Page 122 of The Last True Hero
Epilogue
JOHNNY COLTON PAUSEDin the shadow of the canyon, rifling in McClain's bag for the water canteen. Remaining alert—just in case the bastard followed him—he lifted the canteen to his lips.
God, it felt good to taste fresh, clean water. Sweet enough to wash away a multitude of sins. Just not enough to wash away his. Colton swallowed, then wiped his mouth and screwed the lid back on. There wasn’t enough water on what was left of the planet to remove his sins.
Keep moving. Keep out of sight.He stowed the canteen, and then slung the bag over his shoulder as he leapt from boulder to boulder, climbing high into the edges of the rocky tors that lined the basin of the Badlands. The only advantage working in his favor right now was the fact McClain had a handful of injured men and women to worry about.
He trekked for hours, sweat pouring down his body as he hauled himself upwards, sometimes by his fingertips alone. It didn’t matter how far he managed to retreat—the ghost of Rust City haunted him. Not just the deeds he’d done there, the kills he’d made in the arena to survive, but the reminder of what he truly was in the eyes of the world.
He knew the warg within him didn't make him evil. No matter how much his estranged uncle, Bartholomew Cane, tried to make him into something else, after he rode into the small outpost where Colton lived with his parents and smiled pure vengeance at his father.
No. That had never been in any doubt. But Rust City stripped away the remaining illusion that there was any kind of place in the world where he could fit in. Or even hide. He’d spent years under that psychopath’s sway, finally earning his own freedom a year ago with a lucky bullet. Since then he’d spent his time alone, keeping an eye over his shoulder for McClain’s shadow, and sometimes creeping close enough to hear children singing in the settlements or men and women laughing, when he grew lonely enough.
He’d begun to think there was a place in one of those settlements for him. Hell, McClain managed it for years, until his secret came out. Luc Wade had found a woman who loved him enough to overlook the fact that he turned hairy if he lost his medallion. Maybe, just maybe, Colton thought he might have been able to find a place of his own, one where he could pretend to be something else—someone else—for a while. That same yearning had been his undoing in the end, when the townsfolk of Bitter River sold him out to the reivers to keep the bastards off their own backs.
Never again.
Colton made camp in a small cave up high in the mountains, high enough to give him a good vantage point where he could see anything coming. No sign of McClain, heck, any pursuit, but he couldn't be too careful. Too many people wanted to kill him.
Too many people had good reason to.
What now? Colton seduced the fire to a generous glow, then worked his way through the methodical task of cooking dinner. It all tasted like ash in his mouth, and afterwards he merely curled up in his stolen blanket, watching the coals slowly flare to red-hot embers and then die back down with the shifts in the breeze.
Christ, he was tired. So fucking tired.
Propping his back against a rock, he stared into the glow of the embers as the sunlight slowly died on the horizon, darkness creeping closer until it was a warm cocoon. Something in the bag at his hip kept digging into him, until he finally shoved it aside.
The bag fell over, and the edge of something poked out of it. An envelope? He frowned and reached down for it, revealing three of them.
Paper rustled. Letters. Well-handled, the edges of the paper stained and worn. McClain wasn't the type to leave a diary, but it might be useful for tinder if he ran out of scrub bush. He was about to crumple them back up when a few of the words caught his eye.
...I know you feel the darkness within you, that you think it is all that remains of your life, but you’re wrong. There is still so much light in you, and the others are beginning to see that.
Come back to me, Adam. Come back home. You belong here with me, with all the others. Your life doesn't have to be one long vicious fight. There’s more to it than that. You deserve more.
Love always,
Eden
Colton slowly lowered the paper. It felt somewhat sacrilegious to read a letter so personal when it belonged to someone else, but at the same time, it also felt like the letter was addressed to him too. It spoke to something deep inside him, something he thought long buried.
Hope.
He flipped to the next one, written three months ago, losing himself in the warmth of a home that this Eden conjured. He couldn’t help but wonder if she truly believed in the dreams of hope she was spinning—could she be that naïve?—and yet, it stirred something within him that he’d long though hidden.
Eden.... Colton frowned.
If he closed his eyes, he could almost summon memories of her. A young girl, not quite twenty perhaps, when he'd first encountered her—when Cane first set his sights on her. Tall, coltish figure, wavy brown hair burnished with just enough gilt to show that she spent her time outdoors.
She’d been McClain’s Achilles’ heel. The bargaining chip that pushed McClain over the edge when Cane demanded his soul—and Luc Wade’s betrayal.
She was almost a shadow of a memory. Not fully formed. Not entirely whole in Colton's mind. Just one of hundreds that he’d left behind in his wake when Cane forced him to heel.
He ought to burn the letters. Should even track McClain down and give them back….
But instead he breathed in the soft scent of woman that still clung faintly to the paper, and conjured up whispers of a woman who was no longer that girl he remembered.
A woman who knew the part he played in her brother's downfall.
Colton slowly lowered them. No point in chasing stardust. He needed to keep moving, maybe take on some bounty work somewhere.
And stay far away from Eden McClain and all that she conjured.
Taking the letters, he held them over the fire. Something held him there.You're a man, not a monster, her voice whispered in his mind, and even though Colton knew she'd been speaking to her brother and not him, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
He slowly tucked the letters back in the bag.
And cursed himself for a fool.