Katherine

Gabe will kill me.

That thought ran on repeat in her mind during the long days she spent at the Tuckers' kitchen table, her ribs bound up and a pot of black sludge coffee at her hand, mapsand sketches spread out on the table before her.

It was all she could think while she sat in a stool and let Amelia trim the long, distinctive sweep of her golden curls until they gathered about her shoulders in a manageable mop.

Gabe will kill me.

It tormented her as she stood out back with Josh and fired bullet after bullet, first impacting high and to the left, then low and to the right, and finally dead center; as her confidence grew and a thick red callus developed on her trigger finger and the air was filled with the metallic plink of her rounds striking the cans.

It kept her up at night, curled beneath soft sheets and staring at the ceiling with Isobel safe in her arms. Every night, Isobel cried herself to sleep, begging Katherine to take her back to her pa. Damn him for making her do this—hold their weeping, inconsolable daughter and feign a peace that was so, so far from the rage that baked her heart from within and the determination that made her fingers tingle with anticipated retribution.

Gabe will kill me.

By Friday night, the thought was a steady hum in her ears as she sat for one last meal at the Tuckers' kitchen table, cleared now of the maps and the evidence of their plans. She didn't have much appetite, but she forced herself to eat. Aside from an ache in her side and a few fading green bruises, her body had healed from the trauma she had suffered.

Her heart, however...

She ate heartily, and then saw Isobel onto the wagon that would carry her out of town, under cover of darkness and a fleet of guards, led by Josh and Amelia themselves. Then she went upstairs and packed her bag with a stoic, steady, machine-like efficiency.

Sometime past nine, she pulled on the trousers Amelia had altered to mask the curve of her hips, and a worn old shirt that Josh had worn as a boy. She pushed her feet into scuffed leather boots, strapping Gabe's knife to her calf beneath the leg of her pants and buckling his gun around her waist. She tucked what remained of her hair beneath a wide-brimmed hat, and then stood in the mirror, surveying herself from all sides.

She could pass for a boy...

Melissa saw her off, with a stoic expression and a powerful, lingering hug while the horse Josh had loaned her huffed and shuffled behind her.

"Are you sure?" she asked as she stepped away. It was not the first time she'd asked, and she wasn't sure if her friend's response would even matter, but she had to give her the chance. Her actions would likely affect her family..

"It was our idea," Melissa said, squeezing her arm. "Remember?"

It had been, but the second Melissa had sat down on the edge of Gabe's bed an hour after his arrest and started grumbling about men with their twisted sense of honor and self-sacrifice, making unsound decisions in the name of protecting their women, Katherine had made it her own.

Gabe will kill me.

God, she hoped so. Because if he killed her, that meant he was alive to do it.

It was half past ten when she waved farewell to her dearest friend and swung up into the saddle. Damn, though, if it wasn't easier in trousers than in skirts. Even the split riding skirts she'd taken to wearing when she lived with the Tuckers were an encumbrance compared to the comfort of trousers.

A strange sense of power came over as she rode, alone, down the darkened road toward town. A cap shadowed her face, and to any passerby she would appear to be some new ranch hand—a boy Josh had hired right out of his mother's home.

Nonetheless, she did not feel invisible.

She did not feel invincible.

She did not feel safe.

She felt powerful. Like the wind, rushing through the grass, and the owls circling overhead in search of prey. She had Gabe to thank for that. He had killed her husband and set her free from the throttling noose of her marriage. He had killed her and set her free from the town's judgment. He had left behind a worn canvas bag filled with stacks upon stacks of bills, and set her free from the burden of poverty.

Gabe will kill me.

She rode slowly, savoring the night in a way she hadn't done since she was a girl. The air was cool and dry, and perfumed with mud and blossoming trees and the sweet perfume of dead leaves, frozen beneath the snow and now damp and rotting in the warmth of spring.

When she reached town, she dismounted and led her horse through the streets, wanting to stay low where the shadow of her hat would hide her face from any passersby. It was very late at night—or very early morning—but the town was alive with a strained, dark revelry. The house were all lit from within, windows glowing orange and yellow with the lamplight, and men and women gathered on porches and at intersections, heads down and voices low.

