Jess stirred as she slowly woke, slowly rising up before her memory kicked in, reminding her of where she had stayed the night causing her to quickly maneuver herself into and upright position on the pew, scanning the area for potential threats.
Warm sunlight streamed in through the windows, by her judgment it had to be at least eight in the morning, the light illuminated the church showing all possible threats but all that existed was the pastor tending to the upkeep of the church and a few lost souls scattered among the pews, heads dipped in prayer, and an ungodly noise.
There was this horrible noise that hummed lightly throughout the building, it was like a broken chainsaw had been activated in the distance on her immediate right, she turned to the heinous noise to see it was the deputy himself, seated on the edge on the pew, head tilted back on the backboard, mouth agape and a horrible snoring emitted from him.
"Why the fuck is he still here, couldn't he have gotten his own bench to sleep on" Jess thought as she stared at the man.
The noise was horrible, it graded on her nerves, it needed to stop. Jess slowly reached out to Rook, placing one hand on the back of his head and another under his jaw and slowly tilted his head forward and letting it hang forward, silencing the noise. Finally, peace and quiet flowed through the church, it was nice, Jess considered going back to sleep if not for the other people in the building. she sat there for a moment before shooting down onto her knees to check under the pew for her belongings, sure enough the bow and quiver was still there, she sighed in relief as she picked up her belongings and slung them over her shoulder.
"Good morning Jess" a voice came from behind her.
The voice sounded familiar, bust she couldn't place it.
Jess turned to see pastor Jerome approach her.
"Uh hey, mornin" she said, trying to shake off the sleepiness and put on the stoic look.
"Did you sleep well?" Jerome asked.
"yea, well all things considered" She said gesturing to the sleeping deputy.
"ah yes, I'm surprised that you didn't wake during the night, I was tempted to stop the noise myself, but I think he has deserved his sleep" Jerome laughed.
"yea, I probably woulda left if he did wake me" Jess said adjusting her hood.
"Well I hope he wakes soon; more and more things keep piling up and we don't have enough people to deal with it" Jerome admitted.
"What's goin' on?" Jess asked, tempted by the possibility of having peggies to kill.
"Well a half hour ago I received a call from some resistance fighters saying there is a potential Eden's Gate defector is hiding out in Silver Lake Trailer Park and we had a few people check it out, but I haven't heard back from them since" Jerome said, worried.
"Do you think something happened to them?"
"It's a possibility, but we never know, that's why I would like the deputy to check it out" Jerome said looking back to the sleeping deputy.
"Well I'm sure the boy scout would just love to just run in there and save everyone" Jess said rolling her eyes.
"You know Jess, I'm sure he would appreciate the company, I for one would feel more at ease knowing there was someone watching his back"
Jess didn't say anything for a moment, thinking back to what Rook had said to her after they killed the Cook.
"Well I did kinda say I'd help him out" She said adjusting her hood again.
The pastor breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank you Jess, I'm sure I speak for all his friends when I say thank you for keeping him out of trouble.
"Yea, yea, I just wanna kill peggies but I do kinda owe him"
"I'm sure you two will make and excellent team, well I'm sure I've taken up enough of your time, now if you'll excuse me there are some other matters to attend too" Jerome said before giving her a polite nod and turned to take care of things.
Jess turned to look that the sleeping man on the pew and thought about how long she'd be willing to wait for him to wake up.
Rook awoke with a fear in his heart, the sudden jolt of being awoken, the aggressive hands of someone shaking him awake. His eyes shot open to see someone tower over him, he could feel his heart skip a beat as he raised his hands to fight off his assailant, grabbing their forearms and squeezed as he tried to pull their hands off him.
"Hey, Hey, what the fuck are you doing?!" the attacker said, the voice sounded familiar to him, it took him a second to recognize the attacker, it was Jess.
"Jess" Rook breathed, "What the hell are you doing, you scared the crap outta me" Releasing her arms and going limp in his seat, trying to loosen up.
"What am I doing? What are you doing?" she huffed, pulling her arms back.
"I thought you were trying to kill me or something" Rook said running his hands through his hair.
"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead before you woke up"
"So, is there an emergency or is that how you wake up everyone?" Rook asked then stood up and rolled his shoulders, trying to roll out all the kinks out of his torso.
"Actually, asshole" Jess said with a grumpy emphasis on 'actually'.
"There's some shit going down at Silver Lake trailer park, with a guy wanting out of the cult, and some people went down to check it out and haven't called back in a while"
"What! why didn't you wake me earlier!" Rook said alarmed at the prospect of losing the valuable information the defector might have.
"I've been waiting for you to wake up for like, twenty minutes, I was going to wake you sooner, but the Pastor guy said to let you sleep for a little bit"
Rook sighed in displeasure, wishing he hadn't said anything to Jerome a few days ago.
"OK, I have no idea where this trailer park is, you wanna tag along and give me directions, I'm sure there will be someone to kill, and besides with all this peggie killing talk you do, I wanna know what your really capable of, as they have firearms and explosives, and you have a bow and sharp sticks " Rook said while rummaging through his pockets looking for his keys.
"Hell yea, I want in, your going to see some shit" she said with a shark tooth grin.
Rook gave her a small smile and a nod, then the two left the church with Rook leading her over to his truck.
The drive became awkward and fast for Jess as she and Rook sat in silence, aside from telling where the deputy to turn left or right. She had forgotten what genuine no strings attached kindness was as Rook had insisted on her putting on her seatbelt for safety reasons when they first entered the truck, he even used his turn signals when he turned and stopped at all the stop signs, when she asked why he did such ludicrous things he answered with "If we don't uphold the law, are we any better then Eden's Gate?" He even tried to engage her in friendly conversation every now and again about where she learned to shoot an arrow, or what she did before the cult popped up, but she had answered the questions with topic changing answers that would end the conversation quickly allowing the awkward silence to re-enter the truck. Jess would have engaged in conversation, but he kept unknowingly tread on sensitive ground, as much as she trusted Rook, she didn't want to talk about her past or about herself really, she had stopped trusting people along time ago as everyone always wanted something from her, But the junior deputy was an anomaly, he was always friendly to her even when she was aggressive and even tried to look out for her the night before. The conversation they had the night before made her uncomfortable, she had not shown anyone that much vulnerability in a long time and waking up next to the deputy didn't make it any easier. So, a part of her was waiting for the shoe to drop and the deputy to do something, but his actions and personality said otherwise.
She wished there was something worth listening to on the radio to kill the silence, but she knew it was all cult shit, if she wanted to relieve the awkwardness, she would have to bite the bullet and do it.
"Sun's so strong now, fuckin' global warming" she muttered.
"What?" Rook said looking at her briefly, stifling a giggle.
"Never mind" Jess muttered as she turned her head to look out the passenger window.
Jess was getting frustrated at herself, she was just making the uncomfortable silence worse, she thought about maybe just giving up and just riding it out"
"So what music you into?" Rook asked.
"Huh?" Jess mumbled caught off guard by Rook's question, she didn't expect him to try to strike up a conversation again.
"What music you into?" Rook asked again. "You seem like a Motorhead kind of girl, maybe Def Leppard"
"I don't know what those are, I don't really care about music that much" Jess replied.
