#please do not look at me as i strugglebug my way through combat and action

[consumedkings-archive]

WITCHING HOUR, a john seed/deputy fic.

chapter fourteen: tin roof rusted

word count: ~10.7k

rating: m

warnings: references to ~sexual activities~, canon typical forced drug use, mentions of cannibalism, canon-typical violence, everybody playing fucking mental chess all the time meanwhile elliot is just trying to have some fun playing fucking CHECKERS. the usual!

notes: hi hello! this chapter was a bit hard for me to work through, because the two things that are the hardest for me to write are 1.) more than two characters in one scene and 2.) combat or action, and this has both of them. but: i digress! i hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoyed, despite all things, writing it (because it WAS fun). and i mean it when i say: WE'RE FINALLY KICKING IT OFF, BABY. EDIT: I CANNOT BELIEVE I DIDNT THANK @vasiktomis thank u for being an angel and always talking through plot problems with me, i LOVE LOVE LOVE you !!!!

special thank you as always to my loves @starcrier & @shallow-gravy for letting me borrow their eyeballs on this, as well as @faithchel and @lilwritingraven lending me help in my first time writing faith's voice. in case you're wondering what it's like to read any of these chapters in their rough draft form, it's a lot of correcting grammar and misspellings and half-finished sentences because i literally jump around like a maniac when i'm writing if an idea occurs to me, so everyone say "thank you star and gravy for making this a readable piece of content"!

and thank you as always to everyone who reads this. this really is a passion project of mine and it means so much to me to know that even on person out on the World Wide Web(TM) is enjoying it. <3

Faith could tell that something had changed.

In fact, a lot of things had changed. All of them, every single one of them, was different—compressed, under duress, skeletons unjustly fit into their skin. No room in the bone arena of their skulls for all of the light they’d had before.

And she was the only one who saw.

Well, she’d always been the only one who saw. Except for Joseph, of course, but his eyes were always set forward, never back to them; never making sure that they were close enough behind to make it through the proverbial door, always assured by the fact that if they were meant to make it to Eden with him, they would. And so here she was, seeing.

Seeing the way Joseph would lean into the dark-haired woman, Isolde; the way his lips curved, the way his eyes darted to her mouth. Longing. Joseph didn’t long for things. But he did, now, in a strange and inexorable way, always close to the brunette and finding occasions to touch her. It was the thing that he did: foster affection, even in the bleakest of places, and this was no exception. Nearly every moment of theirs was spent together, but when they were apart, the smell of expensive perfume trailed after him, clinging faintly from enduring proximity alone.

And she saw the way, too, that he looked at the vet, Arden—Jacob’s “friend”. Muted disdain. Mistrust. Things that Joseph certainly thought that he could disguise himself, things he thought he manicured carefully with a polite exchange every time they were in the same proximity (never initiated by Arden herself, only always by Joseph). Testing the waters.

Yes, Faith thought, things have changed. Are changing, present-tense and not past. Things have changed and are in the act of changing now, right under our feet. And I don’t like it.

It was inevitable, in a lot of ways, but there were some things that she could control.

Like Staci Pratt.

“Hello, deputy,” she greeted once he’d come around the corner of the chapel. She’d been standing outside of it, pleased to enjoy a brief respite from the snowfall.

Her words made him flinch, his movements grinding to a halt. Jacob really had done a number on him, hadn’t he? “Have a nice walk?”

Pratt’s expression soured. He was a sulky kind of fellow, his face gaunt from malnourishment and his dark eyes haunted, darting. He never met hers for long. There had been a flicker of attitude when he’d mouthed off about the sermon, which seemed to have caught Jacob off-guard.

He said, “I guess.”

“You guess,” Faith repeated. “You’re given the freedom to wander around, and you guess that you like it?”

The brunette paused. He wet his lips nervously, shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his coat. Jacob was too busy to worry about whether or not Pratt was behaving himself—too busy focusing on the Hunter, slaughtering her Angels, making them disappear left and right—to keep an eye on him. To make sure that the conditioning stuck. But Faith wasn’t too busy. She was seeing.

Pratt said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you do,” Faith demurred. She swept a hand over the lapel of his jacket, brushing the snow off of it. It was late afternoon, milky light filtering in through the clouds, and unflattering color palette on Pratt; it washed him out, shadowed the hollows of his face and highlighted their skeletal angles. “When has Jacob ever let you wander around without a chaperone?”

“I’m not—a toddler,” he managed out, having swallowed back what she was sure was a flinch when she reached up. Faith’s eyes narrowed a little. He continued to not meet her gaze; instead, he slid his eyes to the side, like maybe he was worried about someone sneaking up on him.

“Where did you go?” Faith asked sweetly.

His eyes darted back to hers briefly. “Huh?”

“For your walk,” she clarified patiently. “Where did you go?”

“I-I—” He took a step back, in what appeared to be an effort to put some distance between them. “I don’t, uh—”

“It’s just a question, Deputy Pratt,” she murmured. “Where did you walk? Behind the chapel? Over by the bunkhouses? Down by the water? Surely you went somewhere.”

“I wasn’t really paying attention,” he replied defensively, “I was just—y’know, just—”

“I don’t,” Faith cut in over him, dripping the words in honey on their way out of her mouth, “know, Staci Pratt. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“By the water,” he snapped out uneasily. “Just wanted to get—get some f-fresh air.”

“Mm.”

She waited. She waited, and watched Staci Pratt squirm for a minute, unsure if he was able to excuse himself from the conversation or not—and doubly unsure what else there was to be said on the subject of his late-afternoon-walk, she was sure. Still, Faith remained quiet, scanning the courtyard leisurely as she let the silence stretch out between them.

It wasn’t until Pratt opened his mouth to say something that Faith turned her eyes back to him and said, “Are you relieved Jacob’s going to be gone?”

His mouth snapped shut, and then opened again to say something, and then closed again; he looked like a fish, glassy-eyed and panicked. Faith smiled serenely.

“You can be honest with me, Staci.” She tilted her head, watching him. “If you are.”

“If I’m—what?”

“Relieved,” she reiterated, feeling the annoyance sparking in her voice, “that Jacob isn’t going to be around for a little while.”

His expression twisted, crumpled on itself. It was clear that Jacob had pushed him—and pushed him, and pushed him, until now he was a kicked dog, waiting for someone’s outstretched hand to mean pain and not kindness. It was good. It meant that he would be afraid of incurring their wrath, should he have gotten any funny ideas about going against them.

Before Faith could prompt him more, the door to the chapel behind her opened and Staci’s eyes flickered to whoever it was over her shoulder.

“Oh,” came Isolde’s voice. “What’re you doing out and about?”

Faith turned to look at her. A little smile ticked the corners of the brunette’s mouth when their eyes met. She had clearly been speaking to Pratt.

“Deputy Pratt was just going for a walk,” Faith informed Isolde. “Down by the water, he says.”

“Is that so?”

