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You ever want some real freedom, Ace, you can come with me.
Ace startled awake. The night air was hot and unbearable outside her rough duvet, but she still reached for a dressing gown to pull tight around her shift, to feel less naked at the voice creeping into her head.
Just ride out here before the governor’s men are less than a sleep away.
She stepped out onto the balcony. Tardis Town was lit only by the Texan starlight above, the town, for once, quiet. Like this, Ace could almost feel fond of the place, but without the bustle of people you could more clearly see the town’s flaws - the supports holding up the houses, the half-falling sign above the bank, the broken glass stamped into the ground around the saloon.
Ace breathed in deeply. The night air was not a balm; in fact, it rather agitated her, a sharp contrast to her flushed skin.
She returned to her bed, sitting on the edge. Her hair was down and loose, and she stroked her hands slowly through it.
It didn’t calm her. She recalled another body by hers, doing the same thing.
I’ll wait till dawn.
Ace went to splash her face with water, but it did not help. Increasingly, she was being overcome with desperation. She looked outside, and did the sky seem a shade lighter?
She had to choose. She had to choose now.
…And by god, she had been so foolish before to think she had.
Ace moved to begin packing. She stripped bare, then dressed herself in the shirt and trousers hidden at the bottom of the drawers, tying a bandanna around her neck. She took her bags and unlocked the door, treading carefully down the Gore Crow’s stairs, till she was out on the porch, and dared to let out a long, slow whistle.
Bessie was there soon. Ace put on her tack quietly, strapped on the few belongings and items of clothing she felt strongly about enough to keep, then mounted and clicked her tongue, pressing her gently into a trot.
She rode for hours, to the hideout she just days ago had been pressed gently into the bed of, and been brought to within an inch of her life by her lover’s lips within. The sky was brightening all the while, and though Ace was not foolish enough to race and exhaust her horse, she knew that the governor’s men would be awake and up now. She kept on flashing fearful glances up at the sky, till she started urging Bessie in and out of canters, and, by the time she had almost reached it, a full gallop.
She slowed when she reached it, and leapt off, rubbing Bessie’s snout with a whisper of praise. Shou Yuing stood against the wall, straightening as Ace came over. She had a hat on, a halter for her gun strapped already into her waist, and a bandanna still up over her mouth, which she pulled down as she approached.
“You came.”
Ace pulled her into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry I made you wait.”
“Of course I did,” Shou Yuing murmured, into her ear. “I could never leave you.”
Ace squeezed her one final time, then pulled back. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where to?”
“So long as I’m with you, I don’t care.”
Shou Yuing smiled. In the dawn light, she looked radiant - so beautiful she could not be real; surely some cruel illusion conjured by the unforgiving landscape. But as her lips came and pressed into Ace’s, she knew she was completely real.