CHAPTER TWO 
Fool's Gold

∘⋆⋅∘⋆⋅  𓄀  ∘⋆⋅∘⋆⋅

  WINONA SHIELDS HER EYES FROM the sudden onslaught of sunlight as they break away from the tree line in a fanfare of thundering hooves, paving their way towards the winding dirt roads that lead, funnily enough, straight to Rhodes. Dust clouds her vision in a great fog of russet and she squints against the grit that lashes her face, knuckles tightening under the taut leather of her riding gloves. She digs her spurs in and her horse begins to gallop faster, tossing his mighty head in an act of defiance that she pays no mind.

As morning creeps leisurely into afternoon, the world around them feels sleek as molten gold, their problems melting under the calefaction that hazes the windswept cobalt skies above. They travel under a thickening shroud of laughter and chatter, weaving in and out of the gawking passer-by's without a care in the world for all the strange looks shot their way.

Winona's horse, Troy — a bulky Ardennes with a soft Strawberry Roan coat — barrels across the land as she digs in her spurs again to urge him on faster, his mane whipping wildly in the warm breeze. She rides up the formation until she's galloping in time with Bonnie, the reins gathered in one of her hands as the other rests down by her side.

"What's our plan, boss?" Winona ventures mockingly, a grin pulling at her lips.

She can't deny how giddy she feels to finally do a job after flying under the radar for a while, officially growing bored of the wariness brought by bounty hunters and the law. Carrying out a robbery just feels so freeing in comparison to all those wasted days and nights spent in hiding, the worrisome butterflies in her gut torched by the pure excitement and anticipation flaming up inside her.

   She tips her head back, eyes fluttering shut, and relishes in the warm Southern breeze as it rustles through her loose, sandy hair. The riches in the stagecoach are almost theirs; she can practically feel the taste of victory saturating on her tongue.

Bonnie hums. "We're gonna have Brandy put on a little show for us all. Get the coach to stop, cry to the guards and tug on their heartstrings a little as a distraction before we start shootin' from the bushes." She shrugs as if it's all commonplace. "You know how it is."

   Her eyes peel back open and her head tips back down to face the road ahead. "Not Jolene?" she wonders out loud, unable to hide her surprise.

Before she fell in with the False Widows, Jolene Jameson had scraped past life as an impassioned performer and part-time working girl in the big city. That is, until her husband dragged her off of the stage with the promise of his fortune to reel her in, conspiring to force her into the life of a trophy wife — a decoration to drape on his arm instead of a lover to cherish forevermore. She hadn't realised that giving him her heart meant sacrificing her career beneath the spotlight, an unsuspecting songbird sealed in an asphyxiating cage. Her marriage was spent in conflict with herself over the life she had lost; part of her was grateful to be freed from the shackles of those unwanted nights passed as a working girl while on the other hand, she missed all those hours under up on the stage desperately.

The freedom of a widow suited Jolene perfectly. After seeing her potential and seizing it, weaving ideas of freedom her into her head and pressing that pouch of poison into her awaiting hand, Bonnie had appointed her as their preferred distraction when it came to jobs like this due to her penchant for the dramatics. She often says that you can take the girl out of the theatre, but never the theatre out of the girl.

  Winona's question still lingers in the muggy air, the thoughtful silence not answer enough. Bonnie nods curtly as they diverge from the main road, weaving in and out of the scrawny birches until they open out onto a shrouded hillside that overlooks the destination of the stagecoach.

"It's safer with Brandy as our red herring," she explains at last. "With Jolene, there's no guarantee that they won't just ignore her and keep on goin', but what kind of bastard would drive past a lost little girl on the roadside?" Her voice turns airy and she flicks her hair over her shoulder. "After all, it's dangerous country out there, Miss Bennet!"

The sincerity of her words dissolves under the amusement painted on her face. Winona breathes a laugh through her nose, shaking her head and clicking her tongue to encourage Troy further onwards, the dewy grass crunching under his tremulous hoofbeats. The leafy canopy overhead blocks out the worst of the sunlight as they ascend back into denser woodland, trilling birdsong and chittering rabbits echoing between the curling bracken and prickly brambles around them.

Without much warning, Bonnie raises a hand and rears up on her horse when they begin to ride along the precipice of the hillside. The rest of them have no choice but to come grinding to a halt behind her, their horses erupting into a chorus of discontented whickers and neighs.