“No,” Pratt replied quickly. “I wasn’t—”

Faith lifted her brows. She said, coyly, “But you told me you were.”

“I’m done,” he insisted, “with the walk. I-I’m not still—I’m not going on the walk, I’ve just—”

“This is all very interesting, Mr. Pratt,” Isolde interjected briskly, “but I don’t have a particular care whether you were walking or if you are now going on a walk.” She cinched her coat snugly around her waist, waving a gloved hand. “Cease being.”

Faith watched, amusedly, as Pratt’s face flushed red from the dismissal; he looked terribly like he wanted to say something in response, but after their last little spat after Joseph’s sermon, she imagined he wasn’t keen on it.

Pratt looked at Faith. She smiled.

“That means be somewhere else,” Isolde drawled, stepping down from the chapel’s doorway to stop beside Faith, tugging a glove more securely onto her hand. “In case you didn’t pick that up from your time indulging in Mario Savio.”

The man’s jaw clenched, the fabric of the jacket pockets shifting from what Faith could only assume were his fists tightening. Oh, he did want so badly to say something, didn’t he? Go on, she thought, meeting his gaze, I’d like to see it.

He did not. He ducked his head and turned to trudge through the snow. As Pratt departed to slink back to the bunkhouse, Isolde let out a little sigh.

“Can’t put my finger on that one just yet,” she muttered. Her eyes returned to Faith, her expression smoothing out. “I didn’t interrupt your fun, did I?”

“No,” Faith replied sweetly, “I was actually waiting for you.”

Their handy-dandy expert had been all but inaccessible on her own since her arrival. Joseph was always beckoning for her; the crook of his fingers, the tilt of his head, meaningful gazes thrown across the room. If it wasn’t him, it was time for sleep, or she was having Jacob take her out far enough to get cell service again—which Faith thought must mean that she had family, perhaps, or friends out there in the world.

Isolde blinked at her for a moment. She glanced back at the door to the chapel—where, undoubtedly, Joseph waited; to comb through his next sermon, to discuss the logistics of what was going to be happening next, to figure out how best to placate the masses and raise morale—and then said, “Well, you’ve got me.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” Faith suggested. “You know, present-tense. Not past.” And then: “I want to check something.”

Isolde smiled wryly. The expression only changed a little when Faith took one gloved hand of hers and set off, following the paths that had been shoveled and worn down by other members of Eden’s Gate. The brunette seemed uncomfortable with the familiarity of the touch, much in the same way she seemed to be gritting her teeth through the moments of closeness with Joseph.

Squeezing her hand, Faith said, “I’m excited for Elliot and John to come back.”

“That makes one of us.”

“You’re not?” Curiouser and curiouser.

The woman stifled a sigh, clearing her throat as they headed down a slope that would take them closer to the water. “John is not one of my favorite people in the world, at this moment.”

“And you don’t know Elliot,” she prompted.

“And I don’t know Elliot,” Isolde agreed.

“Well, I’m excited.” She beamed, puffing out warm air as they came down to the water’s edge. “I’ve always wanted a sister. Do you have siblings?”

“Me?” The brunette looked uneasy at the prompting. Faith wondered, briefly, if anyone had asked her anything about herself since she’d arrived—or if it had just been Isolde, come here, Isolde, do this. It felt familiar. She’d once been the come here, do this girl; with the arrival of the Family, and their subsequent terroristic acts against her family, Faith supposed a different set of skills were needed at the moment.

Not that she minded, not really. This allowed her to take a step back. And See.

“Yes, you,” she replied playfully, glancing out at the water for a moment. Dark clouds were rolling in on the horizon. “I want to know everything about you.”

“Oh,” Sol said absently, her eyes drifting. “I’m not all that interesting. I’d much rather hear about...”

Her voice trailed off. Faith followed her gaze. There, in the snow, a set of footprints meeting another set somewhere close to shore—and then away. Away, around the bend of the island, going and going and going, much farther than she thought someone who was part of Eden’s Gate ought to be going.

“Where did Pratt say he was taking a walk?” Isolde asked, her voice a little tart.

Faith smiled. “Down here, by the water.”

“I see.”

Do you? Faith wondered, watching the way the brunette’s eyes flickered, silently working something over in her mind. Do you see?

“I thought it was odd, that he was going for a walk,” Faith ventured after a moment. “He’s supposed to be staying with Dr. Hale.”

The brunette made a soft noise; her eyes slid back to Faith for a moment, narrowing thoughtfully, as though she were considering something else outside of what appeared to have been a mystery guest.

“Let’s head back in,” Isolde announced after a quiet moment had lapsed. “It’s freezing out. You can ask me whatever you’d like. And, you’re right—”

She paused, and dark brows furrowed, all discomfort at Faith’s closeness and their linked hands apparently forgotten.

“It is odd.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

John could not stop thinking about it.

He tried, often; for the hours that he spent driving, he tried to push the scene fresh out of a horror movie from his mind and think about something else. Anything else. Not even replaying the moments they’d spent together before that, the way she tasted and smelled and felt—not even that could wash it from his mind, like a bad aftertaste.

The drag of nails against the door. The whispering.

Bloom. Eat. Grin.

The sound of feet hitting the pavement. The whispering.

Bloom. Eat. Grin.

Who had been on the other side of that door? Who had been talking to his wife? Who had been asking her, in hushed voices, to let them in?

Wrath, do you want to bloom in me?

Beside him, Elliot slept fitfully. Uneasily. She shifted and changed positions every few minutes, until she finally gave up and pulled her seat back into the sitting position to watch the landscape go by. John’s eyes burned with exhaustion. They’d left the motel hours ago, but even that wasn’t a comfort. Especially with the memory sitting heavy in his mind of Elliot’s head tilting, the click of her molars grind, the way she said I see you. I see your color.

He’d heard that before, he thought. Hadn’t he? Somewhere? Seeing color, seeing someone’s color. See? Don’t you see?

Ase’s fingers, linking with Elliot’s. Blood spilling out of her, insides painting the grass of the Sacred Skies camp. Her mouth moving listlessly. But it wasn’t listlessly. She was saying something, to Elliot, that night. Back then.

Do you see?

“John.”

Ase, do you see? And Elliot, agonized, moaning in pain like a trapped animal.

“John,” Elliot said again, her voice sharper. He blinked a few times. “The light’s green.”

So it was.

He carefully turned down the street that was going to take them out of this town—another nothing-name, nobody-lives-here town hours out past where their motel had been located—and onto the highway. This was not at all what he had wanted. The plan had always been to get Elliot, bring her home, hunker down for the end. Then she’d see, wouldn’t she? She’d see he was right all along, and that everything he’d done had been for her—for them—and that the little twinge of want he’d seen on her face and in her eyes when he opened her skin with her sin wasn’t bad. It was cleansing. Purifying. He’d always known how good it was going to look on her, and he was right. It looked perfect.

What he wouldn’t give to be back in that room, feeling her breath stutter and watching her lashes flicker between pain and desire.

