"My name is Isaac Morgan."

Arthur froze. This was impossible. Isaac was dead, Eliza was dead. He saw the graves he talked to the townspeople. They assured him, they were dead.

"I had big plans for him Arthur." Micha gloated, stretching the words out playfully. "He's a real chip off the old block. How many people have you killed this week, kid? Three, four?" Micha laughed. It wasn't forced or mocking but honest and gleefull. A sound of victory despite how thoroughly they had thwarted his plans, Micha was still so convinced he had won.

Arthur subconsciously tightened his grip on his shotgun and zeroed in on the kid, his supposed son.

The kid looked to be a million emotions at once. On the verge of hyperventilating, eyes wide and bloodshot. Black and blue bruising decorated the side of his face and tho he had a pistol in his holster, he didn't seem aware it was in reach. In fact, he didn't seem focused on what was currently happening to him at all. His expression lost and fogged over, likes his mind was elsewhere. He looked young and scrawny. 14 or 15 but he was at that age where malnourishment could also play a factor in how old he looked. So it was just as likely he was 16 or 17. Arthur tried not to distract himself by figuring out how old Isaac would be now. He shoved the thought aside.

This couldn't be Isaac.

But as he looked at the kid his true identity became irrelevant. He was enough like how Isaac could be and he was held at gunpoint by none other than Micah 'the snake' Bell.

"What do you want Micah?" he challenged in a low somber growl.

Prompting Dutch to turn and look at him with open disbelief. "Arthur, you can't seriously think-"

"I said," he spoke over Dutch. "What do you want?"

Micah laughed again but this time more for show. It lacked any real humor.

"Firstly, I want all Dutch's boys down from those cliffs, then I wanna see all of you ride off into the sunset."

"What happens to the boy?"

"Finders keepers, cowboy."

"No." Arthur shouted stone-faced. His words seemed to spook something inside the kid. Like he was reliving some horrific event of his past and Arthur's words had triggered something. A memory? The boy's eyes became more focused and his expressionless vacant. His posture changed subtly, his arm moving so that his fingertips could gently caress the pistol at his side.

"I could just put a bullet into him right now."

"If you do, we put a bullet through you." Dutch threatened for which Arthur was grateful.

"Well, it appears we are at an impasse."

"Then take me." Arthur volunteered, lowering his weapon. "Leave the kid and I'll leave my weapons and go with you peaceably."

"Arthur no." Dutch argued quickly. Impulsively side-stepping between Micah and Arthur. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder before facing Micah again. "You can't honestly be that gullible Arthur. It's a trick, he's not your son. He's not Issac."

"Then tell um boy," Micha said as he shook the kid, Isaac. "Tell um about your ma, how you killed her."

Isaac gulped hard and shivered, tightening his grip on his pistol. "I didn't kill her." His voice shook but gradually gained strength with each passing word. His eyes now completely clear, bore into Arthur.

"She loved you, till the day she died she loved you. She, she didn't want to go but my uncle convinced her it wasn't safe, that we were in danger because of who my father was. A murderous outlaw. You." He shook his head and glared before continuing. "I hated you for so long. He told me you left us. That's why my uncle had to step up and take care of us, because YOU abandoned her."

Like a bolder gaining momentum rolling downhill, his voice gained in strength and anger as he continued. Micah's gun at his headlong forgotten."My uncle promised to take her to New York but instead he just kept her away in a cabin in the middle of nowhere because she had a bastard son out of wed lock! He said she was an embarrassment, a disgrace! He forced her to work, she'd sew dresses for pennies a day. Day in and day out. And if she got behind or I miss behaved, he'd lock me in the storage shed without food for weeks at a time. I survived by eating the bark of the walls and drinking rusty water that dripped in during the rain. And all while he got drunk. He'd come in and beat her, beat us!"

Tears had begun to fall and his body slackened again. His eyes dropped to the dusty ground as he continued. "When she got sick she, she knew she wasn't going to get better, she started telling me what really happened. Stories he wouldn't let her tell."

"Then one night he came in as she was giving me money and trying to convince me to run away." He hiccuped around a sob. "He hit her, threw her to the floor and I just couldn't stop him! I was so angry, I, I just grabbed him and I hit him."

Isaac shook his head as if trying to shake the memory free. To escape its horrors. "I, I couldn't stop, I just keep hitting him. He stopped moving and I just couldn't stop. I tried to save her, I really did but... the last thing my mother ever saw me do was kill a man." Isaac finally lifted his head to look back at Arthur. "Her last words, were to find you. That you, that you..."

Whatever words she had said to him refused to be spoken, too caught up in the web of memory and emotion to be given a coherent voice. The kid had completely unraveled at this point, the emotional tole of his life crushing him under guilt and grief.

"And who else did you kill?" Micah whispered into the broken boy's ears and Arthur wanted nothing more than to cut off the serpent's tongue.

"I, I killed the witness in the jail, the guy at camp and... and..." without warning Isaac lifted his, pistol and blindly pointed it behind him, and squeezed the trigger. The shot was point-blank, too close to be anything but a bullseye. The bullet obliterating Micah's face.

Isaac sagged as the body rolled off him to the ground. He couldn't help but look at the new corps he'd made. The now-familiar numbness slowly seeping back into him as his entire world narrowed down to the fourth person he'd murdered.

He couldn't look away as Micah's body remained still.

Finally, someone stepped between them. Forcing him to break off contact. No words were spoken as his father knelt in front of him. Isaac tried to speak as warm arms wrapped around him and encircled him, drawing him forward. Arthur Morgan held him tightly, allowing the fog of numbness to dissipate and instead be filled with actual grief. Isaac found himself tugging at the tan leather jacket trying to press closer as he cried onto his chest.