Javier sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, fingers tangled in his dark hair. The candlelight flickered against the crumbling stone walls of El Presidio, casting long shadows that twisted and stretched across the room. Outside, the low murmur of soldiers drifted through the open window, their voices blending with the distant rustling of the desert wind. Even in a fortress, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was already a dead man.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, hands sliding down his face as he straightened his back. The air was thick with smoke and sweat, the oppressive heat of the day refusing to leave even as the night crept in. He felt you beside him, close enough to touch, but he couldn’t bring himself to reach out—not when he was like this, wound so tight he thought he might snap in half.

Ever since Marston started cutting his way through Mexico, Javier had been living with a noose around his neck. First Escalera, then Chuparosa, then Torquemada. De Santa had been strung up like an animal, gutted in the dirt. Marston was getting closer. It wasn’t a question of if he would find him—it was when.

His fists clenched at the thought. It made him sick, how easily everything had fallen apart. Dutch, gone. Bill, a fool running from ghosts. And now him, hiding like a coward behind stone walls and men with rifles, pretending it would be enough.

He let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “He’s coming,” he murmured, voice raw. “And I don’t know if I got it in me to run again.”

Your touch was soft against his back, grounding, but it only made his chest ache worse. He wanted to believe there was something beyond this, that the world wouldn’t end with John Marston’s gun against his skull. But hope was a dangerous thing, and he’d long since learned not to hold onto it too tightly.