john price x fem!reader | outlaw/cowboy and preachers daughter | read on ao3 | pinterest board
All your life, you have known nothing but the Word of God and your father's short temper. Every day, you are forced to turn the other cheek for each minor mistake you make within your father's gaze; the old wounds hardly have time to heal before he gives you new ones. Yet, as a devout follower to God and your father, you have no one else to turn to.
When the owner of the saloon tells you about some strangers lurking around town, you decide to take your chances with these wayward men in the hopes that they'll save you. But they are dangerous, conniving bandits; a fact you learn a little too late. You should have known that sheep who stray too far from the flock are at the mercy of the wolves.
Better sharpen those teeth of yours, little lamb.
a/n: please heed the warnings on each chapter; overall; religious trauma; domestic abuse; reader is christian; western!au;
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
extras:
moodboard made by @syoddeye
john and lamb by @daostar
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john price x fem!reader | cowboy/outlaw x preachers daughter | masterlist
Chapter One: everything that concerns you is pure prodigality.
tw: western!au, religious abuse, domestic abuse, antiquated punishments, reader is christian, wound cleaning, blood
He has you kneeling on rice again.
Unforgiving grains burrow deep into your skin as their wickedly sharp ends pierce straight through your knees. Eyes trained on the scuffed wooden floor below you, you do not look at your father. Leather boots skirt your vision as he paces beside you, slow and with consideration. You swallow and the aftertaste of that morning’s communion dances on your tongue. Sweet wine pairs oddly with your father’s brutality, but it is the only flavor you’ve ever known.
Bloodied fingers coil around the back of the pew in front of you as he raps your knuckles with a wooden stick no larger than the circumference of his thumb. Searing pain cuts through you with the consideration of an untrained blade, but you are good at willing your tears away. He reminds you that this is your fault, and that this is a terrible waste. A waste of time, a waste of food—everything that concerns you is pure prodigality. Gluttony in its most concentrated form. You can consume nothing—not resource nor time—without it being a sin.
Crack!
“Again,” he demands.
Biting back the acrimony boiling in the depths of your throat, you shift. Rice scatters, bouncing along the floor as it spreads, and you grimace. There is only the slightest amount of comfort to be found in your movement, but it is met by swift punishment. You are not supposed to find solace while in the midst of one of your father’s demanding lessons.
Crack!
“Then, they spit on Him. They took the stick from His hands-”
Crack!
“Wrong. Again,” he demands.
Your mind reels as it attempts to recall the sermon your father gave that morning. His words spoken with utmost faith, the ones you are always made to recall as a lesson at the end of each morning, and yet you can’t. It’s patchy. Like the frayed ends of poorly woven textiles. No matter how often you blink, it won’t fix itself. You can only stumble and pray you pull on the right string to unravel it all.
“Then, they spit on Him. They took the stick from Him, and beat Him with it,” you attempt.
Once more, you are punished. It’s difficult to hold back the tears now as the skin on your knuckles parts like dried clay in a forgotten riverbed. They’re wide, deep crevices. Broken skin is good. It serves a purpose. It allows you to soak up your father’s lessons directly from the source.
“Do you not listen at all? Does your mind wander during my sermons? What better things do you have to think about than His word? Again,” he demands.
“Then, they spit on Him. They took the stick from Him, and beat Him on the head with it.”
There is a gentle lull that succeeds your recitation. Anxious pacing ceases as your father stares down at your kneeling form, gaze burning into the back of your head. When he hums, content with your answer, you feel every muscle in your body melt. Proud, you look up at him, ready to revel in accolades, but his lips are pressed firmly together. It is the only way he is able to restrain the acidulous words he would otherwise spew at you.
“Good,” he mutters, though it is flat. There is no pride to be found anywhere within him.
He strikes the stick against your knuckles five more times on each hand. With each impact, he reminds you this is for your own good. This is what a loving father does—a man of God—he teaches his daughter right from wrong.
As usual, you are made to clean up the mess that remains after your lesson. Rice is swept up by broom and stowed away into the pockets of your apron like treasured pebbles found on a walk, and what little blood that remains on the pew is wiped clean. Your hands ache. They pulse and throb, and the apex of your knuckles sting as if you’ve rubbed salt in the broken skin. You might as well have done as much with the brine that seeps into the wounds each time you rub at your eyes.
When all is clean, and your transgressions are swept aside, momentarily forgotten, you pray. Your father always says forgiveness is God’s duty. God is the quintessence of love and mercy while your father has proved many times he is not. A devout worshiper and priest, his love and respect is saved for his savior—never his daughter. So you kneel in the pews and bow your head before the cross strung up on the wall above you, and you beg. You apologize for the simple sin of your existence. You pray that God might bless you with the tools to be a better daughter.
Amen.
You rise. The church is stilly, and you are alone. You are left to ruminate about your failures in this divine building until it is spotless. There is always more cleaning to be done. Breadcrumbs left from communion, wine that stains the wooden floors nearly as bad as your own blood does, muck from work boots; you are on your hands and knees more often than your own two feet. Perpetually in prayer. Reciting scriptures. Cleaning this house of God until not a speck of sin remains.
When you are finished with your duties at the church, your father sends you into town to fetch wine. It’s foolish of you to believe he would allow you to sit at the dining table with him and partake in lunch. To enjoy a mouthwatering meal of boiled potatoes and ham. He always sends you out when you look like this—disheveled from cleaning and still trying to stunt the bleeding of your hands. It’s the acme of his lesson: ignominy. Shame digs in deeper, settles in nicer, when there’s an audience to witness it.
Mr. Beckett’s chickens are roaming the town again. You notice a few stragglers as you come to the end of the path that slowly morphs into the main road. Colorful hens cluck and bob their heads as you weave between them. They feast on small beetles with iridescent exoskeletons that flutter and click between sparse strands of grass, but when they take note of you, they stare expectantly. You try not to wince as your knuckles scrape against the fabric of your apron, hands diving into your pockets to retrieve uncooked rice. They flock as you toss the grains on the ground for them to peck and gorge themselves, putting your punishment to good use.
Sheep bleat at you just as you turn the corner into town. The flock has grown steady this spring with several new additions of playful lambs that trot after their mothers. They curiously line the fence as you pass by, and cry pitifully as your figure grows smaller in the distance. Townsfolk flutter in and out of steady wood buildings with their pockets full of money, both earned and spent. Your own fingers brush against the cash your father gave you for your task—you keep in mind his words of warning:
I’ll be counting that change when you return, girl.
The saloon isn’t busy this early in the afternoon, yet Mr. Beckett is perched at his bar wiping down glistening glasses. Empty tables adorn scratched wooden floors, and the tops are sparkling clean. The summer sun seeps through cracked windows, though the building still seems darker than it should be. A group of four men lurk in the far corner of the bar, each talking lowly and looking at you with shifting eyes, yet you avert your gaze as you approach the bar.
“Afternoon, Mr. Beckett,” you greet. You muster your best smile as you wipe a hand beneath your eyes, worried tear stains are still visible on your cheeks. “Your chickens are out again.”
Chuckling, Mr. Beckett pushes the empty glasses to the side to give you his full attention. Wrinkles settle in his face as crows feet wink by his eyes, and they only deepen as he smiles at you. There’s a cheeky twinkle that lurks in his grey eyes, and a rosy color that fills his cheeks.
“I’m sure that broke your heart having to see those critters running amuck along the trail,” he teases. “What can I do for you, kid?”
“My father sent me to get some wine for next week’s service,” you say.
“Ah, I should’ve known. Three?” he asks.
“Yes, please.”
Mr. Beckett holds up a finger as if to tell you to stay put before he wanders off to fetch your order. Sighing, you look down at your knuckles while you wait. They’ve stopped bleeding, but the blood crusts on your skin like boulders on a mountain. Your father didn’t even give you time to clean the scabs from your hands before sending you off to do his bidding. It’s almost as much of an eyesore as it is a literal sore.
But—as it is with all wounds—your blood seems to have attracted the dogs.
Their gazes burn your flesh, and you are suddenly well aware of the men at your back. You had done your best to ignore them upon your arrival, but curiosity gnaws at you with dull, aching teeth. Casting a cautious glance over your shoulder, you soak up swift looks at each of the men. You catch sight of a masked man too large for his own good, a handsome fellow with deep brown skin and kind eyes, a stranger with an even stranger haircut, and a man with a low sitting hat. The brim nearly covers his eyes, but you’re still able to catch the blaze of his cobalt gaze as he stares at you.
You shiver.
“Alright, here we are,” Mr. Beckett hums as he returns behind the bar. Glad to have someone else to focus on, you find a smile on your face as he begins to unload the bottles in his arms onto the counter. “Three bottles of red wine. Should be plenty for everyone, I hope.”
“I appreciate it, Mr. Beckett,” you chuckle. When digging into your apron pocket, you can’t help but wince as your knuckles once again scrape against the unyielding fabric. You play it off with a cough as you present the cash to him. “This ought to be enough.”
At the same time as he grabs the cash with one hand, Mr. Beckett grabs your wrist with the other. Gently, he turns your palm over until your knuckles are on display beneath the oil lamp that sits just above your head. Pressing your lips together, you keep your eyes on the bartop, too ashamed to witness the results of your own stupidity.
“Why don’t you grab a seat, kid,” he insists.
There’s no use in arguing; you’re well aware that he won’t give you your change until you let him clean you up. Sighing, you hop onto the stool and lay your palms flat on the counter while Mr. Beckett retrieves his strongest moonshine. He pours a bit of it onto a rag before pressing it into your cracked skin where it soaks deep like thirsty soil. Your squeak echoes in the near empty room, and you feel your face heat as you attempt to keep your head down.
“Why’d he do it this time?” he asks.
“It was my fault,” you insist.
“You and I both know it wasn’t,” Mr. Beckett retorts.
You swallow as he wipes the rag along your skin before moving to the next knuckle. “I couldn’t quote his sermon today. I should’ve paid better attention.”
“Perhaps your father should have more grace. He ought to marry you off already. I reckon you’d find more peace with a husband than you would with him.”
Things grow quiet between you and Mr. Becket just as the muttering grows louder behind you. Those men—those strangers—make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Still, you are grateful for their presence, as they give you something else to talk about than your unfortunate life as an eternal servant to your father.
“Mr. Beckett, can I ask about the gentlemen behind me?” you whisper.
He politely drops one hand in order to move to the next, but his eyes stray to strangers at your back. “Travelers. Blew into town a day or two ago. They’ve been doing odd jobs to scrounge up some money, but they’re nothing but trouble, if you ask me.”
“What makes you say that?” you ask, voice cracking as he starts cleaning your other hand.
Sighing, Mr. Beckett keeps his tongue between his teeth for a moment as he weighs his options. Eyes turning back to your hands, he pauses as he inspects the blood crusting on the rag.
“That fellow in the mask… I’ve heard of him. Ghost stories ‘bout him anyway. They all have strange accents. From across the pond, or so they say. They’ve all got this uncanny look in their eyes and… well, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say they’re the 141 Gang. At least, that fellow in the back looks like the man wanted from Blackpeak.”
This name—141—drops from Mr. Beckett’s lips like it’s supposed to mean something to you, and yet it doesn’t ring a bell. Eyes narrowing, you tilt your head at him.
“I’m not familiar,” you admit.
“Dangerous people. Robbers. Murderers. They might greet you with a smile, but just look at how sharp their teeth are, kid. Nothing but wild animals ready to rip out throats for a bounty or good pay. Surprised they’re not wanted by half of The West by this point. They make people disappear, then vanish just as quickly. I’m just hopin’ if I keep my head down long enough, they’ll skip town before they cause any trouble.”
Neither of you speak as the rest of your knuckles are cleared of debris and coagulated scabs. You are often plagued with the human affliction of having your heart stuck in your throat, but now you know your feelings aren’t unfounded. That tingle in your skin, the heat boiling at the nape of your neck—you wonder if these men even bother to wash the blood from their clothes before pretending to be human. Do they shed their wolf-teeth before attempting to blend into the flock?
Once Mr. Beckett is content with the dismal state of your hands, he finally gives you your change. You quickly stow it away in your apron pocket before you turn to the several bottles of wine waiting for you on the bartop. You gather them in your arms before you slide off of the stool, eager to get home and well away from this 141 Gang. Yet just as your feet hit the ground, the fabric of your skirt catches on the wood stool, and suddenly your seat comes toppling to the floor with a deafening thud.
Shame boils deep in your chest where it superheats your blood until your entire body is sweltering. You look up from the mess you’ve made with parted lips, yet no words come out. Your chest heaves as you stare up at Mr. Beckett with wide eyes, yet he only looks at you with benignancy.
“I-I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean- It just caught-” you stutter.
“It’s alright, kid,” he interjects.
Silence envelops you so suddenly that you’re painfully aware of how many sets of eyes are on you. Dark gazes glint in the numbra that lurks in the corner of the saloon. The men look over their shoulders and from beneath the brims of their hats to soak up the view of you—a trembling, pathetic thing that’s about to drop the wine from her hands.