"What!" Rook said slightly startled. "Music is amazing, it's a way of life, all songs are what define the generation they came from"
"What are you talking about?" She questioned, looking back at Rook.
"I'm talking about music, it's the noise of life, rock and roll, hip hop, blues, country, heavy metal, its all amazingly beautiful" Rook preached.
"You really love music huh? Jess commented.
"Of course, music got me through life, I would be a different man if it weren't for music, hell this world would be different if it weren't for music" Rook explained.
"So what music are you into then?'' Jess asked before noticing the incoming fork in the road. ''Oh, turn left up here" she said pointing to the split paths.
"Well even though I just said I love it all, I'm actually a big rock and roller, AC/DC, Van Halen, Clash, White Snake, Guns N Roses and so on, but my all time favourite band is Queen, I know it doesn't mean much these days, but as an officer of the law, I'd murder a man to see Freddie Mercury preform live, his voice is like silk on ice and his style was a decade ahead of his time, Queen changed my life, its what really got me into music as a kid" Rook laughed.
Jess's mind flipped through all the names of artists she knew trying to identify the 'Freddie' character that the boy scout was verbally jerking off but couldn't conjuror up an image or info of the man.
"I don't know who that is either" Jess said bluntly.
"What!?" Rook yelp slightly louder then he probably should have, causing Jess to jump ever so slightly.
"Bohemian Rhapsody, Don't Stop Me Now, Killer Queen, all masterpieces, you have to had heard them" Rook said hoping to spark some sort of recognition within her, but she just stared at him for a moment before silently shrugging at him.
"Sorry, I'm not a music nerd"
Rook groaned in defeat as he had no way of getting through to her.
"How much further till we get there" Rook muttered in disappointment.
"Right at the next chance you get" She said with a small smirk as the deputy was visibly sad over something as little as music.
"So, we should be coming up on a dirt road on the left in a bit, that's where we wanna go" Jess said finally perking up as they drew close too they're destination.
"Geez, it's pretty close to the Henbane and the mountains, man, reinforcements could come in force if things get bad" Rook grimaced.
"Well if you follow my lead, we'll be in and out before anyone notices" Jess said trying to reassure the deputy.
"Just remember what we're here for, some one wants out of the cult, that means he might have a lot of useful info and he most likely looks just like everyone else in the cult, so watch where you shoot ok?" Rook asked.
"Yea, yea, I got this, it won't be that hard to get one dude out, we just gotta be quiet, just do what I do, and we'll be fine Jess countered.
"You know I remember saying something similar to myself when I went to break you out, and we both know how that went" Rook said seeing the dirt road, flicking on his turn signal.
"My point exactly, something goes wrong, and you just go all Rambo on them and mow 'em all down while I pick them off from the side"
"Oh ho, so you do know some famous people now" Rook teased turning left at the intersection.
"Of course, I know who he is, just because I don't know music doesn't mean I know movies" Jess returned.
"Do I dare ask what kind of movies you watch?" Rook asked.
"Nothing really, I mean besides the Blood Dragon movies" Jess said as the trailer park came into view.
"There she blows" Jess said, limply waving her arm to highlight the incoming trailer park.
Rook slowed the truck as to not give off as much noise as they drew near, then came to a stop at the mouth of the front gate and killed the engine, Rook rolled down his window and listened for some none existent noise.
"You hear that?" he asked.
Jess paused for a moment to listen for whatever the deputy had heard before telling him she couldn't hear anything.
"Exactly, there is nothing, it sounds like a ghost town in there, that's not a good sign" Rook grimaced.
"Maybe they got outta here before we showed up?" Jess shrugged.
Rook thought about all the places they could have gone as they could have gone in any direction as they were near the boarder of the Henbane and mountains, but before anything concrete could be made loud banging noises emitted from within the park, making Rook jump.
"OK, enough messing around, we need to get going" Rook said as he quickly took off his seatbelt and left the truck and jogged into the park.
Jess followed the deputy and the two crept towards the trailer park and the sound of banging continued from farther within the park, not the banging of firearms but the banging of one object slamming into another. The duo crept low as they passed through the first row of trailers and onto the dirt road on the opposite side, following the banging, as they crept ever closer, they could hear angry yelling, it was clearly peggies, Rook grumbled as this was going to be a long mission, the two followed the noise into the trailer park. The noise grew ever louder as they moved down the road, there was an Eden's Gate truck parked on the road to no one's surprise. Jess let out a low whistle, grabbing Rook's attention, he turned to see why she made said sound and saw her gesture to a path in between two trailers and Rook nodded. The two crept up to one of the domiciles and slid along the side to the other side of the trailer, the path opened up to more trailers and picket fences that divided up the front yards. The duo could see human movement on the porch of a trailer opposite of the one they had just come around. It was two peggies, they were banging on the back door with baseball bats, shouting cult nonsense at the door, the defector had to be behind it. Rook looked at Jess and gave her a hand signal to move up, she nodded and moved to a picket fence that separated two trailer lots, taking shelter behind it. Rook joined her momentarily kneeling next to her.
"So how you wanna play this?" Rook asked looking over at his partner.
"Let's just kill 'em, that's why I'm here" Jess replied shrugging.
"Yea we could but there are just two and they don't know were here so why not knock them out and move on" Rook stated.
"What the fuck are you talking about, they won't knock you if they get the drop on you, they'll kill you" Jess said slightly annoyed.
"OK, I totally get why you think I sound insane but just hear me out; I'm still an officer of the law, you know, serve and protect, so let's just take a non-lethal approach for now" Rook said hoping Jess would hear him out.
"Then go out there and try to arrest them and let me kill these assholes" Jess growled.
More bangs and shouting could be heard from within the park, this time it did not come from the men in front of them, it had to be coming from the other side of the domicile, so there had more of them.
"Did you see any other peggies other then the two on the back porch?" Rook whispered.
"Nah, did you?" Jess replied.
"I'll take that as a no" Rook said contemplating an attack plan.
"Those dick heads are trying to break into that trailer, I bet that's where the defector is"
"Your probably right, so let's do this carefully, neutralize them and get the defector out unharmed" Rook commanded.
"Yea, Yea, let's just get this over with" Jess said poking up over the fence to examined the enemy, Rook made a mental note about her disinterest in the defector's wellbeing and poked up from over the fence and examined the two men before the two dropped back down.
"Alright, here's the plan, we sneak up on either side of the porch, you grab the guy on the right and as the left guy sees him go down I'll jump up and grab him and see what info we can get out of him" Rook instructed.
"That's fuckin' stupid" Jess said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
"Let's just kill them"
"But we have the element of surprise, we can use that to knock them out and just keep moving" Rook pleaded.
"You wanna use the element of surprise? Oh, I'll use it alright" she said and reached into her quiver to retrieve a arrow and brought it to her mouth and clenched in between her teeth then stood up, grabbing a second arrow and loaded it into her bow, trained it on the right most peggie and fired.
The arrow hit its mark, the man released his death rattle as he collapsed. This caused the second man to turn to his friend but before he could do anything, Jess removed the arrow in her mouth and placed it into her bow and fired. Rook watched the arrow soar through the air and slammed into the man's neck, dropping him instantly.
"How's that for surprise?" Jess said proudly as she vaulted over the fence and jogged up to the porch to retrieve her arrows.