Katherine slipped into the dark alley between the bank and the cobbler and fed her horse an apple from the saddle bag. She drank deeply from a canteen filled with crisp well-water and munched on a hard heel of bread. The food and drink seemed to congeal into a gummy mass inside her stomach, but she forced it all down.

She needed to be strong.

She dozed there, hidden in the darkness of the alleyway, for several hours, though she never fell fully asleep. Every few minutes her head would bob and she would jerk awake, scrabbling frantically for the pocket-watch she'd tucked into her coat. Although she never slept, she somehow jerked awake from each doze having lived through entire dreams where she slept through to noon and let him die without ever knowing that she had finally chosen him.

But, of course, each time she checked the watch only minutes had passed.

The wee hours gradually gave way to early morning, and the eerie celebration all around her began to mass around the sheriff's office. She watched from her hiding place as men and women strode by, silhouetted by the streetlights. Some carried guns. Some lanterns. Some laughed, some whispered, and some walked in stony silence.

At five o'clock, she rose and led her horse out from the shadows, joining the slow-moving stream of townspeople to the sheriff's office. She stood amidst the shifting throng, and though her feelings for Gabe were very different, her own taut mixture of emotions blended into theirs, adding itself to the toxic sludge of fear and anger and hope.

At half-past five, the door to the sheriff's office opened and the prisoner was led out onto the porch. The crowd went quiet. So quiet, Katherine worried they could hear her pained gasp.

The week had not been kind to the man she loved.

Seven days' worth of stubble coated his jaw, and his face was drawn and gray, eyes sunken and glassy. Though he stood under his own power, he seemed to sway with the billow and swirl of some intangible wind.

She shifted back, on the edge of the crowd, as it parted to let Gabe and his entourage through. She had half a mind to spring forward right there and whisk him away, but she knew she couldn't. They had gone over this, she and Josh, Amelia and Melissa, and the foreman Paul who apparently had a long-dormant talent for such tactical operations.

There's nowhere to go, from the sheriff's office, he had said. City hall is closer to the edge of town, near the river, and everyone in town will be gathered at the courtyard. You'll have a clear path down this street here and into the woods.

His reasoning was sound, and his assistance in crafting this insane plan had been invaluable, but Katherine nonetheless still cursed his name while she trailed along behind her love as he stumbled down through the streets at the head of a morbid parade.

What had they done to him?

He'd been healthy when he left her. A little dirty, sure, and tired from a sleepless night. But still very much the strong, devilish man who had splintered a solid wooden door and shot down her captors with a steady hand, and then carried her away in his arms as if she were no bigger than Isobel.

What had they done?

At the courtyard, the crowd jostled and pushed for a view while Gabe was prodded up the steps to the platform, where he stood, staring blankly out at the audience to his execution. It pained her to leave him, even for a moment, even if he didn't yet know she was there, but she had to stash the horse.

Amelia had planned that aspect of the plan.

You can't bring it right up with you to the platform. Put him back a couple blocks, that way the crowd thinks you're on foot. Plus you'll be quieter and you stand a better chance of losing them in the first chase.

She left the horse two blocks from the courtyard, the lead wrapped loosely around the support beam of some unsuspecting family's back porch.

The Wrights, Mel had suggested. Their son's wife just gave birth. First grandchild. They'll be out at his ranch for at least the next week.

With the horse safely stowed away, she hurried back to the courtyard. The mayor was speaking. She heard his nasally voice, spewing some nastiness about God and vengeance. The crowd had grown, and she sidled up into the edges, unnoticed. Perhaps someone might have recognized her in the growing light, if they had been looking anywhere but at the spectacle.

She strained on her tiptoes, trying to catch a glimpse of Gabe. Finally, through the space between one man's head and another's shoulder, she caught a flash of his face. He'd fixed his gaze somewhere over their heads, and she turned to follow his eyes. Down the street, framed by two uneven rows of shabby business-fronts, the sun was just pushing up toward the horizon, casting ribbons of soft spring colors that unfurled between the darkness of the earth and the soft blue of the disappearing night sky.