“Maybe I should drive for a while,” she suggested after a moment, drawing his attention back to the present. John cleared his throat.

“I’m fine.” Out of the corner of his eye, he gauged her—watched for any sign of that strange, sly cruelty that had been dredged up out of her. Thinking back on it now, the way she’d smiled in her dreaming state, it had been like she knew he didn’t want her to open the door—and she was going to do it anyway. “You got less sleep than I did.”

“You don’t know that,” Elliot defended, slinking down against the seat a little more.

“I do,” John replied. “Because I know you.”

“Well,” she said, and did not elaborate. There, again, was that little thrill blooming hot and humid in his chest—knowing that she was coming to understand.

They drove for a few moments in silence, only the sound of the car rumbling and the snow getting wiped from the windshield; Boomer snored once or twice in the back seat, and John was certain that Elliot had dozed off when she said, “I’ve been thinking about names.”

He had just clicked the cruise control on the highway when she said it, his eyes flickering over to her inquisitively. “For?”

“The baby,” Elliot replied a little dryly, like he should have guessed that—and he supposed that he should have, but he had wanted to hear her say it. She wasn’t saying our baby, but she was saying the baby, and it included him. It was saying, you know, the baby, which kept him under the umbrella of who the baby belonged to.

“Ah, yes.” He felt the corner of his mouth ticking upward. “The baby.”

He hesitated. There was something sticking uneasily to his ribs. He tried to soothe his frayed nerves by thinking, we’ll be back home and Joseph will see how good I’ve done, how tamed she is for me. He’ll see and he’ll be pleased.

The uneasiness squirmed viciously in his stomach.

“I like the name Nolan,” Elliot said after a minute. He saw her hand smooth absently over the very subtle slope of her tummy. She had not struck him as particularly maternal, in the time that they’d been together, but seeing little gestures like this—seeing her hand rest there, protectively, like their baby comforted her—made his throat feel a little tight. “It was my grandfather’s name.”

“Paternal?” he idled, watching her eyes flash to him.

“No, John,” she replied dryly. “My maternal grandfather. If my dad was barely around, what makes you think I knew my paternal grandparents at all?”

“It’s not crazy to think. Grandparents step up, sometimes.” He shrugged, and then reached over the console of the Jeep. His hand found hers and interlaced their fingers together absently. He felt her stiffen a little, like she was thinking of pulling it away, and then relaxed and let him stay there. “I can’t believe you didn’t suggest John Junior.”

Her expression scrunched up. “Don’t be foul.”

John flashed her a smile. They still had a full day’s travel ahead of them, at least, but if they didn’t stop for anything except gas—and that’s what he intended—they’d be rolling into Hope County sooner rather than later. They’d be home. Joseph would be pleased—

That doesn’t feel as comforting as it used to.

—and Elliot would see that everything he had done had been for them.

“I like Nolan,” he clarified, after a moment. Elliot made a little noise, like it pleased her.

“I—” She paused. Her thumb absently swept over one of his knuckles, and she closed her mouth, pressing her lips together.

John’s gaze flickered over her before he refocused on the road. “What is it, Ell?”

The almost-blonde (that copper was still hanging on strong) grimaced a little and then cleared her throat. “I’m not happy about going back.”

He fixed his gaze on the road, but left his hand where it was. He didn’t say anything. He wanted to—so badly, he wanted to say, well, it’s better, don’t you think? Better for us, for the baby, to not have to worry about your mother or Pritchard or the memories that house dredges up, or the woman in the street or the sleepwalking?—but he didn’t. He waited.

“I’m not going to bite my tongue,” she told him, “and play nice with Joseph.”

“You can’t,” he replied quickly. “You cannot fight him the entire time, Ell. You just can’t.”

“Like fuck I can’t,” she snapped.

“You cannot,” he reiterated sharply. “It’s not just about you anymore. It’s not good for the baby—”

“I know it’s not just about me, Scarlet.” Elliot’s voice was cutting, and she disentangled their fingers, shifting in the passenger seat to put more distance between them. John’s molars ground together.

Petulant, he thought. Ungrateful. Impudent. Even now, she’s willfully obtuse—it would be so easy for her to just—to just—

But she had never just. And he didn’t like her just, only liked her exactly as she was, even when her venom and her Wrath was turned on him, liked that she had retained those sharp edges and that she let him in past them. It had been, he thought as he rested his hand back on the console, truly a labor of love to shove himself past all of those sharp edges and get in to all the grit and gore of his girl. He had been more than happy to do it. There was nothing quite so purifying as pain.

Still, the Scarlet moniker stung.

Willing the tightness out of his voice, John replied, “Well, I wish I was like your mother. Maybe then she wouldn’t have spent the entire time talking about how my tattoos mean I’ll burst into flame the second I walk into a church.”

“I won’t fucking do it,” Elliot answered, her voice tight, apparently not assuaged by his attempt at humor. “I won’t fucking do it, John. I’m not coming back just to watch you go nuclear the second he tells you that he’s proud of you, okay? And you’re right, it’s not just about me anymore, and it sure as fuck isn’t just about you, either.”

He swallowed back the venom. He liked her Wrath, but this was a little too close to how things had been before—you should see yourself, she’d spat at him, practically falling over just to—

“You should get some sleep,” is what he finally settled on.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

“I mean it,” he reiterated irritably. “You can’t be sleepwalking off to God knows where with our baby, Ell.”

That shut her up. That had her mouth clamping shut, shifting in her seat so that more of her back was facing him, the physical cold shoulder. It shut her up, and John regretted saying it out loud, because he immediately thought of the way she’d been crying in her car that day when she’d said, Would you have even come for me if I didn’t have the baby?, or the frantic, panicked way she’d said, I’m not crazy.

John sighed. “Elliot.”

There was no response. She stayed put exactly where she was, breathing tiredly through her nose once.

“I’m—”

He stopped short. He was waiting for her to cut him off. She said nothing. He said, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Nothing.

“Ell?” Still she did not answer him, instead opting to shrug the throw blanket she’d pulled up from the floor beneath her seat further up to her chin, remaining dutifully silent. She was doing it on purpose. She was doing it because she knew that he wanted the back-and-forth, because she knew that he couldn’t stand it when she was withholding from him, and it was working.

And he couldn’t even comfort himself with the knowledge that they would be back in Hope County.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When Elliot woke next, it was to John’s voice.

Ugh, she thought. I’m so over it.

Still, it persisted, the timbre of his voice rousing her from her uneasy sleep, plagued by more uneasy dreams—blurs of color and light and anxiety, wadding up tight in her throat.

“Come on,” John said, gently jostling her until she sat up a little more. “I’ve put the back seats down. Let’s sleep a little.”

“Where are we?” she asked groggily, displacing her irritation with him in favor of resting her hand in the crook of his neck. The steady thrum of his pulse under her fingers, the smell of his faded cologne washing over her. In her half-asleep state, it provided some comfort, even as she shivered her way out of the passenger seat and crept around to the back of the Jeep.

