In Which A Show Insists On Going On

Lozen was out the door before she even knew it. "Oh hey. That was quicker than I expected." Judas remarked as she passed him by and latched a hand onto his shoulder. "We're leaving. Keep pace and-" She started before the hand she laid on the deadman was shrugged off. "Wow there. Why? Did you kill someone? Cause that's a bit of a deal breaker for me." He started, causing Lozen to roll her eyes and spit back as she continued marching back the way they came "No one's dead, but there are a stampede of horses heading right out way and we need to be gone before they get here."

"Why?"

She spun around, flight responses screaming in her ear, and shouted back "What's Dust Trove's main export?"

"Troves?"

"Precisely. It's a nice location, but the only people who come here are wealthy tycoons with a need to own prime real estate. So who the hell is that marching into town?"

"A wealthy tycoon with a need to own prime real estate?"

Lozen sighed before clarifying "Who is causing all these people to stay inside?"

This time, Judas just stood out there without saying a word while the footsteps continued to draw closer. Lozen felt her feet twitch as they tried running away and as much as she wanted to oblige, she couldn't leave her big gun out here. Sure he couldn't die, but in the time he would waste fighting, her bounties could run to god knows where.

Clearly her words weren't helping so she dumbed them down again "Men with big guns." That seemed to trigger something from the deadman and he exclaimed "Oh!! Yes! I was hoping there would be a fight! How many?!" Lozen froze in a mixture of amazement and horror as she remembered what exactly this man's thought process was going to be. After cursing herself for letting that detail slide, she called back "Judas, we don't have the time to waste with a handful of goons! Only two of the people we're after aren't moving and we don't even have two others whereabouts!"

Much to her every building anger, Judas reached up and started loosening the ribbons shrouding his face before saying "Damn. Now that is cold hearted. Don't you care about the poor townspeople these scoundrels have tormented?" Lozen called back "No! And neither do you! Because if we get involved, not only could we lose our targets, but also get caught in the crossfire!"

"So you don't care about these people?"

"I already have people I care about and nothing good comes to them if I end up kicking the bucket for a handful of random bastards who couldn't bother to defend themselves! Now let's get going!"

She started backing up, praying Judas's ego wasn't going to hold, but stopped when she saw he still wasn't budging. "Right. Okay, let me make this clear, darling. I am staying here and going to engage whichever assholes come my way, sing the whole song about leaving these people alone, and maybe get a few minutes of applause. Get it?" Every word he spat sounded as bloated as his ego and filled Lozen with a visceral wave of anger unlike anything she had ever felt.

"So you're only staying here to get attention?!!" Lozen cried out, trying to see if she understood this clearly. She honestly couldn't believe what she was hearing. Here she was, putting her neck out for her people and yet this pompous child of a man was the one given all that power! For what?! So he could get a fucking medal!!? There were so many things she wanted to say to him, fueled by survival instincts that were going haywire with every second those steps approached, but Judas felt the urge to continue.

"Come on now. I like to think of it as providing a necessary service free of charge."

"And what the hell does that mean?!!"

"Lockious-"

"Lozen"

"Darling, no one cares. Now let me explain. I've been to this kinda place a million times before and it's always the same story. Well off town like of this size, there's got to be a dozen men for every outlaw in the west and I doubt all of them are stupid enough to go around unarmed in these parts. Yet none of them seem to have the courage to get up and fight themselves. That is until a lone gunslinger with nothing but his metal and guts strolls into town and puts up a fight! Then all the people cowering in their homes stare out through their windows at this one man standing against their greatest fears and my some miracle winning! Something stirs in them at that sight! Something that thought the years of oppression and misery had long since buried and this one man, just by standing where no one would has reignited their-"

"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there. How long have you been rehearsing this little show?"

"Five hours daily. Minus today for obvious reasons."

Lozen honestly didn't know what to say to whatever the hell she was looking, but at the moment she had more pressing matters. Those steps were now far too close for her to hope to get away in time and she still had no idea what she was dealing with. She took a quick glance around and her eyes once again landed on the sheriff's office. It wasn't ideal, not too much cover and only one door, but it was also the only place she knew for a fact had ammunition.

"Fine!" She cried out as she dashed for the front door. "Just make sure you get all of them and lure the fight away from this office!!"

"Like I'd let the scoundrels ride off into the sunset! Though I fail to see why the location matters."

