‘Whoa man, put that thing down it’s me, Amato.’
‘Amato? What the fuck?’ Beriael lowered the pistol and tucked it back under his pillow. Bitsy had covered herself and was watching Amato, her face strained with concern. He had a fair idea she was getting some pretty strong vibes from him right now, with her creepy mind shit.
‘Leci’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ She swung her legs out of the side of the bed and stood, wrapping a sheet around herself as a makeshift dress. ‘Gone where?’
‘Did she say anything to you Bits? Anything about leaving?’ He asked urgently.
‘No...’ Bitsy frowned; trying to remember anything the other girl may have done or said that might’ve been significant. She couldn’t and shook her head with a feeling of hopelessness. She felt for Amato, literally. She could feel the angst rolling from him in great, powerful waves that almost knocked her over with their weight.
He was hurt and confused, he was afraid and angry. Angry with Alecia, angry with himself, she didn’t know, couldn’t be so specific without delving deeper but he was very, very angry.
‘No, nothing. Why would she leave Amato?’
Amato shook his head, muttered something below his breath and then punched a wall. Morgan flinched in surprise. Beriael had gotten out of bed and was dressing; he looked up, moved over to his friend.
‘Amato, man, what good is hurting yourself gonna do? Come on, calm down. We gotta think this through, figure out where she’d go and then bring her back, breaking your hand ain’t gonna help none is it?’
Morgan slipped into her shirt and pants quickly and then moved past the men and out of the room. She headed towards the table and returned with a bottle.
‘Here, some of this might help your nerves.’
He took the bottle of gin and swigged from it, then cursed loudly and flung it across the room. The bottle shattered against the wall and Bitsy cried out, raising her hands to shield her face from the flying shards of glass.
‘It’s my fault.’
Amato left the room, spun back into the main area of the cabin, picking up anything he came across and hurling it in random directions. An ancient, framed picture of some long dead dog smashed to pieces in the stove, an apple splattered into mushy ruin when it connected with the wall and a candle disappeared from sight as it flew through the open hole of a window.
Morgan followed him, reaching out for him, trying to grab him and stop him, calm him.
‘Amato, Amato! Sit down! Come on, this isn’t your fault! Amato!’
He wasn’t listening, moved through the cabin destroying anything he came into contact with. He kicked the small table out of his way, flipped the armchair over onto its back and threw one of the wooden chairs out of the open doorway and into the brightening day outside.
He stopped his rampage when a gunshot rang out, deafening in such close quarters. Amato and Morgan turned, both of them shocked. Beriael stood holding his pistol aimed towards a window, smoke trailing wispily upwards from the barrel.
‘Ok. This ain’t helpin’, Amato. You gotta calm down before you hurt yourself, cos if you do that Leci will really be screwed, won’t she?’
Conceding, he ran a hand through his hair and sank down onto the sofa. Morgan sat beside him, placed a comforting hand on his back and rubbed his shoulders soothingly.
‘What did you mean this is all your fault?’ She asked when Amato seemed to have settled a little.
He shook his head and looked angry again.
‘I gave her the fucking idea, I practically sent her away. I should’ve kept my fucking mouth shut.’
‘Start at the beginning buddy.’ Beriael urged, setting the armchair to rights and sitting on its arm.
‘Day before yesterday...’ Amato shook his head as though he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid to not know what was going on, to not have known what she’d plan on doing. Or maybe just for thinking that what he’d told her about how he felt would’ve made any difference at all, would have convinced her that she needed to be here, with him, always.
‘She was askin all kinda questions, about ‘em lookin’ for us, about whether or not they’d give up if and just stop lookin’ if we fell under the radar long enough. Wanted to know if this was a safe enough place to stay long term.’ He shrugged and looked up helplessly, Morgan felt his pain but was contending with her own aswell.
Leci was a friend and they’d grown close in the last few days, almost a sisterly bond forming between them. This was worrying and frightening but she felt she had to put on a brave face for Amato’s sake, if nothing else.
‘I told her no. I told her that they won’t stop lookin’, that she’s too valuable to ‘em and that while she’s still out here and alive they won’t leave any of us alone. She got it into her head that we’d be better off without her.’ He looked from Beriael to Morgan and back again.
‘Not that we’d just be better off if she wasn’t here, in the cabin with us. But that the only way they’d leave us alone was if they knew she was dead, knew there was no point in lookin’ no more.’
Beriael groaned and Morgan gasped as what he was saying sank in.
Amato stood, he seemed to have recomposed himself and was once more the image of cool and collected that he had always been.
‘She took one of the horses. I’m taking the other. You two will be fine so long as you stay here, got it?’
‘No way man, you know we’re not gonna let you do this alone.’ Beriael stood, shaking his head, Bits nodded in agreement.
‘Yeah, you are. I need to do this alone. I know where she’s heading, and with only one horse you guys are just gonna slow me down.’ He looked almost apologetic.
‘Besides, if she comes back, you need to be here.’
Bitsy raised an eyebrow slightly and smiled.