“I’ll clean it up, don’t you worry about it,” Mr. Beckett assures as he rounds the corner of the bartop, waving you off. “Now, you best be on your way. Shouldn’t keep your daddy waiting.”
Turning around feels like opening a healing wound—it burns and leaves you trembling as you mutter a farewell and stumble out the door. You keep the wine in your arms clutched to your chest with wounded hands as you rush back home. Sheep bleat and chickens cluck, yet their whining cannot drown out the sound of your heart. That booming thunder as blood gushes through your veins; it still boils. Vermillion waves of unrelenting shame and fear.
Even on the edge of town you can still feel it—the gaze of those wolves. You pray to God that they leave your sleepy livestock town alone.
Then again, God has never been merciful in answering your prayers.
john price x fem!reader | cowboy/outlaw x preachers daughter | masterlist
Chapter Nineteen: wanted
The crowd groans in disappointment as the rope binding your hands together is cut.
Still smiling, the deputy loosens the noose around your neck before raising it over your head as if it's nothing but a mere necklace rather than the item that, until moments ago, was supposed to bring about your demise. It doesn't make it any easier to breathe. You're still choking on your terror as the man offers you a gloved hand. You don't have the capacity within your mind to deny him, so you accept his help as he assists you down the stairs on your lubberly legs.
The world spins as you feel the tangible suffocation of the divergence of time—of what should have happened to you. In another universe, you are swinging from that rope with all eyes on your corpse, left to hang and rot as a warning to others to not cross The Law in Blackpeak. Knowing your luck, you wouldn't have died right away. You'd be left strangling, legs kicking helplessly in a pitiful attempt to release the pressure around your throat, blood shunting away from your brain until your life fades just as meaningless as it began. Maybe someone would have taken pity on you. Maybe some brave or stupid person would have pulled on your legs until you stopped squirming.
Instead, you're slicing through the crowd that was so eager to witness your demise. Their gazes haven't changed much. They're more sour now, like dough left to rise for too long. The deputy keeps a sharp hold of your hand like you're his wallet, a valuable he can't afford to lose. You suppose that you are of some importance to this man; a tool turned into a weapon to be aimed and fired at John Price, though you're not sure what the nature of your destruction might be.
As you have learned, lawmen aren't always above the law.
"On behalf of my men, I apologize for their actions," the deputy says once you're out of eavesdropping distance of the crowd. His drawl is thick like honey but there is something about his tone that leaves your tongue dry and not at all interested in the faux sweetness he attempts to sell you. "You must understand that any mention of John Price has everyone up in arms. I'm sure you're aware of what him and his boys did in the mines. Such a tragedy. So many lives lost for such a selfish reason."
It's easy for his words to flow into your skull and directly out again. Every thought that attempts to spark in your brain fizzles out before you have the moment to fully grasp it. Pain throbs in your bones, burrowing deeper than you can cradle in your arms.
You forget that the deputy is holding your hand until he's pulling you to a stop next to a lean horse. Pressure builds behind your eyes as you stare up at him with his flaring nostrils and beady eyes. This horse lacks the quiet stupidity Jester had. A tall, stupid brute that knew how to do nothing other than eat things he shouldn't and make a fool out of you, but he was your fool of a horse.
Was.
"Climb on up, miss," he prompts. "We've got a walk before we reach the sheriff's."
Getting up on the horse feels like second nature to you now, but the deputy refuses to allow you to hold the reins. Wary of your instability, he guides the horse for you, spurs jingling with each step he takes. All you can do is hold onto the saddle horn and keep your head low in what you tell yourself is to keep the sun out of your eyes, but it feels more like shame.
You hold onto the saddle horn as you're paraded through the streets of Blackpeak like an oddity for everyone to behold. You expect to see another mob staring at you, waiting for the perfect moment to strike you, already bloodied and wounded, except there is no one. Insignificant, you're a speck of dirt. Flickering eyes search for someone still, despite the pain. Eyes of blue like a cooling lake for you to dive into, to ease each scrape and swelling mound that plagues your skin and body—John Price is nowhere to be found.
Buildings begin to thin until—much like Penmosa—farm land crosshatches with private town dwellings like a dusty chessboard. Cows moo in verdant pastures while geese honk overhead as they soar through the air in the burning light of the sunset. All beauty is lost on you as the deputy guides you to a dark timbered home with a fat porch and the redolence of cooked meat wafting around it. It's a home that looks like a God-made structure against the backdrop of mountains behind it, blending into the faraway trees and carved stone.
The deputy offers you his hand to help you off of his horse but you refuse to take it in a silent sort of revolution. You climb off without aid, but everything moves beneath you as your feet hit the ground, earth tearing right out from the treads of your shoes.
"Now, now," the man chuckles. When he catches your unsteady frame, he pulls your back against his chest, bracing your body against his. It feels wrong. Not because Daddy would disapprove, but because he's not John. "Take it easy."
"M-My head," you whine, back arching, arms flailing in an attempt to push him away, but your body is broken, and the deputy is having too much fun to let go. "Please."
"What do you think I'm trying to do, sugar? Quit your fussing and I'll take care of that head of yours," he goads.
Though you're released from the confines of his body, the deputy ensures you stay close by with his hand resting on your lower back while a gentle amount of pressure leads you towards the porch and up the steps to the door. He knocks on the door and shushes you when you wince at the sudden sound, noise reverberating in your brain until you're certain more of your skull has cracked.
A woman with pale lips and greying hair answers the door with a huff, and her gaze only grows more severe as she wipes her hands on her apron. "Phillip Graves, what have I told you about badgering my husband while he's at home?"
"Sorry Mrs. Shepherd. You know I try and keep my nose clean, but I think I've managed to wrangle someone who likes to get into trouble more often than I do," the deputy—this Phillip Graves—humors. "This sweet thing here seems to have gotten herself involved with John Price."
The woman's gaze lands on you and something overcomes the frustration that she held for Phillip Graves. If you didn't know any better, you'd confuse it for concern with the way her eyes soften and brows raise at the sight of you, blouse stained with your own blood, skirt tattered from the brawl, body littered with scrapes you can't soothe.
"Well, alright. You might as well stay for dinner, too," she begrudgingly accepts.
Phillip Graves keeps his hand on your back as you're led inside, but he ensures that he takes his hat off at the door and sets it on one of various pegs nailed into the wall for such a purpose. Though the outside of the house is rough-hewn with raw wood and sun bleached material, the inside is neatly polished with smooth walls painted a delicate cream. The brightness only makes the pounding in your head worse and you find your eyes focusing on the floor as you're brought to the dining room.
Mrs. Shepherd instructs you to grab a seat while she fetches the rest of dinner and her husband. The table is intimate with only enough room for four people to sit comfortably along the round perimeter. Various food items already sprawl out. Ham, a bowl of beans and bread rolls. Phillip Graves pulls a chair out for you before taking the seat next to you.
It's as if you've been transported back in time, shrinking inside of yourself until your body has no choice but to follow, leaving you as nothing but a pitiful girl once again trying to make it through the violence of another meal with your father. Tight lips, only speaking when spoken to, eyes never wandering where they shouldn't lest you inadvertently poke the beast waiting to roar within his throat.
The silence doesn't save you here. Phillip Graves leans back in his chair, wood creaking beneath him in time with his spurs ringing as he stretches his legs with a groan. You note the distinct glint of his six shooter resting on his hip and you can't help but think of the one John gave you to protect yourself—the one that's now sitting in the middle of the street, or more likely, in the possession of one of the men who beat you.
"I'll get you cleaned up after supper," he tells you. "I know it's more proper to wash up before a meal, but I think the sheriff will forgive us given the circumstances."
"That's fine." You sound like your mother, voice even and unwavering yet tinged with that underline whisper of pain that you can't quite get rid of.
In an attempt to comfort yourself, you reach for your neck in search for her necklace only to be met with your own feverish skin.
"If you wanted a free meal, you could have just asked, Phillip."
A new voice bleeds into the room. With slow movements, you look up from your lap and into the doorway to find a sickly looking man with white hair cropped so short he nearly looks bald. His leather vest looks freshly polished and his feet hit heavy on the floor as he approaches the table. The aura of authority wafting off of him is enough for you to know exactly who he is. The man of the house, the keeper of the peace—Sheriff Shepherd of Blackpeak.
"You know me, sheriff. Always here to keep things interesting," Phillip shrugs.
"Interesting, and a pain in my rear."
Mrs. Shepherd sneaks out from behind her husband with one hand occupied with plates, cups and cutlery and the other with a pitcher of water. The men dive into quaint conversation while she sets everything up, even going as far as to ask you what you'd like and serving up your plate when you can only offer pitiful nods and thank yous in response.
Once everyone is settled, the conversation dies and you find that there are more eyes on you than you'd care to have ever perceive you. When you meet Sheriff Shepherd's gaze you note the hue of his eyes—pale blue—and how they're sickly like the rest of him. Withered away and moments away from shattering. They lack the youth and vigor of John's. A pale imitation of a man he could only ever hope to be a fraction of.
"And who do we have the pleasure of welcoming to our table tonight?" he asks.
Knowing that there's no use in lying, you give him your true name, though the nickname Lamb is truly growing on you. Or rather, perhaps it's just the man who coined it in the first place.
"Very good," he hums, somehow pleased with himself. "Let's pray."
It's the first time that you have ever neglected to bow your head and fold your hands at the dinner table before a meal, especially after those words have been muttered. You watch as they all lower themselves, make themselves smaller, near cower as they're lead through quiet mutterings of praise and thanks. The sheriff speaks with such reverence you're almost convinced he's a true man of God until he opens his eyes to look at you before the prayer has even finished.
Once done, Mrs. Shepherd and Phillip Graves waste no time diving into their food, and while the sheriff does begin to eat, he seems much more interested in something else. "Not one for praying?"
You swallow the lead weight in your throat. "I don't know."
"She has been spending time with John Price," Phillip Graves reasons. "He's always been something of an atheist."
"Corrupted the poor girl's mind, no doubt," Shepherd agrees. "Is that how you found yourself here, girl?"
You nod. "Yes."
Quiet deliberation clouds the man's mind as he takes a few more bites of his food. You consider doing the same, but the pain that ripples throughout your body forces you to rethink. Instead, you go for a sip of water.
"And what business was he having you conduct here on his behalf?"
Your head spins. Vision swirling like a whirl pool, you dig the pad of your thumb briefly into the apple of your cheek, allowing the pain to ground you. "He needed money from the bank."
Phillip Grave's chuckle is warm but sharp. "Must be hard finding an honest job when you're such a criminal like he is."
You bite your tongue so hard it bleeds, but it tastes no different from the ichor that's already stained your mouth after the abuse you were subjected to today. Instead, you keep your head lowered and mouth sewn shut, just like you always have.
"What did he need this money for?" Shepherd questions.
"I don't know," you say.
He raises a brow. "You don't know?" he asks incredulously.
"He didn't say. I just… I just do what he tells me."
Something of a pained sigh leaves Mrs. Shepherd as she places her palm over her chest as if to quell an aching heart. When you glance at her, you note the pity in her gaze. It's comforting to know you're fooling someone at least. You're in too much pain to put together anything more complex.
He allows silence to settle over the table to give himself the opportunity to at least marginally enjoy his meal. You allow yourself to try a bit of the beans, but there's too much salt and it nearly causes your tongue to shrivel up. The bread is the only thing you can truly get yourself to stomach. Plain enough to not upset the unstable balance of your stomach, yet still filling at the same time, you eat your roll then leave your hands folded in your lap, done with what you think is the most violent meal you've experienced since you left Penmosa.
"Are you not enjoying your food, girl?" Shepherd asks. As you meet his gaze, you wonder why he even bothered to learn your name if he was going to demean you with such a term—verbiage he shares with your father.
"I'm not hungry," you truthfully admit.
He scoffs as he sets his silverware on his emptied plate. "You insult my wife."
"Oh, Herschel, look at her!" Mrs. Shepherd says. "Poor thing, can you blame her for not being hungry? Getting beaten over something John Price coerced her into doing? It's no insult at all. The poor girl needs help and a place to rest."
Washing his dinner down with a healthy gulp of water, Phillip Graves gives a thoughtful hum as his cup hits the table. "There's a few free cells open down at the jail we could keep her in."
Mrs. Shepherd's eyes go wider than the plate she's eaten off of. "You would keep her in the jail?"
Sheriff Shepherd's patience wears thin. You see it in the deepening creases on his forehead and the dusting of pink that begins in his cheeks and spreads to the tips of his ears. His ovular head looks as if it's an egg ready to crack open due to heat and pressure alone.
"Dear," he says almost as if it's a warning. "Why don't you tidy up our guest room? She can stay there for the night under Phillip's supervision."
Content with the compromise, she nods before clearing the plates from the table and vanishing back into the kitchen to clean up. You're left alone with the two men and you find yourself scrambling for something else to look at. Anything else. The wallpaper, a knick in the side of the table, the sunset burning up through the window. A part of you wishes you'd see John riding over the hill through the glass, hat set low as he speeds towards the house with a pistol in hand.
