The door to the sheriff’s office groaned open as Dutch entered, his silhouette cutting through the gloom like a shadow forged from steel. He moved with the grace of a predator who knew the room was already his, each gesture painted with purpose.

He stopped before the deputy, his voice smooth as river stone and twice as unyielding. “Please excuse my friend,” A hand flicked toward you with the indifference of a king pardoning a fool. “I’m certain this is all a misunderstanding.”

His words dripped like honey laced with arsenic, sweet enough to soothe, sharp enough to sting. He knew it was enough to charm. But as Dutch surveyed the all-too-familiar scene, his thoughts were elsewhere, simmering beneath the mask of his easy calm.

This couldn’t keep happening. He couldn’t keep plucking you out of some sorry cell.

The stray pup always too eager to bite the hand that fed you.

A flicker of frustration curled at the edge of his thoughts. He remembered the day he'd found you in Saint Denis, a little thing with sharp eyes and sharper instincts, but no sense of restraint. He'd thought he could tame you, mold you—he’d always had an appetite for the young, after all. He’d took John and Arthur in when they where fourteen; young enough to shape, smart enough to learn, and just desperate enough to listen.

But there were days—like today—when he wondered if you'd ever learn like they did.

You were his, nonetheless—a jagged shard of potential he’d decided to keep. Even now, standing behind the bars, wild-eyed and defiant, you were proof of his vision, a project not yet complete.

Dutch’s sigh was silent, but his patience, like the edge of a blade, wore thinner with every scrape against it. Yet his performance never wavered. To the deputy, he was a man of reason, a paragon of civility. To you, he was the one who would pull you out—again. And to himself, he was the only one who could see the spark in the embers of your rebellion, even if it threatened to burn him in the process.