The Demon In The West - An Original Work In Progress

Chapter Thirteen: A Forbidden Fruit Is All The Sweeter

My thoughts cut through as clear as day; the gang is stealing in his name. I haven't spotted him since that stormy night and he's not one to hide from me. Raven's been in hiding for over a month and there are more bounties after him as every day passes. I exit my room at midday and rush around town fervently searching for a sign of the gang. After a few hours pass of searching, the sun dims under a bundle of clouds, and I retreat to the saloon. The flowers outside smell sweet like honeydew, and I enter the building. I hear a familiar voice I haven't heard in ages.

Piper's voice cuts through the thick discordant crowd of voices. "Another round of beer for me and my friend o'er there." She gestures with a tilt of her head to the right side of the room. My eyes scan the room and I spot a familiar face from my childhood, Viktor, walking towards them. The bartender looks nervously in my direction as I walk up to them. "Piper? I have to ask something of you."

Piper grabbed their beers and Viktor caught up to us and led us to a private booth cut off from the rest of the crowd, "Come with me," he says. I settled in at the edge of the booth after Piper slid into the leather seat. Viktor stood, his eyes watching the movement of passersby with intense caution. He looks down at me warily.

"Speak to Vinnie, lure him out of his life of crime. Hell, he would never listen to me if I tried – you two have known each other longer and it's possible you've seen him after his disappearance."

"Finally came crawling back after all this time to find your fling? Too bad, we haven't seen 'em either." Viktor replies with a snarky tone.

"Quiet, Viktor." Piper says in combat to Viktor's remark and he sheepishly ducks his head, "And Beatrice, we can't do anything if we haven't seen him. He thinks the world of you. I'm sure you can convince him on your own if you find him."

I leave and make my way to Raven's house once again after his disappearance, longing for a trace of him there, and expecting it to be empty but the windows are all drawn closed, not like it had last been when I was here. I twist the knob of the door on instinct as if those short weeks I had lived here crawled back into my mind with shock. It opened without fail and I entered, not sure if he would even think of opening the door for me if I had knocked this time after all that had happened with him.

As I wander around in the empty house, the silence strikes me as particularly daunting. Not even the dogs could be heard as they were not left behind when the police took him into their custody. As my thoughts wander to the dogs' unknown predicament, the floorboards stir in the area behind the door to the study. I followed the direction of the sound, cautiously. My hand glides over the knob, slowly turning as if giving myself time to tuck my tail and run away. Although I don't and I muster up the courage it took to turn it completely, pushing the door open. I slowly open the door keeping the hinges silent as they would sometimes creak the times I came in here before. Inside remains a familiar figure, undisturbed by my presence. He rests back on the couch, tension ebbing from his very being. His hand drapes across his forehead, fingers working to release the tension in his skull.

After closing the door, I softly called out his name, my voice devoid of the confidence I once had outside my room at the saloon the first time I came to this town months prior. Closed eyes jolt open, steeling my gaze.

His reaction is like an ice bolt to the heart, a chilling numbness spreading to my mind. "You shouldn't be here," He says, gesturing towards me, eyes filled with concern. "You're not safe with me anymore. What were you thinking? Letting me go- if the police find out... you should've left me. You could've had something. A life rid of the price you'd pay being here with me now."

"You should be free to live the life you want. You should be free of the eternal damnation you were sentenced to when they found out you liked men. I need to ask you to leave this life, to lead yourself to the life you deserve." As I speak, he gives me a reserved look, bare of emotion, "Leave this life, and the gang behind. They have committed wrongdoings against you, using your alias as a thing to hide behind. They've used you."

"I cannot just forget them. They were my family for a while now. Besides my grandmother, the best family I've had." He pauses, looking away, "I've been thinking I need to lie low, fake a scene and make the law believe I've died."

I can't tell what he's thinking, and as easy as he was to read before, he's turned ice-cold. A part of me yearns to go with him and as if he can still read me he adds, "I have to do this alone, Bea."

My voice is still low, a mere whisper, I take a step closer to him, and then another, "The thing is, Raven, you don't. We could walk through the fires of hell and back together." Together. My mind echoes inside my skull.

As I reach for his hand, he tilts his head, regarding me with a dangerous look that makes my stomach lurch, yet I recoil, not with fear, but something much stronger. "You still call me Raven. As much as you might trust me, you never trusted me enough to not lie to you again." He steps forward pressing into the space between us and dividing it.

It's truly now or never and my reflexes take action before my mind can catch up. It was a desire running through my veins. A desire to be loved, even if for one night. A desire that set me off course. I press my free hand against his chest. Slowly I began speaking, "I want to love you... I think I can, but there's such little time. If you want me to trust you again, don't utter a lie to me." I want to give my all to him if it's to be our last day together. I press harder against his chest, causing him to stagger. "Answer this question, without lying. Do you want me as well?"

"Do you seriously believe that I wouldn't want you? Why would that even cross your mind? Do you see me as the type to lie about such?" He addresses me with weary eyes as if this is some game of mine, there was only one way he knew how to prove his feelings to me. As he leans in I melt into the kiss and with a blaze of passion, soon I'm pressed up against the door, similar to that day in his room. He chuckles against my lips, "This isn't a ploy to get me handcuffed again, right?"

The haze is deeper, pulling on his clothes wanting – needing – him closer, even with the small gap between us, I needed more, it was much more meaningful this time around. His touch bled into my own, a blissful symphony of give and take as I fumble with the buttons of his shirt.

"Perhaps it's just for a different reason than last time." I teasingly bite his bottom lip.

Somewhere between the door and the desk, our clothes were practically torn off. With one swipe, he clears the desk and helps me onto it.

In those unspeakable moments thereafter that we had spent together, every thread of desire pulled taut until we had come undone in each other's arms, shrouded from the rest of the world. He brought me to new highs and sweeter lows. On each fall he was there to pick me back up again.

In those unspeakable moments, I knew that this would be our downfall.