All Lenny wanted was to go home.
Back to the warmth of the old fireplace. To the smell of fresh bread and coffee. The scent of his mother's perfume, fresh laundry and the lilacs his father always brought home for her. The smell of ink and old books, covers gently mended. The way his father's hands looked holding the yellowed pages. Gently turning them with practiced fingers.
He wanted to go home but he couldn't.
Not after the man with hatred in his eyes and fire in his arm set it ablaze. Not after he had sealed his parents away in a metal cage for transport to the city. They had hidden him away in the bushes of the forest. His mother touching his face with her hand. Soft and calloused. Comfort and love. His father watched him in the low light, eyes heavy with sadness but a fierce protectiveness hardened them.
Stay
We love you
Stay
He watched them step out the forest. His body frozen in fear. He watched his father pull his mother into a quick hug. Their bodies framed in the moonlight that broke through the clouds. The man with the metallic arm had approached them, arm gesturing to the house and back. He cannot hear their words but he knows that no matter what it wouldn't have mattered. You can't reason with men like that. As quick as a snake, the others grabbed them. He can still hear his mother's yell. His father's call. The house erupted into flames spewing from the man's arm. The other men watched the flames rise in grotesque delight, their metalic parts glinting. The whir and clicks of the horses as they prance in place, eyes rolling in anxiety.
He wants to go home.
A swaying man stumbles out of the saloon. The man staggers in place, unfocused eyes sweeping the darkness outside the rectangle of light. He trips over his feet, reaching for the smooth metal flank of his horse. He mounts it unsteadily, body slouching to the side. He taps the side of the horse with his shoes, gesturing it to walk. A whisper of sound echoes through the night's air. It sounds like the whistle of a whip being drawn back. The man half turns in his saddle before he feels the force of something strike him in the chest. He glances down, bringing his hand curiously to the dark spot forming over his metallic heart before he slumps over dead.
Lenny adjusts the perimeters on his eye, the iris whirring and clicking as it sizes and resizes. He checks the body once more, scanning it for life before he pulls back from his gun. Slinging it over his shoulder, he stands from his perch on the cliff outside of town. Taking out his journal, he slowly crosses a name off. He flips through it searching for the map when he comes across a photo.
He touches it, untucking it from its place in the crevice. Dates written in a practiced hand underneath two of the photo's occupants. He traces the faces in them.
One more to go
And then he can finally go home.