You get nothing but the squeak of Shepherd's chair as he stands. "Get her cleaned up once the room is ready," he orders. "I'll get everything at the jail in order for her."
It doesn't take Mrs. Shepherd long to tidy up the bedroom-turned-cell that is to be yours for the foreseeable future. She fetches you immediately once it's finished, bringing both you and Phillip Graves down two short hallways to a room that has a single twin-sized bed with a lily patterned quilt smothering the mattress. You don't realize that the house has electricity until you note the sconces on the inside of the door. They sport the same glass covering as candles would, but they lack the signature flicker of warm flame that you're used to.
She brings your attention to a makeshift vanity. Really, it's an old worn desk with a mirror nailed to the wall, but for all intents and purposes, it works just fine with a freshly filled water bowl, clean rags, and a jar of something that Mrs. Shepherd says is a salve meant to help your cuts and scrapes. She leaves you after telling you that if you need anything else to find her and ask for it. The door is open.
Phillip Graves closes it.
"Alright sugar," he prompts. His head tilts to the side as he sucks on his teeth, chin jutting out towards the bed. "Grab a seat."
His order makes the contents of your stomach curdle but you know you're not in a position to argue or reason. It's as if that noose is around your neck again, pulling tight around your throat, eager to cut into your skin as you march to the bed and sink into the rocky mattress. The jingling of his spurs sound too akin to church bells, or perhaps the toll of a death march.
Rag into water, he turns to you with glistening hands and wordlessly presses it to your skin without prompt or warning. It's frigid, freshly pumped from the well, biting into your skin like the mountain air John kept you warm through. Your bottom lip begins to tremble at the thought of it while Phillip Graves wipes the space above your lip, scratching away the dried blood around your nostrils as if you are a child incapable of cleaning herself.
With each pass he makes, you watch as the rag comes away from your skin tinged pink and brown, body marred with the earth and the demise you were supposed to face. He wipes everywhere, but when he gets to the bridge of your nose you gasp enough to make him recoil. Instead of leaving you be, he pokes and prods the area until you're hissing with tears in your eyes.
"Got some mighty fine swelling, sugar," he tells you, finally no longer subjugating you to his torturous interest. "Wouldn't be surprised if you broke something in there."
Furiously blinking, you wipe at the stray tears but keep your eyes cast towards the floor. "What am I to do with that?"
"Wait and pray it doesn't heal crooked," he chuckles.
Huffing at his response, you keep quiet as he continues. He moves down to your chin and jaw where you feel the stale blood pull at the hair of your skin, pinching like you've got your finger caught in the door again. He doesn't sit next to you as he cleans you, he stands in front of you towering over you like a human does an ant, belittling you until you feel just as small as he wants you to feel.
His hand wanders down to your throat and you wince with anticipatory pain only to realize it doesn't come. The rope never quite snapped around your neck. That lever was never pulled. Though it feels like you died in that moment, you are still very much alive, kept on God's green earth and made to suffer all his terrible creations.
Philip's hand dips lower and your breath catches in your throat, forcing your chest to cease its movements as you stop breathing. You remember the letter shoved into your blouse hiding in your slip, the only place you could think to stow it away where it wouldn't be knocked free from your pockets or torn with the wind. You feel his hot gaze on your body and the smirk on his lips and you think of what he might do to you. You know this story well. The raping of women before their murder—their final good use all used up before they're disposed of.
Then what of John and the others? You broken and their only piece of evidence ripped to shreds, forever to live the lives of wild men.
When his hand reaches the top of your breast just under your collarbones, you grab his wrist and cover yourself with your free arm. You finally bring yourself to look up at him and though you are infuriated, you aren't surprised to see that wide-eyed joy on his face as if the fish he has on his line is finally decided to make the reel more interesting.
"What kind of man do you take me for, sugar?" he asks.
You bite your tongue for only a moment before you decide to let it free. "A greedy kind."
Leaning away from you, he yanks his wrist free from your grasp before inspecting the bloodied rag he clutches in his fingers. "Is that so? Think a greedy man would've saved you from the gallows? Think a greedy man would dedicate his life to protecting the interests of the people in this town? I serve Blackpeak, little lady. There ain't a greedy bone in my body."
"Blackpeak?" you repeat. For the first time all day, you allow the rage to envelope you. You allow it to raise your chin, to narrow your eyes, to curl your upper lip into a snarl. "Or just Makarov?"
It's the first time you've seen him waiver in his otherwise infuriating ability to seem impermeable. Still, he only leans back, tongue clacking against the back of his teeth as he shakes his head. "I see John Price has poisoned your mind with that, too." When you don't fight back, Phillip huffs and tosses the rag at you, allowing the sodden mess to fall into your lap, adding to the various stains that bleed into your skirt. "Clean yourself up then, if that's what you want, but don't say I never did you any favors, sugar."
With that, he leaves you and you are finally alone. Your sore fingers curl around the damp cloth and you are overwhelmed with a sudden grief that disguises itself as fury. You feel your face contort as you stand from the bed, fist clenching around the rag before you drown it in the water bowl at the desk with a strangled growl. Droplets splatter through the air like rain falling backwards, gathering across the wooden surface of the desk and the now muddled shine of the mirror.
You force yourself to view yourself through the mess and it's the first thing that prompts you to slow down. You look so much like your mother, you realize. Tired eyes, swollen face, angry tears giving your cheeks the kisses your father never would. You bear her resemblance in your quiet anger. It was the last thing she left you with on this earth—the frustrating will to endure where others would refuse.
Wiping your face, you make the quiet decision to not destroy yourself and instead take care to blot the stains of your dress and care for the scrapes on your legs. When you're finished you dip your fingers into your blouse where you feel the comforting scratch of paper against your skin, warmed by your body heat and bending to the curve of your body.
In the morning when your head is clear, you'll come up with a plan. John Price wouldn't abandon you. He's out there somewhere waiting for you.
Phillip Graves returns with a rocking chair that he sets up in the far corner of the room, giving himself a perfect view of the bed, door, and window. He chuckles at your bewildered look before settling into the chair with an old book in hand and a candle lamp to read with. Realizing that you will be getting no privacy tonight, you leave your overdress on before burrowing deep beneath the blankets like you could hide the way rabbits do in their burrows.
He does not speak throughout the night—the rhythmic turning of the pages of his book and the creaking of the chair do enough chatter for the both of you. Even as night falls, you do not sleep. You lay on your side with your back to Phillip as you stare at the wall where the darkness morphs shadowy shapes before your eyes as if you've had too much communion wine.
When your bladder stirs you awake in the middle of the night, he follows you there too, only letting you out of his sight long enough for you to relieve yourself and wash up before leading you back to bed. Not even dawn chases him away. Stirring from your restless slumber, you wake to the smell of hotcakes and the view of him still in the corner of the room, seemingly finished with his book with the way he has it folded in his lap.
"Mornin' sugar."
Mrs. Shepherd serves both you and Phillip for breakfast. Pancakes, sausage and some freshly brewed tea she made for the meal. You are wary of the glaring lack of her husband's presence, but she informs you he wandered in town to the jail earlier in the morning with the order for Phillip Graves to take you there once you were finished with your meal.
Anxiety fills up your stomach too much for you to eat much of anything, but just like the night before she doesn't say much about it as she takes your plate and wishes you luck on your journey into town.
Phillip Graves doesn't offer you his horse this time as the two of you make the walk back towards the main section of town, but he doesn't take the ride for himself either. Each step you take is excruciating. The swelling has overwhelmed your body, rendering each joint achy as you travel beneath the heavy weight of the sun and your shame. Each figure that you pass prompts you to raise your head to look at their face, eager to find familiar blue eyes.
You begin to fear John might not be coming for you at all.
Unlike the other buildings that surround it, the jail is made of brick. Dust settles heavy on the red stone giving it a pink appearance like the rag you stained with your blood last night. On the outside just beyond the porch there is a wooden posting board filled with legal notices like local laws and changes within the town, but most notably there is that drawing of John's wanted poster again.
This time, it's not just him, but the others as well, each earning their own poster and matching bounties, a band of bothers kept together with a long string of hatred. As you walk up the stairs, you note the graffiti scribbled on the parchment in graphite and ink. Some people have scribbled out the word alive on dead or alive while others have drawn nooses around their throats. The violence of this town is so deeply sewn you're not sure how you survived such contempt—the more time you spend with Phillip Graves, the more you feel as if the reason he saved you wasn't purely out of mercy.
He opens the door for you, allowing you inside of the jail where you're met with a wide room that seems like a cell morphed into an office. Two sets of jail bars section off the back corners of the room with nothing inside but a bench, but they both lay empty. The only other door besides the entrance is one on your left, cracked open just enough for you to find a set of stairs that descend down into what you assume must be the basement and the place where they keep a majority of their inmates.
Sheriff Shepherd sits at a desk full of papers and envelopes both torn open and fresh ones waiting to be filled and mailed off. His eyes were on you the moment you stepped foot into his jail, pale and dead as they were last night when he all but interrogated you at his dinner table. Having something more interesting to do than paperwork, he points at the wooden chair across from him.
"Take a seat, girl," he commands as if you are a dog.
You make no fuss in following his orders. As far as you're concerned, the less time you spend with this man, the better. He stares at you in silence for a long moment as if contemplating how he should gut you. His gaze is uncanny. Even when you believed John to be nothing more than a cold blooded murderer he never gave off such an algid aura. This pale, sickly man looks like death—or a creature who enjoys toying with it.
"I've arranged for a ride to bring you back home," he finally admits after a moment. "It would be faster by train, but we don't have any passenger trains that come through here. Just the engines that lug coal to the cities. A few of my lawmen will take you by carriage to the next town over and you can hop on one there. It'll take you over the gorge and right on home."
You blink at him. He must be lying. "That's… That's it?"
"I don't want you in my town. This is better for both of us," he says bluntly.
Gears begin to twist in your brain as ideas sprout; dark, conniving ones you never would have thought before leaving Penmosa. You think of Kate and Lottie, of Grand Hollow and its train station, of the hotel, the place John wanted to keep you because it was safe. You could go back, you realize. Back to them all with the letter hiding safe in your blouse and wait for John to come find you.
It could all be over. This mess. The lies.
"You mean, you'll take me back to Grand Hollow?" you question cautiously, throwing your line into the water to see if anything bites.
The sheriff raises a brow. "Is that where you're from?"
"Yes sir," you nod.
He stares at you for so long you fear he might see through you. "You're not lying to me, are you, girl?"
"No, sir. I'd never," you insist.
Humming, he nods. With a sigh, he begins to sort through some papers on his desk. You note a letter already sealed and stamped with his name and address on it, but you don't get the chance to look at the recipient before it's covered by tickets for a train company you don't recognize. He holds them out for Phillip Graves to take, who shoves it into the pocket of his vest with a chuckle.
"Tell me, girl," Sheriff Shepherd says. He retrieves one last piece of paper before setting it flat on the desk for you to view. "Why do I have this, then?"
Your blood runs cold as you're faced with a drawing of your exact likeness. Every line is correct, all the way from the curve of your nose to the pull of your lips. Your name is stamped in dark, inky letters underneath the photo with a description that reads:
WANTED: MISSING GIRL
TO BE RETURNED BACK TO HER FATHER IN PENMOSA
REWARD: 25$
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john price x fem!reader | cowboy/outlaw x preachers daughter | masterlist
Chapter Sixteen: serpent
The countryside makes for a good palette cleanser—something brisk enough to wash away the putrid memory of swollen guts jutting out between stained wool.
All man-made structures dwindle, quickly swallowed up by thick trees with leaves waving goodbye to you as the steam engine pulls you along rugged terrain. You have the perfect view of it all from your seat. Nestled closest to the window, your carpet bag bouncing along by your feet; you can see the whole world from this window. Sparrows diving from boughs and thin branches, deer running along the tracks to flee from the iron beast that would swallow them otherwise, cattle on quiet farms with children who can't help but wave at every living soul on the train.
However, the window is not a perfect portal. Reflections glisten on the pristine glass as the sun catches it just right. You see your own face. So much like your mothers—sporting all the things your father ever hated about her—staring right back at you. But there is more. A man behind you. Thick beard, eyes like freshly mined cobalt; not focused on the expanse of land before him, but on you. The back of your neck where a silent scar whispers. An open wound. Weeping for the necklace it's lost.
If this had happened earlier in your travels, you'd shame John for his wandering gaze, but for now you don't make a peep. You're still trying to figure him out—this enigma of a man. Even after the first few hours on the train you can feel the pressure of his hand linger. Soft thumb against your cheek, tender look in his eyes as if he's cherishing something worth more than gold.
Eventually the bond breaks. Snaps like taut thread as he stands, hands pressing on his knees, groaning something about reliving himself before he slips into the aisle. Your attention follows him for only a short moment before it lands on Kyle. He's been quiet throughout the ride, only chatting about the food Sofia made until nearly half of it was scarfed down. Now, he sits with a gem in his hand, rolling it along his palm, fingerprints sticking to the unpolished sides.
