The Almost Second Husband Of Ace Matthews (Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x OC)

A Bullet for a Broken Heart

The primal energy swirling around the ghoul wasn't merely rage. It was a whirlwind of anguish, a maelstrom of self-loathing. In his once-familiar eyes, now a monstrous inferno, his tortured spirit blazed. His voice, normally a gentle rasp, echoed with the guttural threat of a caged beast ready to break free.

"Stay inside," he rasped, his voice a jagged blade cutting through the stale air. "Stay low, and for the love of God, Tessa, don't come out until the world stops screaming."

Tessa's heart pounded in her ribcage. Each drumbeat was a spike of icy terror searing through her. Something in the very air had changed, twisting into a suffocating dread. Yet, it was the sorrow in his eyes, deeper than any abyss, that truly broke her.

The workshop door creaked open, then slammed shut with a bone-jarring thud. The air crackled with the smells of splintering wood and scorched metal - a scent as sharp and bitter as her terror. Each crash, each guttural groan, was a whip-crack against Tessa's raw nerves.

After an eternity of agonising silence, the house pulsed with a heavy quiet. Then, the front door splintered inward, the wood reduced to matchsticks under the force of his rage.

He stood framed in the doorway, a gunslinger from a nightmare. In the crook of his arm rested a battered shotgun, its barrel improbably long. A well-worn revolver hung low on his hip, the leather gleam catching the fading light. Across his back, a crude leather strap held a hunting rifle in place.

He was a walking arsenal, and the air around him seemed to crackle with the promise of violence.

With a ferocious snarl, he swept out onto the porch, his shadowy figure casting monstrous, elongated shadows across the deserted street. Tessa cowered in terror, peeking through a crack in the boarded-up window. He was like a storm cloud rolling towards the town, ready to unleash his wrath.

Though Tessa wasn't the praying type, she clasped her hands together, her pleas for salvation tumbling into the quiet.

Dusty Plain materialised in the distance. As Cooper drew closer, shapes resolved themselves from the dust - men, dozens of them, armed to the teeth. Their faces held a strange mix of fear and bloodlust. In the strange stillness, it resembled a clumsy standoff from one of his old movies. But this was real. And they were waiting for him.

Every man in town, and some he didn't recognise, stood armed with makeshift weapons. Guns, knives, axes... and in Ezra's case, the jagged stump of his missing fingers pointed towards him like a gruesome accusation.

And there, in the eye of the storm, knelt Ace.

Blood marred her face, staining her cheeks and lips crimson. Her denim jacket was soaked in it, some patches so heavy with the sticky substance that the iron tang made his stomach churn. Even more gruesome were the bloody handprints leading upwards, leaving a trail of evidence of something far more brutal. He couldn't tell if she was looking at him. One eye was swollen shut, the other slick with red. And pressed against the back of her skull, as if guaranteeing her compliance, was the cold steel barrel of a revolver.

Fury ignited within Cooper, blazing hotter than any desert sun. Every bruise on Ace's face, every ounce of pain they'd inflicted, demanded vengeance. Still, he held his ground, every muscle tense. "Let. Her. Go," he growled, each word a promise of utter violence.

"Now, now," the Sheriff tsked, his mask of cowardice replaced with sinister glee. "Ain't that the way of it? Hero comes to save the damsel. Too bad she's already damaged goods, tainted by consorting with the likes of you."

The mob surged forward, their shouts and jeers a cacophony of hatred. "Stay back," Cooper warned, his voice a chilling snarl. "One more step, and I paint this town red."