She turned back toward the platform, and was struck by a sudden, paralyzing sadness at the worn, lonely resolve in his expression. If only he knew that she was right here, poised to rescue him. That Josh and Amelia were paving the way toward their escape. That Caroline was arranging to secure them new identities to help them evade the law and the rest of the girls had all willingly agreed to trade the peace he had won them for his life.

All of that, and this fool thought he was alone, intense gaze fixed on some watery sunrise like that fleeting beauty was all the goodness he had left to his name.

Gabe will kill me.

Well, to hell with that. She'd kill him. How dare he have so little faith!

Pat's widow had replaced the mayor. She was giving some sad little speech about forgiveness, and Katherine wanted to throttle her. Perhaps she would have felt more pity if one of the other widows had chosen to stand up and feign Christlike merccy. But Agnes?

He didn't even kill your husband, you bimbo! Jacob did!

Tucking her chin to her chest, she mustered her love, her resolve, and the newfound courage that roared in her veins, and she began to inch her way toward the platform, hand going to the pistol at her side. The timing was right. The sheriff's deputies had stepped away. Now was the moment to--

A hand clamped around her forearm, twisting it behind her back. Another closed over her mouth, stifling her startled scream.

She flailed and bucked in her captor's hold, but he didn't let go and nobody from the crowd even noticed as she was hauled away.

No, no, no. Please, no.

It wasn't fear that had her heart slamming in her ears as her captor's limping gate carried her away from the crowd.

It wasn't existential dread that had her flailing in his iron grip, scrabbling for his eyeballs with fingertips.

It was anger.

How dare he stop her?

How dare he force her to leave the man she loved alone with his fate.

How dare he hold her as if her body and her freedom were his to command?

Through the fog of fury, she finally took note of one very important detail.

He's limping.

Robert Mulligan.

She closed her eyes as he dragged her down a side alley, out of sight and hearing of the crowd. He'd hefted her against his barrel chest and her toes dangled inches off the ground.

God, please. Please.

She tried to pull together her distant, foggy memories of her rescue. Gabe had shot him twice. Right shoulder and left leg.

Abandoning her futile efforts to gouge his eyes and slam the back of her head into his face, she instead went limp, letting her arms drop to the side, waiting for him to relax his grip just enough...

... and then flailed back, striking with all her might at his right shoulder.

A gasp and a curse accompanied a puff of hot air against the back of her neck, and his hold slipped. She twisted and writhed against the iron bend of his left arm around her chest, slamming the side of her head against his shoulder again and again and—

He dropped her with a muffled grunt of pain and she hit the ground running, dodging around him and racing for the street. She had to stop them!

Thundering footsteps pounded the earth behind her and a giant hand slammed into her shoulder. She tumbled to the ground, twisting just in time to swallow a scream as he landed hard on his knees over top of her. His eyes were wild and his hand wrapped around her neck, pinning her to the ground.

"You little whore," he said. "You thought I wouldn't recognize you? I never took you for stupid, Mrs. Peters. Coming here? And why? You want to watch that demon die the way you watched a good man gunned down?"

Spots were darting in front of her eyes, and his voice was growing distant. His hand squeezed tighter, and then released her. She gulped for air as his fingers roved down, pawing at her body.

Gabe will kill me.

No, he won't. He won't have to. I'll already be dead.

No!

No, she refused to die. She had too much to do, yet, today. And she had suffered and survived too much to die at this pathetic man's grubby hand.

This time she didn't relax to throw him off her intent. Instead, she threw even more zeal into her struggles. She twisted to the right and wedged her legs up against the bulk of his body. Her fingers brushed the hilt of the knife.

Mulligan was ripping at her jacket now, one hand fumbling for the buckle of his own belt. He was crazed. Enraged. A wild animal, hell bent on some ugly combination of release and revenge.

Finally, her fingers latched onto the knife. She wrenched it loose and, without thought to God and sin, plunged it deep into the first thing she could reach-- his leg.