It's raw. Uncut. Fresh from the earth without human intervention. Curious, you lean closer to him, astonished by the vivid green color that glistens each time the sun catches it.
"What do you have there?"
Kyle jumps as if he's seen a ghost, fingers curling around the gem to obscure it, but his hand loosens when he realizes it's only you. "Oh, nothing. It's just an emerald I've been lugging around."
"I see." You watch as he continues to roll it along his palm again, touch delicate as if he's afraid it'll shatter. "Where'd you get it?"
"Found it myself. Funnily enough, I caught sight of it while I was bathing in some stream not too long ago. Caught my eye through the water. Nearly lost it to the flow."
Humming, you tilt your head. "You haven't sold it?"
"Keeping it around for something special," he says, shaking his head.
"Oh." Brows quirking up, you slide along the bench, hands running along the edge, a smile pulling at your lips. "Someone special?"
You have yet to mention a name and Kyle is already sweating. Fingers curling, he looks up at you with eyes that remind you of a puppy begging for treats. He's chasing something around in his mind, paws yearning to hold something he can't quite reach yet.
"That girl at the station, her name's Sofia, right?" you question.
Shoulders slouching, Kyle attempts to let his guard down as he nods. "Yeah."
"She seems nice," you egg.
"She's… amazing." Kyle sighs and shoves the emerald out of sight, suddenly wary of all the bodies packed close on the train. "I've been keeping it around because it's her favorite color. Green. She tried to make green bread once as a gift for herself. Ended up looking like mould."
Giggling, you stretch your legs out and try not to groan at the way your hamstrings scream. "That's really nice of you, Kyle, keeping something you think she might like."
"I've been thinking about getting it made into a necklace," he admits. "Or, maybe a bracelet."
"Why not a ring?"
Kyle freezes at your suggestion. You see him roll the flavor of it along his tongue, sticky muscle adhering to the roof of his mouth, rendering him silent for a beat too long.
"Dunno if it's a good idea. Marriage," he says, crestfallen.
"You don't want to marry her?"
"Oh god, I do," Kyle says as if your words have stabbed him. "More than you know. Every time she picks her nephew up to rest him on her hip, I keep thinking about what a life we could have. Some nice fancy place in Grand Hollow where she could continue baking and I'd find some better way of making enough money to keep food on the table for us and maybe some kids."
Your fingers curl around the edge of the bench as you lean forward, a poor attempt of viewing Kyle's face as he stares at the ground. "So why don't you?"
Huffing, he pats at the emerald through his clothes, deep in his pocket where not even the wind could swipe it from him. "Her brother's been taking care of her ever since they came to The States. He makes good money."
"Well, I bet she'd leave if it meant living with you," you rationalize.
"Come on, Lamb. You saw what happened at the hotel. All those men? I think about what they'd do to Sofia and it makes me want to gut every last one of them. I spent so long wanting to do good in the world. I wanted it so bad that I even got my hands dirty for it, but now they're too dirty. Too soiled for a woman like Sofia."
It takes longer than you'd like for the words to form on your tongue. Something soft, yet strong—an olive branch that Kyle can cling to long enough without it breaking beneath his weight.
"I think you're a mighty fine man, Kyle. You're the first real friend I've made in quite some time. You've done more for me than my own father even has. We'll get your hands cleaned once we're finished at Blackpeak," you assure.
Though he chuckles at you as if you've spewed nothing but an antilogy at him, Kyle still smiles. "I'll hold you to it, Lamb."
It takes a little over three hours to reach the station at Red Gorge.
Aptly named, the town first peeks into your view with iron-rich soil, rusty like old door hinges. You've heard stories of places down south looking like this. Arizona with her rocky structures towering higher into the sky than you'd ever expect possible from any plateau. It's a stark contrast to the crystal water that cuts through the earth like a honed blade.
Fresh air hits your face with a bite the moment you step off the train and onto the platform. Your knees are mush. Sopping wet earth after a storm, hardly able to keep yourself up straight to the point that John rests his hand on your back as he quickly guides you through the mess of travelers. The pain in your rump reminds you of the ache that used to ail you after another one of your father's verbose sermons—held hostage with your hands folded in your lap, back as straight as a board, eyes never straying too far from him or the bible he shoved through your fingers.
Jester greets you with a huff and a glare that would set you ablaze if the lord had given him the power. Clearly unhappy about wheeled travel, he handles no better than a fat boat when you first mount him. Wandering wherever the current takes him, hardly listening at all as you pull on the reins—you manage fine enough walking through Red Gorge. Head down, refusing to linger too long on any face that walks past. John says you're too close to Blackpeak to find any good company.
Things get shaky once you begin to trot along the environs of the town. Land thick with foliage—it calls to Jester. Whispers in a way that has his tail whipping violently enough to reach your calves, and once the trail fades into the wilderness, he picks up pace without permission, requiring you to pull back on the reins lest the two of you vanish beyond the trees, relegated to a life of solitude.
Before you know it, you're up front with John. You curse under your breath at your temperamental horse, and he whines back in kind. A creature so used to the open lands—you can't imagine how he must have felt crammed on the train for several hours, eyes hardly able to peer through the small slit of a window out at the nature he belongs to.
Like a dying mother trapped behind a closed door, held down by her husband and his favorite book.
"Miss me so much you decided to cut in line, hm?" John muses.
Bemused, you snap your head to the side to look at him. Him, and his lowered hat, hips rocking along his saddle with each step his horse takes, cheeks puffing out with his smile.
"You flatter yourself too much," you say flatly.
And still, you do not fall back. Riley always straggles behind John, looming like lowering rain clouds preceding a storm full of lightning, bound to bring wildfire. You stay a comfortable distance away, feet wiggling in your stirrups until the conversation blooms of its own accord.
There is no lesson. No wretched undoing of your father's harsh words spat like venom, ready and dying to be sucked free from your skin. There is no blood letting. There is only ruminating on the chittering squirrels that shake their tails in the trees and the noise of the mountain as the wind weaves between waifish branches and tickles thick foliage.
John tells you of his life, and you tell him of yours—the parts that haven't already been ripped open, anyway. Simple things such as bread making, traveling across the ocean to arrive in the United States, your first time riding a horse, the time he nearly died of pneumonia; it flows easier than blood. Faster than spring water.
When there are no more words left to say, then you simply revel in one each other's company. The intermittent sighs that expel from his nostrils as he cranes his neck up to gauge the sun's position, the rustling of his map as he plans routes to avoid cities and towns, the thick scent of the cigar he clips between his teeth.
This comfortable balance of silence breaks once the sky wanes to a burnt marigold above you. Pleasure turns into business. Wandering off the trail, finding a soft clearing, building a campfire, pitching simple tents; partaking in the ebb and flow of unwinding after a long day that's left you sore from head to toe.
While the men cut wood with axes and survey the land to ensure privacy, you take up the task you've grown most comfortable with over the last few weeks—gathering water. Metal pail in hand, you follow the sound of running water as it echoes off of trees. It calls. Sweet melody luring you until you find its bed, glistening with wet rocks and spurts of water that turn to rainbows in the dying light of the sun.
Just as you begin to step away from the dried pine needles and onto the rocks, you see it. Uncanny movement. Slow. Coiling. Pail clutched close to your side, you freeze. You feel like those odd goats Mr. Beckett bought once—useless things, your father called them, that would stiffen at any loud sound before falling over, struck with fear. Slowly, you turn. Your heart stops once you're able to put a name to it.
A snake.
Streaks of yellow line the sides of a long creature that loops around itself, tail held in the air like a spear ready to strike you. Its scales are so large you feel as if you could reach forward and pluck them from its body one by one if you weren't terrified of the teeth hiding behind that wide mouth. Dull eyes stare at you, unblinking. Watching you. Watching everything. Tentatively waiting for you to do something while your pulse quickens and thuds in your throat.
"John?"
It's the first name you think to call. The only one that comes to mind. Him—the man who's saved you from everything. Each ugly hand and unkind word. But your voice is timid, shaking in your larynx, trembling as if caught in the midst of winter.
"John!"
Louder this time, you hear him run. Heavy feet stomping through the woods crushing every stick unfortunate enough to get in his way. When he emerges, he has his six shooter in hand, index finger not quite on the trigger but thumb ready to cock it. Too terrified to get a single word out, all you can do is point at the snake while your other hand puts the bucket between you and the creature as if you could fend it off with a blunt object.
Wary eyes follow your finger until it lands on the snake, curling in a helical path all while its eyes remain unblinking on you. John puts himself between you and the serpent, only to stop and look over his shoulder at you with tight lips. Holstering his revolver, he saunters up to it before stooping down, hands reaching for it.
"John! John Price don't you dare pick up that snake!" you shriek.
His chuckle is warm as he snatches the creature into his hands, pulling it up from the ground where it writhes in his palms, attempting to free itself. All you can do is gasp as you watch its maw unfold, gummy lips clamping on John's knuckle only to let go a split moment later.
"It's just a garter snake, darling," he titters.
"It's still a snake," you retort.
"It's harmless." John steps towards you, and you return the sentiment by backing away with your hands raised and eyes pleading. Sighing, he pulls the snake closer to his body as it continues to wiggle like string caught in a breeze. "This isn't the Garden of Eden, Lamb. He won't get your god to hate you anymore than he already does."
Refusing to hear any of it, you shake your head. "John Price, you put that snake down or so help me!"
Another titter. Warm and crackling like fresh wood on fire. He crouches down and gently places the snake on the ground and you watch with a tight throat as it quickly slithers along smoothed stone and into the cold depths of the creek, darting through the water faster than a bullet ringing in the air. You find yourself peering at the depths. Eyes squinting, looking for any sign that it might wade through the water back to shore to enact its revenge, and you can't bring your attention anywhere else until John swallows your vision.
Roughened fingers brushing against yours, he takes the pail from your hand. The handle creaks as the bucket swings, metal grinding like neglected gears in desperate need of oil.
"Don't worry, sweetheart," he murmurs, yet his voice is oddly void of taunting, "I'll protect you from the snakes."
It doesn't leave—the feeling of his skin against yours.
Lingering like dew in early autumn mornings, you feel his warmth bleed into you long after the two of you have returned to camp. Not even the fresh fire can overwhelm the tingling on your epidermis. It's still him. It's still John. Even after you've washed your hands after dinner, even after you've nestled underneath wool blankets, even after the sky draws dark and the stars peer through the branches that whisper above you; it's him.
You try to find a name for the feeling. It's so far removed from the usual frustration you've grown accustomed to wherever John Price is concerned, yet the way it leaves your heart pounding bears fruit from the same tree. Restless eyes keep fluttering open as you peer at him across the fire. Head propped up on his travel pack, hat lowered over his eyes, arms crossed and blanket tucked under his chin—you keep tracing the curve of his lips. The hair that lines his jaw. The rise and fall of his chest.
Willing your eyes to close, you attempt to plunge yourself into the abyss of sleep, but the mountain refuses. The change in altitude leaves the air thinner. Heat dissipates faster as the memory of the sun grows quickly forgotten, leaving you shivering underneath your blanket. You coil like the snake that harassed you, conserving as much warmth as you can, but as the fire dwindles to nothing but embers, your teeth begin to chatter. Enamel knocking together, your jaw aches. Joint tender with the algid temperatures. Sharp and unforgiving.
Eventually, someone stirs.
Determined for rest, you remain as motionless as your trembling muscles will allow while more wood is piled onto the fire. It sings with fresh food in its mouth, heavy smoke curling up into the sky; all miracles that you refuse to witness.
Their feet do not wander away. Careful steps march toward you, avoiding the dry pine needles and sticks—you feel their presence behind you. A weight settles on your body; another blanket already warmed by a body. Only when there is a knee in the canvas behind you, and a hand gently pulling at your blanket do you allow your eyes to open. Gaze peering over your shoulder, you find John. His eyes are heavy on you, fatigue lining the blues of his iris. Unbothered, he continues to pull the blankets down, exposing you to the gelid breeze.
"John?" you whisper.
"Shh," he quiets. "Go back to sleep, Lamb."
You don't know why you listen, but you do. Cheek pressed against your makeshift pillow, you don't say a word as John's body slides up behind yours. His knees follow the curve of your legs, torso pressed to your back, cold nose against your neck but warm hand curling around your stomach. There are two walls of heat now—one from the fire, and one from John—but the epicenter of it burns bright in your cheeks and chest, heart fluttering to the point of explosion.
In no time, John is snoring. It's nothing compared to the mangled growling of Riley's nose, but it's there marking each breath he exhales at the base of your skull. Tobacco and musk fills your nose, fresh pine burned to ash, gunpowder lingering in leather—for a moment, you feel so comfortable you swear you smell sourdough cooking in a kitchen.
For once, you don't worry about what Daddy would think.
Dawn paints the sky lilac, like freshly speckled juniper bushes in spring, and John is still asleep. Your muscles are sore from travel and shivering, but with the two blankets over your bodies, you are not cold anymore. He breathes against you, sucking in the scent of you as his arm hangs like dead weight over your waist. Crisp air fills your lungs as your legs stretch, a yawn pulling on your jaw as if to feed you medicine. John stirs. His arm tightens, fingers pressing into your ribs, body scuttling closer to you, keeping you close.