“A campground,” John replied, his voice welling with disdain, even now. Even when they had no reason to be picky. “In Iowa. Close to the South Dakota border.”

“Oh,” she said. She was so tired; it was as though getting some sleep had made her even more tired, had reminded her body of what she had been lacking. Exhaustedly, she crawled into the nest-like space John had laid out in the back with the seats laid flat, Boomer tucked up into the corner close to the door and buried into one of the sweaters she’d shed during the drive.

John climbed in beside her, closing the back of the Jeep and then pulling several more blankets up. He scrolled through a timer on his phone for a moment before he set it and then tucked it to the side, rolling to look at her.

“You done ignoring me?” he murmured.

“Mm.” She shifted, wadding the blankets up. “You done bein’ a fuckhead?”

“Your accent comes out when you’re tired.”

“No it doesn’t.”

In the dark, she could see the vague outline of him grinning. He was quiet for a moment before he reached up, hesitating and then brushing some of the hair from her face.

“We’re on the same team, Elliot,” John said.

“Are we?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. She was tired, and emotional; fuck, she was so over being this emotional. “Feels all the time like it’s just me, hoping you’re gonna come around and never getting what I need.”

Not what I want. It was what I need.

“We are,” John insisted.

“Then start acting like it,” Elliot snapped, the sleepy slur of her words clearing up a little in the wake of her irritation. “I told you, John. I told you—you can’t be sitting around with one foot over there and one foot over here. You were right, it’s not just about me now. There’s the baby, too. I won’t—” She bit the word out, crushing it with the emotional duress that tried to seep into her voice. “—have you one foot in and one foot out when the baby’s here. You’re either in it or you’re not. Don’t make me choose for you.”

John’s expression flattened. He sighed, passing a hand over his face, digging the pads of his fingers into his eyes for a moment. She tried not to think about the way he’d said I love you back at the motel, moaning it into her neck and sparking that little tiny part of her that wanted it so badly. He’d said it that day, too, when she’d been crying in the car. Of course I would have come. I love you. Had her mother said she loved her a single time since she’d been back?

I just want you to mean it, she thought exhaustedly, closing her eyes and rolling onto her other side, back to him. I just want you to mean it when you say you love me. I just want someone to fucking mean it, even just once.

“Elliot,” he murmured, shifting closer to her and nosing past the hair at the nape of her neck. She felt the hesitant slide of his hand against her hip; closing her eyes more tightly, she scooted closer to Boomer, brushing John’s hand off of her. He couldn’t just crowd up in her space with sweet touches every time she was mad. He’d have to learn how to do better, or drop the act.

“Ell.” He didn’t try and touch her again. She was glad for it, even if the fanning of his breath across the back of her neck had been comforting. “We’ll be home soon.”

“Sure, John,” she replied tiredly.

Whatever that means.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Alright, I’m going.”

Jacob’s announcement came in the early afternoon. Isolde glanced up from where she had been meticulously combing over inventory. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t even remotely close to great. And she still didn’t know, quite, what to fucking do; Jacob’s earlier question of whether she was going to leave or not still hung over her. Mocked her for her indecision. For the worm of doubt in her head that maybe, there was some truth to what Joseph was saying.

If she left, she’d have to take the first flight to Turkey to be with her family. Nineteen hours in the air. A fucking nightmare. There was—from what her father had told her on their phone call—no going back to Georgia, not right now, not when things in the U.N. were so fucking tense, and not when someone kept throwing around a nuclear threat like confetti. Straight from dad’s mouth, too, not her own words.

“Going?” she prompted, setting her pen down and crossing her arms over her chest. The heater in the corner of the bunkhouse sputtered weakly. Arden hadn’t even bothered to look up from her book when Jacob came in. One of the hairy beasts she called Castor or Pollux—Isolde had not yet determined which was which—had curled up on her feet on the bed as she read, the other stretched out on the floor. They both looked at her as soon as Jacob had stepped inside, as though to wait for some kind of signal from her.

“To the Vet’s Center,” he clarified. His gaze flickered from her to Arden. “Ade?”

The blonde scribbled something in the margins of her book. “Jake.”

“Where’s Pratt?”

“I told him to go eat something,” she idled. “He looks about ninety pounds soaking wet, as they say. Though if I had to actually estimate, I’d say maybe one-twenty more like. How much did he weigh before? One-fifty? Little more?”

“He’s supposed to be staying with you, here,” Jacob replied dryly. He sighed, glancing out the door and then back in. “You’re giving him too much leash.”

“You pushed him too far.” Arden’s voice was flat, non-committal; she still had not disengaged from her book, despite the words coming out of her mouth, which were clearly a criticism. Isolde shifted in her seat, coming to a stand.

“Well,” she began, searching absently for her coat, “I think I was supposed to go help—”

“I pushed him exactly where he’s supposed to be.” Jacob had stepped into the bunkhouse entirely, now, the frown deep-set on his features. “If you’re going to levy a criticism, Arden, do me the favor of making eye contact.”

“I don’t have to look you in your eyes to tell you you’re wrong,” Arden murmured. “You pushed him too far. You left a beat dog with no structure and no faculties to survive with alone, in inclement weather conditions—”

“It’s snow.”

“—for almost two months,” she finished, completely glossing over his interjection. “No resources. No way to contact you. You made him absolutely reliant on you to do literally everything, and then you left him—alone. So now, I have to give him more leash.” She clicked her pen, snapped the book shut, and looked at the dogs. “Go on then, boys.”

They hopped to their feet and darted over to Jacob, big tails whooshing noisily. Isolde watched them nosing Jacob’s hand for attention and pets, and then looked at Jacob. His expression was tight.

“Isolde,” he said. The tone of his voice said, give us a minute.

“On my way out,” she replied briskly, sliding her coat on and gathering up her papers. “Pardon me, hounds.”

Jacob herded them to the side as she made her way out, closing the door behind her and letting out a breath. She could hear a moment of silence stretching in the bunkhouse behind her before the redhead’s voice came through the door: “Say what you want to say, Arden, I can tell when you’re biting your tongue.”

And then, barely a moment’s hesitation: “I just can’t help but wonder about the legitimacy of Joseph’s guidance,” Arden was saying. “You’re your own man, Jacob. You know when someone is making poor decisions.”

“Pratt isn’t, and wasn’t, a ‘poor’—”

“I’m not talking about Pratt anymore. Jacob, I’m giving you the eye contact you wanted to tell you that I think you need to reassess what...”

Isolde let out a long, warm exhale of breath before she began trekking across the compound, the argument trailing out to nothing behind her. She did not hear it; she did not think about the implications of what appeared to be the only rational person in this fucking place having an opinion on leadership. It had dumped another seven inches in the night, and now bedraggled members of Eden’s Gate—as if they hadn’t looked bedraggled from the minute she’d gotten there—were struggling to re-shovel walkways. This couldn’t be typical Montana weather, could it? No, she didn’t think so. Even now, those thick, heavy clouds from before had begun to move in, swollen and black-dark with unshed snow.