Rook was silent, staring at the bodies of the two fallen men, watching Jess rip her arrows out of their corpses, something about how that all played out didn't sit right with Rook for some reason.
"Hey you comin' or what?" He heard Jess called out quietly from the porch.
Rook was silent for a few moments before responding.
"Uh yeah, I'll be there real soon" he called back as hopped over the fence and followed suit. As he approached the domicile he could hear the voices inside, they were panicked shouts, at the peggies surrounding the building and each other, from what could be hear from the far end of the building there were more peggies trying to break there way in.
"OK, this time we go around either side and surprise them" Rook instructed again.
"Alright, this time a agree with you, I even got a special surprise for them" she said as she retrieved another arrow from her quiver.
Rook looked at the arrow, at first glance it was a normal arrow but upon closer inspection he could see what looked like a test tube duct taped a few inches below the arrow head with a fuse sticking out of one end.
"What is that?" Rook questioned, unsure of what the vial could possibly be used for.
"Oh, you'll see" she said with her shark tooth grin then turned to sneak around the side of the building, Rook was now wary of what she was planning as anything could be in the vial, but he didn't dwell on what was about to happen, he had to get into position, Jess was not the type of girl that should be left waiting.
Rook rounded the corner and crouched down poking out slightly looking at the opposition, he could see seven of them, all scattered throughout the park, a few on the ground and a few on the roofs of trailers, guns raised at the domicile, he could hear one or two of them wailing on the front door, trying to break it down, Rook felt his chest tighten as he saw one of the peggies wearing protective armour head to toe and carrying a LMG, getting him would be tough, but now that he sat in his desired position he was really regretting not making a signal to begin the attack. But then again you didn't have to be a tactical genius to figure out when to strike.
Rook took a few deep breaths before he crept out around the corner again to see the peggies trying to break down the door and raised his AR at them and fired.
All the peggies froze momentarily, thinking the gun fire was one of theirs but then the two men at the door fell, sending them into a panic, they all began shouting orders at each other trying to coordinate and find the sinner that did the deed.
Rook retreated slightly so he could loop around to another picket fence adjacent to him, giving him a better angle if things got intense.
All those who were on the ground scattered like ants trying to find any trace of the shooter while the ones on the roofs tried to provide a bird's eye view while trying to make sure the people in the trailer didn't try anything funny.
Rook eyed the men on the roofs, as they were the most dangerous to him and Jess, he raised his rifle to one of them but before he could pull the trigger a arrow flew out of no where and implanted itself into the man's ribcage, the Peggie fell silently out of view to anyone on the ground, Rook was in awe over the woman's ability to silently dispatch foes.
Then another rooftop peggie fell, the deputy had no idea where Jess was but she had the best spot in the whole trailer park. But before the third could be killed he saw his two dead comrades and started yelling, causing the four remaining men to begin searching Jess's general area. Rook had to do something, so he stood up and fire his gun, he clipped one and caused him to fall out of sight, the sudden gun fire made the rest scatter again. The peggies began yelling again, about how the sinner has reared its ugly head, but said sinner didn't care, he was keeping his eyes open for the man in what looked like riot gear, that LMG could rip him and his cover apart in seconds but he was nowhere to be seen, one couldn't move that fast in the bulky armour and the large firearm was not the lightest thing in the world, all the mental attention he put on the man made Rook forget about the third man on the roof, his eyes zipped to the roof expecting a peggie to be lining up the perfect shot on him, but nothing was there, he had vanished. It took two seconds to click, Rook cracked a smile, Jess's ability to kill a man with a bow was unparalleled to any gun handling skills he had seen in his life. But his amazement in her shooting skills was ruined as the fence in front of him exploded into a thousand splinters as the sounds of an LMG filled the air, on instinct Rook dove away from the fence as the LMG's point of impact was a mere few feet away from him.
The LMG's fire did not stop, the peggie just kept firing hoping to hit its mark. Rook slung his AR over his shoulder and pulled out his sawed off and began crawling along the ground, the LMG tore up everything around him as he crawled along the length of the fence, he could see a house twenty feet from the end of what was left of the fence. The house was his only chance of survival, he took a few deep breaths as he quickly lifted himself into a crouch and moved as fast as he could to the end of the fence before changing into a full sprint to the building, as he left the fence he could feel it explode into splinters as the peggie shredded it with bullets. He knew he wasn't going to make it in time, his only chance was to dive for it. He took one final deep breath and dove once more behind a corner of a house, breaking cover with the man with barely any time to spare. Rook laid on the ground for a moment to catch his breath before scrambling to his feet and jogged to the far side of the building and paused, hoping to hear some sort of indication on where the man was but proved fruitless as Rook's heartbeat was in his ears.
Rook swore as he gave up on listening for his enemy and jumped out around of the buildings corner, shotgun raised, scanning the environment before settling on the peggie, he had waddled to the far end of the building where Rook had disappeared too, even though the peggie did not see Rook, his heart still skipped a beat, two shotguns shells would not be enough to take out the armoured brute, and shot his hand to his belt to unhook a grenade and brought it up to his mouth to pull the pin with his teeth, then threw it at the heavily armoured man, he must have heard it land on the ground to his immediate right as he turned to it moments before it exploded. The detonation did less then what Rook anticipated as it knocked the man to the ground, he laid there briefly and began to get up picking up his LMG.
The deputy took the opportunity and ran up to the man and hastily raised his shotgun up and fired, the blast sounded just like the grenade as the fear and noise began to congeal into a headache. The shotguns blast hit the man's right arm, staggering him briefly, giving the deputy time to make his move.
Rook desperately trying to reload the shotgun before the peggie could recover and kill him, his nerves were getting the best of as his hands shook and slick with sweat, making it hard to reload, he stared at the opened gun praying the shells to go in the slots.
"Eat shit and die!" He heard Jess scream, Rook's eyes snapped up darting around at whatever Jess was doing hoping it would buy him time to escape. To Rook's bewilderment the armoured peggie had been set ablaze, dropping the LMG so he may drop himself to the ground trying to roll around to extinguish the fire that had engulfed him, but the heavy padded armour made it hard to roll and had acted as kindling, feeding the fire, the man screamed as he burned to death, Rook choked in a breath as he plunged a shell into the gun and clicking it shut. The air was starting to fill with the smell of burning flesh and screams filled the air, screams of the burning man.
The deputy swallowed the spit in his mouth as he jogged up to the burning man and raised his shotgun to the man's chest and fired again, putting the man out of his misery. Silence filled the air, but to Rook his ears were ringing, he could feel a headache coming on, the screaming of the man bounced around in his skull, Rook gritted his teeth, powering through the pain and bringing a hand to his throbbing head, trying to focus on his shoes. Jess must have come up to Rook as her voice sounded feet from him.
"Hey, you good?" he heard Jess call but didn't respond, he just kept looking at his shoes.
"Hey, Rook, are you ok?" Jess repeated.
"Yea, I'm ok, what about you?" Rook asked, finally looking up at her, seeing her standing on the other side of the burning man, noticing a long streak of blood along Jess's jacket sleeve and pointing to it.
"Oh, this ain't mine" she said trying to wipe it off.
"Hey, did you like, set the big guy on fire or something?" Rook asked pointing at the burning corpse on the ground.