Anxious, your eyes dart over the long-dead fire where you find Soap and Riley in similar positions to that of you and John. Messily sprawled over one another, blankets tangled in limbs, dead asleep despite the birds singing them awake. Lonesome Kyle lays curled by himself, blankets wrapped over his head like a hood, face hardly visible yet arms poking through the fabric as if reaching for something—someone.
"John? It's morning," you whisper, heedful of what the others might say if they find the two of you like this; tangled like lovers.
He breathes in. It's odd, feeling the expansion of his chest against your spine. Muscle and stomach pressing against you, he deflates with a long sigh and his grip only grows stronger.
"We can spare a few more moments."
Breakfast comes and goes in the blink of an eye—dry food and bitter coffee leaves you yearning for Lottie's cooking and a warm bed to sink back into, but that want vanishes when it's time to hit the trail again. Instead of meandering along the back like you usually do, you find yourself trotting along next to John. He's quiet in the morning. Pensive. Puffing away on a cigar as he waits for the sleep to clear from his eyes while his hat sits low.
Once the sun is high enough to not blind anyone, the conversation blooms. Gentle, budding flowers with fresh green stems slowly opening, exposing gentle petals waiting to be pet and enjoyed.
Topics come and go, but you learn John loves to swim.
After falling into the harbor in London when he was a child, his mother demanded he never step foot near that place again. Of course—being the man that John Price is—he didn't listen. Instead, he was determined to learn to swim. To not be afraid of the depths.
"Swallowed more salt water than I did air," he says with a chuckle, "but now there's not a place on earth I can't touch."
You cautiously tell him about your fear of snakes when he teases you for screaming the way you did at the creek. A young girl on Mr. Beckett's farm, a small pail in hand wandering into the chicken coop, you found one of those wretched things. Swallowing eggs whole, lumpy and round with his boon, yet perched so high above your head like a true predator.
You screamed so loudly that the old man came out running with his shotgun. His reaction was very much the same as John's. A chuckle, the simple handling of a slithering creature, and yet another scar to add to your memory.
It is strange, bearing these parts of yourself, yet John accepts you with open arms. More questions. Another story to share.
That night, he lays with you again. Nestled beneath blankets, his chest to your back, nose on your neck, gentle snoring lulling you to sleep until the morning where you ride and talk all day just to repeat it again tomorrow. It's a bond you don't think you've ever had with anyone before. Perhaps with your mother and her fleeting touches before hiding her own chipped nails. Certainly not with your father who seems to regard you as nothing more than a head of cattle.
It's scary, how much you've grown to like it.
But after days of traveling, it's purged from your mind the moment John begins to wander off the trail, forcing everyone and their horses to cut through thick bushes and greenery that feels nearly suffocating. No one speaks a word, but you note the way Soap's fingers trace the repeater holstered on the side of his horse, eyes darting through the trees as if keeping an eye out for any man or beast that should lunge forward.
Then, as if he's heard a whisper on the wind, John suddenly stops. Humming, he dismounts and the boys follow quickly behind, dragging their horses to trees before removing items from their saddle packs. Approaching Jester's side, John offers you his hand to help you down.
"You haven't changed your mind yet, have you Lamb?" he asks.
"About what?" you question. Your fingers curl into his palm as you swing your leg over Jester, skirt nearly catching on the saddle horn.
"About helping us with this little bank heist?"
Once your feet are on solid ground, you wipe your hands off on your dress and shake your head. "No, I still want to do it. I said I would," you ensure.
His lips press together, almost as if he's disappointed, yet he still nods.
"Good. Well—" John holds a hand out, gesturing towards a break in the thicket where you can see coal dust swirling up in the air in the far distance. Wooden buildings with thick coats of paint stand proud in the sun, and you see tiny dots of people and horses milling about cobblestone roads. Your stomach drops at the steeple poking up into the sky like a needle through skin. "—welcome to Blackpeak."
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john price x fem!reader | cowboy/outlaw x preachers daughter | masterlist
Chapter Fifteen: last chance
It takes John several moments to find his bearings, but even then he still can’t bring himself to speak.
Instead, he looks you up and down, studying you as if some strange creature has taken over your body. Peeled the skin from your bones and messily slapped it onto their own form as a pale imitation of you. It’s in this silence that you realize how indecent the two of you are. Shoved into your chemise like a child, bare feet anxiously scooting along the wooden floor—and John, shirtless with his trousers unbuttoned and sitting low on his hips.
Eventually he grunts and steps away from the door, motioning you to follow him inside of the room with him. You’re trapped with him as the lock sings out a small click but you feel no fear as John wanders to the vanity on the far wall. His back winks at you—nothing but heavy scar tissue and bad memories—until he’s leaning against the desk with his arms crossed, obscuring the dark hair that swirls along his chest all the way to his abdomen.
“I can’t let you do that,” he says.
Your brows pinch together so firmly you swear your forehead nearly splits in two. “What?” Hands balling into fists with your chemise at the center of your palms, you threaten to tear the thing to shreds as you stare at John. “But you- everything you said last night- this-this is to help people, isn’t it? Bring justice? You were going to ask me anyway! What was the point if you’re just going to tell me no?”
“Because you’ve got a complex about it now,” John reveals flippantly. He doesn’t bother to explain further until you scoff. “I’ve told you the story, and now you’re doing it because you think it’s the right thing.”
“It is the right thing,” you interject.
“Yes, justice for the dead and all that.” Your eyes threaten to roll into the back of your head. “A train of thought like that is gonna rip you apart.”
For a moment, your breath catches in your chest where it expands and pulls at your trachea. Huffing it out, you loosen your hands and square your shoulders.
“I’m coming with you,” you say defiantly.
“No you’re not.”
“What other choice do you have? Really, John Price. You can’t really expect anything good to come from you marching into Blackpeak with guns blazing. You need me.”
At that, it’s John’s turn to scoff. “Real cute, sweetheart, but I don’t need anything from you. Besides, I can’t guarantee your safety. It was stupid of me to even think of asking you.”
“You’re just conflicted because you see too much of yourself in me.”
The early morning serenity is shattered by your words. Shards litter your feet where they threaten to embed themselves into the tenderness of your heel. John’s expression remains remarkably stony as he mulls your words over in his head, but it refuses to grind down into anything palatable.
“You and I couldn’t be further apart,” he claims.
“Our scars are similar. Our lives share the same filth. You’re just… a whole lot stronger than me, John Price.” He opens his mouth to argue with you, but you don’t let the chance for the words to leave him before you’re continuing. “You express the anger that I never could, that I was never allowed to, and you… you do something with it. You make something of yourself. You’re not just a victim.”
Swallowing the fuzziness that follows your revelation, you brave a step forward until the no-man's-land between you and John is nearly nonexistent. He watches you with his chin turned down close to his chest, arms still crossed, gaze soft like azure silk.
“I don’t ever expect us to be friends, but I trust you John Price. I trust you to keep me safe, and I trust that the reason you’re doing all this is for the better of the people,” you finish. “I mean… if it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead three times over by now. I don’t think a selfish man would do that.”
It’s the first time you’ve ever stunned John into silence, and you’re not sure you’ll be able to manage this feat again. Steady eyes, twitching lips—you think you may have broken him. He’s always got a quip to throw at you, a spade in the back of his pocket he’s ready to trowel right where it hurts, but for once he seems too occupied with the dancing of your mouth than making you bleed.
Finally, he takes a breath. Deep and long, his chest expands beneath his crossed arms until he gives you a defeated nod.
“Well. Get packing then, Lamb. We’ll be leaving soon.”
Once again, your life is changing within the blink of an eye. With a giddy smile on your lips, you thank John as if he’s doing you a favor by allowing you on such a venturesome trip before you rush back to your room. There, alone with your thoughts and your broken necklace, you do your best to pretend this is a righteous trip, sanctioned in good faith—something that will bring life rather than pain. It’s a treacherous task to complete with the memory of blood in your hair and a wavering song on your tongue, but you still manage to dress all the same.
Before you know it, your bag is packed, your shoes are tight on your feet, and you’re mourning the loss of your mother’s necklace as you hold the charm in the palm of your hand. The absence of weight around your throat is gutting. Algid and bitter like a funeral with only two attendees. You choke down the memory and place the pieces in a secure spot in your carpet bag.
You can always ask for forgiveness later.
John rouses you to your feet with a knock. He’s cleaned himself up with combed hair and oils that remind you of the scent of deep earth stuck beneath your fingernails. A part of you is impressed he’s even here—that he hasn’t run off without you, abandoning you, leaving you far behind to take care of business without a sniveling girl weighing him down.
Instead, he leads you downstairs where Laswell waits in an empty lobby. With her boots high up on a table, she leans back in her chair as she puffs away on a cigarette, fingers lazily flipping through a series of papers. The scars of yesterday still taint the room. Blood that soaked too deep into wood, bullet holes leaving puckering knots in the walls—if you listen hard enough, you think you can almost hear the screaming.
Her eyes land on you, and her smirk pulls tight around the filter of her cigarette. “Had a feeling you were going to need five tickets.”
“Can’t leave the cargo behind,” John shrugs.
“Not when it’s so precious.” Laswell’s words have the tips of your ears burning like wicks on a candle. You’re glad for the distraction when she tosses the papers in her hands across the table where John stands. “Five tickets to Red Gorge. Should get you close enough to Blackpeak without getting shot.”
Scooping them into his hands, John studies the tickets. You do your best to glance over his figure where you see official times, dates, and elegant stamps marking the parchment. Halley’s Express. A one way trip to Red Gorge—120 miles from Grand Hollow.
“Appreciate it.” Carefully folding each slip, John hides it in the pocket of his vest before his thumbs settle into the loops of his pockets. “Sorry about all the trouble.”
Laswell waves him off as she flicks the ash from her cigarette onto the floor. “Should’ve expected it. Trouble always follows you.” Pausing, her eyes find you. “Just bring this one back safe and we’ll call it even. Lottie wants to buy her a dress.”
“Me?” you stammer.
“That’s what I said.” Refusing to explain any further, she nods towards the exit where the city is already alive and flourishing with carriages and pedestrians filling the street. “Your boys are waiting outside for you. Might wanna get a move on if you’re going to catch that train.”
Your farewell is awkward. Stiff. You attempt to reach your hand out for hers just like John does—departing with a firm handshake and a nod—but instead, Laswell pulls you in for a hug. Her arms cradle you tight. Forearms pressed into your spine, palms into your shoulder blades. It’s as if she’s sending you off to war.
“Don’t wander too far, Lamb,” she warns.
Towering brick buildings block out the morning sun, and the shade sends a shiver reverberating throughout your body the moment you step foot outside. As promised, the boys are already waiting with their horses at the ready. Kyle has Bear’s reins in one hand and Jester’s in the other, and both creatures look at him as if he’s a stranger. He solemnly passes the darkened strips of leather to you with a smile so faint you almost can’t make it out.
“Suppose we had to leave eventually,” he says as a greeting.
Jester huffs against the side of your face, breathing in your scent as if he has to re-familiarize himself with you. “Sounds like we have work to do.”
“Oh, there always is,” Kyle hums.
There is a substantial lack of banter on the way to the train station. Sewn lips refuse to fight against their sutures, and you find yourself following close behind. There is nothing but the swaying in Jester’s gait and the clack of his hooves on the street, but it’s still not enough to drown out what you’ve been desperately trying to smother.
Deafening gunshots. The human condition strewn all throughout the back of your head and side of your face. It doesn’t take long for the doubt to settle into you. Perhaps John was right—he shouldn’t have offered this to you. Some silly girl with an idea of redemption, of righteousness.
Does justice only manifest in the stain of ichor? Was it not the same for Jesus Christ? Slain on a cross, body made to rot in a tomb where loved ones cannot grieve, cannot process, cannot mourn—
—a casket laden with lace beneath six feet of dirt marred with the grubby hand prints of a desperate daughter.
The station is a grandiose construction, one that catches your attention well before you properly come upon it. About half a block away you can see the steel beast that stands proud with a lazy plume of smoke wafting from the chimney. People mill about the carts like ants as attendants check tickets and usher people to their seats while ranch hands load cattle and oversized baggage with moistened brows.
Once the platform rises high enough off the street, John hops off of his horse, prompting you and the others to do the same. Even such a short ride has reminded you just how long it’s been since you’ve been in a saddle. Bow legged, you waddle around until the tempo of your strides are no longer awkward and stiff.
“Kyle! Kyle, wait!”
A woman’s voice cuts through the crowd, forcing all heads within the area to snap back to the streets. There, you see a flash of red. Swathes of rich fabric around jogging legs with a frilly apron decorating the skirt of a dress. Long braided dark hair billows out behind her as if caught in the wind, light as silk, delicate as a spiderweb; it’s for that reason that her strength impresses you. Holding a small child no older than four years on one hip and gripping a small paper bag in the other, she is not slowed by any obstacle in her way.