She saw Pratt sitting on the chapel steps, bundled up in a coat and scarf, hands tucked cross-ways over his chest.

“Speak of the devil,” she said, drawing his eyes to her. His mouth twisted in a grimace and he looked away.

“I’m just minding my own business.”

“Sure,” she replied. She thought about the walk she’d taken with Faith down to the water, and the extra pair of footprints. “You do a lot of that? Say, with a friend?”

Pratt’s eyes darted to hers. “Of...”

“Minding your own business,” she clarified tartly. “Do you mind your own business, sometimes with a friend?”

The deputy’s expression was blank. Isolde rolled her eyes—he was either incredibly stupid, or he was playing stupid, and she didn’t think it was the latter.

“I don’t, uh,” he began, “know what—”

“Why don’t you show me where you went for a walk,” she suggested coolly. “I’ve got time. Could use the company. Where did you say you went, again? I’d like to know the best places to go mind my business.”

Pratt swallowed thickly, coming to a stand with an abrupt awkwardness that implied panic. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and said, “I’m not r-really—”

He stammered for a second more, clearly struggling to come up with a reason not to, but was cut off by the sound of an alarm blaring at the end of the compound. Doors all across the compound opened, heads peeking out, guns gripped in dirty, calloused hands. Isolde had never seen so many fucking guns in one place.

“Sol!” Jacob’s voice broke through the sound of the alarm rattling around.

“What’s that alarm?” Pratt asked, his voice having gone a little high. “What’s going on? Do you—”

Isolde slapped her hand over his mouth. “Shut up,” she snapped. A dark vehicle had started pulling in through the front gates of the compound. And then she heard the look-out from the gate shout:

“The Baptist is home!”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Really had to throw up an alarm for you, huh?”

John sighed. In the time since their argument, Elliot had said almost nothing to him—just a no, yes, no thanks, I’m fine whenever he suggested eating or taking a break. Now, as they pulled into the compound, she radiated only absolute tension, the softness of even the way she had sought him out in her sleep that night they’d slept in the back of the Jeep having departed completely.

“Better safe than sorry,” he muttered, pulling the Jeep up further under the compound’s archways. “Elliot, before we get out, I want—”

“That’s him,” she interrupted, her voice spiking a little, fingers quickly undoing her buckle. “They didn’t kill him, Jesus Christ—”

And before he could stop her, she was climbing out of the passenger side of the car, forcing John to throw the Jeep into park halfway under the trellis; he turned the car off and opened his door, swallowing thickly as he watched Elliot trudge her way through the snow just to be met halfway by Staci Pratt.

“Holy shit,” Pratt was saying, squeezing her shoulders and then putting his hands on her face and neck and then his hands in her hair, John’s stomach somersaulting viciously. “Fuck fuck fuck, I thought you weren’t going to come back, Elli—”

Elliot’s voice was thick, emotional. “Of course I was coming back,” John heard her say as he approached, having opted to leave the vicious attack dog in the back of the car. “Of course I’d come back for you, Pratt, I’m so sorry, I thought you—I thought you left with everyone else.”

“John.”

His attention was dragged away from the sight—Pratt, touching her, touching my Elliot, touching her like he knows her, like he knows her the way I do, not my Elliot—to the sight of his eldest brother and his business partner making their way over. Jacob had a big grin on his face, almost relieved, but Isolde looked as displeased as ever.

“I was hoping for a bigger reception,” John admitted tightly, his eyes cutting to his wife again. She was wrapped up in a bear hug. Sickening. “Balloons. Maybe a champagne bottle.”

“I ought to fucking bottle you!” Isolde snapped. Her eyes darted over his face for a second, like she was taking inventory of his state of being, before she said, “Took you long enough, anyway. Fucker.”

Jacob added, “There’s a lot to catch up on, and not a lot of time to waste. I’m just on my way out, myself.”

“It’s going to be a minute.” John hated the jealousy blooming in his voice, but there was no stopping it, not when Elliot’s hands were fluttering over Pratt’s face like a besotted maiden, not when she kept saying things like are you okay? Are you alright? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, like she owed him anything. “Where are you going?”

“Well,” Jacob said, “let’s wrap that up, shall we?”

He’d barely the time to register that Jacob hadn’t answered his question before his eldest brother was moving. One second, John felt himself stewing over the way Elliot’s hands went to Pratt’s face, moving endlessly like they didn’t know where they wanted to land—and the way she let Pratt touch her, brushing the hair from her face and choking out some indiscernible nonsense.

And then Jacob clapped a hand on Pratt’s shoulder and said, “Alright, Peaches, I think that’s enough,” and maybe—in hindsight—John would have considered the possibility of Jacob doing it because he saw the way it bothered him. But in truth, the real reason was probably a bit less honorable and likely had to do more with his eldest brother’s innate desire to push Elliot’s buttons.

Unfortunately, there was no button to be pushed this time. Only a hairpin trigger to be tripped.

Jacob’s hand landed; the words came out of his mouth; John started to say, “Now, wait,”; and Elliot’s hand lunged out to grab the offending hand at the wrist, wrenching it viciously off of Pratt’s shoulder.

There was only a beat of silence before the eldest Seed said calmly, “Hellcat.”

John saw Elliot’s grip tighten. Red welled slowly where she’d latched on with her hand, breaking skin in the half-moon shape of the nail bite. Jacob could have pulled away; he had almost a foot on Elliot and two times the brute strength, but instead his eyes narrowed and he stayed exactly put where she’d kept him.

“Something you’d like to say?” he needled.

“Don’t,” she bit out, “push my fucking buttons, Seed.”

“Pratt is a reward for good behavior,” the Soldier rumbled, voice pitched low with warning, “that means—”

John’s hand brushed Elliot’s shoulder as he cautioned, “Jacob—”

“The reward for good behavior is you get to keep your hand after putting it this close to me," she seethed. Her free hand had curled possessively into the front of Pratt’s shirt. That’s my person, it said, I have so few, I have so few of them left. "So are you going to say thank you, Jacob?"

A tense, uncomfortable moment stretched, until Pratt said, “It’s—it’s fine, Elli.”

“It’s not fine,” Elliot bit out, not once looking away from Jacob.

“It’s really okay—”

John gave Elliot’s shoulder a squeeze. Her lashes fluttered. He could feel Pratt’s eyes boring into him when he nosed past the hair at her ear to murmur, “Come on, Ell.”

It was a strange kind of satisfaction to watch her drop Jacob’s wrist like it repulsed her, blood under her fingernails and her expression hard.

“I’m not fucking done with you,” she told the redhead.

“Counting on it,” Jacob replied evenly. And then, gesturing at her hair: “I like the dye job. You’re looking more like a Seed.”

Elliot made a disgusted noise, her other hand still gripping Pratt’s shoulder and the weaponized one hanging at her side. John smoothed his thumb over her shoulder again, shooting Jacob a cautioning look before he said, “Let’s get our things unloaded, don’t you think?”