   The girls all begin to dismount at her signal, hitching their mounts up on the surrounding trees. She instructs for the horses to be left a little further back in the woods so that they can't be seen from the road, fearing that they'll spook too easily and blow their cover entirely. Winona feeds Troy an apple for good measure before parting with him to go and stand with Bonnie, hands floating down to rest on her gun belt while she walks.

   "When's it coming through?" she asks in a hushed tone, eyes flicking around the woods suspiciously as if anyone's going to be listening in.

   Bonnie flicks open her fancy pocket watch — platinum and pried straight from the cold, dead hands of one of her many ex-husbands. "Ten minutes or so. We have more than enough time to get into position."

She tangles her fingers in her Thoroughbred's smoky grey mane once more for good luck, her hard expression softening when Adonis nuzzles into her hand. The feeling of more eyes burning into the back of her head urges Bonnie to turn around, that easy smile spreading onto her face as if it's been especially designed to do so.

   "You ready, ladies?" she asks, almost teasingly. Her hands rest on her hips, fingertips grazing over the pistols on her gun belt in challenge.

   She's met with cheers from all of them, the pent-up suspense intoxicating the air until they're all dizzy with exhilaration.

  Her low laugh rasps in their ears. "C'mon then, what are y'all waiting for?"

   That spurs them all into action. In the blink of an eye, Jolene and Clementine have been sent further down the hill to scope out the area and prepare to signal when the coach comes trundling up the slope, the pair disappearing amidst the greenery in a whirlwind of glittering jewellery and Titian curls. Meanwhile, Dakota fusses over Brandy's appearance like a regular mother hen, fiddling with her braid and adjusting the royal blue ribbon that secures it in place til her hands are forcibly shaken off.

   Winona watches over them all with narrowed eyes, settling her spine against the slender trunk of a tree and lighting up a cigarette to pass the next few minutes. The first drag lessens the weight on her shoulders and smooths out the fragments in her focus, regulating the burdens stressing her mind until her eyes feel sharper and her rifle feels lighter in her palms.

   She flinches when someone comes up to stand shoulder to shoulder with her, the silent movements surreptitious enough for her to guess who it is without looking.

   In her peripheral vision, she can see that Tallulah Nguyen's glossy black hair has been twisted back with aureate hairpins to keep out of her eyes, her ears glittering with the spectacle of some borrowed diamond earrings. She's left behind her fancy skirts for the day and has instead opted for some fine pin-stripe trousers, her crisp white dress shirt contrasting with the olive tan upon her complexion. Her dark eyes brighten up at the sight of the cigarette in Winona's hand and offers up the end of her own for a light.

"Thank you, Winona," she says, her cool voice coated in an ostentatious English accent concocted from a childhood spent in the slums of London. Smoke flutters from her dark lips, two finely manicured nails grasping her crystal-encrusted cigarette holder — one stolen from a Saint Denis heiress, if she's remembering correctly.

Winona tips her hat, a few flyaways obscuring her vision. "Lu. How've you been?"
 
"As spectacular as always, darling," she replies dryly. "And yourself? Excited to rob some more rich chauvinists?"

"Oh, you know me," Winona replies. Her eyes glint. "Always up for a challenge."

Tallulah flattens the tip of her cigarette against a tree stump and tucks the long holder into a notch on her gun belt, flipping two polished pistols into each hand and running her fingertips over the cold metal engravements. She pins two feline eyes onto her and Winona has to refrain from swallowing the final dregs of sense lingering deep inside her, instead tipping her chin up high and forcing herself to meet the stare. Tallulah's lips curve into a smile at that.

  "I do admire that about you," she croons.

Winona opens her mouth to reply when a whistling birdcall warbles from somewhere down the hill, the mellifluous and calculated pitch attuned to that of Jolene.

   It's time. They share a glance and a grin, turning to face their leader in anticipation of whatever instructions she'll dish out.

   Bonnie pulls up her black bandana and everyone follows in suit. She looks over her shoulder, tossing a wink before saying, "Turner, you're up."

   Brandy salutes with that toothy grin of hers, immediately brushing down her trousers and crawling out from the undergrowth to situate herself next to the road, looking very miserable about nothing in particular. She kicks a pebble with the toe of her boot, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she works up some tears along her waterline and practices her sniffling.

   And now, they just have to wait. . .