“Sofia?” Kye’s voice is perplexed, and cracks with his confusion as he looks back and forth between the woman and John. It only takes a single moment for Riley to steal Bear’s reins from his hand before giving him a less than discreet nudge. Kyle crumbles. Shoulders falling forward, palms cradling the woman’s face—you see all the tension dissipate off his body. “My love, what are you doing here?”
“I came to say goodbye, of course.” The woman—Sofia?—sets the young boy stuck to her hip down on the ground as she wrestles with the bag in her other hand. “And you need food for the road. I don’t want you getting hungry, mi vida.”
“Ky! Sofie let me help with the bread,” the boy claims.
Sofia chuckles. “Yes, thank you, mijo.”
From a comfortable distance, you watch as Kyle all but scoops Sofia into his arms. Hands on her cheeks, he wipes at a mess of white powder on her face. Her eyes are soft. Freshly tilled earth, open and waiting to breathe life and creation. She glows beneath Kyle’s attention, a blooming flower dancing in the breeze. When they kiss, it’s delicate. Not even porcelain is quite as fragile.
“It’s not too late to change your mind.”
John’s voice is the force that shatters this moment. As an attendant pulls Jester from your hands, you bring your attention to John who looks at you with his chin lowered and arms crossed. Ever studious, he examines you as if you’re nothing but carrion on the side of a winding trail. You refuse to let his gaze belittle you.
“I’m coming with you,” you say decisively.
“This won’t be easy, Lamb. It’ll be dangerous,” he attempts to sway.
You shrug. “That’s fine. I trust you.”
As if trying to pull your head out of the clouds, John’s hand wraps around your bicep before pulling you closer to him. You can smell his aftershave and the sweat that seeps into the back of his neck. He’s unable to get another word out before you’re interrupting him.
“Pain doesn’t scare me, John. And I know you wouldn’t let anything too bad happen to me.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but the smile is sour on your lips. “Besides, experiencing pain for something good is worth it, I’d wager. Sure beats Daddy’s belt, anyway. At least I know what I’m hurting for.”
The engine before you roars to life with a whistle warning passengers to hurry aboard before they’re left behind. Your attention turns to the cart and the attendant ushering people inside, but you hardly have the time to formulate a thought with the way John’s hand wanders to your face.
Stunned, you stare at him as the pad of his thumb rubs over the apple of your cheek, whisking away some unseen blemish. It’s incredibly gentle for a man like John Price. If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost compare it to the way Kyle caressed Sofia.
“After you, darling,” he says, gesturing to the train.
The compartment is astounding. Rich leather seats await sprawled out for you on long benches, and the conditioner hangs heavy in the air, tickling your nose. The windows are so large you swear you can see the curvature of the earth as you take the seat closest to it, pristine glass reflecting your likeness back in your face.
Kyle is the last person to board, hardly making it on time for the train to depart. His hands are occupied with the paper bag Sofia had worriedly flaunted, and it doesn’t take him long to start sifting through its contents once he’s seated. He pulls out pastries with jelly filling and sweet honey glaze, small loaves of bread perfect for a meal with golden crusts, and fresh caramel candies wrapped in parchment paper.
Greedy eyes peer around Kyle’s torso as Soap takes stock of all the goodies sitting in Kyle’s lap. “Aye, your girl really spoiled us.”
A bittersweet smile graces Kyle’s lips as he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, she really did.”
He takes a moment to pass around the caramel candies. Cut into generous squares, the soft texture melts on your tongue with a hint of brine, like birthday cake and tears. Chewing on your treat, you find your attention lured in by the window as the train picks up speed. Grand Hollow passes by faster and faster in your vision, buildings blurring together as if you’re on a speeding horse.
As the environs of the city draws near, you note the distance between homes and the farmlands blossoming in wide, open fields. Wild flowers tickle the sides of the tracks as towering trees wave you goodbye. Familiar countryside fills your view, and for a swift moment you’re reminded of home.
Before the cityscape completely vanishes, you approach a sign. Expertly crafted painted letters bid you a safe trip and request that you return to visit soon. In the shade of its plea, you find your familiar sheep friends who used to wander the streets with sweet wonder. You begin to smile until you realize the ewe has her face buried in the scruff of her lamb who lays motionless in the grass with its offals on display for all to see.
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john price x fem!reader | cowboy/outlaw x preachers daughter | masterlist
Chapter Fourteen: dissonance
tw: minor gore, angst, nudity
“My necklace.”
It’s the first thing you’ve been able to get yourself to utter since the commotion downstairs ensued. Fingers tenderly prod at your clavicles where your mother’s cross is supposed to be sitting, bright and proud among your pristine Sunday best. There is nothing but empty space. A gap where gold should be but only flesh remains.
“What’s that, darlin?” Lottie asks. She’s still got an arm around you as she leads you down the hallway, your bath looming ever closer. Despite her proximity, the silage of her perfume isn’t enough to drown out the cruor cooling behind you.
“My necklace. It’s gone,” you mutter.
She hums, but makes no effort to stop or turn around. Lottie’s been given her task, and she seems intent on not straying from it. “I’m sure it got lost durin’ the fight. We’ll look for it after things get cleaned up, okay?”
A response attempts to bubble up in your throat but it doesn’t quite roll off your tongue. It dies. Crumbles into a powder that leaves you parched.
The bath is a stark contrast to the last time you were in there. There are no candles to illuminate the room in a buttery glow, nor is there steaming water in the tub with swirling rose petals. Lottie has to flick the electric lights on in order to see anything in the otherwise tenebrous room and when she brings you inside you can only note the long sour stench of lilac rotting into the wallpaper.
Lottie delicately helps you peel off your overdress once the door is closed before carefully laying it out on the floor. You stare down at the disembodied cloth and your stomach turns at the blood that soaks into the gossamer lace of your bodice. It’s fresh. Bright red and oxygenated. The body it came from is still warm.
“Come on now,” Lottie redirects when she notices you’re staring for too long. “Have a seat.”
There is not enough room in your chest for shame to plague your heart when you shed your chemise and let it crumble to the floor. Lottie helps you into the tub where she turns on the spout but doesn’t plug the drain. Algid water splashes onto your bare skin, prompting gooseflesh to ripple along your muscles, but you ignore it as she begins to rinse the gore from the side of your face.
It’s near impossible to get your hair clean. Sticky blood, thick flesh, bone shrapnel—an ended life, the brain of a human stuck to you; all memories, feelings, and desires snuffed out in an instant. It was John’s bullet that did this. He saved you. Again. He’s always saving you, and you’re always bearing the scars from it.
Once you’re deemed free of the remnants of a silenced life, Lottie helps you dry off with a towel before wrapping it around you and having you sit by the vanity. She sheds her own clothing before rinsing the blood off of her hands and hopping into the tub herself. A shrill giggle cuts through the air as she splashes her chest, breasts aglow with droplets of water. You’re not sure how she can laugh after such violence, or how she can muster a smile at all, but you’re too exhausted to question her on it.
The sabbath is soaked in blood—white cotton turned red.
Neither of you put on your soiled overdresses when Lottie’s finished cleaning herself up. You drag your chemise up your body with numb fingers as you stare at yourself in the vanity. Dewy skin from your sponge bath. Chapped lips. Sunken eyes. You’re not sure what to make of this life away from your father. It was supposed to be better, yet so much blood has been spilt you’re not sure it’s worth the endeavor.
Lottie helps lead you to your room once everything is squared away, leaving behind your bloody Sunday best to rot on the floor. She promises to find you a replacement dress once things have calmed down, but you catalogue this pledge as one given only to tame the rapid beating of your heart and nothing more.
Your room is silent. No, this whole building is. The lively bar below you has turned into a morgue, and even the concerned patrons speak only in hushed tones. Even drunkards know to respect the dead; to not disturb their final resting places. Lottie keeps up with this ideology as she softly suggests you slip into bed while drawing the covers back. You know full well you will not be able to rest after what you’ve just seen, but you’re too exhausted to argue, so you crawl upon the plush mattress and allow her to draw the blankets over your body as if you’re a child again.
“There, that’s better,” Lottie hums once you’ve settled in. “Alright darlin’ I’m headed back downstairs. I’ll have Katie or John come check on you later, okay?”
Too enervated to respond, you simply nod as your cheek presses further into the pillow. She stands at the side of your bed for a long while, her presence oozing pity all over you. Then, she leans forward and presses a soft kiss to your cheek.
“Try and get some rest,” she says sweetly before exiting.
For Lottie’s sake, you try but fail miserably. Stuck on your side, back turned to the door, eyes staring at the rosy wallpaper before you—there is a dissonance inside your brain that refuses to halt. A saturnine cloud suffocates you, forcing back the memory of a gun against your ribs, a bullet whizzing past your face, the high impact splatter of blood across your skin.
It’s worse than any slap on your jaw, stick against your knuckles, or verse quoted with seething rancor.
Time doesn’t seem to exist as you lay in bed, so you have no gauge to tell what time it is when a knock sounds at your door. It’s well past lunch. Long enough for your stomach to be growling yet there are no such pains plaguing your stomach. The afternoon sun beats against the windows, but they’re smothered by the curtains, plunging the room into scarlet. Faded red. Like you’re stuck on the inside of a womb.
“Lamb?”
The door opens when you don’t respond. It creaks behind you, slow and careful, as John’s voice washes over you. The tone of his voice is strange. As his booted feet clomp towards the bed, you try to pin the feeling. It isn’t until his body sinks into the mattress behind you that you realize he’s here to expiate.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” he asks.
“I’m fine.” Short, piercing, and to the point. Your frustration is nameless, and yet it rears its ugly head within your throat all the same.
John does not allow silence to linger. “I know that can’t have been easy for you.”
“But I’m sure it was for you.” There’s a snap to your words that doesn’t quite land over the dullness of your tone. A maw without teeth, jaw clenching taut flesh between wet gums, unable to break skin. “After Blackpeak, this must’ve been a walk in the park for you, John Price.”
He audibly inhales, his frustration nearly devouring him, but you feel the way he prevents himself from snapping the way wolves so often do. A held breath, bitten words—his weight shifts on the mattress.
“Lamb, I would never hurt the people of Blackpeak,” John says, nearly pleading.
“I don’t believe you,” you quip.
“I wouldn’t.”
“Is that why there’s that nice little poster of you plastered all over the city?” you snap. Your fingers curl into the blanket as you keep your eyes pinned to the wall, desperate to not look at him lest you begin to crumble. “Every town you’ve brought me to, you’ve ended up hurting someone. First that rancher, then those men in Little Wood, and now here. You are a violent man, John Price, and sometimes I worry that you use that gun—that tool—of yours too much.”
For once, you’ve managed to stun him. At least, you think you have. His breathing is so quiet you can’t hear it, and you can’t note a single bit of movement.
“Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed,” John quotes. “Please, love. Just let me explain. Lamb... Darling, look at me.”
For all your father’s anger—the brutal acidity that has tainted you since the first time he struck you—your mother’s benevolence always shines through. Carefully, you begin to roll until you’re flat on your back, head and shoulders propped up by the provided pillow so that you’ve got a perfect view of John. He’s sitting on the edge of your bed in nothing but plain trousers. His vest has been removed, leaving him with the half buttoned mess that’s become of his white half-collared shirt. Without his hat, his hair runs free—trimmed inky locks mussed with sweat.
“The moment you say anything heinous, I’m kicking you out of this room,” you promise.
John’s chuckle comes tense as his head lowers. “I’ll hold you to that, darling.”
He leans forward, almost getting too close for comfort, but you don’t say anything when he takes your hand into his. His touch is warm—near clammy. You try not to think too hardly about how much blood has soaked them.
“The boys and I used to be deputies back in Blackpeak,” he shares. The look on your face must betray your emotions because John’s tittering again. “I know. Doesn’t seem like we’re the type, does it? Most of the locals weren’t too happy with us either, since we’re English. But we were given badges and we took oaths, and we did our jobs well.”
Images flood your mind of John Price working for the law. Somehow, it seems to fit. A shiny deputy star pinned to his vest, clothes neat and tongue just as sharp, ready to wrangle up outlaws as if he’s wrestling cattle. It’s a stark difference to who he is now—a cynistic man who sees the world in a terribly dark shade of grey.
“I didn’t hurt those people in the coal mine, Lamb. None of us did,” John continues, squeezing your hand with assurance. “I remember that day well. The explosion could be heard all the way from the office. Kyle and I rode out as fast as we could towards the smoke and screaming. We pulled as many people from the wreckage as we could manage, but it wasn’t enough. So many people died that day, and there isn’t a single moment that goes by that I don’t think of them.
“At first, everyone thought it was an accident. A misuse of dynamite, or some sort of gas that had been ignited. Then the survivors started talking about masked men who entered the mines with explosives. As soon as that rumor got out, the sheriff tried to shut it down. He didn’t want unrest in the town. That didn’t sit right with me.”
Finally gathering the courage to partake in the conversation, you swallow. “You went out looking for them?”
