Page 77 of Coyote

"Doc." He pulled me down toward his face. "You have to hear me. Everybody thinks he wants the ranch. He doesn't want the ranch."

"Easy. I'm listening."

"He doesn't even want you back." His grip shook on my wrist. "You're spoiled stock now, that's what he said, spoiled. It's the little one. The one who walked into his pit and cut his fighter out of it and made him nothing in front of everybody. He talks about him at the rail. He's had fighters, Doc, he's had runners, he's never had a tracker to run. Now he wants him for his birthday bash."

The lamp hissed. Miguel's pulse beat fast and thin under my fingers, and I held his wrist and did not let my hand close the way it wanted to close.

Coyote stood in the doorway with the night behind him. He had heard every word of it. His face showed nothing at all, but at his throat, Nimue drew herself tight.

I was halfway to the arroyo trail before I let myself admit I was leaving.

My feet had decided back at the guest bedroom doorway. My body was already out along the east fence in the dark, and it wasn't out there to check the fences. Four hours before sunrise. The trail dropped into the arroyo past the second barn and left the ranch without crossing open ground. The cave down there held a bedroll, rope, tins, and ammunition. I could reach the river by morning and his chain-link by tomorrow night. Walk in on my own feet with my hands empty and give him what he wanted.

The truth was, I wanted to kill him so badly my teeth ached. I'd trade myself for the ranch, let him hunt me, and somewhere out in that dark, on ground I knew better than he did, I'd turn around and open his throat. Nobody else dead. Nobody else in danger. It was a fair trade, as long as I didn't think too hard about the part where I might lose.

Every day I stayed, John was in danger. The ranch was in danger. One walk in the dark and I could put my body between all of it and him for good. Wasn't that what I was for?

Nimue lay around my throat, drawn so tight I felt my own pulse beating against her belly. She knew. She always knew before I did.

I stopped at the trailhead and stood there hating myself, because I already knew what stopping meant.

I'd given John a map of every way off the property, the cave included, so he'd always know the way out. Then I'd promised him that if I ever went, he'd know where. I ran it through every way it could go. If I told him the direction, he'd come after me with his ribs half healed and his kit over his shoulder. Then Zaroff would have both of us, and the trade would buy nothing. If I went without telling him, that was a lie. I didn't lie to John anymore. Lying to John cost more than I had.

And under all of that, at the bottom, was the thing I'd been walking around all night: I didn't want to die alone on Zaroff's ground with nothing of John to hold. I wanted Zaroff dead, and I wanted the ranch safe, and I wanted John more than both.

I turned around.

The guest bedroom light was still on when I came up behind the kitchen garden. Sierra sat with a blanket over his knees, and Miguel's chest rose and fell under the sheet, easier than at dusk. The fever had peaked and broken, the way John said it might. Good. The kid had taken a bullet and walked a day and a half to warn us. He got to live.

I crossed the yard and let myself into the equipment shed.

John lay on his bedroll with one arm behind his head, eyes open and already on me. He woke whenever I came in, no matter how quiet I was.

"How far did you get?" he asked.

I shut the door behind me. "The arroyo trail."

"And?"

"I stood there for a while." I crossed the boards and knelt on my own bedroll, an arm's length from his. "I was going to trade myself. Walk onto his ground and give him his prize. He'd have no reason to touch this place again."

He didn't move, but his breathing changed. I'd done that to him, and I hated it. "What stopped you?"

"The promise." I lifted Nimue from my shoulders and set her on the folded horse blanket she'd claimed by the wall. She took her time sliding off my hands, sulking about it. "If I tell you where I'm headed, you’ll follow me and he gets both of us for free. If I don't tell you, I've lied to you." I sat back on my heels. Even in the dark, he was watching me. "I couldn't find a way through it that didn't break something I said to you. So I came back."

He sat up, wincing as his ribs pulled. His hand crossed the space between our bedrolls and found my wrist, and two fingers settled on my pulse.

"Your pulse is racing," he said.

"I know." It had been hammering since the doorway, up under my jaw, behind my teeth. "It's what that kid said. He made it sound like Zaroff thinks I belong to him." I scooted closer. "I'm not his. I'm not anybody's unless I say."

"I know that, little one."

Something under my ribs came loose, the way it did every damn time he called me that. I used to flinch from it. Now I'd started needing it, and I couldn't decide which one of us that made pathetic. It made the next part possible to say, anyway.

"I decided something."

"Oh?"