“You’re finally home!”

It was Faith, now, the sweet timbre of her voice breaking through the background chatter between Isolde and Jacob and the members of Eden’s Gate that had flocked to the front of the chapel. The blonde beamed at him, but her eyes immediately went to Elliot. Trailing behind her at a leisurely pace was Joseph.

While his sister crowded up to Elliot like a moth to flame, Joseph’s attention was fixed on him.

I won’t bite my tongue and play nice with Joseph.

John went to meet his brother halfway, a strange kind of anxiety encouraging him to keep distance between Joseph and his wife. For now. Just for now, he reasoned, just while Elliot was still so stressed out about Pratt and the car ride. Once they got settled in, it would be different; Joseph wanted her here. Her and the baby, both.

His brother reached up; the calluses of Joseph’s fingers brushed the juncture where his shoulder and neck met, squeezing there for a moment.

“We’re happy you’re home,” Joseph said, and he sounded like he meant it—his voice bloomed with warmth, and he pressed their foreheads together, just like he had done before. “It’s not the same without you here.” And then, pulling back and looking at Elliot: “All three of you.”

He watched Pratt’s expression crumple and twist at the words. Faith was saying something excitedly to Elliot, something about how much she’d missed having her around, and his wife only looked to be half-listening; it was like Joseph’s acknowledgment of her existence in their space had put her on edge, immediately.

“Jacob said he was leaving?” John asked, trying to pull the attention elsewhere. Joseph’s mouth thinned.

“Yes. There’s a lot to go over, since you’ve been gone. You should come in to the chapel.”

“Of course,” he agreed quickly. The strange, giddy nervousness fluttered up in his throat. “I’m sure I can—”

“John,” Elliot interjected, “help me unpack the car.”

“Pratt can help,” Joseph replied mildly. “Can’t you, Pratt?”

The deputy shifted on his feet, nodding numbly. Automatically, robotically, he said, “Yeah. Yeah, Elli, I can—”

She wasn’t looking at Pratt. She wasn’t even looking at Joseph. She was looking at him, and as Pratt rambled about how he’d be happy to help, of course he’d be happy to help, she said, “I want John to help me unpack the car.” Her eyes flickered to Joseph. She did that little thing where she tilted her chin up in defiance before she added, “The three-day car ride really took it out of me.”

His brother’s hand dropped from his shoulder. John shifted on his feet. He looked at Joseph and said, “I can—”

“Go, of course,” Joseph cut in over him. “Your wife is with child. The best thing right now would be making sure she gets settled in.”

“Then I’ll head out now,” Jacob announced, fishing car keys out of his pocket. “And be back before dinner.”

“If you’re sure.”

Jacob nodded at the question. Joseph gave John’s shoulder a final squeeze before he moved back toward the chapel steps; he made a single beckoning of his fingers, which did the miraculous act of drawing Isolde over to him. His brother’s head ducked to say something in a low voice into her ear, something he couldn’t quite make out.

“Peaches,” Jacob barked. “Get in the bunkhouse.”

The brunette grimaced and took Elliot’s hand—infuriating, impertinent fucking deputy—and squeezed. “I’ll find you,” he whispered, and she nodded and gave him another tight around-the-neck hug before she turned and met John halfway to the car. Her fingers brushed his as they trudged back to the Jeep.

“Happy?” he asked. He was trying not to sound petulant.

“Not hardly,” Elliot replied. She paused, and then grabbed his hand, interlacing their fingers. “John?”

He made a low noise, stopping as they reached the front of the Jeep. He kept replaying it in his mind: Pratt grimy fingers in Elliot’s hair, on her cheeks and her neck, their foreheads pressed together as Elliot said I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. The idea that maybe they had been romantically entangled, once, refused to leave his mind. Had they been interested in each other? Had they kissed? More?

“If you do one thing for me,” she began, drawing him out of his thoughts, “promise me you won’t leave me alone with Joseph.”

John’s throat felt tight. “Ell—”

“I mean it,” she insisted. Her voice was a little tight. “I’m—trusting you.” And then she squeezed his hand and reiterated, “Please, John.”

After roughly twenty-four hours of the silent treatment, this felt nice—but he also knew Joseph would want to talk to Elliot. Alone. Even if John thought there was no reason, and even if John thought that maybe he didn’t want Joseph getting alone time with Elliot. For no reason, really. No reason in particular.

“Okay,” he murmured. “I promise.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jacob knew, instantly, that something was wrong.

The drive to the Veteran’s Center was a brisk one. Quick and easy, nothing out of the ordinary. It was so unremarkable that it passed in next to no time, it felt like. Arriving at the Veteran’s Center, however, proved to be much more unsettling, because he thought, something’s not fucking right.

The problem was figuring out what. There were plenty of indicators, of course—the speakers on their tall posts toppled over, some breaking the glass into the windows; the lack of life, anywhere. He knew that most animals had fled closer to town for resources now that the snow had been falling almost nonstop, but when he opened the door into the Veteran’s Center, he got the distinct sense that the area had been devoid of critters and other lifeforms for quite awhile.

Sans Pratt, of course.

He wondered, briefly, what it was that had driven Pratt out into the snow. He said it was because he’d seen the Hunter, slaughtering his Chosen, but he didn’t know that he believed it; Staci Pratt was weak, capable of having his ear bent to almost any show of dominance, and with the Family afoot he couldn’t completely rule out the idea that he was operating under different pretenses than he had before. Arden's accusation that he'd pushed the deputy too far still sat in the back of his head, squirming and writhing, reminding him that he'd likes how well Arden could read people—until it turned a critical eye on him.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

He thought he had done enough to ensure that Staci Pratt feared retribution more than he wanted revenge. He thought, but there were little pinpricks of things that made him suspicious—Pratt, mouthing off about the sermon right in front of him. Pratt, skulking around like a scavenger. His eyes were more hungry than they were afraid, even if they shied away from him whenever he barked out an order for Pratt’s attention.

Jacob pushed open the door to the Veteran’s Center, letting it swing shut behind him. The inside smelled strong and earthy, and the heaters had been cranked up, rattling in the walls and the ceilings, turning it into a sauna. Each time he passed a vent, he was blasted with that smell again; humid, fetid wet earth and greens. Jacob picked his way carefully past one of the toppled speaker-poles, protruding through the window, broken glass crunching underfoot and the air so viciously hot that felt like it was sucking the breath right out of his lungs.

It occurred to Jacob that either Pratt had been here to witness this trashing, or someone had done this in the very short time between when he’d been here and when he’d left. Neither option was one that Jacob enjoyed entertaining for very long—though he was inclined, more and more, to think that it was something he had either witnessed or been party to. Time apart had brought Pratt some kind of willfulness that needed to be stamped out—and quickly.