∘⋆⋅∘⋆⋅ 𓄀 ∘⋆⋅∘⋆⋅

CHARLES SMTIH IS TIRED. SO TIRED.

  Now that he really thinks about it, he can't remember the last time he'd slept all the way through the night. Peacefully, that is. If he hasn't been kept awake by general nerves within the camp, occasional nightmares or his own worry, he's been out amidst the darkness following leads. He's recently taken to busying his restlessness with chores around camp or whatever jobs are thrown his way, fighting his insomnia with more work than is really necessary in the hopes that it'll wear him out for more than a few hours at a time.

Really, he should've known better than to hope for something like rest. In a domino effect of poor decision making, a few of the others had gotten caught up in a gunfight with just about everyone in Valentine, leaving them with no other option than to flee and find somewhere to lick their wounds for a while. The relocation to Clemens Point was abrupt, an unwelcome intrusion to the life they'd begun to build up at Horsehoe Overlook — one that you could almost call peaceful, if it weren't for the various factors that kept tensions running high amongst everyone in the gang.

He doesn't mind the new camp. It's in a nice location, sweltering under the eternally hot sun and overlooking the peaceful eastern banks of Flat Iron Lake. Shaded from the worst of the heat yet not unbearably dark; a little green peninsula swathed in blistering air and surrounded by faraway archipelagos. It's remote enough for them to live comfortably, the location not half bad compared to other places the gang has wound up in the six months since he joined but, God, he's finding it hard to be appreciative when he's feeling as tired as he is.

  It doesn't help that he's been sent on a job with Lenny and Sean at the height of his exhaustion, their combined yapping enough to make his patience wear thin. It's at trying times like this that he really regrets saving Sean from those bounty hunters.

They're crouching behind a fallen tree trunk, golden blades of grass crushed underfoot as they balance in a teetering row, taking the utmost care to stay out of sight. Charles is peering out at the road thoughtfully as the day ticks onward, trying his hardest to focus on the task at hand and not lose his mind over their antics next to him. Maybe that's a bit harsh of him, but considering the two hours of sleep under his belt, he simply can't find it in himself to care.

Sean, apparently sick of being hunched over in a crouch, sprawls back against the grass until he's sat next to Lenny with his knees drawn up to his chest. He watches the clouds thoughtfully for a moment and Charles almost thinks that they'll have a few minutes of peaceful silence — until he starts up with his ramblings, again.

  "I think—"

  "Don't hurt yourself," Lenny snickers.

   Sean glares at him. "Shut up. I think," he enunciates the word, "I should take the lead on this one. I've thought up a plan."

"Really?" His eyebrows raise, an expression of disbelief upon his face. "Please. Enlighten us."

  "Well, I'll go down and distract them," he announces proudly. "Tell 'em that I've just seen a few outlaws heading their way or somethin' like that." He wiggles his brows. "I can be very persuasive when I have to be. I've got a properly steel tongue, so I do."

Lenny blinks. "Silver tongue."

"Huh?"

"Silver tongue. Not steel tongue."

"I— er... well..." he pauses. "Aye, well, steel's stronger than silver anyways."

The silence strings between them for a few moments longer, Lenny staring incredulously at Sean with his eyebrows furrowed. Charles shifts awkwardly next to them. He sort of feels like he's intruding on their staring contest.

  "Y'know something, Sean?" Lenny asks at long last.

  He raises his brows. "What?"

  "Everyone's entitled to act stupid once in a while," he begins. "It's human nature — but, you really abuse the privilege sometimes."

  They continue staring at each other for a good long while before erupting into poorly muffled laughter, giggling away like school children hidden away behind the tree trunk. Charles is beginning to feel more than a little awkward now.

  He clears his throat when they've calmed down again. "Uh, where'd you hear about this lead, again?"

  "What? Oh, a feller down the pub was practically shouting it for everyone to hear after a ginger lass asked him about his work. Looked bored half to death, so she did." Sean straightens up, peeking over the tree trunk and scowling when no stagecoach magically materialises.

Charles heaves a sigh. "So... you heard about this from a drunk?"

"Don't slag off drunks. They're a reliable source of information, if I do say so myself," he cries. "And don't you know, Mister Smith, that drunk words are sober thoughts."

Charles has the sudden urge to strangle him. He squashes it to the back of his mind and focuses back onto the dirt road before them.