Lozen practically tore the door off its hinges, exclaiming as she did "Because some of us still have lives to lose!" With that, she slammed the door shut behind her, tore her gun free from its holster, popped out the cylinder, and started marching down between the rows. "Alright. Marcus, I'm gonna need four rounds, .38 caliber in case those men decided to take a detour in-" She started saying before pulling her eyes up off her weapon and taking a look at the rest of the office.

The men weren't sitting at their desks, counting away at their major income sources like the drones they were, but stood in the doorway of the cage they used as an armory. Marcus seemed to be cowering behind them, but the one in front kept himself composed where the spineless coward didn't. In his hands he held a small bag stuffed to the bursting point with what she guessed were bullets judging from the ammo brimming at the top. A tribute. She wasn't sure why it was enough to stop her, but still she froze in place and found herself asking "What're you all doing?"

The one holding the bag replied "Why do you care?" Lozen still didn't know why she bothered, but she still said "Aren't you going to try and fight them?" She didn't blame them for it. They still had lives, but it seemed strange that somehow that pompous idiot outside was being more productive than the actual lawmen. "Yes. And we're going to take all forty of them out with just five men. Great plan. Now move." The man answered in a sarcastic voice before he and the rest of the men started marching forward. Lozen wasn't sure what she could have done if the stampede drew too close for comfort, but it was too late to think of that now.

She felt the floorboards start to shake as the steps arrived right in front of the office, a realization that caused her survival instincts to send her backing up against the wall. It was far too close to the men with guns, but it was the closest cover she could get to before the stampeding came to an abrupt stop. She popped the cylinder of her weapon back in place and flattened herself against a small portion of the wall between the only door and one of the two windows, waiting for someone to start shooting.

The quiet was much worse however. All those horses and guns, but not even a grunt made from any of them. Even the men behind her seemed confused at this, ducking their heads to the side to try and see what was wrong, but all of the questions they had were indirectly answered when they all heard a voice shout from outside "You some kinda leper or something?"

Lozen sighed after she heard that and repressed the urge to scream in utter rage. "No, I am not a lep......Whatever. Are you the guys who are terrorizing this-" Then the obvious thing happened and a gunshot rang out from the area. Lozen rolled her eyes before one of the men in front of her asked "Right. Do you know who that was?" She answered "No. I wouldn't go out there if I were you by the way."

"Yeah, yeah. Outlaws with guns. Darling, we've been dealing with those people for a good three months now. We know what we're doing."

Lozen hummed right before she heard Judas crying out "Okay! You could have just said yes, jackass!!" She waited for the confusion to settle in on the men's faces and for them to glance through the windows once again before saying "I'm serious. Don't go out there. You have a much better chance of surviving in here." Then there was a holler of "Oh. He's resilient. You know what that means, gentlemen!" The second she heard that, Lozen ducked down and slapped her hands over her ears just before the actual gun fight started.

The first round of shots roared through the air like hot coals being dipped in frost ridden water and came tearing through the front of the office. Glass shattered and rained down on the floor, accompanied by the wooden shards of the wall and door. Lozen just barely made out a few of the smarter deputies jump behind the desks before the firing started, but judging from the thuds, she guessed at least two of them hadn't been smart enough. Some of the rounds skimmed their way through the mangled hair standing straight up atop her head, but in total, most if not all of them sped over head. Though the fact they riddled a space she had once stood in was discomforting to say the least.

However, by the end, she was alive and that was all she took note of. The office looked like that demon horse of Judas's had taken to rampaging in it, desks laying on the ground with entire chunks taken out, but she was alive. Though there was one tiny reality that diminished even the simple joy of surviving. "You know, I would love to understand the thought process that leads to that. 'Hey everybody. One bullet didn't work. So let's use ten times more than our dulbasses can count.' That' you. That's you all right now."

He sounded annoyed. That was still so stranger for her to hear. No last wishes choked out of him with his own blood. Just annoyance. It was honestly compromises having to hear such a causal indifference to being shot. In a strange way, it also dulled whatever her survival instincts were screaming in her ear and pulled her eyes towards one of the holes blown into the wall. Outside, she could see there were indeed dozens of men on horseback, all holding guns as long as her arm and wearing bandanas as red as blood.

She couldn't make out what their expressions were through the masks and hats they had on, but judging from the robber figure standing in front of the door and his apparent lack of expiration, she could make a good guess.

