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Sneaking into the O’Driscoll camp was far easier than it should have been. The dumb bastards were drunk out of their minds, yelling nonsense or passed out in the dirt. She approached from the North, hiding amongst the foliage as she crept up behind the shed where she hoped she would find Kieran.
The wood was rotting and it was a wonder the building was still holding. Inside there was an unmistakable cry and her heart picked up speed. He was still alive.
Pressing her back to the wall of the shed, she moved as quickly as she could around the side of the building, stopping at the entrance and peering around the corner to get a grasp on the situation.
There were two men standing above Kieran. Her heart dropped at the sight of him. He was tied up at the ankles with his wrists bound behind his back. His face was bruised and bloodied, likely taking multiple beatings in the time it took for her to find the camp.
One of the O’Driscoll’s hauled him up by the neck of his shirt and he flinched away.
“Should we start with the eyes?” the O’Driscoll taunted, pressing a blade across Kieran’s eye. Kieran Whimpered as the knife pressed into his brow, a trickle of blood falling down his face.
“We should cut his throat,” the other man came up behind Kieran, wrapping his arm around to press his own blade to Kieran’s throat, dragging it just enough to break the skin.
“Please,” Kieran begged, “Please don’t!”
It was unfortunate that she couldn’t afford to alert rest of the camp to her presence because she would have liked nothing more in that moment that to put a bullet through those vile men’s skulls.
Instead, she pulled two throwing knives from her belt and lobbed them as hard as she could, hitting the first man directly in his neck and the other in the shoulder. The first O’Driscoll fell, dropping Kieran as he went who let out a startled cry.
The second O’Dricoll turned to her, pulling the knife from his shoulder and preparing to face off with his attacker, but she was prepared first. She pulled another knife from her belt and when he turned toward her she aimed, hitting him directly in the eye.
As his body fell, she ran straight to Kieran.
“Hey,” she spoke quietly, helping him into a sitting position as he winced in pain, “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
He cracked open his eye, the other unable to open due to the bruising and unhelped by the pooling of blood from his brow.
“You came?” he croaked out with disbelief, “I didn’t think anyone was gonna come for me.”
Her chest felt tight and she tried not to think about what would have happened if she hadn’t noticed Kieran was missing when she did. If she had listened to Dutch and the others when they insisted Kieran had probably run off or betrayed them.
She took in his injured face and tried not to let herself tear up at the sight. This poor, sweet boy. He deserved so much better.
“Of course I came,” she said like it was obvious as she reached around him to cut the ropes binding his wrists. There were lacerations on his arms from where the rope had been tied too tightly. She could only imagine the pain he was in.
She cut free his legs and made to stand up when she heard him sniffle and looked up to see he was crying.
“Hey, hey, listen to me,” she said, her voice thick with emotion, kneeling in front of him and taking his face in her hands as gently as she could manage, careful to avoid his injuries. “It’s okay. You’re okay now. I’m gonna get you out of here. I’m gonna keep you safe, I promise.”
He let out a small quiet laugh at that, shaking his head, “You can’t promise that.”
“Well, I do,” she said stubbornly, pushing herself to her feet and helping him to stand up with her, “Now come on.”
She pulled his arm over her shoulder and put one of hers around his waist to give him support. He was weak, but he was alive.
They left the shed the same way she came in, moving slowly into the trees where her horse was waiting patiently.
She helped him up first, before jumping on after him and taking the reigns.
“Hold onto me,” she ordered when he swayed to the side. When he still hesitated, she reached back and grabbed his hands, setting them on her waist firmly, commanding.
They rode out of the trees, into the swamp, and away until the O’Driscoll camp was nothing but a far away memory.
“We ain’t going back to camp?” Kieran questioned when he realized, she was taking them away from Shady Belle and back toward the prairies.
“Nah.” Was all she said.
She took them as far as she was able before she was certain it was safe to stop and check in on Kieran’s wounds.
“This should do,” she said, hopping off her horse and helping Kieran down after her. She helped him get seated on a fallen tree, watching his expression carefully as he winced in pain.