As soon as he opened the door to his office, two things happened: Jacob was hit with a single overwhelming, earthy smell, and the sound of a drum roll echoed, tinny and noisy, before music started blaring in through the speakers. It took a second in the vicious, rattling din of pure sound echoing off of the walls and every metal surface in the office for him to realize what song it was.

If you see a faded sign at the side of the road that says 15 miles to the Looooooooooooove Shack!

“What the fuck,” he muttered, fingers curling tight around the grip of his gun. Trap, the alarm bells in his head were screaming. It’s a trap, we knew it was going to be a trap and we fucking came here anyway. Music vibrated through the floors and the walls, the poles of the speakers shaking in the windows where they had been busted through. It was impossible to hear himself, let alone his thoughts, but that didn’t matter—

The Love Shack is a little old place where we can get-to-gether!

—because every neuron was firing rapidly, pumping blood straight to all of his vital organs as the speakers vibrated so loudly against the linoleum floors that he could feel it up in his molars. The door into the surveillance room rattled once, the handle jerking wildly. He didn’t remember putting anyone in there, nor anything.

Something thumped against the door. He glanced at his desk, and then at the door again; pale, ghostly-white fingers snaked beneath the bottom gripping and then shaking the door in its frame. He was sure if the music had been down, he would have heard the breathing hissing through the gap where the floor and the door didn’t quite meet.

This was not good.

Love Shack, that’s where it’s at!

This was very bad.

Love Shack, that’s where it’s at!

Someone had been here since Pratt had left, and

The whole shack shimmies!

someone had put something

The whole shack shimmies!

in that room for him to find.

Or to find him.

The door rattled again, this time more forcefully, shaking in the entire door frame like someone was throwing their entire body weight into it.

The whole shack shimmies when everybody’s moving around and around and arou—

Something hard and metal connected with the back of his knees, sending pain radiating straight up his spine and him staggering a few steps forward. Jacob’s hand shot out to steady himself against the edge of his desk—papers scattered loosely, with disregard, across the top of it, fluttering to the ground as the metal feet screamed against the linoleum.

Jacob ground his molars together and pushed himself into full standing again, turning quickly to see an—unfortunately—familiar face. There was barely a second to take in the crooked smile around a burning cigarette before she swung what he recognized as an aluminum bat into the side of his knees.

Hard.

It blistered pain; even above the music, the sound of the impact was painful on its own, let alone the actual physical connection of metal to his knees—too old, he thought faintly, I’m too fucking old for this bullshit—and he bit down through it and lifted the rifle in his hands. It was a sluggish, too-slow movement, and he knew that, his limbs feeling like lead; but above all else, he didn’t want to think about the knowledge that he was only upright because he had the desk behind him, or about the waves of agony echoing through his skeleton like a death knell. All he wanted to think about was getting his shot in.

Everybody’s movin’, everybody’s groovin’, baby!

She grabbed the muzzle of the rifle and wrenched it to the side, away from where it was aimed at her. It was surprising, the iron force she held the gun with. All that wasted potential, he thought through the muggy haze.

Jacob could see the grip of her other hand tightening on the baseball bat a split second before she swung it. It was just enough time for him to drop his hold on the gun and brute force the blow into his forearm rather than taking it straight to the ribs, gripping the fattest part of the bat with his hand and using the opening to lurch forward.

It was not a pleasant experience, headbutting the Hunter. Instantly he felt the skin on his forehead split from the impact, the wet, hot flood of blood down from his hairline tickling the edge of his nose; the smell of nicotine filled up his senses, for a second providing a brief reprieve from the humid smell of wet earth that had filled the Veteran’s Center. But it was a pleasant experience to watch her reel back, to see the anger flickering across her otherwise smug expression.

Folks lining up outside just to get doooooown!

The Hunter spit blood out of her mouth, tossing the rifle she’d departed their grip-lock with down the stairs and out of reach. No matter, he thought; she was a few inches shorter than him, and probably a hundred pounds lighter. He wouldn’t need a rifle to put her down.

The door behind him rattled. He would need a gun to put whatever the fuck that was down.

The Hunter shrugged out of her heavy coat, discarding it on the floor. Jacob held the aluminum bat—his prize, now—comfortably in his hand, rolling his wrist and testing the weight absently. Everything in his body was screaming; the air felt thick and humid, the clarity the smoke had given him gone as the floral scent from the vents overwhelmed everything except for the pain shooting through his knees, which was now a constant, fiery burn. He thought he recognized that smell; in passing through the burnt embers of Fall’s End, and from the night they’d fished Elliot out of the woods, when John’s eyes had been blown black and his gestures over-exaggerated like he had to work all the harder to get his body to move.

Pain shot up his spine in a sharp, red-hot needle, almost staggering. He narrowed his eyes. No weakness. There’s no room for the weak in Eden. Sacrifice the—

“You made me drop my cigarette,” the Hunter said, wiping the blood from her mouth and interrupting his mantra.

“Says on the sign,” he replied, his voice coming out hoarse from the blood he’d swallowed as he indicated the No Smoking sign hanging on the door. Fuck, it was hot; the room felt like it was swimming, the ground stretching out beneath him until it felt like there were miles between him and the Hunter. “That shit’ll kill you.”

Love Shack, baby, Love Shack! Love Shack, baby, Love Shack!

The Hunter rolled her shoulders. “Did that sign go up before or after the forced cannibalization?”

“Before,” Jacob gritted out between his teeth, “and I abided by the rule. I’m...” He took in a breath. It felt like breathing in hot bathwater. “...not an animal.”

The Hunter flashed her teeth at him. They were cherry-red stained. “How ya feelin’?”

“Fine,” he spat. He did not feel fine.

“Yeah?” She looked pleased. “Lookin’ a little flush, soldier.”

She had wandered closer. Closer than he’d anticipated, nor realized; the walls kept fucking stretching, making everything around him seem wobbly and farther away until it was right there, up in his face. The closeness of the Hunter kick-started him, swinging the bat in his grip with every intention of colliding it with the side of her face—but she stepped leisurely out of the way, like it was nothing, and the bat hit air. Whooshed comedically over the sound of The B-52’s chanting in his head, over and over again.

The Hunter used the moment to push down on his shoulder, far enough that he was nearly unbalanced, before her foot came down on his knee—pushing, and pushing, splitting pain straight to his skull until it bloomed violent starbursts behind his eyes.

“Ouchie,” she crooned. “Tender?”

“F—” He swallowed thickly. Even that felt like sandpaper, like his muscles were grinding against each other. “Fucking bitch.”

It felt good to get that one out.

He dropped the bat in favor of gripping her calf, trying to shove her foot off of the spot she had battered twice in a row with a metal bat. This only seemed to encourage her to push down harder, until the front of his knees hit the floor, the bat skittering out of his reach again, clattering against the floor.

The music had died down into the quieter part of the song. The Hunter fished something out of her back pocket; the sound of the metal clinking dragged bright yellow streaks in front of his eyes, and the linoleum stretched out like a conveyor belt beneath him, and his breath felt laborious even through the heavy, painful pounding of blood through his eyes, and yes—he knew, now. This had been a trap, she had been counting on his return, and she had planned for it.