"Oh yea, totally, that was my little surprise, I have a few arrows that can set things on fire, pretty fuckin' cool, huh?" Jess said proudly with a shark tooth grin.
"What about the other four guys?" Rook asked.
"Like I said, its not my blood" Jess said still wearing her shark tooth grin.
"Sweet, glad to see your good, come on lets see what's the trailer they were so interested in" Rook said pointing at the domicile before turning to walk to the front door, his head still ringing, he staggered up the porch and banged on the door.
"Sheriff's department, open up" he commanded.
He could hear nervous whispers and scuffling for a moment the sound of a lock being clicked open could be heard and the door cracked open as much as it could, a second lock was attached to the door, a simple chain lock.
"You deputy Rook?" A scared voice croaked.
"The one and only" Rook said with pride.
More whispers could be heard from inside, they were arguing, some wanting to let the deputy in, other wanted to keep him out.
"So we doing this or what, everyone out here is dead" Jess hollered in annoyance.
The sudden outburst shut everyone up, nothing could be heard from with in, not even movement, the person at the door stood motionless then closed the door, the sound of the chain lock being undone could be heard and the door swung open, revealing a woman holding the door handle.
"Thank god your here, we need to get outta here" she said.
"About fuckin time" Jess said pushing past Rook and the woman and entered the domicile.
"So where is the bastard" she said looking around the room trying to find someone who resembled a peggie, but all she could see was five terrified people, three men and two woman, clutching their firearms as if they're lives depended on it.
Rook stepped into the middle of the room and cleared his throat, bringing attention back to him.
"Pardon my associate but I believe what she's trying to say is where's the target that needs extraction" Rook said trying to appear professional to ease the peoples fears.
"He's over here" a man spoke up, he wore work pants and a loose fitting tee shirt, he was most likely a farm hand, he pointed to the kitchen floor, behind the kitchen counter, the defector lay on the floor, hands tied behind his back, he was shirtless and his torso was haphazardly tattooed with various sins and designs, his head turned to the side and staring wide eyed at the deputy, his mouth was taped shut, but Rook was sure he wanted to say something about the deputy's arrival
"So this is the guy, huh?" Jess said walking over to the restrained man. The defectors eyes broke from Rook and tracked Jess as she towered over him.
"So what's wrong, Sunday school to much for ya" Jess teased as she limply kicked the man in the leg.
The man was silent as his mouth was still taped shut.
"Deputy can I speak to you for a moment?" The farm hand spoke.
"Sure what's up?" Rook asked turning his attention to the man.
"Listen, we gotta get ready here, before you showed up the peggies outside were just trying to kill time. They were waiting for the cavalry to show up, they said they were just waiting for the big guns to show up and burn the place down" he said trying to remain calm.
"Alright, so let's just grab our friend here and go" Rook suggested.
"We can't!" The man suddenly cut off.
"We have a boat coming in that can get all of us and him outta here and straight to a safe place" the man said trying to reclaim his composure.
"Fuck the boat, let's just go now, the peggies had to have left some rides around here" Jess said finally losing interest in the restrained man.
"I kinda agree with her on this let's just go now" Rook said rubbing the back of his neck.
"If we take the trucks, we could be run off the road or something, but if we take a boat they can't really do to much" the farmhand argued.
The two men argued while the woman who opened the door closed and locked the door up while the other three all peered out different windows, watching for movement, they were so focused that they were unaware Jess had begun to rummage through the trailer looking for whatever might interest her.
"Listen chief, what's your name?" Rook questioned.
"Michael, my name is Michael" he replied.
"Listen Michael, we need to leave now the man could have so much info that can save so many lives" Rook still tried to reason with the man"
Michael opened his mouth to retort Rook's point but was immediately cut off by one of his companions.
"Peggies incoming!" Screamed the woman looking out the window that looked over the front yard.
"Oh, son of a bitch" Rook thought as he rolled his eyes.
"how many do you see out there?!" Rook yelled to the woman who had spotted the incoming threat.
"Six trucks, all full, forty-five feet back, all have shotguns and automatics" she yelled back, fear layered in her voice.
Rook approached the window and split the shutter. He could see at least ten men on the ground, guns raised and spread out in a line approaching the trailer.
"Alright, boys scout, what's the plan?" Jess asked sounding on edge as they were fish in a rectangular barrel.
"We aren't getting away with these guys on us, so please go out the back door and do a big loop around them and get up behind them and do what you do, keep your head down and your walkie on" Rook instructed.
"You got it dude" she said as she zipped out the back door.
Rook then turned back to Michael.
"Ok Michael do your friends here trust you and your judgement?" Rook asked.
"What, ugh, yea, sure, I think" he stuttered.
"Ok that's good, I want you to take point on keeping them in line as I'm sure they'd listen you a lot more then me so I'll give you the orders and you make sure they follow through, sound good?" Rook asked.
"Ok sure let's do it, just give the word" Michael responded.
"Get two people or the front and back porch and have one guy watching the peggie at all times, have that guy stay on top of the boat's ETA and call all of us when its here" Rook instructed.
Michael nodded his head before beginning to shout names and the aforementioned positions and the four people scurried into place. Michael and a woman were up against the front door ready to take cover on the porch, Rook was pretty sure Michael said her name was Julia, Michael looked back at the deputy.
Rook felt the ball of stress grow ever bigger as he had no experience ordering people around effectively aside from showing new hires what to do on their first few days when he worked at a fast food chain in his teens.
"what about you? What are you going to do?" he asked.
Rook swallowed the lump and his throat.
"If all those guys come down on you at once you will die, but these guys just love me, so I'll get out there and draw their attention and you pick them off until that boat gets here"
"What seriously? They'll tear you apart!" Michael cried.
"You got a better idea?" Rook grimaced as he unslung his AR and opened the front door a crack to poke his gun out and fired his gun, scattering a few peggies, allowing Rook to pull the door open and slipped out side taking cover on the porch's hastily made barricade.
Rook pressed his left side up upon the railing, it had several wooden and metal sheets along it providing ample cover, listening for anything the enemy might shout as plan of attack, but he could hear murmurs come for the trailer he exited.
"Hey, you coming or what?" he turned to the trailer, looking at Michael and Julia as they hid in the doorframe, eyes glued to the peggies, unmoving.
"come on, let's move!" Rook yelled hoping they would move, but fear had consumed them. They jumped up slightly and suddenly slammed the door shut as a wall of bullets peppered the front porch, the peggies began their assault.
"Oh, come on" Rook moaned listening to the several assault rifles, the best he could do was wait for it to end.
"Are you kidding me?!" Rook yelled at the door, shocked and angry at the duo, chickening out at the last second.
But Rook knew just sitting around wasn't going to be productive, he needed a break in the gunfire to make a move, he saw a chest freezer grouped next to a tree twenty feet in front of him, it would be a good place to spray and pray for a bit. He brought his hand to his belt and felt his way around to a grenade, using his teeth he pulled the pin and threw it as hard as he could. He could hear multiple peggies yell in fear about the grenade before the deafening blast silenced the area, when the smoke cleared all the peggies had been on high alert, none off them had been killed in the blast but at the cost of taking their eyes off the sinner who had seemingly disappeared.
"Anyone have eyes on the sinner?" One woman called out.
"Negative, spread out and move in" another called.
Silence filled the air again as the cult slowly moved throughout the park, waiting for the deputy to show himself, but he kept his down bidding his time.
