Chapter 43 #2
Tom’s lip curls. “Well, how fortunate for the buzzards that they’ll get to eat again so soon.” He turns to his men. “Grab him. Five of you will stay here with the crazy one while the rest of us take the gunslinger. If we’re not back in a few hours…” He smiles at Cypress. “Kill him.”
Several men dismount, ready to start closing in, and everything in me wants to fight.
But I know how it’ll end if I do. Least this way, Cypress will have a chance at getting free while I lead them away, at getting back to Dolly where he’ll be safe.
He’s still armed. He’s fast. He’ll survive, and this time, I’ll have done—
Cypress squeezes my hand once more before he lets go, stepping out from behind me and saying to Tom, “He’s not telling you the right location.”
“That so?” I feel Tom’s eyes shift between us, but I don’t see it, because I’m too busy looking at Cypress, willing him to look back, to see that I need him to stand down like I had in Soldana. He’d done it then. He’d trusted me.
Only this time, he doesn’t.
“You already know he wasn’t the one who buried your friend. I am. I’m the one who knows the location. I’m the one who hid the money,” Cypress is saying as he takes another step away from me toward Tom and his men. “And not just your money. There’s more.”
Tom arches an eyebrow, undeniably intrigued. “You offering somethin’?”
“I’m offering what you want,” Cypress replies simply. “So I get what I want.”
“Which is?”
Without hesitating, he says, “The gunslinger goes free.”
“Cypress,” I warn, needing him to know this time when to quit.
Surely he knows. Surely he’s realized the odds if they turn me loose and all go with him. Even if they leave me, they’re not going to leave me armed or with Helios, and by the time I’m able to get back to Dolly’s for a weapon, he’ll be too far ahead without me knowing which way he led them.
He can’t do this. We already agreed. I protect him. We already agreed. “Cypress.”
He still isn’t looking at me, his focus on Tom, who is starting to smile at him. “Well, isn’t that noble.”
“Is it?” Cypress argues. “Or is it self-preservation? You make it all the way out there and see it isn’t where he says it is…” He shakes his head. “Well, I imagine you would end up coming back to me regardless. I’m telling you now in hopes of saving us all a lot of time and earning your trust.”
Tom scoffs. “Trust? You honestly expect me to trust you? After you already stole from me? After you already killed my friend? After you nearly killed me?”
Cypress doesn’t waver. “Our previous interaction only means you know what I’m capable of, what I could be capable of for you.”
“For me?” Tom sounds doubtful again. “You want to work for me?”
Cypress shrugs. “Been a while since I’ve been on a crew.”
“You were on a crew before? Which one?”
“The Levi Gang.”
A murmur ripples through Tom’s men, glances exchanged as the name registers with them even if it doesn’t with me. I remember Dolly saying that though she knew Cypress’s crew was bad, she didn’t realize how bad. But Cypress did. And something about their reaction tells me these men do, too.
“The Levi Gang?” Tom asks, now surveying Cypress with even more interest than before. “Haven’t heard tale of them in years.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Cypress responds, his voice absent its usual humor though I think I’m the only one that can tell. “Afraid we disbanded after Levi stopped seeing reason. Stopped seeing anything soon after.” He smiles. “You understand.”
Tom huffs out an almost laugh, looking to the rest of the crew, who all nod. “That I do. But I’m still surprised to hear you want to leave your partner to come join us.” He glances between Cypress and me. “You two seem...attached to one another”
“Our partnership came about as a result of necessity,” Cypress replies easily. “He’s no outlaw.” He sighs, tilting his head. “And, to be honest, I wouldn’t call us friends.”
We are not friends. What we are, Aiden…I hope the appropriate word is inevitable.
He’d said he hoped we were inevitable, and I hadn’t realized until now how much I was hoping for the same. “Cy,” I murmur, practically pleading with him now. “Don’t.”
Finally, finally, he looks at me, searching my face as if he’s trying to memorize every detail.
My gaze falls to his left hand, fully expecting to see it tapping against his leg, to see the sign of his tell, but his fingers are still.
His hand steady. Far steadier than my own when he finally murmurs back, “I’m sorry, wolf. ”
A few feet away from us, Tom laughs, clapping his hands together as if this is all for his entertainment, and I almost miss what he says next over the rushing in my ears, over my thoughts repeating, No. No. I can’t. I can’t do this again.
“Well, this has been a change of plans,” Tom is saying, still chuckling as he steps nearer to me.
