I won't just survive
Oh, you will see me thrive
~Rise, Katy Perry
When, when the fire's at my feet again
~Rise, Katy Perry
When he'd seen Evan go flying off her feet, Lem had been sure he'd killed her.
He hadn't meant to set off the kero-shine, really, he hadn't. But then Hixon had asked after Aunt Maggie, after the old woman he'd tried to burn to death in cold blood, and he'd snapped. Grabbed that man's gun and fired, discovered at just the wrong moment that he and Marcel had made the kero-shine far too volatile, setting all of the area aflame, not just the ring of fire as they'd planned.
Lem had been lucky. The shockwave had struck him, knocked the breath from his lungs and sent him staggering back, but he'd managed to catch himself before he could set himself aflame. The chaos had stunned him, but Evan had been by his side, elbow brushing against his where her own captor had clutched her, and so it had been impossible for him not to see her as her feet left the ground, as she went horribly limp, as she struck the ground and didn't get back up.
He hadn't even been able to tell if she'd landed in the flames. If she was going to burn, burn as he'd thought his Aunt Maggie had, burn and burn and burn and turn to ash. Burn as he could hear the Agents doing, screaming and screaming and screaming, collapsing to the ground as they died, convulsing and screaming and screaming and screaming, but she was still, wasn't moving, wasn't screaming, and he'd thought her dead.
He'd rushed to her, as fast as he could with his legs shaking, adrenaline trembling through him, choking and coughing on the smoke and ash in the air, eyes burning and watering 'til she was only a blurred silhouette, one that was, thank god, beginning to move as he dropped to a knee next to her, words spilling from his lips without his bidding, flooding out like water from a cracked dam, panicked and high pitched even as he choked on the ash and smoke that strangled his lungs.
"Hey, are you alright?" and her eyes had blinked open, or at least he thought they had, the light had gleamed off something in her silhouette, but he could barely make out her much less her features, "Shit, I'm sorry," he'd tried to help her up, feeling her move against him, lurching and shaking, coughing rattling her lungs, and for once she'd allowed him, not pulling away from his touch, "I'm sorry, I snapped... I-I didn't know what else to do," and he hadn't, really, he hadn't.
She'd gotten them out of some truly horrible scrapes before, scrapes where they'd been outnumbered one-hundred-to-one, fought off an entire train full of Agents while they were sitting ducks inside of a boat, but always while free, able to move and duck and dance, and yes, that was the only word that came to mind when he watched her fight. It wasn't fighting, it was dancing, in the way she whirled, the way she slipped and ducked and spun, the movements as natural as breathing. Never bound, held back, unable to reach her gun.
He'd panicked, seen red at Hixon's words, grabbed for that man's gun and, as he always seemed to, messed it all up.
She pushed him away once she was on her knees, standing as he did the same, staggering hard enough that her shoulder slammed into his and nearly sent him reeling, and he looked around, taking in the people screaming and collapsing and bolting for cover, "Hixon and Danny-Lee, they went that way," he gestured, the top of her silhouette moving to follow, "Go after Hixon first, Danny-Lee, he-he's in a bad way, he won't get far!" Evan shoved at his shoulder, pushing him in the opposite direction before bolting towards Hixon, and he did as he was bid—he wanted to help, desperately , but he'd just be in the way. Though she hadn't intended him to, he'd heard Aunt Maggie ask her to protect him ("You watch him for me," she'd said, "he's uh, well, he ain't you.") and didn't intend on letting her get shot because she was distracted keeping an eye on him.
They'd had a meeting place decided on, just in case, and so he rabbited for it, coughing and rubbing his eyes all the while. Their horses had fled from the explosion, and he couldn't fault them in the least, and she had lent him one of her better-natured horses to ride in case anything happened, a flaxen Walker, so once he felt it was safe he started to whistle, that sharp one, three in a row, each of a certain inflection, that she'd taken the time to teach him, and the horse hurried up to him, eyes wide and throwing her head, but she allowed him to mount her all the same and kick her into a gallop, sprinting for the rotted out, abandoned cabin she'd scouted out ahead of time as a meet-up place.
Once he was there, he remained mounted up on Rowan, ready to bolt if the Raiders or the Agents sniffed him out. Even so far away, he could see the orange glow of the flames, hear screaming and the sharp crack of gunshots, and took some solace in that it meant she was still breathing, still alive and fighting.
