Lovers Not Without Sin | Dutch van der Linde x OC

Chapter 9

Ada finds herself looking forward to the night, so she can enjoy some peace and quiet while she watches the stars.

If she's honest; from what she's observed of this gang they aren't as rough as she expected. She's been to other hideouts before and there's always an awful shroud of anger, death, and greed that clouds the entire place. The outlaws are always crass and short-tempered, groups of men who fantasise about murder, women, drink, and perhaps all three at the same time. Just lost souls who don't see any other options for their lives, or at least any options that allow them to live so aggressively.

The Van der Linde gang, however? If she had to pick one word to describe them, it'd be happy. They laugh and joke with each other, they talk about their days as they sit in peace. Everyone seems to like everyone else; greeting each other as though they're seeing a close friend for the first time in a while. It's... odd. It's almost like they want to be here, and not as a last resort. Looking around, especially at the women, they seem to have potential. They could live better lives, different lives, but they don't. Whatever manipulation tactic Dutch uses to recruit must be extremely fine-tuned.

Speak of the devil, he's currently smoking his cigar as he reads Ada's copy of Leaves of Grass. Sure, she's glad he didn't burn it along with the rest of her things, but he's got a lot of audacity to be sitting right in her eye line as he flicks through the pages. He's doing it to irk her, there's no way this outlaw cares for poetry.

She managed to pull herself up to standing throughout the day, slowly edging the rope up the tree. She's regretting it slightly now that she's been on her feet for too long, unsure if getting back down to the floor will be a similar ordeal.

Her gaze wanders and meets John Marston's. He's scowling at her while he has a smoke break by the campfire. His expression deepens, likely from the anger of being caught looking, and the cogs visibly turn in his head before he decides to make his way over.

"So, you really are a good for nothing whore?" he says when he arrives like it's the most casual thing to say to someone.

Ada raises her brows in surprise. "I was right, you are a charmer."

He scowls with a tut. His previous boyish charm is now boyish frustration as he shifts angrily in his spot. "You were just investigating us all along, then?"

She nods matter-of-factly.

"That's awful. Real awful of you."

"And being a criminal isn't? You're hardly a good person yourself, John."

It isn't completely fair to say this to John. He must've been only a boy when he joined the gang, according to the files most of the recruits started young. He's well and truly got his head full of Dutch van der Linde's ideals, no doubt. It's probably all he knows and just the way he was raised. It's not like there's an easy way out from this sort of life once you've been a part of it for so long.

The man himself is watching the encounter from underneath his hat as he bows his head, pretending he's reading his (Ada's) book. Not as slick as he thinks he is, it turns out.

"I thought... I thought we was having fun," the words practically fall out of his mouth.

Ah, there it is. Dutch really ought to teach young John his tricks on how to keep his thoughts to himself and not be so transparent. "Oh John," she tilts her head mockingly, "did you like me?"

Panic flushes over his face, and his head turns as he quickly checks behind him. What's he looking at? Ada leans slightly to look around him in the same direction; the pregnant woman who she saw earlier is sitting there by the campfire.