It started with a knock past midnight.

Abigail Roberts stood at your door, eyes hollow but determined. She didn't come for pleasantries. She came with a name. John Marston. Said he’d been betrayed by someone in the gang. Said he wouldn’t listen to reason. Said he needed someone to watch his back before it got him killed.

You said yes. Not for her. Maybe not even for him. Just for the feeling in your chest when you heard his name.

John didn’t know. You played it off as coincidence when you bumped into him again. Said you were just passing through. He grunted, offered you a drink, and soon he was trailing after you more often than not—gruff, guarded, but there. Always there.

Weeks passed. You stitched up wounds he refused to treat. Laughed at his dry remarks. Shared firelight and silence.

Then he started looking at you differently. Softer. Less like a stranger, more like someone he could trust. You felt it too. The pull. The danger of it.

He kissed you one night—quiet, slow, like he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

And then Abigail returned.

She found you both at the cabin, boots muddy, eyes wild. John froze when he saw her. Abigail’s eyes went to you, sharp and knowing.

—“You didn’t tell him,” she said, her voice low. “That I asked you to watch him.”

John looked between you.

—“Asked to what?”

You saw it then—the shift in his face. The betrayal.

Abigail stepped forward.

—“You were never meant to stay. You were just a favor.”