"Terry, check your left flank" a Peggie ordered another pointing to the large green dumpster on his friends left, twenty feet away, the two where in the back of the back guarding their friends rear from any ambushes that may come. Terry nodded and crept over to the dumpster on the tips of his feet ready to catch the sinner, the Peggie who gave him the order turned back to what he was doing before, watching the rear for movement, waiting for the resistance to make a move. His watch was interrupted by soft bang that emanated from where Terry had ventured off too, the man turned to see Terry slumped against the dumpster, dead with an arrow protruding out of his back.
"Oh shi-" he stuttered before a second arrow flew in and impaled itself into his neck, silencing him from calling out to his friends, he gurgled for a moment then fell, joining his friend in the afterlife.
Rook was really starting to regret hiding behind the chest freezer as he had not planned on them fanning out even further. He silently swore as he could hear foot steps approach, he swallowed the spit in his mouth and was ready to pop up shooting but before he could enact his plan, the sounds of gunfire filled the air then followed peggies yelling then their firing. Rook was bewildered as the shooting had originated from behind, he carefully reoriented himself to turn around and rested his back on the chest freezer. He could see his allies finally helping as Julia had opened the front facing window and stuck her gun out the window and Michael out of the trailer and on the porch, firing from railing barricade.
"About time you got it together, really lay into them" Rook shouted at them, still spiteful over them abandoning him.
"Sorry about that deputy, we're good now" Michael called back firing in bursts.
Rook rolled his eyes at the remark and began looking around for better cover, his eyes resting on an overturned table fifteen feet to his right, there was a tent tarp on poles with more upturned tables next to the first table, he sighed as getting there was going to suck, at this point the peggies had regained the composure and fired back at the couple, it appeared they lost interest in the deputy, the table was still a good fifteen feet, if he waited for the right time he could make a dive for it. he waited a few moments for the firing to die down and took a deep breath. The second he leapt from cover he could feel the bullets whiz by him by mere inches, thanking his guardian angel, he slid behind the table, hearing several thumps as bullets hit the table, worming themselves into it and fractured the underside ever so slightly. Rook unslung his AR again and raised it above the table firing in bursts trying to blind fire the opposition. When his magazine clicked empty, he brought it down to reload, he could feel the table shake and crack with every bullet that collided with it.
"Ya gotta get outta there!" he heard Michael yell.
"Workin' on it!" he yelled back finishing reloading his gun then poking it up over the table to resume firing.
The deputy felt like he burned through half his clip before an explosion detonated from far within the enemy ranks followed by heavy yelling.
"what's going on?!" Rook called up to Michael.
"One of their trucks blew up some how!" Michael yelled back before returning fire on the disorientated peggies.
Rook was perplexed as what blew up the truck before his mind settled on the lone woman, he deployed back there mere minutes ago, he felt a little bad that he had forgotten about her, well he couldn't just let her have all the fun. The deputy readied himself mentally and rose up, gun at the ready to shoot anything that moved, but when he popped up no one was there, it was as if all the peggies were phantoms all he could see was the smoking wreck of a truck, but now that he had up and looking at his surroundings he could see little movements of the usual peggie attire poked out of the edges of the environment.
"Careful deputy, they're all behind cover, scattered all over the place!" Julia cried, the moment she finished talking and silence filled the park, a peggie jumped up out of his cover to take out the motionless deputy but was almost immediately shot down by Michael.
"Careful Dep, it's a shooting range now" Michael call out, reloading.
Rook groaned as Michael was right no one was going to stand up now as silence reasserted itself yet again, he dropped down one knee and propped the barrel of his gun on the edge of the table and waited for someone to a move, he slowly blew air out of his mouth as his eyes darted to every possible piece of cover, every little movement would pull in his attention regardless if it was the wind or peggies. Rook kept an ear out for any noise in hopes he could hear the enemies making some sort of plan, but nothing could be hear aside Michael and Julia mumble to each other and an occasional groan from the peggies.
"If you put down your guns and walk away, I promise you won't die here" Rook commanded, projecting his voice over the park.
But Rook was met with silence as no one would take the deal. He groaned again as this would just end in bloodshed again. Rook tried to think of a new plan before being pulled out of his thoughts as a object was thrown out from behind a picket fence, it sailed through the air and landed ten feet from Rook's table, his eyes shot down to the ground to see what it was, his heart skipped a beat as what had been thrown was a grenade. Rook freaked out for half a second then ran back to the chest freezer and dove for its protection. The grenade detonated, pushing him to the ground harder then gravity took him, landing on his chest knocking the air out of him, the explosion was the perfect thing the peggies needed as it signaled for them to attack as they all stood up at once and fired, pushing the duo on trailer guard back into a useless position, bullets still hailing down on the trailer as Rook struggled to catch his breath, the gunshots sounding like rolling thunder.
"Deputy, we need help!" Rook heard someone scream.
Rook tried to respond but greatly struggled as he coughed and pulled in a ragged breath, pulling himself up and all fours then sat back down, resting against the chest cooler, clutching his AR to his chest.
"They're pushin' up!" He heard someone scream from the trailer, Rook tried to respond but when he opened his mouth, he couldn't make anything come out, it was like he lost the ability to speak.
"Deputy are you there!" He heard Michael shriek.
The firing slowed for a moment as a few peggies reload then began firing again, when the firing slowed Rook could hear the peggies voices, they had indeed moved up as they sounded to be twentyish feet, and possible closing in further, Rook coughed again trying to recontrol his breath as it was shaky and hard to inhale, with hands shaking greatly he ejected the magazine from his gun and pulled out a fresh clip and tried to insert the new magazine but struggled as his shaking hands made it hard to fit it in to the slot, missing by mere millimeters each time before the magazine slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. Rook swore as he was to afraid to reach out to pick up the magazine as he felt it would leave him exposed to being shot, the struggled breathing became near impossible as he pushed his back into the freezer as if it would make him smaller, he could feel the sweat coating his back, and most likely his front, he furiously tried to think of something but nothing came to him, he was trapped behind the chest freezer, the AR fell from his grip and his hands fell to his thighs and gripped them tightly, desperate for something to pull him out of this nightmare. Then he saw it, he saw a figure move into his left, Rook turned his head slowly to see a woman, dressed in a black Eden's Gate trench coat slowly move up to the trailer, unaware of the paralyzed Deputy, Rook could feel is heart practically beat out of his chest, he couldn't die here, to many people relied on him, he unhinged his right hand off his thighs and drifted over to the pistol strapped to it and unsheathed it and limply lifted it up and pulled it up across his chest and pointed it up at the woman, he shuddered as he squeezed the trigger, discharging the weapon, but the shaking that had consumed the deputy caused him to miss the shot, bullet whizzing by the woman, despite the sheer noise of a dozen automatic firearms going off, she somehow heard the deputy's discharge and took a step back in fear as she turned her head to see the him frozen in fear curled up against the freezer, she rose her AK-47 and pointed it at his face.
Rook could feel his whole body lock up as death stared him down, time felt slow as he waited for death to take him, but nothing came the woman just stood there, he tried to reorient his gun once again, but before he could articulate himself, the woman fell over, Rook was bewildered as a blood began to drip out of her, it took him seconds to realize that an arrow was sticking out of her back. Jess, he had totally forgot about her, again, she was out there killing peggies while he hid like a coward, who knows how many she took out, he had to do something.