  A piercing birdcall echoes in the clearing and it makes Charles feel uneasy. His skin prickles with goosebumps at the shrill sound and he swallows thickly, eyebrows furrowing. He can't quite recognise the bird it belongs to. Weird.

He doesn't have the time to worry about it. Within a few breaths, the stagecoach has rounded the corner, surrounded by armed guards and kicking up large dust clouds into the stuffy atmosphere. They handle their large guns with shifty looks in their eyes, trotting along with a superior air as if they're daring anyone to come close. Although, it was their unlucky day, because the three men lurking by the roadside were planning on doing just that.

  The obnoxious clearing of a throat makes Charles turn. He narrows his eyes at Sean.
 
"Alrighty, lads," Sean says a tad too loudly, pulling back the hammer on his gun. "Allow me to show you how it's done."

  Lenny makes an indignant noise and goes to follow, tying a tight knot in the back of his orange bandana to secure it over his face. Just as they go to break out from cover, something on the parallel side of the road catches Charles' eye.

  He lifts a hand and it immediately halts them both in their tracks. "Hey, hold up," he whispers. "Who's this?"

   They all look towards the road. A little girl stumbles out onto the road, looking no older than fourteen or so, her freckled face dusted with dirt and a few twigs poking out of her pale ginger braids. She begins to twiddle her thumbs, looking back and forth with a huge frown across her face.

"What the hell?" Lenny breathes.

They all watch as she kicks a pebble with the toe of her boot, looking back and forth as if she's searching for something. She fiddles with the end of her braid and tangles up her fingertips in the threads of the blue ribbon there, unable to stand completely still as a few tears begin to bloom from her starry eyes.

   "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Sean mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This is just grand."

Charles and Lenny shush him as his voice begins to raise in agitation. The younger man begins fidgeting anxiously where he's crouched, his head snapping between them both for some kind of clever plan or thought-out answer to lift them out of the predicament that's just presented herself, crying and downcast, right in front of their target.

  "How are we supposed to rob the coach if there's a kid around?" Lenny asks, voice barely above a whisper. Instead of his nerves being brushed off by a solution, his question is met with an answering silence, all their thoughts summarised in that one sentence.

  Charles can feel the cogs in his brain spinning at a thousand miles an hour, eyebrows furrowing under the intense burden.

  The coach finally surmounts the tallest crest of the hill, dutifully protected by that gaggle of uniformed guards. The stony facade cast over them all like a veil begins to falter at the sight of the little redhead in their way, their horses slowing when she begins to approach.

   "Hold up, mister!" the girl cries through her sniffles. The stagecoach comes grinding to a halt, the surrounding guards shifting around awkwardly and shooting each other curious stares. She practically throws herself before it, hands clasped in front of her chest pleadingly. "Oh, please help me. I-I've gone and gotten myself lost. I'm so scared," she whimpers, tears rolling down her face. "I just wanna go home, mister, you've gotta help me."

  "Move out of the way," the one at the front replies harshly. "We're on a deadline here."

  She sniffles. "Oh, but you're the first people I've seen for miles! You can't leave me out here all alone again. It's too dangerous."

   "Well, where you from, girl?" one of them shouts cautiously. His peers glare at him for even asking.

   She begins blubbering something unintelligible, burying her face in her hands as her body is racked with violent sobs. They catch snippets through her hysteria, something about a ranch and something about her mother, her hands gesturing around wildly as she points in various different directions. It's almost comical how bemused the guards look trying to follow along with her story.

  Charles narrows his eyes. There's something distinctly off about this whole thing. How could she have been lost for miles if Rhodes was only a few minutes round the bend? And why was this lost little girl wearing trousers in an area where the people hated progression above all else? The different factors of her story weren't quite adding up, but this seemed to be completely lost on the guards.

  "What are we waitin' for?" Sean hisses suddenly. "Lets go while they're distracted."

  "Something about this isn't right," Charles murmurs back. "Just... hold on."

  He grumbles something crude under his breath but Charles has already tuned him out, his focus drifting to seize the scenario unfolding before their watchful eyes.

   Now, the guards are at a total loss for words, sharing pointed looks with one another until one of them relents and dismounts his horse with a sigh, holstering his gun and beginning to hesitantly walk towards her. He leans down a little awkwardly until they're eye level, turning his ear towards her to better understand her emotional ramblings.

