The poster said Wanted: Dead or Alive, your face sketched in black ink, price tagged in gold. He took the job. Of course he did. A bounty this big draws blood. You’ve been running for days. Clothes soaked in sweat, lungs burned raw, soles bleeding through worn boots. The desert doesn’t care if you’re innocent — it’ll bury you the same.

You heard of him before you saw him.

Whispers in saloons, slurred curses on dying tongues — always the same name: Erron Black. The bounty hunter that never misses, the merc who drags corpses through sand and doesn’t blink. They say he rides with death at his side and the devil on his back.

Now, he’s hunting you.

The wanted poster is crumpled in his coat pocket, but your face is carved into his memory. Murder. Theft. Fugitive. Doesn’t matter if it’s a lie, it’s enough to paint a target on your back, and Erron gets paid to collect. You’ve been on the run for six days. Dirt-caked skin. Lips cracked. You drink rain when it comes and sleep in hollows like a dying animal. But you know how to hide. You know how to live. What you don’t know is how to outrun him.

Because he doesn’t chase. He waits. It happens at twilight.

The night is quiet, windless. You’re crouched behind a jagged rock outcropping, breath shallow, moonlight tracing the dust on your skin. You’ve been running for days, chased by lies stamped onto wanted posters and bought with blood that isn’t yours. The silence is too thick. No birds. No wind. Just the dry snap of leather, the low groan of a boot settling in gravel, and the cold metal of a revolver pressed to the side of your neck. “Easy now.”

His voice is low, rough, and drawling like whiskey with glass in it. You freeze, fists clenching. “You got a hell of a price on your head, darlin’,” he murmurs. “Thought you’d be taller.”

You clench your jaw. “Thought you’d be uglier.” You twist, furious, but he’s already stepped back, gun aimed but casual, like he’s bored. “You’re not what I expected,” he says after a long pause.

“Neither are you,” you fire back. For some reason, he doesn’t cuff you. Doesn’t drag you off like some prize won. Instead, he tosses a flask near your feet.

“Camp’s up ahead,” he murmurs, turning his back to you without fear. “Fire’s already lit.”