Though, he did stumble for a moment much to Lozen's surprise and take a few shaker steps forward. She was sure he had survived worse barrages and shaken it off like they were snowflakes, but now he looked like a stuck man bleeding out. He even doubled over as he trudged down the small incline of the deck and came stumbling out onto the mud. For some reason he was still wearing his disguise, not that she was complaining, so Lozen had no idea if this was actually hurting him or he was still the same glowing deadman she sold her soul to.

"I guess all that big talk didn't have any bite to back it up." One of the men said as Judas continued.....whatever he was doing. He shuffled her feet all over the mud as if he was trying to regain his balance and eventually pushed himself back upright. His wavering continued for what seemed like an eternity before he stammered out "Is that.....the best you got?"

Lozen honestly had no idea what she was looking at right now and was honestly a bit numb at this point. "Holy god!! That guy's still standing!" She heard from her side, causing her to jump and swung her head over to her left go only to see one of the survivors was peering through the now shattered window. His eyes were wide in a strange look of admiration Lozen didn't quite understand, but it appeared to be infectious nonetheless. Marcus and George slowly creeped up towards the same windows as him, amazing her even more than she already was, something she thought might be an impossibility after watching a deadman do whatever the hell he was doing. She thought their need to simply stay alive might make them run to a hidden back door or something, not right around a massive hole in their only piece of cover.

To make matters worse, the idiot that was drawing them in wasn't stopping. "Cause I......can keep going you.......assholes. You ain't......gonna get me.....that....easily." He stammered out, something that should have annoyed Lozen even more, but she was more captivated by what she realized the bastard was doing. Her jaw dropped slightly and her eye return to her looking hole as another one of the seemingly endless outlaws said "Hell. You ain't resilient. You're just stubborn. Alright boys, stow your weapons. Don't waste the ammo. Let's give this guy a show. Andre, dance for us."

With a small groan of annoyance, they all either holstered their weapons or let them fall into positions where they couldn't have been useful. Then, one of them slid off his horse and landed in the mud below with a wet thud. Lozen flight response started kicking in again as she saw who the figure was. A massive brute of a man that made her think of that man "Goliath" she heard the preacher cry out about whenever she saw them. Layers upon layers of muscle covered every inch of him to a point where it looked like the clothes he wore were close to bursting from his bulk. His arms were as thick as boulders and just as strong looking with veins sticking through his skin until it looked like that might burst through. A massive shotguns was slung over his back and his knuckles must have each been the size of fists, all of which curled into fists as he made his way towards the deadman.

For a brief second, Lozen thought maybe Judas was in trouble, but the memory of all the shotguns rounds he took to the face put that concern to rest. Her begrudging companions on the other hand, seemed to falling for whatever she was looking at. "Oh no. A-Andre's gonna s-sm-smash him into paste." Marcus said in a voice that quivered like a child, a statement that Lozen wouldn't have been surprised if it ended up coming true. The man outside was a true titan of meat and bone and she wondered if he might be able to crush the bones under his ghostly visage as well as if that would do anything. Though it seemed like she would get that answer quickly.

"Tell me.....something.....real quick." Judas stammered out, again for no discernable reason right before the beast of a man delivered a solid blow right into his face. Lozen winced as she saw that and heard something crack, but didn't feel an immediate need to do anything. Sure, the deadman was sent falling flat on his back, mud exploding out from all around him as he made impact and if he were a normal person, she would think he was dead, but something about this still seemed strange.

A small chuckle passed through the crowd as he went down and the monster who brought him down took his time marching back over to the walking corpse. Judas squirmed on the road, his arms poking through yet still hidden by his cloak as he tried crawling back onto his feet. "How many towns......have you.......been too?" He continued with that strange stutter in his voice, but his attacker didn't seem to listen. The brute seemed to roll his eyes when he heard that saying in a hardened voice "Christ. You really don't know when to die." He marched on over to the deadman, hoisted him up by his collar, and then slugged him once more into his face.

If he wasn't held up by the brutes, Lozen was sure he would have come splattering back down into the mud, but she still didn't know why he wasn't just shooting them all. Was he actually hurt or was this......oh. Her expression lessened when it dawned on her. He wasn't hurting and if her theory was correct, then he should be continuing with his little speech.