His ruddy face was hanging over hers, so she saw the shock. The pain. His eyes, already glazed, went wide and bright. With a stifled sob, she yanked the knife out and stabbed it into his back. It was so much harder than she would have thought, and she felt each layer of resistance. First the thick wool of his coat, and then the thin cotton of the shirt beneath—snapping fiber beneath the press of the blade. She felt his flesh, thick and soft. She felt muscle, hard and taut. She felt the gritty scrape of the tip slide over bone, and she felt the satisfying squish as it sank into his lung.

Pressing her lips together, she twisted her whole body, shoving the blade sideways toward his spine. He coughed, and blood spattered her face. He moaned and slumped sideways, the weight of his legs still pinning her to the ground, and the motion pulled the blade loose from his body.

Panting and whimpering in shock and disbelief, Katherine shoved her body out from beneath him, scrabbling away with the bloody knife still clenched in her hand. Robert Mulligan lay on his back, one hand pressed to his chest as his whole body twitched and spasmed with his strained efforts to breathe.

Katherine rose to her feet, legs watery, hands trembling, and stood over him, staring down at the shiny gray of his face.

"He let you live," she said, slowly sinking down to her knees beside him as she used her sleeve to wipe his blood from her face. His eyes met hers and she shook her head, tears blurring her vision. "He let you live, Mr. Mulligan. All you had to do was leave us be."

He didn't answer except to gurgle out a stream of watery blood that slipped over his cheek and dropped into the mud.

"I'm sorry, Robert," she said, shoving the knife back into its sheath, and the worst part of all was that she wasn't.

No, she realized as she rounded the corner, the worst part of all was that Robert Mulligan had cost her everything.

She was too late.

Her mind refused to let her believe that the body standing on the stool was Gabe. His face was covered with a burlap sack, and although he'd squared his shoulders to face his fate, his posture was too slumped to be her avenging angel. It must be some other man, magically transported from the crowd to take Gabe's place.

That absurd fantasy snapped the second they yanked the stool out from beneath him. His body seemed to fall forever, but really it was only inches before the rope caught tight. He jerked and then dangled as she had in Mulligan's grasp, his toes a scant six inches off the ground. But those inches could have been a mile as he jerked about in the air, legs kicking in a desperate bid for purchase. The crowd had gone deathly silent, either out of respect for death or out of fascination. They were so quiet, she could hear the quiet, choking sounds as he fought for air that wouldn't come.

Her feet were running before her mind had fully grasped what she was seeing. A few stragglers at the edges of the crowd turned with confusion at the sound of her boots pounding the brick. Most, however, didn't even notice her until she threw herself onto the platform.

"Woah, boy!" the sheriff said, reaching for his pistol, but before he could draw it or take even a step toward her, she yanked her own gun from its holster and aimed it at his chest.

"Stop!" she screamed, letting the gun leave his body for three long seconds to sweep across the crowd. "All of you! Stay back!"

The crowd shifted with unease, and the sheriff took a step forward.

"I said stop!" she yelled again, her voice cracking around her rage. Her fear. She kept the gun up, Mulligan's drying blood gluing her hand to the handle, and moved blindly toward where the rope was anchored. The dangling body—it couldn't be Gabe—had ceased its frantic struggle and was merely twitching. Her arm ached already from the weight of the pistol, but she held it steady, shifting it from the sheriff to his deputies to the crowd. "I've only got six bullets, but if any of you move I swear on my life I'll take six of you with me before I go."

Nobody moved. Breath coming in frantic sobs, not taking her eyes or her aim from the crowd, she reached down and yanked the bloody knife from its sheath and edged over to where the rope was anchored to one leg of the scaffold. It was as big around as her wrist, and the body wasn't moving at all, now.

"Katherine," the sheriff said, as she began sawing at the rough hemp.

"Get back," she seethed, jerking the gun at him without stopping her frantic efforts. A few fibers snapped, but she wasn't fast enough. He'd sliced through her bindings as if they were made of string. Why was this taking so long? "I will kill you, sheriff. One more step, and I'll kill you."

She prayed he valued his life over the execution of his duties. If she shot him the crowd would erupt and this whole plan would collapse. Already it was going so terribly awry. She hadn't planned for this. It was never supposed to be this frantic, this chaotic, and she was never supposed to be alone. She was supposed to have Gabe to help her. He wasn't supposed to be dangling there like a corpse.