He slowly unclenched his left hand and retrieved his sawed off shot gun and pushed himself to his knees the gun fire had slow greatly as some had saw the woman drop and begun to yell, he rose up back to the peggies, he turned and use the yells to guesstimate where they stood and turned, pointing his shotgun and fired, blowing one away, the sudden appearance made the peggies freeze for a moment as Rook raised his pistol and shot at a few more men scattering the men in danger and a few raised their guns to fire at him but where stopped as Michael and Julia popped back out and began firing once more, then more firing came, the man and woman who had been assigned to the back porch came around the sides providing covering fire, forcing a few more back as Jess still continued to pick them off, Rook backpedaled towards the porch firing at random peggies, he could see just how many were left, there were around twenty or so when they first showed up, now there were about ten, this was doable, this was winnable.
"Boat's here!" Michael screamed.
The call sent joy through Rook's body, the skirmish was slowly turning around they could get away now, he needed to back out ASAP.
"Deputy use this!" Michael called out as he pushed a metal panel from the barricade up over the railing and on to the ground, three feet away from the porch, ten feet behind the deputy, Rook looked over his shoulder briefly and saw it on the ground and had the beginnings of a plan form in his head; to get to the sheet of metal and use it as a shield to get in the trailer, he backpedaled away firing at anyone who tried to line up a shot, he holstered the shotgun as it was near useless with the range the peggies were at, he kept firing the pistol until it clipped empty before holstering it, flicking his head over to see the sheet's location, it lay a good five feet from him, it was close enough that he could jump for it, the idea made him all the more happy, making a mad scramble for the sheet of metal and lifting it up, using it for a shield, luckily Michael chose a good sheet as the sheet was five feet by four feet long, providing decent cover for his head and torso and side walked along the side of the porch and up the stairs, a few times a bullet clanged off the sheet, making Rook jump, as he got close to the front door he could feel Michael put a hand on his shoulder and pull him in, Rook dropped the sheet and ran inside, slamming the door behind him.
"Alright here's the plan; I'm going to carry this guy to the boat one of you guide me there and everyone else provide cover fire, sound good?" Rook yelled, not missing a beat, not expecting a serious response.
Everyone nodded and made noises of agreement as Rook reloaded his shotgun bent down to pick up the man and rested him over his shoulder.
He reached for his walkie and called Jess.
"Alright Jess, the boat's here, we're pulling out swing around the left side and we'll regroup there" Rook instructed, trying not to yell so loud that it would give away her position.
"Backdoor everyone, let's go!" He yelled kicking open the door and him and everyone piled out, the man who had been assigned to guard the peggie in the trailer had begun to lead Rook with Michael and Julia behind him and the two back door guards behind them out of the back end of the trailer park and down a dirt road, leading to the lake in the distance.
"Come on everyone, put some hustle into it!" Michael cried desperately trying to reload his AR before the peggies came around the corner. But that hope was short lived as a peggie came around the corner, firing his gun at the crowd, he fired a few botched bursts before dropping dead, with an arrow sticking out of his back like so many of his friends. Then moments later Jess appeared out of the woodwork, sprinting as fast as she could.
"Go, go, go, run, run, run!" She yelled to the group as she fled the far edge of the park with four peggies armed with shotguns in hot pursuit.
"Cover her!" Rook hollered as he pointed to the people chasing Jess, they were almost parallel with the chasing peggies, but forty feet apart.
The two back door guards slowed their run to fire at the enemy, emptying half a magazine from their AR's, they missed a great deal of shots as they spent no time lining up a proper shot, but the other half whizzed by them by mere inches, scaring them into stopping or running off in a different direction, the two cheer briefly as they picked up pace slightly as they ejected the magazines in their guns and tried to reload, but they were interrupted as more yelling could be heard, they looked over her shoulder to see what little peggies that were alive piled out the back door the group and came from, yelling and pointing at the fleeing party, they were like predators almost, the second they saw the group working their way down the road their eyes locked on to the two that had been separated from the pack, it had been the two back door guards, they had slowed greatly to shoot and reload as they were jogging while the rest were running, like young deer they were easy prey.
They raised their guns and fired, with no cover to protect them bullets pierced the woman's back like a knife through warm butter, falling forward, dead, the man next to her barley had time to acknowledge the death of his friend as bullets slammed into his back, it didn't kill him instantly but he knew his time had come, he belted a pained yelp as he fell forward landing face first into the dirt path, he tried to move, but was unable too, he tried to call out to his friends but his throat felt drier than the dirt he lay on, his vision darkened quickly as his mind drifted to the friend he had lost moments ago, the shouting and gunfire sounded almost non-existent, he stood on the precipice of death and about to plunge in, his final thoughts about his fallen friend crawled through his mind.
"I shoulda asked her out along time ago"
The yelp the back-door guard emitted caused the remaining group to look over their shoulders to see what happened and saw their fallen friends. Julia screamed and cried at her dead friends, dropping her gun and almost turning around to go to them before Michael grabbed her wrist and yanked her back.
"There gone, we have to leave them!" Michael screamed through tears.
"He was your brother, we can't just leave them!" Julia screamed back.
Whatever Michael said to Julia was drowned out as a grenade exploded twenty feet behind them, scaring everyone once again as they could hear loose pebbles and dirt rain down behind them.
"This is bullshit" Jess thought, and she was right, she was no track star, sure she could run if she needed to but this whole run was bullshit, she was a hunter, she was used to staying low and dispatching targets silently with her bow, not be out in the open in this steel ball run. The grenade was making things worse, she had to do something, she brought her free hand up to pull out an arrow, but her quiver was running dangerously empty as she could feel only four arrows bounce around in her quiver.
"Hey I'm running outta arrows here!" Jess cried.
"Save 'em for when their necessary!" Rook yelled back.
"This is a necessary time!" She retorted.
"You know what I mean!"
Rook huffed and wheezed, the man on his shoulder was heavier then he expected and was growing heavier as time went on as yelling was not helping nor was the sweat coating his shoulders, he was trying his best to power through the strain and sprint to the boat. He heard a peggie shout grenade and few seconds later and another explosion followed, and felt dirt lightly rain down on his back momentarily.
Jess was really getting panicky now, she felt like this was a suicide run, just because they made it to the boat didn't equate to safety, how could it, it was a boat not some mystical object that would grant them immortality upon touching it, but the whole scenario made a not so cynical part of her brain reminded her of some childhood game she played in her youth on the playground.
"We're almost there!" as the lead man called, pulling Jess out of her head as the ground finally began to lower as the ground gave way to a hill that led to the lake, the gradual decline in the ground made it hard for Rook to run at a good speed with a body on his shoulder, but there was a silver lining as the boat entered his view, it was parked at a small dock and had three people, a driver, an armed man, and a man on a mounted LMG, turned and ready to begin firing, alerted by the grenades. But he could hear the peggies shouting something about ammo and grenades. He forced himself to look over his shoulder to make sure everyone was clear of the blast; he could see Michael and Julia mere feet behind him looking worse for wear, and behind him Jess was twenty feet back, she had been running parallel to them since she came out of the park, but she had corrected her path and curved her run to be behind the group, in between them and the peggies, the peggies themselves were thirty feet behind Jess giving chase. But his view was cut off as he was running down hill, the dew speckled tall grass licked at his legs and felt his feet sink a little more into the ground as the ground had softened as he moved down the hill, the boat was getting closer and closer, put the gently sloped hill seemed to stretch on forever.