   Everything goes still for a moment. Her crying stops abruptly. She leans in close to whisper something that makes his face fall and pale to worrying shade.

   It's then that she drives a blade into the wrinkled junction of his neck, piercing through an artery and kicking him to the side while he buckles in agony. Her laughter bubbles deep from inside her chest, a sound too youthful and content in a scene of such brutality. She dives behind a rock as the guards are picked off by guns that don't belong to Charles nor the men on either side of him, all hell breaking loose when the first bullet finds a home between the eyes of one of the hired guns.

   Sean seems to take this as an opportunity and seizes it, scrambling out of the undergrowth until he's down onto the main road, inching closer to the stagecoach in search of the valuables. His movement urges Lenny and Charles into action, the two of them slipping down the hill to try and slip through the conflict as it unfolds around them — of course, it only takes seconds before they find themselves locked in the erratic fighting.

  More people have flooded the clearing now, presumably the ones that had been hidden in the shrubbery when the first shots were fired. They're all dressed expensively, setting them aside from all the other unfortunate people in the area, their faces concealed behind fancy bandanas and scarves. The thing that sticks out to Charles most is that, at least from where he's standing, they all seem to be women.

The young girl from before is racing around with a wild look adorning her eyes akin to that of a rabid animal's, her teeth bared in a cruel grin as she embeds bullets in the surrounding guards before rifling through their pockets for trophies to take home with her. Charles narrowly misses getting struck in the shoulder after she fires off round after round, her guns smoking while she takes a break to reload.

From where he's ducked into cover behind a boulder, Charles can see one of the last guards standing has his revolver pinned onto her head, fingertip hovering over the trigger. He has a clear shot on her. It's guaranteed to take her down in seconds but before he even has the chance to blink, two gunshots ring out and the guard has collapsed to the ground.
 
  A new voice pierces through the carnage, a tall figure coming to tower over her. Her eyes are narrowed into a steely glare that rivals the rabid appearance carried in the younger one's eyes.

"Christ, girl, you'll get yourself killed!" the outlaw admonishes, scolding her almost like a mother. She shoots thrice over her shoulder as another man advances, clicking her tongue in disapproval.

"Oh, don't give me that. I had him!"

"The only thing you have is a death wish, ya idiot. Get into cover or—"

Her saviour with the silver tongue, voice gravelly yet distinctly feminine, is suddenly tackled to the ground by one of the guards that she had thought to be taken care of already. The girl yelps and backs out of the way, instinctively reaching for her knife.

"Oh, just go!" the woman shouts, crying out as her head is snapped back by a punch. She elbows her attacker in the side. "I've got this one."

They scuffle on the road, a worrisome whirlwind of limbs and blood and outcries. The woman ends up with him crushed beneath her, an elbow now pressuring down onto his windpipe. He punches her square in the nose when she knocks away his guns, a furious yell procured from her lips as blood begins to gush down her face. With no hesitation, the butt of her rifle smacks his head against the ground with a sickening crack and she quickly fires a bullet through his cranium before he has any time to recover, muttering agitated curses under her breath the whole way.

The figure raises from over the guard, shirt sticky with viscera and blood. Her bandana has slipped down around her neck in the struggle to reveal a woman with fury flaring up in her glare, a scar running between her furrowed brows from her right temple to the very tip of her left cheek. The beauty of her roseate lips and — now broken — Roman nose has been marred by the severe injuries that litter her complexion, a gallery of fresh cuts and ancient lacerations that have paled with time. Her harsh expression feels out of place on a face carpentered for regality, her softness having gone rough around the edges.

  Charles doesn't need to know her personally to deduce this. The guns and the gore speak volumes.

After recovering from her scuffle and looting the guard for any ammo or trinkets, her eyes zero in on Lenny as he makes a dash for the coach, coming inches within the fallen lockbox before his legs are swept out from underneath him and he thunks down on the ground, completely winded from the fall.

  "Hey, boss," the woman calls over her shoulder. "This one ain't in uniform. What d'you reckon?"

Charles goes to aim an arrow at her when he hears the cocking of a gun and feels cold metal against his temple. He freezes up, shoulders tensing. The weapon against his head restricts him from moving too hastily, so the best he can do is stare at his attacker from the corner of his eye. He catches a flash of dark hair and bronze skin; the hem of a green skirt, the plain collar of a blouse. Her lip curls at the sight of him.