But he was alone with only a horse and his thoughts, and while Rowan was a nice enough horse she wasn't very good company. And so his thoughts went to Danny-Lee, the snake of a man that had looked him in the eye and ran, leaving him to think his Aunt had been burned alive for well-gone a year. He should have felt gleeful in that the man's leg had been destroyed, that he'd seen him go flying in a spray of blood.
But instead, Lem felt numb.
He'd only been young when he'd met the man, only a teenager, and they'd worked together, he and Danny-Lee and Marcel and Aunt Maggie, for six years. Lem had patched the man up a fair few times, and the man had done the same. He'd trusted Danny-Lee with his life, and Danny-Lee had trusted him with his, too. And here he was, now, celebrating that he was crippled, mangled, near-dying.
How, after six years, had Danny-Lee been able to just stand aside and watch as his Aunt, the man's friend, was trussed up like a pig for slaughter, hands bound behind her so she hadn't the faintest chance of escape, before being thrown into their burning cabin. How had he been able to look him in the eye before running away?
Damn the man, damn him, and damn himself for being unable to hate him.
Even Aunt Maggie had admitted that she didn't know how she had survived. How she had managed to find that one safe space to crawl under such that she suffered only burns, so that she hadn't burned to death. And he was grateful for it, of course he was, but it was too close and knowing that Evan was amidst all those flames now terrified him, had Rowan stamping her feet beneath him as she sensed his unease.
But, as he always was, if he went there he'd be little more than a liability, so he could do little more than pat Rowan on the neck and wait.
There was a sudden, final crack of a gunshot, and it was quiet.
The gunfire had been easing, lessening, but the end still chilled him, had him startling enough that he pulled on Rowan's reins, the soft-mouthed mare rearing, and he had to spin her in a circle to keep her from bucking him, apologizing and cooing love-words to soothe her.
He moved his gun to set it in his lap, turning to watch the road, his heart almost impossibly loud in his ears. That—was it Evan? A Revenue Agent? A Raider? But, no, a man on a sorry scrap of a gelding trotted by, unaware that he was being watched.
The longer he waited, the more he twitched, the uneasier he became. He began to think of riding back to see what had happened to her, though he knew she'd be furious, she'd made it very clear in her own way that he was to keep himself out of danger and that if he was bid to run he was not to look back, and when she'd shoved his shoulder that had been as good as if she'd roared "GO!"
A horse approached, a familiar, heavy-footed one-two beat, and he perked up even as he drew his gun to be safe. He knew that horse's gait like the back of his hand, not because he liked it but because he hated the beast, just as he was certain the beast hated anyone but her, the Ardennes was a monster who'd take a chunk out of you as soon as breathe, and she'd once 'told' him that that was why she'd gotten him for so cheap, gotten him at all, he was going to be shot if she hadn't because they couldn't sell him on account of being so vicious, and she could see potential in him. At least, that's what he was pretty sure she was saying, all of it had been said through drawings and he'd never been much good at charades though, with how much time he'd been spending with her, he was getting better.
Cocking his gun, he raised it as the lumbering horse trotted towards him, only to lower it with a relieved sigh when the woman sitting atop him raised her hands in a fumbling Seven, allowing them to thump back onto Cassim's thick neck. "Did-did you get him?" he asked, and could barely make out a nod, realizing that at some point she'd lost her hat.
She nodded, turning Cassim so he could see Danny-Lee, hogtied and lashed down to her horse like little more than a deer she was bringing back to cook, limp and—"Is he dead?" but no, he wasn't, she shook her head, and he wasn't sure what to make of it. It'd be a hell of a lot easier if he was, but Aunt Maggie wanted him alive, and though the man had done them wrong he'd been practically family.
"Alright," Lem took a deep breath, pointedly not looking at Danny-Lee as he nudged Rowan to follow Cassim, the mare whickering a greeting to the gelding, and he held his gun in hand as he moved onto the road, well-aware of how out in the open they were, keeping his eyes and ears out for any lawmen, Revenue Agents, or Raiders—
a thump behind him.
He was off his horse and running to her before he'd even fully registered Evan, limp and unmoving, on the ground.