John nods. “I did. And I found them, too. They’d been right under our noses the entire time. Sheriff Shepherd had hidden correspondence with a man named Vladimir Makarov. He’s a very wealthy man from Russia who owns a few coal plants here in The States. A very wealthy, greedy man. Made an offer with Shepherd saying that if they got the old company out of Blackpeak, there’d be something in it for him. So that’s exactly what he did.”
A wretched dissonance strikes through the base of your skull as you attempt to keep all the pieces of John’s story straight. When it comes to anything outside of Penmosa, you know remarkably little. Each word he speaks sounds like a different language, yet as everything begins to fall into place you find the pit in your stomach unbearably heavy.
“You’re saying the sheriff did it?” you ask in disbelief.
“I’m not saying he did it, he did it. Found the letters myself,” John corrects. “I put the papers in the bank where I knew they’d be safe, and I made a plan to meet with the judge in order to bring Shepherd to justice. But I guess word got out somehow, and next thing I knew, my name was plastered all over town with the blame for the explosion and the boys and I were being hunted. We hardly got out of there alive.
“Those men downstairs? They’re part of Shepherd’s Shadow Company. Led by his protege Philip Graves. They’ve been tracking us halfway across the country just to kill us so that word doesn’t get out about Shepherd’s crimes. We won’t be free men until we get back to Blackpeak and set this straight, and neither will anyone else in town, either.”
A part of you doesn’t want to believe John. You don’t want to believe that there could ever be so much evil in the world. That so many lives could be slaughtered for such vainglory. But you know he does not take lives so flippantly—at least, not in his mind. When he killed that rancher, it was to protect you, and same with the man downstairs. He is violent to an end, but you’ve seen the tenderness that lurks beneath his exterior.
John Price does anything for his people, and you think that ideology extends to the citizens of Blackpeak, too. Besides, you always wondered why the papers switched up so suddenly between the explosion being an accident, to it being caused with malicious intent.
“Earlier, before that gunfight broke out, you were trying to ask me to help you in Blackpeak. What were you going to have me do?” you ask, taking a small detour in conversation.
John’s eyes soften at your question, and you feel his grip on your hand tighten as he leans forward. “Lamb, you’ve had a rough day, we don’t have to talk about that right now.”
“I want to know,” you insist.
Here she is—your mother’s daughter—seeing something broken and yearning so desperately to fix it as if your hands were the one that caused the damage in the first place. John’s head lowers for a moment as he looks at your hand. Somehow, this feels natural. The way he holds you and caresses your scarred knuckles with his thumb.
“The correspondence between Shepherd and Makarov is still in my safebox at the bank. It’s the only thing that will convince a judge of our innocence and bring justice to those workers. I still have the key, but I’d get shot if I went in to retrieve it myself. Same goes for the others, too. But you’re a new face. You wouldn’t have any trouble.” There’s a long pause where neither of you speak. He looks up at you. “You don’t have to do it.”
“What other choice would you have if I say no?” you question.
The wide muscles of John’s shoulders tense with a shrug. “Robbery. Sneak in at night. Incapacitate the guards. Apologize to the judge when morning comes and present the papers to him in person.”
“You’d really resort to such a thing?”
“I’d rather be hung for something I did than something I didn’t.”
There’s too much adrenaline coursing through your body for you to be laying down as you are now, yet John’s hand has ensnared you, keeping you still. A lamb on wobbly legs, staring up at a butcher.
“When would you leave?” You’re not sure why the questions continue to pour out of you—the thought of sincerely debating assisting him in such a thing makes you woozy; almost more woozy than the idea of staying behind and doing nothing.
“If things had gone our way, we would’ve left at the end of the week, but since we’ve been paid such a bloody visit, we won’t be able to linger any longer than we already have. We’ll hit the tracks tomorrow.” He speaks cautiously. Low and slow. Azure eyes study your face, reading the lines in your skin, each divot, every curve. He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to make a decision about this right now.”
You’re not even sure if you could. Head crammed with new information, the truth coming to light and nearly blinding you in the process; you can hardly see the full picture. Ever since you left Penmosa, you’ve been preparing yourself for John’s departure. For your lives to separate. Yet, this entire time, it’s as if you’ve been practicing for a wound. To mar yourself. The thought of splitting yourself open terrifies you more than you’d like to admit.
“I was so furious with you,” you carefully confess, words nearly toppling off the tip of your tongue. “I thought I knew why I was so mad. I thought you were a killer; a real killer. But more than that, I think I was so upset because I know you’re better than that. Better than what I thought you were.”
John’s scoffing titter is poorly hidden, and his fingers loosen against you. “Oh darling, I’m not a good person. You know that. And I’m not much better than any other bastard who comes wandering along.”
“I think you are. A good person, I mean. I think you just love differently than most; in a way that scares people.”
For once, John does not have a quip. There is no joke at the expense of your intellect, or anything said to degrade himself; there is only you, him, and the way he holds your hand, delicate, as if it were a petal. Then, the connection breaks. Fingertips leaving you, his hand diving into his pocket instead. You nearly reach for him the way you snatched up your mother’s necklace from her body when you were a child with the word mine tearing at your throat.
His hand isn’t hidden for long. Pulling free from his pocket, fingers curled into a fist, he presents it to you and carefully unravels them until the remnants of your mother’s necklace is revealed. Your eyes widen. The tenuous golden chain lies in several pieces, swinging freely as if they’re strings caught in the wind. A rock settles in your stomach at the state of it—fractured beyond repair—but the cross sits just as proud as ever in the palm of his hand.
“I caught the chain trying to drag you over the bar,” John admits as if he had broken it intentionally. “I think I got all the pieces. There should be a jeweler who can fix it up, or at least get you a new chain. I know how much this means to you.”
Tender fingertips extend towards the charm where you trace each arm of the cross. The grooves are still correct. Your mother still lurks beneath the gold. It’s just as you remember it, and for some reason it makes your bottom lip tremble.
“Thank you,” you whisper.
John only nods before he sets the pieces in a neat pile on the nightstand next to the bed. Then, he mutters something about trying to get some rest, and shares his hotel room number in case you need anything from him.
Suddenly, there’s nothing but blue. A cloudless sky piercing through you. Deep lake water swimming with life. John leans forward, and for a terrifying moment, you think he might kiss you—for a terrifying moment, you think you might let him. His body curls forward, shoulders stooping, hands leaning against your pillow, creating soft divots until his lips are on your forehead. His trimmed facial hair scratches against your skin, yet you almost can’t feel it over the delicateness of his embrace.
It is the last thing he leaves you with before departing and shutting the door tight behind him. His footsteps hardly fade down the hall before you’re crying. Knees curling up to your chest, the side of your face buried into the pillow, the spittle of John’s kiss soaking into the sheets—grief overwhelms you in an unspeakable way. In the way only trees who have seen forest fires know. It lingers in the whisper of the wind that still carries the songs your dead mother used to sing, and in the lilies that still miss her caring hands.
You come undone the way you always have—quietly and palatable.
Some stretch of time later, you manage to sleep your pain away. You dream of Mr. Beckett’s verdant field with overgrown, lush grass and the sun high above you. Your mother is out to play, dwelling in the full moon that manages to glisten brighter than the rest of the sky, beaming down at you as your giggles drown out the cicadas.
The ewe and her lamb from Grand Hollow play with you—or rather, around you. Chasing one another, feet kicking up pits of dirt, bleating at one another as their wool darkens with each step. When the lamb trips, falling forward on its face as its knees buckle beneath the impact, you lean down to help the poor thing up before it’s bounding off once more.
Someone calls your name. When you look up to Mr. Beckett’s porch, you don’t find the town’s sweet bartender, but rather the unruly preacher—your father. He stands with one hand on the railing and the other gripping his undone belt. Tanned leather bends like a loop, fingers gripping the buckle as if it’s his lifeline. He does not speak any further, but you know why he beckons. Pious girl turned miscreant. You need to be set back in your true ways like a doctor would set a fractured leg.
Instead of following his commands, you look back down at the ewe and lamb. They stare at you with their teeth bared. Instead of flat, herbivore teeth, they bear razors like wolves.
When you wake up, the sun is still up. There is food in the air, but hunger does not pull at your stomach. There is only sweat.
Sitting up in bed, you glance over at the nightstand where you find your mother’s necklace still sitting quietly on the corner, awaiting to be put back together again. You reach for it, caressing the design once more, and for the first time since your mother was nearly buried with it, it’s frigid to the touch.
Swallowing down the tart aftertaste of your dream, you toss the covers off of your body before slamming your bare feet against the floor. You’re not quite sure what happened to your shoes, but you pay no attention to it as you dart towards the door. Rug cushioning your steps, you march down the hallway until you reach the end where a small cubby sports an evening chair and a bible lazily perched on the armrest.
You knock on John’s door harder than you intend to. The sound it makes is horisont, and leaves your knuckles aching as if they’ve split after another gnarly lesson. He answers the door quickly, but his eyelids are heavy when he swings it open, and you note the multiple cowlicks on the side of his head, sticking up as if he’s been skewered with locks of hair.
His greeting doesn’t even make it halfway out of his mouth before you’re interrupting him.
“I’ll help.”
Lethargy pulling at his features, he tilts his head to the side as his eyes narrow. “Help?”
You nod. “I’ll come with you to Blackpeak.”
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john price x fem!reader | cowboy/outlaw x preachers daughter | masterlist
Chapter Eighteen: the mob
cw: violence, death, injuries, homophobia
When you swallow, your tongue slithers down your throat.
It gets trapped half way, choking you until you and the teller are staring wide eyed at one another with terrifying realization. The mere mention of John's name garners more attention than you're comfortable with.
Laughing, you fold the bills in your hand as you scramble for an excuse; anything that might throw them off of the trail you've been dragged down for the last few weeks. Nothing comes to mind. Nothing that would be believable. The rug pulls out from beneath your feet and you're floundering for something to save you.
The clerk cautiously eyes you and the way your feet continue to awkwardly stumble backward too clumsily to be clandestine. He holds a hand out as if the mere motion alone is meant to stop you, but you're too scared of that look in his eyes. He harbors the same fury that your father does. Maybe all men do.
So you do what you did the last time Daddy ever got mad at you—you run.
You burst through the doors like an angry bull. The doors swing so far that they nearly smack into the face of the guard standing at the entrance, leaving his only saving grace to be his quick reflexes. He looks at you as if you're a stumbling lamb; like you could never be responsible for anything worth punishing. Your feet hardly seem to hit the ground as you sprint to Jester who warily eyes you as you tug on the saddle horn and lift yourself up into the seat.
Pulling on the reins, you ignore the clerk's demands to stop and the orders he barks for the guards to chase you. Blackpeak suddenly feels too big. A vast, unfamiliar valley waiting to wrap its fingers around you and hold you down. You push through the suffocating feeling as Jester's hooves dig into the earth as he switches from a canter to a gallop.
Though you know you shouldn't, you glance behind you. It hasn't taken the guards long at all to mount their own steeds to chase after you. The wind catches their hats, sending them flying off into the streets to get trampled, but they don't seem the least bit concerned as they holler for you to stop.
The distance between you and John Price has never felt so large before. Not until now.
You don't turn back to face the front until gunshots ring through the air. The bullets piercing scream as they shoot through the air is familiar, but it's too compressed. Sound waves bouncing off the homes and storefronts around you, it closes in on you. A ricochet. A twirl. The ringing in your ears plagues you worse than church bells.
A shot fires, and Jester cries. His galloping slows. He's limping hard enough to nearly buck you off, but you keep as steady as you can.
"Come on, boy," you urge, but your voice lacks the resolve. "It's okay, keep pushing."
Another shot. Jester goes down, and you go with him.
He trips on his front feet, sending you flying forward into the dust. The money you retrieved from John's safe goes flying like leaves in autumn as Jester's head lands on your chest, temporarily knocking the air from your lungs. His breath is rancid, but more concerning than that it's labored. Legs thrashing, chest heaving—you think he'd scream if it weren't for the hole piercing through his chest.
"What? No, no!" It's as if you're the one who was shot. Scrambling out from underneath Jester's head, you gently hold him as you stare at the way ichor mixes with the earth. It clumps like rain water, but the scent of his offals is not nearly as sweet as a summer storm. Bottom lip trembling, you look down at him and try not to sob at his wide eyed gaze at the sky. "I'm so sorry…"
Grief is spliced with fear the moment the men chasing you halt their horses and dismount. Red in the face, they scream at you to stay where you are as they both raise their six shooters in unison, fingers already on the trigger as they march up to you like they've already decided your fate.
You scramble for your skirt. The strength at which you claw the fabric up your legs should be able to rip them to shreds, but they stay intact as you pull it over your thigh, revealing John's pistol. Either the straps have loosened, or your fear has given you the strength of God; either way, it's an easy task to grip the item and point it at the one closest to you.
It's not an easy task to pull the trigger.
You stare, lips parted, soil caking your tongue, fear piercing through your heart. John told you a gun is not a weapon, but a tool. A means of protection. A means of living. Still, your father's rambling is scarred too deep into your skin.