"Me? Nah. There's been enough of that in this town." He said, forgetting about the stammer he was supposed to have, but the brute didn't appear to notice. "And what would a leper know about what happened in this town?" The giant asked as he raised a fist up, but he held his blow when Judas answered "A lot more than you bastards. You wanna know how many towns I've been too where folks like you have cole riding in from over the horizon." He was doing an accent. One that made him sound like an inbred farmer and made what little respect Lozen had for this situation evaporate. She sighed and thumped her head against the door as the realization continued to plague her mind. He was acting or playing or tricking or at the very least not taking this serious.

And he was enjoying it. No. He was revealing in it.

"Twelve. I've been to twelve other towns exactly like this one. So needless to say, you boys ain't the most original folks in the west. It's always the same. Ride into town with big guns and terrifying names, rough the people up, and even make the lawmen cowering in their office. But you know what happens at the end of all those little stories?"

The brute socked Judas again, causing the deputies to Lozen's side to let out tiny, shocked gasps, but the deadman was still held hanging above the road by his assaulted. She was surprised no one else had seen through this. He didn't use that accent when they showed up the first time. Nevertheless, he continued.

"Y'all fail. Every single one of you fail. No matter how big your dogs might be or how many guns you've got, y'all fail. You'll be in the middle of one of your little raids, shooting rounds into the air, and stomping all over this town, but then one day, these people will have enough."

The brute slugged him again with one of the men behind him saying "Sure. You think these people have the balls to do anything to us? They're all just a bunch of sniveling cowards. Even their sheriffs are terrified of us." Lozen heard a bit of nervous shuffling from the deputies to her side, making her question if this was actually working on them, but thankfully none of them did anything stupid yet. Though no thanks to Judas. She could practically hear his grin as he continued "That's where you're wrong, partner. These people may be scared, but that don't mean they can't kick your teeth in. There are good men here who'll stand up when the time comes. No matter how many of you scumbags come over the hill, these people will beat you back one of these days. Because as scared as they are, they're still good men even if they forget it sometimes. And good men always win in the end. They just need a little push is all."

Lozen didn't believe a word of it. Hell, she doubted even he believed it, but for whatever absurd reason, it seemed to stunned the brute for a moment. No. It stunned everyone for a moment. And like that, her caring for this entire situation vanished. She pulled her eyes from the hole and reached a foot back in what was supposed to be the start to crawling back, but before she could, one very satisfying and one very stupid thing happened.

The last thing she saw was the brute pulling his gun as he said "That's it. I'm gonna finish this." At first the thought of him getting shot and probably quitting this little carafe was amazing, but it was quickly followed by a gunshot. Not one that rang out from the outside, but from inside the office and to be more precise, right next to her. Every inch of her froze as the consequences for what she thought might have happened rushed through her mind and with every inch of her hoping in vain she had just imagined that shot, she slowly turned to see where it actually came from.

Against any form of logic she could understand, Marcus was standing right in front of the windowsill, shaking hands outstretched and holding a smoking gun. For a moment, Lozen thought she was still imagining the scene in front of her, refusing to believe someone was that stupid.

It was simple math. The people outside had more guns than them. What was so difficult to understand about that? Did he need to get shot to pieces to figure that out? Well, for whatever reason he did it, Lozen heard something slam against the ground outside right before someone exclaimed "That came from the office! Fire at them!!" Her survival instincts kicked back in and sent her rushed forward, diving behind one of the desks on the opposite side of the room as the moronic deputies. Then, the gunfire started back up.

Bullets whizzed through the air over her head and through the desk she flattened herself against, but only a fraction of them were even aimed in her direction. Instead, they tore through the other row of desks.

However, against her expectation, both Marcus and George managed to make their way behind the furniture before the hailstorm started. George pressed himself flat against the floor once he slid behind it and then had to pull his remarkably unfit companion down with him. Still, they both seemed to be alive which was much more than she expected.

The gunfire stopped after the first few burst or at least the ones that slashed through the front wall. Shots could still be heard right outside, single ones probably from only one weapon and judging from the quick yelps, it mustn't have been one of the outlaws. "Now he decides to start fighting." She muttered to herself in annoyance as she reached a hand over to the desk drawers and pulling each of them open one by one. Her hand snaked through the contents of each of them, only to find most of it were loose papers and what felt like coins. She scoured each of them as the commotion outside continued to grow until her fingers finally wrapped something she could us.

A simply, matchbox like containers that she tore out of the drawer. Printed across the top was "Winchester .38 ammunition." Perfect. She ripped off the top of the box set in on the ground and started loaded rounds into her pistol.