“I said he would betray you. Even told you that you should join us, and now it’ll be him…
” Tom pauses, tilting his head and considering before he puts his gun away in favor of a knife from his belt, the same one I left him with last night.
Immediately, Cypress’s whole body goes completely still.
“Well, maybe it will. Depends on how he takes this.”
I step toward Cypress again, my hand raised to caution Tom. “You’ll never get a chance to spend that money if you’re six feet under,” I remind him. “Dolly said she’d hunt you down.”
“Oh, but that only applied if I hurt him,” Tom counters, tilting his head toward Cypress, who hasn’t moved. “And since, as he so kindly pointed out, I don’t need you to find my money…”
“But you do need me,” Cypress argues, and I can hear the fear he’s trying to keep from breaking into his voice. “I gave you my terms.”
“And I’m telling you mine. Because I’m going to need more than your word if you actually want my trust after what you’ve done. Afraid it’s going to have to be eye for an eye.” Tom comes closer. “Shouldn’t be a problem though, right? If you truly aren’t friends?”
Cypress doesn’t respond, not before Tom stops directly in front of me. “You should’ve accepted my offer, gunslinger. Could have seen your name in the papers again. Now you’ll die like a nobody.”
I meet his gaze as I assure him, “There are worse things.”
Tom’s lip curls as he raises the knife, and I brace myself to move, to grab for my own knife to defend myself. Even knowing I have the rest of his men to contend with. Even knowing I’ve likely run out of places to run. Quickly, I glance toward Cypress, wanting to see him first, wanting to—
He’s not there.
In the second between Tom raising the knife and bringing it back down, Cypress is the one who moves, stepping in front of me and pushing me away.
The sudden change in target causes Tom’s aim to land higher on him than it would have on me…
or so I think for one heartstopping moment until, rather than giving any sign he’s been hit, Cypress keeps moving, taking advantage of Tom’s surprise to grab for his gun at the same time I reach for Cypress’s.
The revolver comes free from his right holster just as he pivots behind me again, already aiming and firing.
I do the same, my first shot to kill in years going straight through Tom’s chest. As soon as it hits, he falls in an exaggerated arc, but I’m firing again before he even fully drops.
One, two more go down next. More names for my ledger, and I’m about to add another when the third tries to dive behind their horses for cover. At my back, I hear Cypress’s stolen gun going off a second time, hear the accompanying thud of a body hitting dirt before—
“I’m out,” he shouts. “Chamber wasn’t full.”
I turn, shooting toward the three men in front of him without taking time to properly aim, sacrificing accuracy in exchange for the chance to sprint for our horses let loose in the chaos.
There’s two bullets left in my gun, only one after I blast another over my shoulder. Enough to make one man fall but not the remaining five men who are regrouping, climbing onto their horses as Cypress and I take off at a gallop.
“We lose them,” I yell to Cypress as he thunders after me on my left. “Then we double back. Head for Dolly’s.”
He nods, already reaching for the rifle strapped to his saddle that I’d seen him use in Soldana. Despite the speed, he lets go of the reins and turns to fire, and I don’t need to check to know the aim was true, don’t dare risk it when a bullet whizzes by my head and sends my hat flying. Fuck.
I urge Helios more, Cerberus keeping pace and slightly leading as we target a grouping of trees interrupting the landscape ahead. Faster and faster until we reach them, far enough ahead of the men behind us that when the undefined path splits, we veer left and hope they’ll think we went right.
It buys us time, only a little. But we get a chance to do it again, winding our way through more tree pockets, cutting ravines, and scattered rock formations.
Anything that might widen the gap between us until eventually we lose sight of them, although I don’t think for a moment that they’ve given up.
Still, I start to wonder if we’re actually going to make it out of this, to feel that frantic hope again that we are that lucky when I look at Cypress flying across the terrain beside me.
He looks back, smiles. But then he sways. His eyes drifting shut.
“Cypress,” I yell at him. “Cy, are you—”
For one terrifying second, I think he’s going to fall while we’re still galloping at full speed, barely giving me time to grab Cerberus’s reins to pull him up as I signal Helios to slow. “Cypress, what are you—”
His body sways again, toward me, and I reach out a hand to steady him, pushing against his shoulder to keep him in the saddle. He winces immediately, flinching from evident pain before I pull my hand back.
It comes away red. And right then, I remember all the reasons I don’t believe in luck.