Another fiber snapped and the body jerked downward. She was crying now, in earnest, but her tears burned like fire down her cheeks and each shuddering sob only filled her with more resolve. She was crying. Gasping. Sucking in air.

He wasn't even breathing.

At last, the final fiber snapped and the body dropped to the platform with a heavy, hollow sound, punctuated by the gut-wrenching crack of his head striking the wood.

"Gabe," she breathed, rushing to his side and dropping to her knees. Someone in the crowd moved, and she aimed her pistol at his head. "I said don't move," she screamed, trying to remember the words. She had planned a whole speech for this. She was supposed to give it while Gabe helped her control the crowd, with the gun she had stowed for him in the pocket of her coat.

Instead, he lay face-down on the platform, the slack rope coiled on his motionless back like a snake. She dropped the knife at her side and scrabbled with numb fingers at the rope around his neck, fumbling to loosen it.

"Katherine," said a woman in the front row. Pat's widow, garbed for mourning from the sheer black veil that covered her hair to the points of her shiny black boots. "What are you doing?"

Emboldened, more voices rose from the crowd.

"That man killed your husband, Katherine!"

"He kidnapped you!"

"Shoot him!"

"We thought you were dead!"

"Yes," she spat as she finally worked the rope loose. She wanted to yank it off and throw it aside, along with the ugly brown burlap, but she needed two hands for that and she only had one. "This man killed my husband. But he didn't kill yours," she said to Mrs. Weston. Movement in the corner of her eye drew her attention, and the barrel of her pistol, towards the sheriff.

"Don't," she commanded. "I won't ask you again, sheriff. In fact, why don't you and your deputies take your guns out of the holsters, nice and slow, leave them here on the platform, and go stand with the mayor."

She waited, her heart hammering in her chest and her free hand resting between Gabe's shoulder blades, as the sheriff did as she bade, slowly removing the gun from its holster and placing it on the ground before stepping down off the platform and ushering his deputies with him to join the edge of the crowd.

"As I was saying," she said, grabbing hold of Gabe's shoulder and yanking him onto his side, his back towards her. "He killed my husband, and he killed several of the men who followed my husband, and it's the best thing anybody has ever done for this town."

A wave of protest rose in the crowd, but she silenced it with a glare and a wave of her pistol. Her throat ached from screaming, but she lifted her chin and belted out the words so that even the stragglers at the back could hear.

"Reverend Jacob Peters wasn't a man of god," she said, retrieving the knife and slipping it between Gabe's bound wrists and his back. "He was a lunatic." She wanted to be careful, but haste was more important as she began sawing through the ropes, grateful that the tension of the effort at least held his bound hands away from his body so she wasn't at risk of stabbing him in the back. "He corrupted the word of God and fed you all lies. He used his position to convince you all to wage war on folks who never did anybody any harm."

"Those whores—"

"Those whores," Katherine interrupted, glaring out at the crowd, "are only selling. You are the ones buying. Wives, if you really want someone to blame for what happens in that saloon, turn to your husbands. Husbands, look inward."

God, the rope was thick, and the angle was so awkward. Fresh, warm blood joined the dry stuff on her hands, and she knew she had cut him. He hadn't even flinched. Please, wake up. Please, don't be dead.

"Reverend Peters was a cruel man. He stood before you preaching righteousness, and behind closed doors he beat me daily." A rush of shame fought to rise up from her gut, but she swallowed it down. "And to those of you who would say I deserved it, I didn't. He beat me for nothing. For wearing the wrong color dress or for putting too much cream in his coffee. He beat me for looking too pretty, and he beat me for not looking pretty enough. They were all just excuses, just like those sermons he gave were just excuses to turn you against people who never hurt you."

A prick of pain drew her attention back to her task, where the knife had finally sliced through the rope and glanced off of her knee. Not daring to take her eye off the crowd, she yanked at the coils of rope around his wrists, pulling them loose and tossing them aside.

