Outlaw Vices (third in The Crane Gang Series)manxman

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

"Please?" the woman's aged voice pleaded as tears cut across her lined face. Wet, gray eyes blinked up at him. "Please, kill me too."

Ezekiel shook his head roughly. "No..."

"Please?" she whispered. Her voice was hollow. Broken.

Ezekiel backed away from the woman who sat clinging to her husband's lifeless body. The moonlight seemed to darken around him. Blood covered his hands. Blood he couldn't wipe off no matter how hard her tried.

"Please..." Her plea echoed again and again.

Shadows emerged from the darkness around him. They closed in on all sides, leaving him trapped. Ezekiel spun in circles, recognized each and every face as the shadows materialized and became the faces of those he'd killed.

"No... please..." he whispered, tossing down his guns. "Please don't...."

They came closer and closer. Their silence was deafening. Their presence suffocating.

Ezekiel couldn't get away. His limbs felt heavy and useless. A hand reached out and he shied from it, causing him to fall on his backside in the dirt.

"I'm sorry!" he yelled, but the shadows, the dead faces, they didn't care.

The became thick. Too thick to pull into his burning lungs. Ezekiel's head whipped around, watching the faces coming toward him, powerless to stop them.

"Kill me too..." the old woman whispered.

Ezekiel shot straight up in his bunkhouse cot and drew in deep gasps of air. Sweat slicked his dark skin and he feared his heart might burst straight through his chest.

As his stomach flipped and his pulse thundered in his ears, Ezekiel knew he needed air. Standing quickly, he slipped silently past the slumbering men and out into the cool night air.

He kept walking until he reached the river that ran behind the main house and barn.

Staring down into the water, Ezekiel breathed deep and tried to fend off the nausea swirling in his gut.

He was lost in fighting off the memories of his dream and didn't hear anyone approaching him when suddenly two arms wrapped around his waist from behind.

"I can't believe I got stuck with a man so much like my damn brother."

Ezekiel let out a long contended sigh as he leaned back against Craig's strong body. "Why am I like your brother?"

Craig pressed a kiss to the nape of Ezekiel's neck causing him to let out a warning growl. "You're both bossy, have a tendency to brood and, for some unknown reason, you seen to like staring into rivers."

"They're peaceful," Ezekiel replied, covering Craig's hands on his stomach with his own. "They make me feel peaceful."

The two men remained in that warm embrace for a long while of peaceful silence. Two weeks had passed since they'd shared that hotel room in town and their relationship had truly changed and become something real.

Ezekiel had never allowed himself to feel such a closeness for a man. He'd never opened himself up enough to be vulnerable. But something about Craig had made it impossible for him to remain guarded.