyway, you know, if Death is as bad as the rest.”

  I shot her a sharp glare, as if speaking it into existence would matter. “‘The power of the tongue speaks life and death,’” I quoted.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Better to be prepared,” I said. “It’s the one thing we can control.”

  “It’s been two days, James. If they had our trail, we’d be choking on locusts by now.”

  “Never underestimate the patience of immortal things,” I warned. “Hours. Days. It’s all a blink of an eye to them. We aren’t safe, Rosa. We’ll never be safe.”

  “Pleasant.”

  She wrung out her hair and started combing it with her fingernails, staring off toward the shimmering surface of the creek.

  “Sorry, I’m just tired,” I said with a sigh.

  “And what if you’re wrong? What if we are safe out here in the wild? They can’t use us if they can’t find us.” Her head tilted back toward me, and the makings of a genuine smile pulled at her lips. “What if we just hide out here, you and me?”

  My very being ached for her. I knew what she was going through. It was the same denial I’d experienced in those first few months being a Black Badge. Wondering. Dreaming. Thinking of all the other ways eternity could be.

  And what temptation that was.

  Me and her alone, playing house with sticks and stones. Oh, what I’d give for such a simple existence. The White Throne might have their domain—what I assumed to be Heaven. But that’d never been my final destination.

  “You don’t want that,” I said.

  “No me digas lo que quiero.” Her eyes groped me from head to toe. “I could do worse.”

  I snorted. “You deserve better.”

  “Oh, James…” She scooted closer to me and moved my hand away from my weapons. Then she clutched me by the cheeks and stared straight into my eyes. “How many other men would go through all of this for me?”

  “Anyone with eyes and a brain.”

  I tried to look away, but she held me even firmer.

  “Why don’t we stop all this…” she asked so softly I almost couldn’t hear her. Or maybe I just couldn’t focus, because as she spoke, she pulled herself up on my lap, straddling me. Last time I found myself between a woman’s legs—I couldn’t even remember. Back when I could feel it, no doubt.

  Her forehead leaned against mine. Her breath was my breath.

  “Stop running,” she went on. “We could stay here and hide from it all. You and me, together.”

  “You know we can’t.” I went to turn away. She took charge and held my face.

  “We can, James. We can.”

  Her words were lost as she pressed her lips against mine. A lesser man might have taken advantage of this woman in denial, but I couldn’t.

  I took her wrists and pushed her away. “What’s gotten into you, girl!”

  Her scowl could have ripped a new scar right into my chest.

  “Not you, apparently,” she said.

  “Rosa.” I shook the fuzz out of my brain. “This isn’t you, and we both know that. We can’t hide, not forever. That’s a dream. It ain’t real.”

  “You’d rather a nightmare?” She crossed her arms and looked away.

  “I’d rather the truth. You deserve the truth, Rosa. And Chapelwaite may have it.”

  She slinked backward, her anger fading as her solemn gaze returned to the crystalline water reflecting all that beauty surrounding us.

  “And what if I don’t want it?” she asked.

  “Then… they’ve already got you.”

  “Don’t give me that ‘truth will set you free’ mierda.”

  “Fine. If you don’t wanna know, then stay. Go on. Because without knowing what you are, I can’t help you. And Goddammit, Rosa, I don’t know how to handle this. Alright? I’m fucking lost too.”

  I didn’t mean to get so harsh. By the end, judging by the fleeing birds, I think I was even yelling. She just didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand how hard rejecting all her dreaming was to a man losing his lease on yet a second life. But the moment we let our guard down—got lost in daydreams—that was it. That was the final breath. The end.

  She didn’t reply. Just stood, approached her horse, and started untying the reins without a word. And so, I did the same.