"Gabe, please," she murmured, grasping his shoulder and tugging until he slumped onto his back. He still hadn't made a sound. "Please," she whispered, pushing her fingers beneath the rope and the burlap and prodding for the pulse in his neck, but she wasn't Melissa. She felt nothing, but maybe she wasn't even feeling in the right place. "Please. Please, wake up. We have to go, Gabe. Wake up." The crowd shifted and murmured, and she waved the gun at them, raising her voice. "If any one of you reaches for a gun, I swear I'll—"

A great, choking gasp cut her off, and it was all she could do not to drop the gun and her gaze and simply collapse in relief. Eyes blurring with tears, she kept her eyes on the crowd while, in her periphery, Gabe jerked with several wheezing breaths and then rolled toward her. Sucking in air, he curled inward and pulled his arms in, fighting to push himself up to his hands and knees.

Thank you, she sent heavenward. Then, keeping the gun aimed at the crowd, her eyes trained for movement, she placed a hand on Gabe's back as he choked and coughed out the death that had claimed him, forehead pressed to the platform beneath them. "I'm here," she said. "It's me. It's Katherine."

He only groaned in response, the sound rusty and jagged, and cut off by a rough, dry cough.

"Please, Gabe," she urged, fumbling blindly to yank the rope from his neck. A rough palm met the back of her hand as he reached up to assist, whether at her urging or from an instinctual need to rid himself of the thing that had killed him.

With her help, he yanked the rope from around his neck, and then the burlap sack. Then he merely collapsed onto his back, wheezing at the sky.

"I know," she choked out, risking a split second to glance down and press her hand to his cheek. She returned her gaze to the crowd but left her touch, and spoke quietly so only he could hear. "I know you're tired but you need to stay awake. Please, Gabe. If you don't wake up they're going to kill us both."

He jerked at that, his face turning into her hand, and she felt rather than saw his eyes blink open.

"Kat?" If she hadn't been listening for it, she wouldn't even have heard him, his voice was so ragged.

"Yes," she said, wishing she had time to coax him gently back into the land of the living. If only she could cart him around the way he'd done her. Unfortunately, she doubted she could even drag him to the edge of the platform, so if he wanted them both to survive he was going to have to pull himself together. "Listen. I know you're confused, but you need to get up. Look." She pushed his face toward the crowd. His mind must have at least been capable of perceiving the danger they were in, because he jerked and shoved himself upright with a groan, clutching his head.

She retrieved the knife and stowed it before pushing to her feet. Her arm was wavering with fatigue, but now she had both hands so she braced it, clasping her hands together around the handle of the pistol and holding it steady. "Get up," she nudged Gabe with her foot, guilt stabbing at her as he struggled to do as she'd ordered. The crowd was beginning to rustle with silent rebellion, and she lifted her chin and glared down at them over the edge of her nose.

"We're leaving," she said. "That's all we ever wanted to do. When Jacob finally crossed the line and struck my daughter, I left him and went to the only person in this wretched, cowardly town who I knew would protect me. All we wanted was to leave. We never intended to hurt anybody. Jacob is the one who convinced your sons and husbands to come after me. Jacob was the one who kidnapped my daughter. Jacob was the one who shot Pat," she said, pointing the barrel of her gun at the man's widow, "when he tried to back out. Jacob is the one who strung me up, naked, on the altar of your church and threatened to rape me in God's name. If that is truly the kind of man you want to mourn, then do so. But I will not join you, and I won't allow you to kill the one good man among you in the name of justice. Justice was served the second Gabe put a bullet in Jacob's heart."

Finally, Gabe found his feet, and his hand came to rest on her shoulder.

"There's a gun in my left coat pocket," she said to him, without turning from the crowd. "If you think you can aim, take it."

He huffed out something that could have been a sound of derision, but also could very well have been a cough, and reached into her pocket to retrieve the pistol.

"We're going, now," she said, backing away without taking her gun off the crowd. "All I'm asking is that you consider what I've said. I was raised in the church. I know the Bible as my father preached it. Christ never demanded judgment from His followers. Only God is fit to judge our sins. His Son's message was one of love and forgiveness. Not one of rape and hatred and cruelty. I am truly, truly sorry for the loss of your sons. I'm sorry that they were led astray. But don't waste your time or your heart grieving a man who never cared for any of you. Don't condemn a man to death for rescuing me from torture I didn't deserve. And please, please don't follow us."

