The house sat out in the open all by its lonesome as night descended and cast the long, dark shadows of the world over it and the patches of dead grass out front. The fence stood in place just a few feet high like it could protect the house from the dangers out in the wild countryside, but Glenn knew better. Out here was the most dangerous place in the world if you were the wrong person, or the right one, depending on how you looked at it. Out here there was nothing to stop the dark from closing in and dragging you right down to the Devil?s door.

?Yeah,? he clucked his tongue and patted the neck of the great stallion that pawed anxiously at the ground. ?That?s the place there, looks just like I left it. Might be a bit cleaner, though.?

He took the reins in hand and gave them a flick and with a lazy trot the horse started down the dirt path leading to the fence. Two months now, he figured. Two months since he last poked his head through the door to see if she was still living there. He hadn?t stayed long, had business to attend to. There were no meetings, no money exchanged hands and only one man got shot in that time, it was a different kind of deal he saw to.

When he?d left it had been out of anger the first time, desperation the second. The third time he left it wasn?t about either of those things. He remembered the day he packed up some clothes and food and saddled his horse and rode off. It felt right. Before then, the days felt like he was watching through someone else?s eyes, watching some man wearing his face and speaking with his voice grin and smirk and down a couple of shots of whiskey every night, maybe he was dead and this was the punishment for all the bad he?d done in the world. Maybe he was being forced to watch a life that might have been a good one, that he had a chance to have before throwing it all away. But he didn?t feel dead and if he was, he?d find out and he?d have some words with whatever god had the sick sense of justice to subject him to that kind of slow, confusing torment.

The thought came to him in his sleep.

I should go.

And just like that he was gone. The very next morning with only a note left behind.

I?m gone away now, Madison. I don?t know when I?ll be back, so don?t do nothing stupid and don?t get yourself into any trouble while I?m gone. Maybe I?ll see you around.

Glenn

It was the journey that answered his questions for him. Solitude helped him realize what had been eating away at the back of his mind all these years. He?d had a voice there, something telling him that he was wrong. Glenn always figured that was his conscience trying to hold onto that last breath of life before getting snuffed out, and he ignored it. The second voice was stronger. It told him everything he expected to hear. That he was meant to be the bad guy, meant to kill and steal, that his death wouldn?t be a peaceful passing in his sleep, but in a bloody shootout after he took a risk that was too great. Glenn made his life on hurting others, after all. He stole and lied and killed for no reason other than to get a glass of water and a bite of bread sometimes and more often than not he?d kill for even less. He was a product of the world he?d grown up in, a violent reality where the only men who got what they wanted were the men who were willing to kill anyone who?d try to stop them, even if that someone was an old woman unwilling to give up whatever cash she had tucked away in her little safe.

?Yeah, I?ve been awful bad in this life,? he told the horse. It didn?t seem to be listening to him.

He?d been a right son of a bitch, all filth and anger.

It clawed at him from the inside out, hate and rage, the violent brutality that had claimed so many lives. It was like the Devil was rising up inside of him whenever he gazed at the house, howling darkness into his ears and cursing every step the horse took to bring them a little closer to the small gate. The world was darker than he remembered when he opened his eyes after a blink and that few feet of space between him and salvation grew a hundred times over in the split second his eyes were closed. All around him Glenn could hear the voices of those he?d loved and those he?d wronged, all cursing him for the monster he really was. It was the same thing he saw and the same thing he heard when he closed his eyes to sleep every night; trees bleached like bones, withering and clawing wretchedly at the sky like the dead rising from the grave. The leaves were fallen but red like blood and with every trudging step he took through the dying grove more fell upon the rest and slowly weighed his legs down until like lead, they refused to move. He was forced to stand there and watch the moon slowly etch its path along the sky and make way for the sun, and one-by-one they would come to regale him with tales of his cruelty and viciousness, reminding him that above all else, Glenn Douglas was meant for only one thing.

The stallion whinnied and reality came snapping back like a slingshot and he clucked his tongue at the beast before sliding from the saddle to land on the dirt path with a cloud of dust rising around his boots and fading away in the cold wind that swept over the open hills and fields. One hand gripped the reins and he walked the beast towards the gate, swinging it open with a little kick from the toe of his boot. Wide, it offered him passage and he took it. Once they were in the yard it swung shut and the voices in the wind were silenced all at once. He could hear the horse breathing, could hear his own heartbeat over the hush that seemed to fall in thick layers over the yard. His muscles tensed like his body sensed danger, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his eyes narrowed and his pupils dilated and his mouth dried.

Slowly, cautiously, Glenn took a step forward and listened to the grinding sound of a rock being crushed into the dirt under his foot as it roared like a thunderstorm to his ears. Then sound returned to the world in a blast and brought wind rustling through the trees and he heard the sounds of horses snorting and stamping the dirt while being tended to.

?Guess she ain?t got herself shot just yeah, eh?? he tossed a glance back at the stallion behind him who stared blankly back. ?Never were much of a conversationalist, were you??

She was a sight to be seen and his mind captured it like a photograph to stow away with the rest of his memories that he hadn?t washed away with a bottle. Beneath the grizzled and unkempt hair on his jaw was a smirk, just barely there, and the blue of his eyes seemed to light up when he wasn?t sent running off like some rodent stealing away into her garden. It was a good feeling and he surprised himself by even thinking that. Words failed him for a moment and his tongue tingled with numbness, so he nodded his head at her instead.