"Oh, thank fuck!" he heard Jess cry.
Rook turned his head to look at Jess to make a remark but stopped as he saw another grenade sailed through the air and landed thirteen feet behind her.
"Grenade out!" Jess heard a peggie shout out, almost near instantly she heard Rook call out to her, yelling to get down, followed by the sound of the grenade's landing disrupted the tall grass.
The grenade buried itself into the ground, digging itself within the tall grass, loose dirt and pebbles for a few moments before detonating, luckily Jess was downhill from the grenade, she was out of the blast range, but the explosion kicked up a flurry of dirt and pebbles in a directions pelting Jess in the back, knocking her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. She groaned as she tried to push herself back up on her feet but couldn't as she struggled to pull in air and stumbled and falling to the ground again, she tilted her head up to look at Rook who had stopped and turned to look at her. Jess could see the abject fear in his eyes, he looked back at the boat then back at her, Michael and Julia had boarded the boat and were calling out to Rook who was still standing there, twenty feet away from the boat, defector still on his shoulder. This was it, she knew this was coming all day, the shoe was about to drop, Rook was going to abandon her to get the stupid fucking peggie out of here just because he may or may not know some things. She felt her chest tighten, unsure if it was the feeling of her impending doom or the feeling of being abandoned for the umptieth time.
"Hold your fire, don't shoot!" Rook yelled at the boat's gunman, as he dropped the peggie as he began to jog to Jess.
The gunman and other passengers called out to him, some tried to call him back, some confused as to why he would order the gunman not to shoot.
Jess groaned again and slowly hung her bow over her shoulder and pushed herself on to all fours and tried to crawl to the boat, still disoriented. Before she got knocked over, she was around half way down the hill, so she had to be at least forty feet from the dock, getting there was going to suck.
Tired and sweat drenched, Rook trudged back up the hill, he could she Jess trying to crawl towards the boat, he could also see the peggies finally appear at the top of the hill, Rook raised his shotgun and fired, the range was far to short to hit the peggies but it still scared them back, giving him time to push up further, he didn't want the push back to go to waste as he fished a grenade from his belt, making a mental note that it was his last one and unpinned it with his teeth and through it up over the lip of the hill, before running up the hill, the explosion caused some of the peggies to scream but he could still hear them shout as the explosion subsided, his eyes dropped down to Jess, she was twenty feet away from him and closing. But the peggies recovered quickly and reappeared on the hill but this time it was just one of them, and he had a pistol trained on Rook, on instinct, he raised his shotgun and fired again, still not within range, but still pushed the man back, it was more then enough then Rook needed, she had crawled a good ten feet, the green jacket helping her blend into the tall grass, Rook sucked in whatever air he could and threw himself forward, landing on his shoulder, grunting in pain before scrambling up onto all fours and moved as fast as he could to Jess, as he reached her, still crawling towards the boat, Rook could see the peggies regrouping and poked back up over the hill, he stood up on his knees and threw himself at Jess, grabbing her and pulling her into his chest. The combination on kneeling on a declining hill and pulling the woman into his chest caused the two to fall back into the tall grass, Rook grunted loudly as his back hit the dirt and tried to wrap his arms around Jess as she collapsed into him.
"Shoot, shoot 'em!" Rook yelled as loud as he could.
And seconds later the air was filled with the thundering cry of an LMG, it rattled on for what felt like an eternity, the deputy wrapped his arms and tightened his grip around Jess stirring a groan from her. The gun finally stopped, and silence filled the area again and this time no yelling could be heard, perhaps they were all dead, but as there was still no yelling from the top of the hill or from the boat, the deputy and the huntress still laid on the ground, the latter still on top of the former, both breathing heavily.
"Hey, you dead?" Rook asked quietly.
"Not today, fuckwad" Jess groaned.
"You need any help getting to the boat?"
"Just help me up" Jess said, finally catching her breath.
"Hey, are you guys ok?" they heard Michael call.
Rook remained silent but raised an arm up to give Michael a thumbs up.
"You ready to go?" Rook asked, dropping his arm.
"Yea let's do it" She said rolling off the deputy and pushed a knee under herself.
Rook took a breath and stood up, groaning as he got up, feeling every little ache and pain.
"Holy shit, we got 'em all" Jess said laughing slightly.
"Yea, we did, good work out there" Rook said looking down at the woman, extending a hand to her, she took it and pulled herself up, groaning.
"Alrighty, let's get out of here" he said.
"Yes fucking please" Jess replied, taking a few shaky steps to the boat before regaining confidence in her stride again, Rook followed after, waving a hand at the boat crew, thanking them for finishing the job, Michael hopped out of the boat and jogged up to the defector, still lying in the grass, scared out of his mind.
"Easy there fella, your ok now" he said lifting up the man and carrying him to the boat, with Rook and Jess following behind him.
The boat ride was uneventful, relaxing even as they sailed down the river that split the Holland Valley and the Henbane. Now that all danger was gone everyone could finally loosen up, Rook and Jess sat on the floor of the boat resting on the edge of the boat, with Julia and Michael on the other side, silent and tired, all except Julia, she just balled herself up and cried over the loss of the two left behind, Michael tried to comfort her but to no avail, Rook could tell Julia's mood was beginning to annoy Jess as her incessant crying could be heard over the boat engine at the range they were at.
"Hey where we headed?" Rook called out to the driver.
"We got a small boathouse down the river, the meet up point is there, we go wheels and first aid waiting there" He called back
"How much longer till we get there?"
"About five minutes"
Rook groaned, annoyed at the trip's length, sure it was nice to finally sit down, but a nap and something to drink, it seemed so close but so far away, but was mentally pulled away from his thoughts as he felt Jess lightly elbow him in the ribs.
"What's up?" He asked looking at her.
"I'm going to throw this bitch overboard real soon if she doesn't shut up" She said calmly.
"Jess, her friends just died" Rook said quietly, hoping no one could hear their conversation.
"I don't care, we all lost someone" Jess said.
"All the more reason to sympathize with her, you know what she's feeling" Rook countered.
"Just try to relax OK, we're almost home" Rook said trying to calm her down, but she had a point, everyone had lost someone due to the Seed's and should have prepared herself for any potential lose.
Rook sighed and looked over to Michael who was staring down at the traitorous peggie.
"So where is our friend going after the boat ride?" Rook asked.
"We have wheels at the boathouse that will carry him to a small bunker we got squirreled away in the middle of nowhere, if he wants out of there he's gonna have to do a lot of talking… or else" Michael said looking down at the restrained man with a hollow gaze, Rook wasn't surprised he had that look, two of his friends did just die to get him on the boat.
And with that, the boat returned to awkward silence as noboby wanted to speak for a time before the driver called out that the boathouse was within view. Rook turned to see the boathouse in the distance, the boat house almost looked rundown as the wood that made up the building looked old and tired, he could also a group of people standing on a dock attached to the boathouse, obviously waiting for the defector to show up.