‘You don’t need to patronise us sweetie, we know as well as you do that she won’t come back, not when she thinks she’s doing us a favour. But yeah, the other part makes sense. You can get a lot more done without us two slowing you down.’
Beriael looked as though he might argue but thought better of it and finally nodded his assent.
‘I’ll pack you some food.’ Morgan busied herself preparing a bag for him while Amato promised Beriael he’d be careful and that he’d bring her home safely.
‘Has anyone seen my jacket?’ He frowned, scanning the cabin.
‘Wasn’t it on the back of that chair you threw outside?’ Bitsy asked with a grin.
‘Yeah...’ He muttered, looking towards the open doorway, his expression thoughtful. ‘But not when I threw it.’
Morgan stopped what she was doing and looked at him questioningly.
‘She took it with her?’
He nodded and then smiled.
‘Yeah. Looks like she did. Shit, I gotta find her before she burns that thing up. I liked that jacket!’
#
The Clones stood in the doorway and waved him off. Bitsy looked nervous and scared, wringing her hands with worry, Beriael circled a hand around her waist and hugged her to him gently.
Amato was pretty sure the bald dude was more worried about the state his wife was in, due to Leci’s disappearance, than he was about Leci herself.
Still, he knew that deep down, somewhere, Ber was concerned about the Firebug, and it was kind of touching, knowing that despite what had gone on between the two of them, there was a possibility they could get over the past and live harmoniously alongside one another.
Ok... Enough of that soppy crap.
The important thing right now was to get his ass in gear and go find his girl. He knew that she would head for the nearest town, had a pretty good idea what she was planning on doing, and knew that he had to get there before she did it. He had no idea how much of a head start she had on him but he fully intended to make up as much ground as possible. He was relieved he had vague tracking skills to fall back on, hopefully he would be able to pick up her trail and locate her pretty easily that way. He doubted tha
t she would be trying very hard to cover her tracks, or, at least, he was relying on her not doing. She wasn’t stupid but he reckoned that right now she was feeling pretty reckless, if she really was running off to kill herself in some insane act of martyrdom then she wouldn’t really care about hiding her tracks.
‘Be careful. Find her.’ Bitsy instructed him and he nodded, saluting the two of them in a gesture of farewell, double-checking the rifle slung across his back before kicking the horse into motion and vanishing into the trees.
Chapter 24
Leci was tired. She wanted nothing more than to stop and rest for a little while, but she knew she couldn’t and so she pushed on. She felt as though she had been running for days but knew it was less than half of one and judging by the position of the sun, high up in the sky, she’d been gone maybe ten hours or so.
It felt like more.
It wasn’t enough.
She suspected that they would follow, or that Amato would. There was only one other horse, it wouldn’t be feasible for the three of them to uproot and come after her, besides, doing something like that could lose them the cabin.
If anyone came, it would be him, and he would come alone.
Half of her hoped that he would, the romantic part of her that refused to shut up, lay down, stop interrupting and just fucking die so that she could concentrate on what she was trying to do.
The second half was her more realistic, logical side and it kept trying to viciously beat the first into submission, make it be quiet if only for a little while, long enough to get things done.
It was doing an ok job of keeping her imagination in check.
Sort of.
She’d caught herself detouring off into a fantasy world once; he rode up alongside her, his horse was white, rather than the black one she had left behind, he reached over and grabbed a hold of her, pulled her from her saddle and into his arms and then rode off with her into the sunset...
Yeah, aside from that she’d managed to keep her mind on business...
She was putting her lapses down to sleep deprivation. She hadn’t slept the previous night when she’d lain awake waiting for the chance to leave, and the night before that... well, she’d not gotten all that much rest then either, had she?
When you factored in the two full days of riding before that, the only sleep she’d gotten then had been when someone else had taken over the riding and she had managed to doze fitfully on the back of a horse that was being run at full gallop. In a situation like that it just made sense to pay more attention to keeping a good grip rather than catching some Zs.
Again, not a terribly restful of an experience.
She almost missed the quiet of her cell, back at the prison. At least then if she’d wanted a good night’s shut-eye she could’ve just played up until they injected her with the drugs that sent her out of it for hours at a time.
The sun was high and hot and she no longer had the cover of the trees to block out the worst of it. She’d entered barren wasteland a few hours earlier. The ground was dry, parched, and clouds of dust rose around her, stirred by the thundering hooves.
She wore her cap pulled down low to shield her eyes and Amato’s jacket was tied around her waist. She was sweaty and dirty from so much time on the horse, and the first few hours until she had finally just gone numb had been absolute hell with the jolting motion aggravating her various aches and bruises.
Maybe she should’ve waited a few days until she’d healed a little.
‘Come on Leci, who’re you kidding?’ She asked herself sneeringly. ‘You think you could’ve kept your hands off him long enough to start feeling better before the two of you got all nasty and piled a load more of the good kind of hurt on top of the ones he already gave you?’
Not a chance Leci, babe.
Not a chance.
Plus, she knew that if she had waited she would’ve just been inviting herself to get comfortable and the more comfortable she had become, the less likely it was she would’ve moved at all.
