Scraping, clawing, tugging, ripping, tearing him apart -
A scab, a seal, it’s sealed - no way out. But how can he - a man? a person? an imprint - dole out Justice if he cannot return? And if he should return, then she -
“Justice?” She laughs, screeches, bellows; voice like fingernails across his bones, if he had bones or she had fingernails to scratch them.
But there is no her, there is no him, there is nothing and no one and everything all at once and they are trapped. Suffocating. Imprint upon imprint upon imprint, pressurizing, compacting, building. Wrongness permeates the space, the space that does not exist, and it seeps, a mortal wound for an immortal imprint that would bleed the world dry.
She roars, and he holds - a suture to stem the flow that is her, and she laughs, and he is torn-
“I’m just so grateful, I - sir?”
Wyatt blinks, ice blue eyes slowly refocusing onto the face before him as he is drawn back to the conversation. The Lawman’s thoughts had wandered after Nichols fell, mind reeling with the old man’s final words, the implications there, and who was..? Ah, right. The Lovelace girl - Faith, was it? Always pretty on-the-nose with their names, them Lovelaces.
He blinks again. The woman in front of him looks up expectantly, sweetly, eyes wet and red. He smiles - because what else can he do but smile? When the good people of the San Saba thank him for the work that he and the Union do to keep them safe, even when the upper echelons of what passes for Justice here is as rotten as the flesh of the Warden herself.
“No thanks necessary ma’am, really. We do what we can.”
She seems dissatisfied with the answer and frets for a moment, fumbles the drink in her hands, then pushes it toward him with an earnest expression.
“I - at least have some hot brown. You seem tired.”
Fair enough, he concedes. Wyatt can feel the fatigue fraying his edges as they speak. He’s so close, so close to having everything he needs to set his carefully laid plan into motion. It had cost so much, taken so long, and the weariness in his bones grows deeper by the day. But it was all in the name of Justice, and Justice would be served.
He sighs, defeated by the crocodile tears threatening to spill onto the woman’s cheeks again.
“Yeah, alright. I appreciate that, ma’am. Thank’ee.”
She smiles gratefully as he takes the drink, and says something else that he misses as his mind drifts again. There was so much to prepare, so many contingencies to consider. He had worked too hard and too long to get what he needed for this - everything must be accounted for. The Chairman would likely not be pleased, but Wyatt’s Union contract was airtight, and this fell well within the scope of protecting the citizens of the San Saba territories. There was proof to ensure it, now.
He absently sips the lukewarm liquid and makes a face; it’s bitter, entirely too bitter for his taste, but he downs the rest in a single pull regardless. The woman wanders away eventually, and others take her place before him. He nods as Deputy Jasper says something to his left, and tries to pull his focus once more to the present. His head swims slightly. Several of his men idle around their Boss now, speaking to him, asking of him - but his focus drifts further, his vision blurs at the edges.
Wyatt chokes, coughs, his mouth tastes of hot iron. The Reclaimer doubles over as acrid bile explodes up his throat, violently ejects itself from his body, splatters red across his boots - his father’s boots. The lawman’s blue eyes roll back as his sclera burst their vessels, a gloved hand goes to his throat as if to stem the tide of the inevitable death overtaking him, to no avail.
Why now? Why now when he is so close to stopping -
His body hits the ground of the Crossroads with a soft thud, motionless.
-She tears at his back, the idea of his back, through the bars of their cage. A thousand hands with ten thousand claws that rake and pull and shred him eternal. He holds.
Furious, she screams - he screams, they scream - tries to scream, no sound from no throat, but he holds, and holds - he must hold.
The imprint known sometimes as Wyatt Ulysses Nightengale is torn asunder and knitted again; a wound, a scab, a scar, an endless cycle of fleshless agony that has become his charge. The other imprints grow louder, roil around them, packing tightly, squeezing, brimming - the pressure builds, and builds, because there is no way out, he cannot get out, cannot let her out-
“Alright y’all, listen up,” The Deputy addresses the small assembly of Law Dogs. The few that are left. Most are in a pitiable state, stretched as thin as they will go and worn from fighting the losing battle of maintaining order in the absence of their leader and many of their peers. One of them looks to be actively bleeding. The Deputy winces, and clears their throat.
“The Boss is still stuck down in the shit, and none of the Morgues are lookin’ to open back up any time soon. The Grave Bureau ‘parently has their best on it, but it’s gonna be a while yet ‘fore things clear up again.” One of the gathered company cannot help the pained noise that escapes him, and the Deputy throws the man a sympathetic look before continuing.
“I know y’all are tired, but listen - we have some relief comin’ from up north. The details is above my pay grade, but it’s s’posedly gonna help big time. We’re gonna contract a ‘Robber with the Bureau and send some of the local pack in ‘Vado down after the Boss at Ground Zero.” The group perks up a bit, renewed hope shining in several of their eyes in place of dull despair.
“I dunno what’s down in that scar or how it’s gonna go, but we’re gonna hope for the best and trust our people to get the job done. I mean, shit,” The Deputy exhales a hard laugh, raking a hand through unkempt hair and giving the scattered assembly a tired smile.
“What’s the worst that could be down there?”