The boat began to slow as it pulled up to the dock, as it approached, the engine was clicked off and the boat drifted to the dock, now that the engines were dead Rook could here the murmurs from the people waiting for them, about how four people did not return, but the murmurs stopped as the boat came to a halt at the end of the dock allowing the waiting party scooped him up and carried him away, off to the car bound for the bunker Michael spoke of, a few others stayed on the dock, trying to shepherd everyone else on the boat into the boathouse to have their wounds looked at, while a few more people tended to Michael and Julia, Rook of course, agreed to the medical treatment and walked towards the boathouse, but only if Jess was looked at first, but of course she refused the help and kept insisting she was fine despite having a few cuts and bruises here and there.
"Come on Jess, just let them take a look and then we can get outta here" Rook said trying to appease her, opening the boathouse's back door.
"Fine, whatever, let's just get this over with" Jess huffed and followed after him.
A few medics led the duo to a bench that rested against the wall of the room and sat down, one of the medics made the mistake trying to tug off Jess's jacket, causing Jess to yell at the poor medic, causing both the medic and the deputy to jump in fear, Jess was about to snap at the medic for trying to take her jacket from her but was stopped as she felt a hand on her shoulder, she turned to see who had placed themselves on her, unsurprisingly it was Rook, Jess as ready to justify her actions before Rook cut her off.
"They're not going to hurt you" He said quietly before retracting his hand.
In a way she knew he was right but at the same time he wasn't, he didn't understand, he hasn't experienced what she had, but for now she knew if she kept resisting the longer this would drag out.
Jess took a deep breath before taking off her jacket, folding it up and placing it in her lap, she felt naked without, sure she had a blue and black flannel shirt on, but that jacket was like a second skin for her as it only came off to wash herself. Both her and Rook rolled up their sleeves as much as they could so the two medics could examine them, Rook's arms had a few cuts and bruises littering his arms, as Jess had no injuries on them besides a few long-healed scars.
"See, told you, I'm fine" Jess said, pulling her sleeves back down.
"You got knocked over by a grenade for a good bit" Rook said as he braced himself as one of the medics pulled out some rubbing alcohol.
"Fuck off boy scout" Jess growled, and the medic motioned her to stand and turn around, she growled again before complying.
"Let me know if you feel any pain" the medic said, pressing their hands on her back, starting at the top and working their way down, Jess winced a few times but nothing severe was detected, Rook also began wincing as his wounds were swabbed and bandaged, then getting patted down like Jess had before being dismissed by the medics, allowing the duo to sit back down on the bench.
"Fuck that sucked" Jess moaned.
"OH, you thought what you got was bad?" Rook teased.
"Oh, you know what I mean fuckface" Jess replied, putting her jacket back on then leaning forward, resting her forearms on her knees.
"You got out of there with just about no injuries, and who knows how many you killed out there, I'm impressed" Rook smiled.
"Hell yea I did, you really pushed them back and got all of them to pay attention to you, I gotta say boy scout, I thought you forgot about the plan" Jess laughed.
"What do you mean, what was it again?" Rook asked.
"What, seriously, how could you forget the whole you go Rambo and I pick them off from a distance"
"Was it really that effective, I'm I know you're a badass and all but when did you start picking them off?"
"After I blew up that truck and everyone went behind cover for a little bit before they threw a grenade and you just disappeared, they were so focused on finding you that they didn't even see me picking them off one at a time, actually when it silent, it was so silent I thought their dying moans would be heard by there friends" Jess explained.
Now that she mentioned it, she was right, he did hear a bunch of groans when the firefight was silent as the grave, who knows how many she killed, without her, Rook would have died. Rook twisted his body slightly to face the woman next to him.
"Hey Jess, thank you, thank you for coming out here with me today, without you I would have died, everyone would have died today if you weren't here, so thank you Jess, for everything" Rook praised, the woman deserved it at the very least, she probably killed more then him and most likely did the most of it during his tiny panic attack, Rook made a note to not tell anyone about that.
Jess stared at the deputy for a moment, she couldn't remember the last time someone actually thanked her for something, it felt weird, she didn't know what to say, so she just shrugged.
"Don't worry about, just don't expect me to babysit you"
Rook laughed lightly at the woman's modesty and joke before leaning back against the wall behind him, falling silent, the two just sat there for a few moments just sitting there resting, listening to the sounds throughout the boathouse, the sounds of the resistance members milling about, water lapping at boathouse dock, duck calls in the distance. It was almost nice now that Julia finally shut up.
"Hey, you know you never answered my question" Rook said, breaking the silence.
"What?" Jess replied unsure of what the deputy was talking about.
"Before we got to the trailer park, I asked you what kind of movies you into" Rook asked.
Jess blew a light stream of air out of her mouth, something like that did sound familiar, she thought about answering the question, it wasn't like he was asking about personal shit again, so why not tell him, it's not like he could use it against her if he tried, besides she kind of owed it to him, they had know each other for less then a week and he had saved her life twice and helped kill the Cook even when it was an inconvenience to him, fuck it, why not just tell him.
"I never really watched to much, I actually watched whatever I could when I was a kid, but if I had to chose, Blood Dragon volume one and two" Jess said with a small smile.
"Blood Dragon… Blood Dragon…" Rook pondered, the name sounded familiar to him, the concept danced on the edge of his mind briefly before remembering.
"Oh yea Blood Dragon, isn't that the eighties post apocalyptic military movies directed by um..." Rook began snapping his fingers a few times trying to draw out the director's name.
"Guy Marble or something like that?" He said giving up.
"It's Guy Marvel" Jess said sounding just a tad more excited then she wanted to.
"I don't know how you can watch those without getting eye damage, there's neon lights on everything even the animals, I can't even imagine how they didn't get destroyed by PETA" Rook said.
"If you squint through the whole thing, you'll see how much of a masterpiece they are" Jess replied.
"If only I had your enthusiasm" Rook joked.
"Whatever boy scout, when your done jerking off your Frankie Mercury, come let me know and I'll show you something fuckin' rad" Jess said lightly elbowing his ribs.
"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response" Rook said, then paused briefly. "Hey, you wanna get outta here?"
"Fuck yes please" Jess griped before rising to her feet, Rook rose up too and followed her out the door, a few resistance members still milled about the area, making plans, loading and unloading boxes, filling ammo magazines.
"Hey, you guys need a lift?" They heard a voice call, the duo turned their heads to the voice's origin, it was Michael, he was in the driver's seat of a car parked on the dirt road that lead to the asphalt roads in the distance.
"We don't have a radio so we can't tell pastor Jerome the mission was a success, so you wanna lift?" Michael asked.
"Yes please, we'd really appreciate it" Rook called.
"Then get in" Michael said, waving them over.
"Shotgun!" Jess called as she sped walked to the car.
Rook laughed and rolled his eyes at the woman as they walked over to the car and climbed in, Rook fastened his seatbelt and leaned back into the seat, now this felt nice as the seat was made from a soft fabric, one thousand times better then the boat and the bench, he closed his eyes and sank into the cushioned seat to really enjoy it, but his comfort was short lived as he felt a weight pushing on his legs, he opened his eyes to see that Jess had not only slid her seat back farther then she needed but she reclined her backrest and had pressed into his knees.
"Oh, you little shit" Rook griped.
"You snooze, you lose" Jess laughed.