She had just managed to pop the cylinder back in place with a satisfying click when she heard a band ring out from the front door. It wasn't a gunshot, though she could still here the hellish commotion persisting outside, but it meant that someone had come bursting through the front door. Lozen poked her eye through one of the few holes blown through the desk and saw that one of the men had indeed come bursting through the door. His eyes were manic and he was out of breath, the shotgun he held swinging all over the place in a clear display of his inexperience.

Lozen hunkered herself further behind the desk and pressed her weapon against her chest in preparation to fire. Her heart raced like made, but she managed to keep the rest of herself under control and started analyzing the situation.

The man had much more powerful firearm than her, but the king barrel made it useless at close range. He also appeared to have a lot of ammunition strapped across his chest, but only two shots in the barrel. The distance between them was too great for her to try and kill him. His itchy trigger finger would blow her head off if she popped out. Although, much to her luck, his hysteria got the better of him and he started marching down the aisle between the desk rows.

She didn't know what she was going to do. Not that she was paralyzed or anything like that. More the adrenaline pumping through her veins was making it difficult to form a concentrated thought. Though she wasn't anything except unprepared. She was crouched near the edge of the desk closests to the aisle, fingers readjusting themselves around the hilt of her weapon and the furniture eclipsing her outline from the approaching figure.

His gun was long, making it ineffective at close range and his trembling hand would probably fire his two shots before he even aimed. That was the only thing she inferred by the time he came waltzing right past her desk, but she had no time to comprehend it. The second she saw him, Lozen jumped up and in one simple motion, plunged the end of her weapon right against the side of the man's head before he could even react. She saw his own weapon starting swinging itself over to smash into her, but by then it was too late.

She pulled the trigger without hesitation and sent the man exploding down onto the ground. He landed with a deafening thud right behind the other desk, startling Marcus, but there was no time to be horrified. Lozen jumped back down behind the desk and swung her gun around to point right at the open doorway where indeed, there were more men coming in. Whether to kill the traitorous sheriff or escape the demon outside, Lozen didn't know. She simply started firing when she saw someone in the frame.

She emptied her weapon before she knew it. Two bullets were wasted in the gut of some bulbous idiot who ran in scream, one more managed to hit someone in the heart, and her last two struck one man in the neck and another in the shoulder. And more were coming. She didn't know why, but in a fraction of a second she tossed her empty weapon aide and dove for the only other weapon she knew was loaded as she cried out "Cover me!!"

If the deputies were morons, then they were going to be useful ones. She kept herself low to the ground and snatched up the shotgun from actual corpses hands before sliding down behind the desk George and Marcus were now firing from. "So, I'm assuming you have a plan!" George called back as Lozen started pulling the ammo sash of the body and she shouted back "Just keep shooting! Focus your fire at and around the door!! That's where they'll be hiding and the plaster isn't strong enough to stop your bullets! I'm going up!" She popped the shotgun open and thankfully saw it was still loaded. "What was that last part?!" George asked to which Lozen didn't say a word. Instead, she raised her new weapon up, pointing it right at the ceiling.

She still wasn't close to an actual plan, but she had a bit of a working in. If the outer walls couldn't withstand revolver fire, she was willing to bet the ceiling wasn't any different. What little scraps of thought her adrenaline drunk mind could make out could remember the three other times she had done something like this. Only one of them was in a fire fight, but this office was about as close to a death trap as a building could get. The front was too soft to block gunfire, but every other wall was strong enough to reflect the shots. She wouldn't be surprised if some of them started richoching around the place and she wasn't gonna be near the office when that started.

Her trigger finger twitched again, sending the slugs into the ceiling above and blowing a hole through the wood and stone. Pebbles and splinters came raining down on her and the hole they collapsed from was decently sized. She could fit through it if only the gunfire would relent for a moment. Another half idea came to mind and after reloading, she cried out at the top of her lungs "JUDAS!!! GIVE ME SOME COVER!!!!"

She heard a vague voice cry back "A LITTLE BUSY AT THE MOMENT!!!" A flurry of shots rang out for a second. "OKAY!! I'M FREE!" Right after, a few dozens of the deadman's strange, misty bullets came tearing through the wood. "YOU'RE WELCOME!!" He called back right before Lozen slung the weapon over her shoulder and in one swift movement, jumped up onto the desk before further propelling herself towards the hole. Her hands slapped down onto the jagged edges of the opening, wood and jagged stone stabbing into her palms, but she managed to hoist herself up through the hole before any of the men could take their friends place at the front of the office.

