Once Bitten: Twice Mad

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Shooting A Dying Man is Murder?

"We need to go on out there and search for that survivor. We can't leave someone stranded out there in need of help." Frankie stated to the group gathered in the dining car. Everyone was there except for Catherine and Silas. They had not come out of their room, though Colt had not expected them to; not after the day they had just endured.

"Since when are you so concerned about others?" Katherine questioned. "I think that risking this group for a 'person' who may or may not even exist is a pointless risk."

"Are you calling me a liar?!" Frankie snapped and Colt let out a long exhale and pinched his nose between his fingers.

"I'm just saying that I don't want to risk anyone's life just because you might have seen a person hidden in a stage coach. Those coaches are surrounded by rabid and they've been torn apart. I'm sure any person you saw is already dead." Katherine argued.

"No they weren't." Frankie snapped, stepping forward and looking ready to fight. Colt was relieved when Comanche's arm wrapped around Frankie's waist, stopping the woman from advancing any further on Katherine. The last thing Colt wanted right now was a cat fight in the dining car when there were rabid surrounding the train, a possible survivor in the stagecoaches and a kiss still burning on Colt's lips.

"Well, Old Man," Colt began, his gaze going to Jedidiah. "What does that mind of yours have to say about this?"

"Are you truly interested in my thoughts on the matter or are you hoping to hear that I have seen these stagecoaches and know how this day will go?"

"You know I don't believe in your particular brand of crazy, Old Man. I was just asking for your opinion."

"Well sadly, my brand of crazy as you call it, has not told me anything about this current situation. I don't get to pick my visions or what I see and I have not seen this coaches. All I can offer to help your decision is this: if I were that lost person stranded in a stagecoach surrounded by rabid, I would hope that a train full of folks with a talent for killing rabid, would take pity on me and help me out of my sticky situation."

"This is ridiculous." Katherine exclaimed. "Look out there!" she added, pointing out the window at the rabid wandering between the stages and peering at the train, clearly interested in this new object and the scent of living blood inside of it. "There is no proof that there is anything alive out there!"

"My word is the proof." Frankie argued. "I know what I saw. There was a living person, a small person, looking out of one of those stages."

"A child?" Colt's head whipped around to see Charlotte and Silas entering the dining room. "Is there a child out there?" Charlotte asked again.

"There might be." Rachel spoke up.

"There is." Frankie amended sternly.

"We have to go help them." Charlotte insisted.

"I agree." Silas added and Colt could hear the hollow quality of the man's voice. Colt knew that well because it was a quality that had been in his own voice for a long while after losing his wife and daughter. A quality that had only begun to disappear since meeting Evangeline......

Colt's gaze went to her where she stood only a few feet to the side of him. Her kiss had shocked him and so had the feelings it had stirred within him. Not the lust, lust was a purely honest male reaction to the kiss of any beautiful woman... No, it was the tug in his chest that had surprised him. The click in his brain that had told him that moment was right. That it was meant to be. That they were meant to be.