“Here,” she pulled some medicine from her bag, handing it to him, “Drink this. I’ll get the fire going and then we’ll clean you up.”
She watched him from the corner of her eye as she collected the wood and crafted a makeshift pit, striking a match and igniting the pile.
The warmth felt nice against the biting night air. The chill was deep in her bones from the ride out, and she was sure Kieran felt it worse than her.
She retrieved her canteen, using the clean water inside to wet a rag, and then handed it to Kieran as she knelt in front of him. “Drink some of this too. You might be dehydrated.”
He did as she commanded, coughing after he swallowed it down.
“C’mere,” she leaned into his space, gently lifting the rag to his face to wipe away the blood and dirt. He winced at the touch but didn’t pull away.
She took her time, moving as gently as she could and cleaning the rag when needed. Thankfully the cuts had not gone deep enough to need stitching, though she still insisted on wrapping his neck with clean cloth to prevent infection.
“What about your ribs?” she asked. It was clear he had received some good hits in the way he moved, pained by each step on the way out of the O’Driscoll camp. but he stopped her with a shy expression on his face.
She moved her hands to the button on his shirt but he covered her hand with his, looking away bashfully. “’m Fine,” he said, gently removing her hand but not letting go, holding it in his lap. “Just a couple bruises, nuthin’ serious.”
She frowned but didn’t push him. They sat in a warm silence for a moment, the fire crackling the only sound to be heard.
Finally, the silence was broken by Kieran asking softly, “Why are we here?”
She understood what he meant- of course she understood- but she didn’t want to answer just yet. Didn’t want to tell Kieran what she was sure he already knew as well. So instead, she said, “No ones gonna come looking for us out here. I can hunt for deer and there’s a stream nearby where we can get water.”
“You know what I mean,” he called her bluff, voice serious, “Why didn’t we go back to the others?”
She sighed, dropping his gaze and moved from her place in front of him to come sit up next to him on the tree, her hand still held in his lap.
“I don’t agree with the others on a lot of things,” she said after a pause, “I ain’t never liked how them boys treated you.”
She kept her gaze forward, not allowing herself to turn and see his expression.
Hesitating again, she breathed in the smell of fire smoke before deciding to just bite the bullet, “When I told them you were taken none of them believed me. They thought you had run off or betrayed them.”
She turned to look at Kieran finally. He was staring down at his lap, at their hands, a slight frown tugging at his cut lip.
“They wouldn’t hear sense,” she continued, swallowing the lump forming in her throat. “Only Arthur offered to help me look, but Dutch wouldn’t let him. Said that if you had sold them out, they needed him there for protection. Tried to tell me he forbid me from going nowhere,” she let out a bitter laugh, “he ain’t never been the boss of me.”
Kieran squeezed her hand in his and she forced herself to smile, to let him know she was okay. This wasn’t about her anyway.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
Her smile dropped. “Why would you say that?”
“You broke into an O’Driscoll camp all alone- you could have died!”
“I didn’t.”
“And you disobeyed Dutch! He won’t forgive that too easy-“
“Like I care.”
“So-what, you lose everything, destroy your entire life, maybe get killed! And for what?”
“I couldn’t just let you die!”
“You should’ve!”
There was a tense silence, both breathing hard. Kieran was fighting off tears, she could tell, and she knew that couldn’t feel good with his busted eye.
“Kieran,” her voice shook but she pressed on, “I would rather die fighting off a camp of O’Driscoll’s, than go on living life knowing I left you for dead.”
“You’re crazy,” he said but he was laughing, shaking his head, disbelieving. “How’d you get so brave?”
“I ain’t brave,” she denied, “If I was brave, I would’ve done this sooner.” She lifted his hand to her lips, placing a lingering kiss to his skin.
He smiled, a nervous laugh escaping his lips. If it wouldn’t have risked aggravating his wounds she would have kissed those lips right then.
“I’m gonna set up the tent,” she said, pressing one more quick kiss to his knuckles before standing, “You need rest. And food.”
Kieran watched her go with a starstruck look in his eye and a blush spreading up his neck and into his face.