They'd reached the edge of the platform.

"Go," Gabe rasped, and she didn't waste time arguing, but left him to guard her back as she turned and hopped down off the back edge. Once she'd raised her pistol back up and was scanning the crowd over the top of the platform, she nudged his leg.

"Now you," she murmured before raising her voice to the crowd. "If any one of you so much as moves, we'll start firing. There's two of us now. That's twelve bullets. Twelve bodies. This town has already lost enough. Capturing us isn't worth that cost."

Gabe's descent was less graceful than hers. His knees buckled when he landed, and he pitched forward onto his hands and knees with a grunt of pain. But before she could reach out to help him, he'd found his feet.

At her guidance, they began to edge slowly away, guns held aloft as they made for the nearest row of buildings. "Once we're out of range, we run," she said. "It's not far. Two blocks north, I've got a horse waiting."

The crowd was beginning to shift, separating and oozing around the sides of the platform to follow them.

"Just let us go," she cried, brandishing the pistol as tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. She'd known they wouldn't make it so easy, but part of her had hoped. "Please. Please, don't make me hurt you."

Those words turned out to be the last she ever spoke to the town that had raised her. They reached the solid brick wall of the hotel, which shared a back alley with city hall. The second the shadow of the building fell over them, Gabe's hand closed around her arm, yanking her around and shoving her in front of him as they both stumbled into a run.

The crowd roared, and the earth seemed to shudder beneath their feet with the pounding of a hundred sets of feet. Katherine ran as fast as her feet could carry her, and the weight of their impending capture seemed to propel Gabe forward in spite of his having only recently returned from the grave. He stayed close at her shoulder, only slowing once to fire a shot behind him after a stray bullet glanced off the wall by their heads and showered them with dust and shards of brick.

When they reached the horse, Katherine snatched the lead rope from the beam and swung up into the saddle while Gabe fired down the road behind them. The second she'd found her seat, she pulled her pistol free. "Mount up!" she ordered, removing her foot from the stirrup to free it, and keeping her eye down the road. The first man—one of the sheriff's deputies—rounded the corner, but flung himself back when she fired a bullet that struck the building beside his head. The saddle shifted and Gabe swung up behind her. "I'll ride, you watch behind," she said over her shoulder, before reclaiming the stirrup and kicking the horse into a gallop.

She zig-zaged through the streets, hoofbeats echoing off the walls of the buildings around them, and the hum of the crowd growing steadily more distant. The heat of Gabe's body—blessedly alive—pressed against her back, one strong arm winding around her to cling to the saddlehorn for balance. His breath was ragged and strained in her ear, but steady.

Even so, she didn't draw her first real breath until they left the darkness of the last alleyway and plunged headfirst into the woods. The clopping of hooves on pavement gave way to the rustling thud of hooves on soft earth beneath a blanket of rotting leaves and pine needles. Reluctantly, Katherine let the horse slow to a canter. They'd gained a fair enough lead that it wasn't worth risking their mount dropping a leg into a hole.

"Kat," Gabe murmured as they slowed, and his hand released the saddle to wrap around her waist, his head dropping to rest on her shoulder. "What the hell?"

A giddy laugh rose up from her belly, and she pressed a hand over his, turning her head to press a kiss to his temple.

"I know you're angry," she said. "But I promise we thought it all through. Every detail. I know this isn't how the rescue is supposed to go, but I need you to trust me, okay?"

"There wasn't supposed to be a rescue," he rasped, but his arm flexed around her waist. "You were supposed to leave."

"Yes, well you were supposed to leave with us," she said sweetly, guiding the horse by instinct toward their destination.

"Where's Iz?"

"With Josh and Amelia. By now they're on the train to Powell."

His weight seemed to triple against her, and she guessed it was more from exhaustion than acquiescence to this scheme. She wiggled her shoulders to jostle him.