  "Don't even think about it, cabrón" the woman snarls. "Put down your weapon."

  He raises his hands in surrender, discarding his bow at his feet. She pushes the barrel of the gun further into his temple to keep his head facing forwards, making sure that he can watch the scene before him as it unfolds.

  "Hell, I don't know," someone else shouts back to the woman from before. "He look like a threat to you?"

  "Not sure," she replies eventually. "I haven't decided yet."

Her boot comes down to rest on Lenny's chest, her heel digging in deep until her polished spurs begin to tear into the fabric of his shirt. She narrows her glare and aims her rifle in between his wide eyes, the sneer on her face telling him all he needs to know of what his fate entails.

"Nevermind. Leave 'em," the woman in black shouts from atop an expensive-looking stallion. "We need to go before the law shows up."

The woman squints, looking up from where she has Lenny pinned. "You serious?"

"Well, do I look like I'm laughin' to you?"

   She huffs, stepping off of Lenny's chest and slinging her gun strap over her shoulder. He heaves a series of rapid breaths now that he's able to, scrambling back from her in case she changes her mind and decides to shoot him anyways.

Her grin looks like something that should be lovely but instead, it feels so sinister. "It's your lucky day, mister." Her expression turns serious. "Get out of here."

He doesn't have to be told twice.

  At that command from who he presumes to be her boss, the gun against his head is lowered and Charles almost thinks that he'll be let off easy, but the toe of a boot connects with his ribcage hard. He wheezes and doubles over in agony, hazarding a glance up at his aggressor. Most of her face is obscured by a soft white piece of fabric, but the way she's glaring down at him gets her point across just fine.

   "Don't even think about trying anything," the Spanish woman hisses. "Now, get."

   She disappears in the direction of her associates, her green skirt billowing out behind her as she hurries away, the severe gun in her hand contrasting with the demure way she's dressed.

   He blinks after her, still collapsed on the ground in total bemusement. The only thought that manages to prevail through the fog in his mind is: What the hell just happened?

∘⋆⋅∘⋆⋅ 𓄀 ∘⋆⋅∘⋆⋅

THE FALSE WIDOWS TEAR ACROSS THE countryside of Scarlett Meadows, laughing and cheering over their triumph the whole way. They pass around the loot, trying on all the different jewels for a laugh and flicking through the bill stacks with low whistles of approval to follow. The sky is beginning to revert to a volcanic sunset the colour of tangerine and poppy petals, the fluffy white clouds melting into a pretty fuchsia.

Winona rustles around in a bulging coin pouch, spreading them out in her palm to assess how much they've managed to swipe. Her lips turn up in favour, shaking the contents of her palm back into the purse and stowing it in her waistband to contribute later.

  "Hey, look at these," Dakota reaches over from where she's sat atop Bellona to nudge Winona. She's got two ruby earrings held in her palms and she lifts them up to hover over Winona's lobes. "They're your colour."

She rolls her eyes. "Shut up." However, her great show of dismissal doesn't stop her from pocketing them anyways.

Winona turns to study their riding formation. Her eyes sweep over the other girls, tallying up a quick headcount for nothing more than her own peace of mind. Only, she adds up five heads rather than six. There should be seven people including herself... so who isn't there riding back to camp?

"Hold up..." she breathes, head whipping around in every direction.

"What's the matter, Win?" Jolene asks genuinely, her newly bejewelled hand stilling against Black Beauty's neck. The stallion whinnies beneath her as if he can sense her alarm.

She turns to face her sisters, eyes blown wide in fear. Winona rears up on Troy and pulls him to a halt, the rest of them following in suit to see what's bothering her. A feeling of dread burrows deep into the pit of her stomach, her hand coming to rest over her abdomen as if pressure will do anything to quell the horror crescendoing inside her. When she finally speaks, her voice barely raises above a susurration, saying simply,

"Where's Brandy?"

AUTHOR'S NOTE

sheesh this was a wee bit of a long one and it's not incredible but omg !!! the drama !!!

i was low-key nervous about writing charles pov because what is that man even thinking about but idk??? i feel like it didn't actually turn out too bad lmao 😭

also, i like to think that the false widows genuinely just keep some of the loot they find instead of fencing it because they think it's pretty — they don't believe in waste fr

remember to vote & comment, i love hearing your thoughts and your support means sm to me 💕🫡