Leaving had been the best option, the only option, and she didn’t regret it; she just wished it came with designated rest breaks.
She was desperately hoping to find someplace soon, even just a small place for now would do fine. Later she would need somewhere big, swarming with guards, somewhere she’d be easily noticed, but right now some dingy little back alley with a few boxes that she could turn into a bed would more than suffice for a few hours.
She was all too familiar with the feeling of running on that last little rush of adrenaline before complete exhaustion set in, and she knew it wasn’t long before she started making stupid mistakes. She had no intention of either dying or going back to that cell but if she wasn’t careful she’d end up doing one or the other.
She had only seen one place since she’d set out; it barely qualified as a town at all. It had consisted of one very run down looking tavern and a couple of traders. At that point she hadn’t been reaching desperation and she’d chosen to carry on.
That had been around four hours ago and she was starting to wish she’d stopped there for a while instead of just passing through, regardless of the fact that she knew she hadn’t put enough distance between her and the cabin yet, knew that if Amato was on her trail she needed more time to get things done. If he caught up with her she didn’t want to be tempted to go back with him, she wanted to finish what she had started.
Chapter 25
It hadn’t been too hard to track her to the edge of the forest. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, to hide the evidence of a big horse as it trampled undergrowth and cut a clear path through foliage that probably hadn’t been disturbed in years, and so he’d known he was heading in the right direction.
Not long after he left the cover of the trees, Amato spied something in the distance. It looked like civilisation of sorts and he guessed she would most likely have headed towards it.
Able to push the horse a little harder now that the terrain was a lot less treacherous; no more thick roots waiting to catch a hoof and trip them, no more hidden dips and holes covered by fallen leaves, he made good time in reaching the small town.
Town... ok, if you could call it that. There wasn’t much here at all and he knew it wasn’t where she would be heading, but as he slowed the mare to a steady trot and cautiously circled the small grouping of buildings to get a better look, he saw enough to know that he had to at least check the place out.
Chances were there was more than one person riding a bay gelding, but how many of them had come this way? The horse tethered to the water trough, outside the front of the bar, sure looked like the one Leci had taken. He was no equine expert but it looked like the same animal and he had to go in for a closer look. It seemed strange that she would be so careless as to essentially announce her presence like this, but if she was assuming she wouldn’t be followed he supposed there was no need for her to bother trying, it just seemed sloppy. Still, he could hope that she’d fucked up and was here. It would make things a whole lot quicker, they could be back at the cabin in a few hours, and he had to admit that he was even kinda looking forward to it, having an excuse to ‘punish’ her for being naughty... pull her over his knee and give her a good spanking...
Ok, he didn’t need an excuse for that, but still, it made things interesting.
Amato was grinning to himself as he brought the horse to a stop outside the tavern, alongside the one that looked very much like their second horse. He was almost certain it was the same animal and he felt his mood improving at the prospect of finding her so quickly and easily.
He reined his in close to the trough and it lowered its head, slurping up mouthfuls of the filthy looking liquid thirstily as he hopped out of the saddle and surveyed the building in front of him. He knew how the horse felt.
A beer sounded pretty good right about now.
If she was inside he’d have a drink before they headed back. If not he’d wasted too much time already and needed to get back on the
trail, find his girl and let her know she’d been very, very bad.
He pushed through the door and into the darkness within, stood in the entryway for a moment, waiting for his eyes to readjust from the glaring sunlight outside to the gloomy, dim interior of the bar. When the place came into focus and the vague shadows began to look more like tables and chairs Amato scanned the bar. It was almost deserted which really wasn’t surprising, given that it wouldn’t even register on a map of any kind, it was probably about as well known as the cabin.
A fat, bald guy at the other side of the bar was sprawled halfway across it, snoring loudly. Taking advantage of the lack of supervision, the only other person in there had crept around and was helping themself to a bottle of whisky.
The skinny figure was small, the blonde hair hung below the edge of the cap they wore. The blue shirt was tight fitting and the faded jeans were loose, baggy, held up by a makeshift belt that looked like some grey rag torn from a shirt or something.
Bingo?
Wow, that had been easier than he’d expected.
‘Alecia.’
‘Whoa! Fuck!’ The kid dropped the bottle, surprised at being caught and took off at a run, dodging behind the bartender who continued to snore, his slumber probably induced by his own wares, she headed for a side door.
Amato backed out of the entrance and sped around the building, catching the runaway as she hurled herself out into the daylight and straight into his arms. He held his prisoner by the upper arms, she kicked out at him and struggled ferociously.
‘Let me go Mister! I didn’t do nuthin! Lemme go!’
‘Fuck!’
Amato released the girl, pushing her back against the wall. She was stunned by the impact and stopped trying to get away. He reached out and ripped Leci’s cap from the girl’s head, already knowing it wasn’t her.
‘Fuck!’
He threw the cap at the kid, grabbed hold of her with one hand and punched the wall in frustration with the other, hissing air through his clenched jaw at the pain in his already bruised knuckles.
The Condemned Page 18