"You have to stay awake, Gabe," she said, once again turning her face to press her lips to his temple, savoring the heat of him.

He grunted and straightened, and she guided the horse through the trees, memory guiding her so effectively she never once pulled the folded map from her coat pocket. Fifteen minutes later, she pulled the horse to a halt.

"We're walking from here," she said, patting Gabe's leg and slipped her foot from the stirrup so he could use it. Wordlessly, he slid from the saddle, and then simply stood, clinging to the pommel with his face pressed against the lathered hide of the horse's shoulder.

"Gabe?" Katherine launched herself down from her perch, wrapping her arm around his waist. "Are you alright?"

He pulled in a breath, a horrible, strained wheeze, and then nodded, pushing himself away from the horse and turning to face her. She bit her lip and reached up to push his hair away from the ugly lump on his forehead where his head must have struck the ground. A raised, purple-red welt circled his neck, and his golden skin had a waxy, yellowish hue.

No time.

Gritting her teeth, she turned to tug the knapsacks from the saddlebags, handing one to Gabe and slinging the other over her own shoulders. She'd also brought his gunbelt, and he buckled it around his waist with a weary smile of gratitude, shoving the revolver she'd given him into the holster.

Patting the horse on the nose, Katherine sent him on his way with a slap to the rump, trusting Josh's assurance that the animal would find its way home, leading a clear trail for their pursuers to follow, in the opposite direction from the one she and Gabe would be taking.

"Come on," she said, holding out a hand. He took it, although he must know by now where they were going. Perhaps he just knew that he needed the steady pull of her hand to keep moving forward. His every ragged, hard-fought breath sent fresh stabs of sympathy into her heart, and it was all she could do not to call a halt and build a fire and lay out a bedroll for him, right there in the middle of the forest. "Soon," she mumbled to herself, forcing her feet to move even faster.

When they reached the river, she splashed into the water, dragging Gabe with her, and then turned upstream. For half a mile, they slogged through the water, until they finally reached their destination. Katherine stumbled to a halt and Gabe stopped beside her, his cool hand still wrapped around hers.

"Kat..." he rasped. "No."

"Well, we can't very well take the main road out of town, can we?" she said crossly, releasing his hand to cinch down the straps of her pack. "They'll be watching the bridge."

He grimaced, squinting at the play of the gurgling black water around soft gray rock. "Water's high."

"Sure is."

"We never made it before."

"We were kids," she said brightly. "We're stronger now." In truth, her optimism was feigned. She was stronger, now. Gabe looked ready to keel over. When he didn't respond, she stepped close and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her ear to his chest. "We don't have a choice," she murmured. "They'll bring the dogs out to search the woods, and they're watching the roads. And you and I both know this is the only feasible crossing for miles."

For a long moment, they simply stood there, with their feet sinking into the wet gravel of the shore and the river sliding by them in mute audience. Gabe's hand rested against the back of her head, and she felt the warmth of his breath in her hair.

"Fine," he said finally, straightening and turning toward the river with a fatalistic expression on his face, similarly to the one he'd worn to his own execution. "I'll go first. Wait until I'm steady on each stone before following."

She barked out a laugh and gently nudged him aside, taking a step back and launching herself smoothly over the shallow waters to the first rock. She turned and waited for him to follow, steadying him with a hand on his arm when he landed. Rising onto her tiptoes, she kissed his cheek. "You had your heroic rescue," she reminded him, hoping her confident smile hid the kernel of doubt that sat heavy in her chest. "Don't you go trying to steal mine." 

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Almost done! It's almost done!!! All that's left is the fluffy happy goop that I hate so much to write but I guess people like to read it or whatever, so I comply. 

Thank you (thank you thank you) for reading and an extra special thanks to those sainted among who you leave comments. I cannot articulate how heavily I rely upon the little feedbacks.

Love!

Liz

P.S. IT's AlMosT dONe!!!

P.P.S. Join the Discord server, bizatches!  Meet fellow readers! Grimace at stale memes! Read teasers! Put up with me whining about my testosterone-fueled roommates! What an adventure!  Don't miss out! (Fresh invite in the comments)

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