?None to suit my tastes, anyhow,? he agreed at last. It was strange to hear a voice that wasn?t his, he?d spent most of the last few months talking to his quiet companion. The horse wasn?t good at holding a conversation, that was true, but he did make for a good listener when Glenn was in a chatty mood. Someone had to hear him spout all his drivel about being chosen and being forced into something he had no control over, and better the beast who couldn?t turn around and spill his secrets to the world than anyone else.

?I?ll be right on in,? with another cluck of his tongue he walked the horse around the house to put him up with his long lost companions. The beasts eyed him as skeptically as Madison Rye had on that first chance encounter when he had a gun in his hand and money on his mind. Funny how much things had changed in so little time. ?Looks like you lot got more sense than her,? he snorted his amusement at the horses who, just as he expected, had no reply to give him.

?All silent types like yourself, eh bucko? Guess you?ll feel right at home then,? with a pat to the trusty beast?s neck, Glenn turned away and walked back around the yard to climb the porch with a hollow, wooden echo underfoot.

?You ain?t gonna draw on me when I walk in, are you?? he called as the door swung wide.

Glenn stopped in his tracks and turned to look at the dust that littered the path behind him. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth and he turned around to kick his boots off and left them lying beside the door before shutting it. With an inhale he turned and looked around the house that seemed just as familiar and alien as the home he once lived in, she?d done her best to make something of this little building but all Glenn could see was wishful thinking, hope that when the wind came rushing the shutters wouldn?t bang too loud. Only once in his life had he tried to tell himself that lie, that he could find a place and call it home after all he?d done and sure enough he ruined that just as he did everything else.

That was his curse. It took him a while, but he finally started to understand that. He wasn?t cursed to be a bad man, to let his soul fester and rot away in anger and violence and lash out at those closest. Those were the actions of a young man, too foolish and stubborn to take a step back and look at the world. No, his curse, and Madison?s for that matter, was a more complicated thing. The winds came roaring and swept him off his feet. Some would call his life adventurous and on its good days, Glenn would certainly agree. But those good days were few and far between and the stretch of bad between them grew longer like the nights during winter. Cold as ice, fate unsympathetically forced him to trudge on while everything he fought for died, if only to make room for a new cause.

His thoughts went to the girl and the smirk he wore died away. Madison he knew was safe, she was like him, neither would die until they?d ruined everything else first. The girl was innocent, though, and already she?d suffered.

?Yeah, I?ll go with you,? he only had to look at her to know what it was about. ?Gonna need that bath first.?

Fingers worked at his belt buckle while he padded across the floor and to the doorway full of steam. The air was warmer there and thick with moisture, it was more difficult to breath but it forced the cold from his bones that the winter winds had wedged through the cracks. The door closed behind him to trap more of that hot air in and Madison out.

That howling was all but inhuman and followed by a stillness in the air. He stood in the bathroom with steam all around him and fog screwing up his vision in the mirror. He wiped it away with his hand and shook the cooler drops of water from the tips of his fingers and picked up his old razor that stood there waiting for another chance encounter with his neck and the hair that coated it from the line of his jaw and onward. The water splashed onto his face when carried up by a brush and with it came a white foam that made the cut of the blade run smoothly over his flesh, just avoiding a cut that would have turned that white red within seconds.

He leaned forward over the sink and looked down at the hair that collected in the drain and flicked the faucet to get the water running to wash it all away before splashing it on his face and saying a silent prayer, maybe one of the many gods would hear him this time around. It was stifling in that room so he opened the door to let in a blast of cool air that sucked all the hot out and made him shiver and made his skin prickle with bumps, like a ghost had passed through him.

Glenn ran a hand through his wet hair and scraped his fingers along his scalp in the hopes that it would make a passable substitute for a brush while the other hand tested his work on his jawline. All up and down it was smooth save the hair he cut back into shape with a fine edge to mimic a look of his younger and more vibrant days, when the world wasn't all greyscale and out to get him.

"You got that dinner ready yet?" his voice echoed down the hall while his feet carried him in the opposite direction into a room that wasn't his by rights, but he walked on in and snooped around until he found spare clothes to step into. He was lucky to have left a few items here before leaving last time, everything else he owned was just as filthy as the dust stained rags he'd walked in wearing.

A tall shadow was cast across the floorboards, the shape of a man disfigured and bent over by the burden of life as it wrapped around the legs that held the bed aloft. He buckled a belt around his waist to keep his pants from slipping down too low and folded the sleeves of his fresh, clean shirt up and over a couple of times to keep his hands free.

Glenn Douglas grew still when he heard her speak. That question bit like the sharp blade of a knife, cut through his ribs and his heart for a claim on his already thrice-damned soul. As a matter of habit his hand rose and fingers raked through his hair, scraping against his scalp with the hope that if he dug hard enough he'd find an answer to make them both happy.

"Yeah," the first word was always the hardest for him. "I'll come," he didn't know why. Surely it was so he could know that she was alright, that she was surviving. That reluctance was there, though, born of a fear that this little girl didn't need a man like Glenn or a woman like Madison in her life, lest she end up just like him - beaten, broken and dead, a ghost clinging to the flesh and bone of a life that he could scarcely remember.

"Gotta make sure she's gettin' taken care of," he decided, turning to flash Madison Rye a cocksure smirk.