Something Blue

Chapter 34

***

Mountain077  - Good eye! I hope you're not looking to nudge out Cheldu3 as my grammar reader?!?!? And Gabe is good cuz marshmallow soft is apparently the only kind of man I know how to write. I tried so hard to make him edgy and it just wouldn't take :( Alas, but I will never be a purveyor of sexy antiheros...

GiGiLaurent - But if he WASN'T being a little bitch baby drama king then where would the melodrama come from?! This is ME, Gigi. I can't just write something straightforward and emotionally stable. There's gotta be ANGST, baby. GUILT. DESPAIR. 

lagembabe - Now, what fun would it be if he just left her alone? Katherine and Gabe would just ride off into the sunset and there'd be no tension at all, lol. Plus, everyone wants him to die and I can't very well kill him if he's had a change of conscience and left her alone, can I? Also, props to you for the first round of comments :-D 

Kinji_plays - Haha, you may be taking those words back over the next few chapters. I've gone of the fuckin' deep end with this wrap-up. It's like... way darker than I intended. And then suddenly way more action-packed than I intended. It's getting a little ridiculous, lolol. And lemme get this straight. You... don't want Gabe to die?!?! *shit*

gulabo18 - Thank you so much, and you're absolutely right. Things will get better. Then they'll get worse again. Then better. That's life, I guess. Wouldn't be much fun if the road was always flat, hahaha. 

***

Gabe

His heart was torn in two.

One half of it lay in the middle of the road, limp and helpless, grasping weakly after Katherine as she was carried to an unknown fate.

One half was wrapped around his ribs in a desperate attempt to leap free and throw itself toward his daughter.

He could hear Isobel screaming. Crying. In a distant future, he would take a perverse comfort in the fact that she cried as loud and as often for him as she cried for Katherine. In the moment, each wail was a dagger to the chest, stabbing at his straining heart.

Reaper was a creature possessed, running as he had never run, his hooves never seeming to touch the ground, his body a fluid grace that seeped into Gabe wherever they touched. In the same sense, his own desperation seemed to seep back into the horse, pushing the animal to run as if the fires of hell were lit at the trailing strands of his tail.

The attack at the bridge was a blur. Gabe had heard the gunshots and leapt onto Reaper's back, only to be thrown from the saddle by a burning, tearing pain that seared across the flesh of his upper arm. He'd hit the ground with a resounding finality, Reaper skittering away. He'd no sooner risen than three riders appeared on the road behind him. One lifted a rifle, and he could swear he saw all the way down the barrel to the bullet that awaited him.

Then his own pistol had been in his hand, barrel smoking, and the figure with the rifle was tumbling limply from the saddle as his horse reared back in terror. The other two horses leaped and bucked, dumping their riders into the road. All three animals tore off down the road back to town, no doubt running for the safety of their stables.