Fucker.

“You nutties have some interesting ideas,” she said, slapping the handcuff onto his wrist where he still gripped the dark jean-clad leg before clipping the empty one to the handle of the desk drawer. “Took me a little while to haul all of those fuckin’ lobotomized creeps all the way over here, too. But I was doing some light reading on your stuff, using drugs and music and all that good-good fun—by the way, your writing?” She cocked an eyebrow at him, nose scrunching. “Little dry, buddy. You ever taken a class? I bet not. You don’t look the type. Anyway, spent hours just getting them fuckin’ blitzed. Starved the little bastards. Been running this big ass heater into that room for hours. They’re real fuckin’ hungry, you know.” She flashed a smile. “Yeah, you do know about that.”

Bang bang bang on the door baby!

The Hunter crouched down to his eye-level as he breathed through his nose and tried to keep his heart-rate down; he guessed that she’d stuffed the vents with whatever it was they had been using to drug John, and just thinking that made his heart jump unsteadily in his chest, crawling up his throat. Every single sound bled color in front of his eyes, making his vision swim. He was vaguely aware of the rattling of the door just a few feet away.

She hadn’t been killing Faith’s Angels. She had been taking them.

“Always hear about how animals will chew their own foot off to get out of a trap,” she continued lazily. “And despite what you said, I’ve been dying to see how much of a fuckin’ animal you are, old man.”

She was close, now, though. Close enough that he could grab her—bash her face into the desk, fish the key out of wherever she was keeping it; Jacob’s eyes narrowed through blistering heat and pain, sweat or blood or maybe both dripping down into the corner of his mouth.

“What’s the saying?” The Hunter cocked her head, dark eyes glittering. She was enjoying this. “‘He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man’.”

“I don’t think,” Jacob ground out between his teeth, “this is what Samuel Johnson fucking meant when he said that.”

He swung his free hand, not cuffed, at her head. He thought, shame the hair’s so short, with only skin available to snatch at. There was a second where he got the sickening sense of satisfaction of colliding his closed fist to the side of her face, clumsy and sluggish though the movement was; his fingers reached, grabbing for anything that he could get a hold on—even a fucking earring would have sufficed—but she snatched his wrist and slapped his hand back to the ground.

It was only a split second of him trying to get mobility back before she produced a hunting knife from her back and drove it into the top of his thigh without blinking; but her eyes were almost all pupil now, like this little song and dance they’d been doing was more effective than the drug. It probably was; he didn’t know how long they’d been dosing themselves on their own shit to build up an immunity.

Jacob bit down through the agonized, infuriated sound that tried to crawl out of his throat. Blood flooded his mouth.

“You men and your hands,” the Hunter tsked, but there was a bit of venom in her voice now. “Always grabbing at things you oughtn’t be.” She pulled the knife out with a salacious, wet noise, waggling the crimson-wetted blade of it as though to scold him. “Bad doggy.”

“Fuck you,” Jacob spat. Blood spittle sprayed her face. Her mouth downturned, and she used one gloved hand to wipe it from her eye as though to brush snow from her face and not his spit.

“Better get that checked out,” she replied, coming to a stand again and gesturing to the knife wound on his leg. “Looks nasty.”

Knock a little louder, baby.

Coming to a stand, she moved to the door and cocked her head, listening to the heavy thump of what Jacob knew now to be one of Faith’s Angels against the door. The Hunter looked at him.

Bang bang bang on the door baby!

“You think they like the song?” she asked. Jacob pulled at the handcuff. Absently, dragging himself into a full sitting position now. The bat was too far. She was out of reach.

I! Can’t! Hear! You!

“Probably not your taste,” she continued. “But we love it.”

She slammed her fist against the door in time with the Bang baaaaang! On the door, baby! in the song, and now the door rattled viciously, agitation incited by the overwhelming stimulation of sound and movement. She did it again; smashed her fist against the door, rattled the doorknob until over the sound of the song he heard a furious, inhuman wail on the other side of the door. He struggled to try and stand; she’d clipped him to the lowest drawer, and it had him hunching, eye-level with the desk.

“Don’t,” Jacob managed out hoarsely, “stop fucking—”

“No, wait!” she cut in over him. “This is my favorite part!”

The music cut out. He heard, shrilly and splitting through his head, another half-snarled scream coming out through the door. The Hunter grinned at him. She stepped away from the door once the wood at the bottom started to splinter, bloodied fingers clawing rabidly to pull the door apart.

“Tiiiiiiiiiin roof!” Her grin split wider. “Rusted.” The drum hit from the music break came on, and she winked, and then picked her jacket up from the floor as she made her way to the door.

Love Shack, baby, Love Shack!

“Don’t worry,” the Hunter called over the music and the heavy breathing as the Angels started pulling the plywood door apart, spitting more blood from her mouth. “The weak have their purpose. You’ll understand that soon enough.”

As soon as he heard the sound of her feet hitting the stairs on the way down, Jacob yanked viciously on the drawer. He didn’t need her coming back up, not yet—not until he had two hands ready to grab and rip and tear—and it took three more clumsy, muggy jerks of his arm to rip the drawer’s shell out of the slot with a noisy clatter.

“Okay,” he breathed to himself, over the sound of Love Shack kicking into repeat again. The Angels, frenzied and gaunt and baring yellowed teeth at him like feral dogs, started shoving at each other to get through the hole they’d broken through the door enough; bloodied, splintered fingers spread crimson against the linoleum and their sickly skin. Through the window, he heard what he thought had to be the roar of flames.

My truck, he thought venomously as he tore the end of his shirt, wrapping it frantically over the stab wound in his leg to try and slow the bleeding. Fuck fuck fuck fucking bitch fucking—

The first Angel shoved its way through the hole in the door, the fabric of its shirt and then its skin tearing on the splintered wood. Jacob gripped the handle of the drawer tightly and gritted his teeth through the radiating pain.

The weak have their purpose, she’d said, like she knew anything about that, spitting his own words back in his face to mock him.

Jacob bit down through the pain, the vision fogging and fizzing. Don’t be fucking weak, that voice inside of him said. I have purpose. I have my purpose. I know my purpose. Cull the herd. Cull the herd.

The Angel hissed viciously at him. They had been trained to recognize Heralds, but whatever the Hunter had done to them had fried their brains beyond even that rote memorization. Jacob rolled his shoulder and sucked his teeth.

Cull the fucking herd.

#far cry 5 #fc5 fic #fic: witching hour #my writing #john seed/female deputy #ch: arden hale #ch: jacob seed #ch: helmi #ch: isolde khan #ch: elliot honeysett #far cry 5 fic #fc5 oc #i'm literally like what the fuck do i even tag this anymore #also i miss santi and i WILL be bringing him back next chapter #please do not look at me as i strugglebug my way through combat and action #grrrrrrrr #;--;