DEAD MEN PAY THEIR DEBTS.

PARADISE LOST.

The next morning, Jesse is woken up by a hand shaking his shoulder. The first thing he registers is the sunlight shining directly on his face. The second thing is the thirst clawing at the inside of his throat. He licks his lips, squinting. 

"Finally awake now, are ya?" Colt sits at the foot of the bed - his bed, Jesse realizes groggily. He's lying in his bed, back in his house. He thinks back as much as he can, but he doesn't remember going home. He thinks back as far as he can, but he doesn't remember going back home.

"Water," he croaks. Colt lets out a rumbling chuckle and hands him a cup. Jesse takes it thankfully and gulps it down, sloshing half of it all over himself.

"Slow down there," Colt says, getting to his feet and watching Jesse with amusement glittering in his dark eyes. "Don't wanna drown yourself now, do ya?"

"How did I get back?" Jesse asks, his voice hoarse. "I...I don't remember anything after I dropped Casey back at his house. After I came back to the saloon."

"You drank yourself to death," Colt informs him, leaning against the wall. Jesse quietly asks him to close the shutters - the sunlight is giving him a headache. Colt obliges, then continues. "Came back, ordered whiskey, and told Buck to keep it comin'. You ended up passin' out. Me an' Buck, we weren't sure whether or not you'd kicked the bucket."

Jesse lies back down, his arm over his eyes. "I feel like shit." He pulls his blanket up, to his chest.

Colt shrugs. "Expected. Once we decided you were still alive, me an' Buck carried you back here. You were dead weight, of course."

"O-oh."

Colt runs a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair and clears his throat. "You gonna be alright?" he asks. "Got some nasty business to take care of down by the river." Jesse's mouth is dry, and he needs more water, but he nods anyways. He doesn't need a nursemaid.

"Nasty business?" he repeats. "What happened?"

Colt sighs. "Elizabeth found her cow." He drags a ruddy hand down the side of his face. "Well, to be exact, young Barnaby did."

"Barns? What happened?" Annabelle had been missing for weeks now. Elizabeth had been torn up, seeing as that cow being her only real source of income. The machinery she kept in her barn could be used to harvest crops, but neither Elizabeth nor her grandson Elisha was able to work them, not anymore.

No one had thought too much of the cow's disappearance, having assumed that the cow had just wandered off to graze and would be back. But from Colt's expression, it looked like things had gone south.

"Barnaby and Nicolas spent the night down by the river. Dunno what the boys were doin' down there, but early this morning they were running back into town, telling us they found ol' Annabelle on the banks, dead." Colt's dark eyes flash as he leans forward. "And now here's the odd part. All her inner organs were taken out, and there wasn't a drop of blood in her whole body."

Jesse plays with his ring, his brows furrowing as he thinks that over. "Some kind of animal, then," he suggests, to which Colt leans back and shrugs.

"Perhaps. We ain't quite sure yet. The others are down there now, trying to figure things out."

"I'm comin' too." Jesse throws back the covers, wincing as his head pulses. For a moment he thinks the demon is back, but then he remembers last night.

Colt hesitates. "You ain't in the best shape right now, son," he says, as Jesse runs his nails over his bare chest.

"I ain't a child, Colt," Jesse scoffs, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "I'm twenty-bleedin'-four years old." The movement causes his head to throb violently, and he winces. Colt gives him a pointed look, but Jesse just scowls at him.