Unshaken

Coup De Grâce

Liam stared at the flames of the fire from the hearth as the temperature dropped outside in the dark night. The fire made his green/blue eyes glow with an orange hue. He sat on the floor beside the fireplace. His seventeenth birthday had been only around a week before, but no one in his family cared to notice. Nobody did after his grandmother, who was the only person in his family he had loved, had passed three years before in 1896. He was sure his mother, Tiffany, was out drinking and whoring, as she usually did. His father, Matthew, wasn't any better. He got drunk and came home and took his drunken anger out on Liam. He hated the man. He didn't know why he stuck around anymore. He was scared to leave and be on his own, he was constantly reminded that he couldn't make it without his parents.

His father then busted through the threshold with a bottle in hand and an anger in his eyes that only he could possess. Liam's heart dropped. "Boy!" Matthew boomed. "Sir?" Liam asked, trying not to show his fear, even though he hated showing any respect to this man. But Matthew was very tall with a large build that could easily take down Liam. "I see the way you're looking at me, are you disrespecting me, boy?" His father yelled. Eyes glassy and worn, he stumbled over to Liam, who was still on the floor, too scared to get up, and before Liam could say anything, he swung his boot and cracked him under the chin. Liam's lean figure flew all the way to the ground now. He yelled out in pain. He felt blood on his face. His father started to kick him in the spine and knock the breath out of him as he tried to get up to escape the drunk.

He was able to get away from his father to his room, shutting and locking the door, even though he knew it wouldn't hold for long. He stared at the old nightstand, his eyes traveling up to the top drawer. It held his revolver that he'd saved up his money from working in town and bought without his parents' knowledge. It was always locked and loaded if he'd ever needed it. He decided that time was now. He picked up the gun, checked to see if it was loaded, even though he knew it was, and pointed it at the door. All the while the door and frame were shaking violently as his father was cussing and screaming for him to come out. It was time to grow up.

"Come out, you disrespectful little shit! Fight me like a man!" Matthew yelled. Liam thought this was ironic since his dad had been beating him for nearly ten years now. Then it happened. The door busted open as Matthew was kicking it. He stared at Liam's gun which was pointed at him, trying to keep the gun straight in his trembling hands. He drunkenly smirked. "You think you could hurt me boy? Well you thought wrong!" He yelled as he lunged toward Liam. Liam felt frozen in time as he pulled the trigger and watched out his father fall back against the wall and look at his own bloody chest. Liam's ears rang from the shot. "You...you actually did it. You ain't nothing. You're just as bad as I am." Matthew managed to get out in small breaths as he collapsed to the floor. The bottle in his hand also crashing and busting on the floor. "And look who's standing." Liam told him without thinking. Matthew's eyes filled with anger as he died, not believing that his son had back talked him. Liam didn't move as he watched his father bleed out on his bedroom floor.

After a few minutes of processing what had just happened, he put on his gun belt and slid his revolver into its holster. He didn't know what he was feeling, but it was nothing good. He put on his outfit consisting of his white button-down shirt, a black bandana to go around his neck, ranch pants and his preacher's pride boots with some old spurs. He put on his hunter's coat and looked at his father. He stared at his dead body, his eyes moving to the top of his head. Liam pulled Matthew's Old West style hat off of his head and placed it on his own. It was a brown leather hat with slash marks covering each side from the many fights his father had gotten into at the Rhodes saloon. He stared at the mirror for a moment. He wiped the blood off his chin and walked out. He packed up his tent, bedrolls and blankets, provisions, ammo, his knife was in his weapon belt in its holster, and brought anything else he might have needed and placed it on the back of his horse, Colter.

Colter was a trusty steed. He was a white, black, and gray Hungarian Half Bred that Liam had found and broke in Scarlett Meadows on his own. They trusted each other. "It's time to move on, boy." Liam told Colter as he loaded his stuff onto him in the dead of the night and set off north. He had a distaste for Lemoyne even though he was born and raised there. The few times he had went to New Hanover and the surrounding areas, he didn't want to leave. Liam wasn't sure where he was going, but knew it was the hell out of Lemoyne.

He listened and heard his mother's screams from the house as he rode off. She must've just gotten home. He rode faster heading to the bordering states. He felt like jumping in front of the next train he saw. Anger and sorrow filled his mind. But the further he traveled, the calmer he got. Soon enough after a while of riding he crossed the border and saw Emerald Ranch in the distance. He decided to camp out in the plains east of Emerald Ranch for a few hours of sleep. He set up his tent and laid out his bedroll and made a small fire. He ate some canned sweet corn and drifted off looking at the top of his tent thinking about everything that had just occurred.