She took a single second to suck in a breath before looking around at her bed surroundings. The massive "Sheriff" sign sticking up from the front of the office kept her hidden, but it also obscured her view of the road. Lozen dashed over to the edge of the sign, getting dangerously close to the end of the roof, and peeled around to see what Judas's progress was like.

He wasn't putting his ungodly features on display, the cloak still wrapped around himself, but that didn't stop him from having his fun. The outlines of his arms and the weapon he wielded could be seen poking through his cloak, firing at random at the scattering crowd around him. He also appeared to be spinning for some reason, but it didn't seem to affect his aim to much. Key word being "much". He was missing every so often, particularly when it came to the ones closest to him, but everytime one of the men tried running, he always managed to shoot them dead.

It was strange. He looked like he was trying to keep them near the police station. Lozen thought that it might be just woke sick kind of joke he was playing, but then she realized it was much simpler than that. He was just keeping them from running. The horses that hadn't run away by now lay dead on the ground and the ones that took cover behind the carcasses were being spared for some reason. Whatever the reason, they weren't her problem. Judas would take care of them before long and the ones who hid inside the office would be to busy shooting up the buffoons below to notice her as she escaped.

Lozen looked all around her, finding the building behind and to the left of the building were blocked off by the two extra stories of other structures. On the right however, there was a building that was low enough for her to jump into and beyond there appeared to be a relatively straight path down the way she and Judas had original come. With the men below her still taking the fire, Lozen raced across the roof top without a moment's hesitation and leaped the slight gap towards the other buildings. She bounded across the other roofs, slipping on several, wet tiles for a moment, but all together, she was having a well enough time getting away.

Until the roof bullet over her head, just barely grazing her hair and scalp before spending off behind her. She immediately dropped down to the roof she was one, slamming her gut right against the hardwood and clapping her hand over the back of her head. It had been close that time. Far too close. If she had been just an inch taller, she would be dead. All the shooting in the past five minutes had softened the initial shock to the point of laughability, but shock still flooded through her.

The bullet hadn't come from the direction of the gunfight. No. It had come from the end of the road. She thought that it might just be some more outlaws who had done the smart thing and waited behind the others, but that theory was dashed in what had to be the strangest thing she witnessed in the past day. "COME ON, YOU YELLOW BELLIED BASTARDS!!! LET'S SHOW THEM WHAT DUST TROVE FOLK ARE MADE OF!!!" Was the first thing she heard screamed from the direction of her new attacker right before she heard a collective yell and a new wave of gunfire spring from the same direction.

The building she lay on shook like when the horses came stampeding into town, making her confusion and partial amazement grow even more until it eventually override her survival instincts. Lozen pushed herself up off the roof, just enough so she could see over the edge, but she didn't quite believe what she seeing. Dozens up dozens of normal looking folks all carrying some form of firearms, all of which were firing at the rest of the masked outlaws. They were hollering like lunatics, somehow even over the gunshots, and charged right past the building she lay on without so much as a second thought towards her.

What little the outlaws were still alive by the time the mob reached the office were beaten to death with the people using their weapons as clubs in rather gruesome fashion. In the end, all of the outlaws were dead and the mob of towns folk than turned their attention towards Judas. Lozen thought they might start beating him to death too and quickly pushed herself back into her feet in the start of an attempt to run. However, she stopped when she actually saw what it was they did to the deadman.

Cheer. And loudly at that. They swarmed around him, weapons raised up over their heads and shouts of what she could barely make out as "hero", "thank you", and "those scumbags", but all together, they sung his praises either way.

And the deadman love it. He raised his arms up in a T pose and slowly spin himself around as if he were on display, head tossed back to give his admirers a better view. His cloak and mask were stills covering him, but that didn't stop Lozen from seeing the shit eating grin plastered across his face. There was a slight skip in his spin that must have been lost to everyone else in the fervor of the moment, but to Lozen seemed like the cherry on top to the most pretentious cake she had ever seen.

Lozen on the other hand was simply amazed, staring down at the celebration, jaw dropped and eyes wide. It was a foolish plan. No. It wasn't even a plan. It was a dance routine in the middle of a gunfight. And it shouldn't have been this successful. She couldn't quite comprehend what she was seeing, let alone why it was happening, but there was one thought that passed through her mind above everything else.

He wasn't going to shut up about this, was he?

...

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