Thou shalt not kill.
When you can't pull the trigger, the gun is viciously kicked out of your hand by one of the guards. You don't know why you scramble for it. Turning on your side, your arms go bloody as you reach for it, crawling through Jester's blood, but you don't make it far before a thick-soled boot digs into your spine.
Like a bug crushed beneath an unforgiving foot, you can't do anything but squeal as the man presses too much weight into you. You feel the breath escape your lungs, pushed free from your chest until you can't get them to expand anymore.
The tears begin when you hear the cock of his hammer. You close your eyes and rest your cheek into the earth as you breathe in the scent of this place that has always nurtured you. Slightly moist, it smells of home. Like your mom's sourdough starter and Mr. Beckett's chicken coop. You try to memorize it in your last moments before you become a corpse in the middle of the street.
The gun discharges and you jump. As silent tears adhere dust onto your face, you patiently await the pain. When it doesn't come, you open your eyes expecting to see an all blinding light like your father always promised would await you after death, but instead you see Jester's quiet face and empty eyes as more blood flows through a new bullet hole in his head, putting him out of his misery.
A dark chuckle precedes the weight of the guard being lifted off of you as he kicks you over onto your back. Gasping, you stare up at him. The look in his eyes promises you that he will not be nearly as kind to you as he was to your horse.
"Oh," he croons, shoving his six shooter into his holster. "The townsfolk are gonna love you."
Pain blossoms in your skull as the first punch rips through your cheek and you're reminded of your mother. Your memories transcend time as you're forcefully shoved into your younger self. Too small to understand the world but still big enough to know that what you're witnessing is something worth remembering.
There's a stranger with a funny accent that your father always notes as being a sign of greed. High society people with more money than they should have. Tan cloth creases around his elbow as his arm wraps around your mother's waist. Slender fingers with a glistening wedding ring dig deep into her skin, and you don't know why but the sight makes your stomach feel upset—like you might be sick.
Always the zenith of politeness, she tries to gently push him away but he refuses to hear any of it. She begs in the middle of the general market for him not to do something so horrifying here in front of her daughter. She cries for mercy like sinners do in church.
This horror doesn't stop until your father marches up with his billfold clutched in his fingers like he might rip a hole through the leather. Yanking you by your wrist, you stumble on your little legs and look up at the adults while your father spits for your mother to stop wasting time and to follow him home. It's getting late, and dinner needs to be made.
That night, he beats her.
It's the first time he's ever done it in front of you. Sitting on the floor, your ankles hurt as you watch her collapse against the wall to keep herself up as he thumps the side of his bible against her face. You fear that if he does it too hard, the scriptures will be ingrained in her skin forever. Raised scars lingering on her cheeks and against her palms as she attempts to protect herself. Perhaps that's what your father wants—for her to never be able to forget.
While his violence endures, he speaks as if giving a sermon. The words are too large for you to comprehend. Infidelity. Vow breaking whore. Still, the tone is sharp enough for you to start crying just as your mother does.
"I saved you from sin!" he chides. "I saved you from a life of wretched sin!"
His blows pause. You lock eyes with your mother. Her tears cease like God has choked every river on earth.
The second punch reminds you of your father.
You're nine years old and your mother lies beneath freshly tilled soil and a headstone that still has the dust from its engravings. Her body isn't even cold yet, and still your father claims there is no time for sorrow, for she is in the Lord's hands now and He will not be swayed by mortal tears. Besides, dinner still has to be made. With your mother now dead, that chore falls upon you.
Weights pull at your shoulders as you run a knife over potatoes, skinning them and saving them to feed any small peckish creatures you happen across in nature. Your father grunts outside, hunched over with his knees on the ground as he yanks your mother's favorite flowers from the earth. He's been out there for so long that you're no longer convinced he was merely picking them to lay upon her grave.
You don't realize you've forgotten about the bread baking in the oven until you're coughing. Dark swirling smoke fills your lungs and tickles the back of your throat until you're wheezing, and it only worsens as you go to retrieve the smoldering hunk of dough. In the process of tossing the tray onto the counter, you've knocked over a handful of freshly peeled potatoes onto the floor.
Tears wet your cheeks the moment your knees hit the ground to retrieve the items. The door squeaks as it opens then quickly slams shut.
"What's burning?" your father demands.
He stops in the doorway of the kitchen when he sees you. Dirt marks the deep crevasses of his fingernails and sweat slicks his brow until you can see the deep set wrinkles on his forehead. There is no justification for the mess that your father wants to hear. Your tongue shrivels up with the raising of his hand.
Deft fingers reach for his belt buckle. The motion he makes to whip it free from his belt loops is so fluid you're nearly entranced, but his beckoning fingers may as well be wrapped around your throat.
"What am I gonna do with you, girl?" he asks rhetorically. "You're too much like your mother."
It's the first day he hits you on the face. No longer forced to bend over his knee, he instead has you kneel at the dinner table where he smacks his belt over your knuckles. He makes you count each one out loud. When he's finally finished with you and your knuckles are cracked beyond recognition and he decides your crying is too irksome, he lands a slap to your cheek.
Stunning you into silence, it gives him what he wants.
The third punch reminds you of Mr. Beckett's daughter.
Adelaide Beckett was a beautiful woman with hair like wild roses and a gap in her teeth so wide she could whistle through it. When you were younger, you always called her marmalade on account of not knowing any better, and she was just as sweet so it only made sense. Even when you were old enough to say her name correctly you still called her that because it made her laugh, and your mother always seemed to smile more when Adelaide laughed.
She was often found doing things many people considered inappropriate for a woman. Something unbecoming. One autumn, you watched her string up and dress an elk all by herself, and you figured half of Penmosa did too as it was all anyone could talk about at church that following Sunday. Whispering about her behind her back as if she wasn't the first to volunteer for services and lend her voice during hymns.
One year, for your birthday, Adelaide gifted you a photo—a real photo. One taken with a camera. She told you all about how it was made and developed, but all you could do was gawk at the image. It was of a buffalo. A huge creature that reminded you of an overgrown cow with hunched shoulders. With its head bowing low, it chewed on the grass at its feet, seemingly disinterested with the photographer, who certainly took this picture much too close to be safe.
You only got to hold onto her gift for a few minutes before your father's ripping it out of your hand, all while barking at Adelaide to stay away from you.
"I don't want some sexual deviant anywhere near my daughter," he spits.
When you get home, your father uses Adelaide's gift to start a fire. When you dare to ask him why, he says it's because man should not attempt to recreate or capture God's glorious creations.
Still, both you and your mother find quiet ways to interact with Adelaide. She's your mother's only friend. Your mother never smiles this much at home, nor does she ever receive such tenderness from your father as she does from her. Gentle hugs, a pat on the back, a gift of an unsuspecting rock or flower.
When your mother falls sick, Adelaide visits.
She comes when your father is running errands in town and you are in your bedroom—a child trying to swallow the thought that her mother is dying just beyond the wall and she's forbidden to see her. Adelaide marches through the house without fear or care. You stare at her with wide eyes as she greets you and approaches your parent's bedroom. When you tell her that your father doesn't want anyone seeing her, she only chuckles.
"Well, if your daddy has an issue with it, he's more than welcome to talk to me."
Adelaide closes the door behind her, and though you know you shouldn't, you can't help but linger. Wet coughs cut through the wood clear as day, just as they have been for the last few weeks, but their conversation only reaches your ears in fractured lines.
"There's a doctor up north. I've heard good things about him," Adelaide whispers.
"Delly, you know I can't go. I can't leave her here with her father." Your mother sounds broken. A mere husk of the woman you always knew her to be.
"We'll take her with!"
"We won't make it."
"But we can try. I wanna try. For you. He's killing you! I can't stand…" Adelaide coughs as if her allergies have suddenly acted up. "I can't stand the thought of losing you."
They argue like this for some time. Your ears strain with how hard you listen, but eventually things grow silent at one point except for sniffling from both your mother and Adelaide.
Eventually, Adelaide exits the room and shuts the door tight behind her. Her face is wet, like dew on rose petals, but she smiles anyway when she catches you standing in the hallway. You half expect her to chastise you for listening when you shouldn't.
"You know your mama loves you very much, don't you?" All you can give her in response is a nod. "Good. Because she does. More than you know."
The moment she leaves, you rush into your bedroom and toss yourself onto your bed. Knees digging into the mattress, you knock on the wall that separates you from your mother. It's a made up pattern. A half forgotten song. She echoes it back to you.
Three months after your mother died of consumption, Adelaide Beckett perishes from the same disease. Your father does not allow you to go to her funeral. He reminds you some sinners don't earn redemption.
When they bury her, they lay her to rest on the opposite side of the graveyard from your mother where the distance separates them like a yawning pit.
Blood hits your tongue and you are brutally shoved back into your adult body, but your mind has yet to catch up. Still a child underneath this mess of flesh, you groan as something sharp scrapes along your legs.
Opening your eyes hurts. Everything hurts. A deep ache radiates from your skull and tunnels through every bone until they've reached the distant lands of your fingers and toes. When you can squint past the swelling in your face, you realize that you're being dragged. Jester's body still lies in the distance, body cooling in the fresh mountain air as several strangers tug on your arms.
You dig your heels into the earth in an attempt to stand and relieve the pressure they're putting on your shoulders, but you stumble. More people gather around. Men in cowboy hats with stern brows and clenching jaws. Women in freshly pressed dresses daring to get close enough to the fray to watch you squirm. People begin chanting. Cheering. You've never heard such a ruckus of human voices squealing through the air before. They laugh, smile, growl—hungry dogs who can't decide between toying with or enjoying their first meal.
Adrenaline doesn't bother to course through you until your body hits grass.
Lush green stains the tattered skirt of your dress where you're dragged for a few more yards before you're dumped completely on the ground. Abrasions litter the newly exposed flesh of your legs, worsening around your knees and shins. Pinpricks of blood seep out where they're quickly welcomed by the sun and breeze.
A child speaks and you look up from yourself. A young girl with pigtails points you out to her mother. She does not look afraid, but rather, excited.
"Up," one of the men demand, yanking on the collar of your dress.
You obey, but you stand too fast. Head spinning, more blood gushes out of your face, seeping into your mouth and along your chin. The crinkling of those letters rub against your sweat slicked skin from the inside of your blouse.
All the contents in your stomach run sour as you're turned around to face the gallows. You cry out as someone yanks your hands behind your back before your wrists are met with the unforgiving bite of unconditioned rope. As you're pushed up the creaky wooden stairs, you note that the crowd has turned into half the town. Rows of people look on in excited agony as you're made to stand right over a trapdoor.
A noose is placed over your head. It feels like Mama's necklace. You sniffle as you turn to the man who seems to be leading this all—a man who has no sympathy for your tears.
"Wait, please sir." The words are heavy on your tongue. It isn't until your tongue darts out of your mouth to wet your lips that you realize it's split right down the middle. "Just let me explain."
"Quiet," he barks. His palm is wide enough to engulf the back of your head as he forces you to look away from him and back at the crowd.
The speech begins. Wild, slanderous claims of your character. John Price's whore sent to do his bidding, ready to plague Blackpeak with another tragedy. People call out for your end. Pull the lever and end your life as pitifully as it began.
You don't think of the words they spew at you—you can only think of Daddy and how you're glad your knuckles aren't split wide open this time. You think about John Price and how you can still taste a hint of his lips through the ichor in your mouth. Head tilting back, rope biting into your throat, you look at the sky and for once you can't compare it to another one of God's creative works. You only think about how the deep color that spans between clouds is a near perfect match with John's eyes.
John. Where is he? He said he would come.
You think of Mama and Adelaide. You think of their graves and the distance that spans between them, and you hope that when they kill you, they put you next to John Price.
"Whoa, boys! Quite the party you've got goin' on here!"
Though there are still occasional cheers, the crowd has gone significantly quiet as a new voice chuckles behind you. With your left eye beginning to swell further, you can't bring yourself to look anywhere other than the wooden trapdoor that outlines your feet.
"Quite the party, and you didn't even bother to invite me."
"Sir, she's with Price," one of the men explain.
"John Price?" the new man confirms, as if there could ever be anyone else with that last name. "Sounds like she's gotten herself into a bit of trouble."
The two men converse for a short while about your crimes. The bank, you running, Jester's death—the new man chuckles too much. There's not enough humor in your pain for him to be laughing like this.
"I understand, but I can't let you hang this woman."
A scoff cuts through the air just as confusion settles in the crowd. "Why not?"
Heavy boots fall along the wood as crisp spurs jingle while the man walks around you. The first thing you notice as he bleeds into your vision is his pristine vest and large silver belt buckle. Your gaze rises to his face where you find faint stubble and a long healed gash on his ear that reminds you of a wild tomcat. A savvy smile pulls at his lips as he sucks on his teeth, but you find any comfort dissipating as your eyes land on the deputy's badge glistening on his chest.
"Well kid," the man hums. He reaches forward and gathers a glob of coagulated blood from your chin onto his thumb before wiping it off on your blouse. "I've got plans for this one."
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